EXHORTATION
If you’ve ever grown a vegetable garden, you know that certain plants make great companions. Native Americans famously planted the Three Sisters together: corn, pole beans, and squash. The tall stalks of corn made great support for the climbing beans and the low growing squash shades the ground to retain moisture and suppress weed growth.
In the same way, certain sins make great companions. One sin runs defense for another. One sin provides shade …
EXHORTATION
Deuteronomy 5:12–14 (ESV): 12 “ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
What would it be like for you to completely cease all of your work for 24 hours? No spreadsheets or Zoom meetings. No mopping or laundry. A full stop. A dead halt.
Of course, there …
EXHORTATION
God doesn’t give us his grace so that we can go easy on ourselves. He gives us his grace so that we can be truthful with ourselves. If we know that after we’ve been completely truthful to God his grace remains, then we have every encouragement not to go easy on our sin. Good news church: where sin did abound, grace did much more abound, so let’s go to our Father and confess our …
CONFESSION
Heavenly Father,
We come today as those who have experienced the deepest realities of your grace. Our sins have been cleansed in Christ, we are comforted by his love, as your church we participate with one another in the work of your Spirit, we have shown one another the affection and love of Christ. All of those realities are ours. They define us, and hem us in, and shape our lives.
Yet Father, even …
EXHORTATION – Psalm 103:2
2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
Ingratitude is what happens when we fail to give God credit and glory for the good gifts he has given us. And there are two ways that ingratitude manifests itself in our lives:
The first is to receive and enjoy all his good gifts while not acknowledging that God is the one giving them. It’s to forget that …
CALL TO CONFESSION
Romans 5:8
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
CONFESSION:
Our Father,
We you have made us to love you and to demonstrate that love through obedience. We confess to you that we have not loved you as we ought. And we know our love is lacking, because our obedience is lacking. We confess that even when we obey, we often do …
EXHORTATION
In the ancient world, salt wasn’t valued so much for seasoning abilities. Salt’s true worth was its preserving qualities. If you have a piece of meat that’s going back, you can prolong it’s life by pressing salt into it. Salt stems decay.
And when Jesus tells Christians to be the salt of the earth, he’s saying that we are to be agents of preservation. When we see an individual who’s self-destructive or hopeless; when …
EXHORTATION
From time to time, you may hear one of the ministers end our prayer of confession with words like, “if we regard sin in our lives this prayer will be ineffectual…” What does it mean to “regard sin”? To regard sin is to respect sin. It means to let sin have some place in your heart or life. To regard sin is to make peace with sin—to invite it into your life and make …
CONFESSION
James 4:6 says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Let’s seek the grace of God together as we confess our sins.
Father,
It’s a great comfort to us that you already know our sin even before we confess it. It’s a comfort because it allows us to be honest with you, knowing we can’t conceal anything from your sight. Nonetheless, when we consider how kind you have been to us, …
Call to Confession
During the last 6 months, we have all paid more attention to cleanliness than ever before. Every time I go into a grocery store someone takes a rag and wipes out a buggy before giving it to me. Hand sanitizing stations are all over the place and people carry mini bottles in every vehicle, purse, or suitcase. And it’s all for good reason. We know there’s a virus that can make someone …