Please note our new service time: 10:00AM
We will resume two services on Aug 26 (maybe sooner).
Join us Sundays at 10 am
Please note our new service time: 10:00AM
We will resume two services on Aug 26 (maybe sooner).
Written by Shelby Murphy · March 22, 2012
Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth! Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength! Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth! Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.” Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness. – Psalm 96:1-13
This Sunday, Robert Greene will continue with our series on 1 John. His text for this week will be 1 John 2:28-3:10. If you missed any previous weeks on 1 John, you can listen to and download sermons here. As we continue to move through this Lenten season towards Easter, be sure to download our Lenten guide and share it with your friends and family. Easter Sunday is fast approaching on April 8, and we will once again be having two services that Sunday, at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Please begin praying as to who you may invite that Sunday. Also, plan on joining us for a special Good Friday service on April 6 at 7:00 p.m., at Linwood Holton Elementary School. You can RSVP here.
Here are the songs that we will sing together this week:
See you Sunday!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written by Shelby Murphy · March 15, 2012
Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. The LORD will reign forever, your God, O church, to all generations. Praise the LORD! – Psalm 146:1-10
This Sunday, Robert Greene will continue with our series on 1 John. His text for this week will be 1 John 2:18-28. If you missed any previous weeks on 1 John, you can listen to and download sermons here. As a reminder, our G.R.A.C.E. (Gospel Renewal And Community Encouragement) Gatherings begin next week, so please RSVP for the evening you plan on attending. Easter Sunday is fast approaching on April 8, and we will once again be having two services that Sunday, at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Please begin praying as to who you may invite that Sunday. Also, mark your calendar for a special Good Friday service on April 6 at 7:00 p.m., at Linwood Holton Elementary School. As we continue to move through this Lenten season towards Easter, be sure to download our Lenten guide and share it with your friends and family.
Here are the songs that we will sing together this week:
See you Sunday!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written by Shelby Murphy · March 12, 2012
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. – Psalm 51:7
Click here for Part 1 in this series on Only Your Blood Is Enough.
If you were like me, the first time I found myself singing Only Your Blood Is Enough, I immediately thought, “What on earth am I singing about?” Bleeding birds? Bleeding beasts? Hyssop branch? What in the world is a hyssop branch? To begin to understand this song, we have to go back to Psalm 51:1-19.
David composed this psalm/prayer after the prophet Nathan confronted him about his adultery with Bathsheba, and his subsequent murder of her husband, Uriah. And even though the the situation that led to this particular psalm was intensely personal, the psalm as we have it today is meant to be sung as the gathering of worshipping Christians confess their sins.
Listen to Paul David Tripp explain Psalm 51:7, and unpack the significance of hyssop, in his book Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy:
It seems such a strange request from a man who’s in the throes of grief over sins that he can’t deny and can’t take back. I would propose to you that it was exactly the right thing for David and each of us to pray whenever we’re confronted with our sins. But when you first read the word in Psalm 51, it does make you wonder, “What in the world is hyssop?”
Researching the plant won’t give you much help. It produces a delicate white flower and is thought by some to have medicinal qualities. But this is one time that wikipedia.com won’t help you. What you really need to know, in order to understand the grieving in David’s request, is Old Testament history. David’s mind goes to that original Passover, when the firstborn of Egypt were stricken dead and the houses of Israel that had blood on the door frames, were passed over. What does this have to do with David’s request? Here it is. God directed the Israelites to take a branch of hyssop and dip it in blood and paint the door frames with it.
Here is David, grieved by his sin and bowed before God between the “already” and the “not yet.” Already the blood of the first Passover had protected Israel from death and made their exodus to freedom and the land of promise possible. Already the Mosaic system of constant animal-blood sacrifices covered the sins of God’s people. But the promised Lamb had not yet come. Not yet had his blood been spilt, once and for all, in the final moment of sacrifice that forever ended any need for further sacrifice.
So, reflecting on the past, David’s words actually reach into the future. They form the ultimate backdrop to the future prayer. For embedded in this cry for cleansing that remembers the spilt blood of deliverance (Passover) and the shed blood of forgiveness (Mosaic sacrifices), David cries for the one thing that anyone who acknowledges his sin will cry for; cleansing.
When your sin really does become ugly to you, when it produces pain in your heart and sickness in your stomach, you celebrate forgiveness, but you want something more. You want to be clean. You long to be once and for all purified from all sin whatsoever. You want your sin to be once and for all washed away. You want to be free of every dark residue of sinful thought, desire, word, or deed.
Yes, you’ll love the fact that you can stand before God dirty and unafraid because of his comprehensive and freely given grace. You’ll love the fact that his forgiveness of you has been full and complete. But you’ll grow tired of needing and seeking forgiveness. You’ll mourn the hold that sin has on you. You’ll be frustrated with the way that sin seems to infect everything you do. And you’ll begin to plead for what the blood of Jesus alone is able to do; wash away your sin! In this moment of need and helplessness, you’ll cry, “Purge me with hyssop Lord, dip the branch of your grace into the blood of your Son and cleanse me once and for all!”
You can listen to Only Your Blood Is Enough below by clicking the video, and you can purchase and download the song by clicking here.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written by Shelby Murphy · March 8, 2012
The LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness. The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you. Sing praises to the LORD, who sits enthroned in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds! – Psalm 9:7-11
REMINDER – Daylight Savings is this weekend, so be sure and set your clocks ahead one hour Saturday night. This Sunday, Raymond Goodlett will continue with our series on 1 John. His text for this week will be 1 John 2:15-17. If you missed any previous weeks on 1 John, you can listen to and download sermons here. Easter Sunday is fast approaching on April 8, and we will once again be having two services that Sunday, at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Please begin praying as to who you may invite that Sunday. Also, mark your calendar for a special Good Friday service on April 6. More details will be out soon. As we continue to move through this Lenten season towards Easter, be sure to download our Lenten guide and share it with your friends and family.
Here are the songs that we will sing together this week:
See you Sunday!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written by Shelby Murphy · March 5, 2012
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. – Psalm 51:7
We don’t often stop to think about how strange it sounds that we as Christians talk about blood so much. I’m sure to many, it must seem so primitive, so superstitious, to talk about blood cleansing us from our sin. We can’t seriously believe in that kind of mythical science fiction, can we? Yet, Scripture again and again talks about blood being the only sufficient offering for sin.
In the Old Testament, when God first brought Israel ought of slavery, he ordered that a unblemished lamb be slain and the blood of that lamb be put on the doorposts in order to protect them from the plague he was about to bring on all the Egyptian firstborn. He then ordained a sacrificial system for Israel in which they could make atonement, or be made one with God again, through offering goats, bulls and such, spilling their blood on the altar. Why blood though? In Scripture, blood is equated with the life of a creature. The imagery of blood sacrifice means that a life has been taken in order to pay a penalty. The blood isn’t magical. Rather, it conveys the seriousness of sin. When the infinite God’s glory is dishonored by His image-bearers, the offense is infinite. The cost is death, as God promised Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. Sin equals separation from God, which is, eternally, death. There is no way around this reality. Yet, God, in his great mercy, went to great lengths to undo the separation brought on by our sin. The Old Testament sacrifices served as a consistent reminder to Israel that their sin must be dealt with. God could not merely overlook it. But it was also clear that the life-exchange of animals for the sin of man was not sufficient to deal with the stain of sin. As the writer of Hebrews unpacks for us, these sacrifices were not sufficient to “purify the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” (Hebrews 9:14)
The Old Testament sacrifices instead pointed to the greater reality: the sacrifice of Christ himself on the cross. The perfect, infinite sacrifice of Jesus (fully man and fully God) was the only sacrifice able to truly deal with the penalty and power of sin. Again, as the writer of Hebrews says, “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). With Christ, on the other hand, “by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). With the shedding of Jesus’ blood, the perfect life was given to atone for our sins. His life for ours. God’s justice was satisfied, so that he could see us and make us pure and clean. This is our only hope.
So we are a people “washed in the blood of the lamb.” We need to rejoice in this truth, celebrate it, and remind each other of it. Because ultimately, we attempt to cover our sin in countless other ways. Adam and Eve took fig leaves for themselves in the garden, and we have repeated this behavior ever since. The more we understand the sufficiency of Christ’s blood, the less we will give in to the temptation to perform for God and each other. We will rest, knowing that our penalty is paid and our new life is bought by Jesus’s blood, the only thing that will cover us when we stand before God.
This Sunday we will be introducing a new song to our Sunday gathering entitled Only Your Blood Is Enough. It is a reworking of an old Isaac Watts text, and is featured on the Sojourn Music album Over the Grave. The song reminds us that it is only the sacrifice of Christ that makes us able to stand before God. And that sacrifice removes all shame and enables us to stand boldly before him, clothed in righteousness. Here are the lyrics:
I am ashamed, conceived in sin, I’ve always been
Born in a world where Adam’s fall corrupts us
Rooted is the seed of death in life’s first breath
The law demands a perfect heart, but I’m defiled in every partFor only Your blood is enough to cover my sin
Only Your blood is enough to cover meAll this guilt disturbs my peace; I find no release
Who will save me from my crime? I’m helpless
Behold, I fall before Your face in need of grace
So speak to me in a gentle voice, for in Your mercies I rejoiceLord, create my heart anew (Father, come and make us wise)
Only You are pure and true (Lead us away from our demise)
Lord, You are the remedy (For only your blood can set us free)
For only Your blood can set us free
Only Your blood can set us freeNo bleeding bird, no bleeding beast
No hyssop branch, no priest,
No running brook, no flood, no sea
Can wash away this stain from me
I’m excited to sing this song together, as the lyrics capture just how deep our sin is rooted. We can’t understand why only Jesus’ blood can cleanse us unless we see how deep the stain really is. As the lyrics proclaim, the seed of death is in us from the moment we begin our lives. We need the perfect sacrifice to deal with the sin that is woven in to the fabric of our being. You can listen to Only Your Blood Is Enough below by clicking the video, and you can purchase and download the song by clicking here. Let’s ready our hearts to proclaim this to one another as we walk through this season of Lent together, culminating in the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Savior.
Click here for Part 2 in this series on Only Your Blood Is Enough.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written by Shelby Murphy · March 2, 2012
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written by Shelby Murphy · March 1, 2012
God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation. So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters. Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. – Hebrews 2:10-11,14-15
This Sunday, Robert Greene will continue with our series on 1 John. His text for this week will be 1 John 2:12-14. If you missed any previous weeks on 1 John, you can listen to and download sermons here. As we continue to move through this Lenten season towards Easter, be sure to download our Lenten guide and share it with your friends and family.
Here are the songs that we will sing together this week:
See you Sunday!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Additional Options
Add our new content to your
google homepage or google reader or
other
web-based news readers.
Sermon-Only Feeds
