Preparing To Rejoice In Him // November 11, 2018

PREPARE YOUR HEART FOR WORSHIP ON November 11, 2018

REFLECTION

“All of our problems (unless they are medically caused) grow out of the struggle to relate well, with God, others, and ourselves…We do not want to believe that we are relational. It is so much easier to assume that beneath our desires for relating to others, we are really mechanical things that can be fixed if something goes wrong in our lives. To accept the truth that we are inescapably relational in a world where no one loves perfectly drives us to see that life, as we know it, is tragic. It forces us to admit that we are not safe. ”
– Dr. Larry Crabb, Understanding Who You Are

The difficulty of exercising one’s gifts in the role to which one has been assigned applies to men as much as to women…It is increasingly a struggle for men to step up to the role of leader in both church and home…This is where Jesus comes in. Jesus is the reason you can trust God’s justice is behind your assigned gender role, whether you are a man who would rather not take leadership or assume risk, or a woman who wishes she could…Jesus in his servant authority, dying in order to bring his bride to spotless purity (Eph. 5:22-23), has redefined authority and demanded that his followers do the same. Jesus in his submissive servanthood, taking on the role of a servant in order to secure our salvation (Phil 2:5-11), shows that his submission to the Father was a gift, not something compelled from him.”
– Kathy Keller, Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles

CALL TO WORSHIP :: Galatians 3:28-29

[28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. [29] And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (ESV)

WORSHIP IN SONG :: Be Thou My Vision

Be Thou my vision O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me save that Thou art
Thou my best thought by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light

Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my true Word
I ever with Thee and Thou with me Lord
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son
Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise
Thou mine inheritance, now and always
Thou and Thou only first in my heart
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art

High King of heaven, my victory won
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun
Heart of my own heart whatever befall
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all

SERMON :: Genesis 2:7-9; 15-25

[7] Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. [8] And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. [9] And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (ESV)

[15] The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. [16] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, [17] but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

[18] Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” [19] Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. [20] The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. [21] So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. [22] And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. [23] Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”[24] Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. [25] And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (ESV)