ORDER OF WORSHIP:
We Worship Jesus Who Is Our Identity
Welcome
Song of Praise “Lift High The Name of Jesus”
Call to Worship Psalm 89:1-4
Song of Praise “Jesus Shall Reign”
Confession of Faith WCF 8-5
Song of Praise “Our Great God”
Prayer of Adoration
Greet One Another
Prayer of Intercession
Giving of God’s Tithe and Our Offerings
Song of Preparation “Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me”
Scripture Reading Romans 8:31-39
Sermon “The Gospel & Culture: The Gospel & Identity” Craig Swartz
Prayer of Commitment
Ordination & Installation of Officers for Class of 2023
Song of Response “How Marvelous”
Benediction
SERMON NOTES:
Micah 6:8
Wesley Morris:
“Gender roles are merging. Races are being shed. In the last six years or so, but especially in 2015, we’ve been made to see how trans and bi and poly-ambi-omni- we are.”
Charles Taylor:
“Communities are eroding, families, neighborhoods, even the polity. People are less willing to participate, to do their bit. They are less trusting of others, indeed they are less trusting of any institution or authority of any kind.”
Sinclair B. Ferguson:
“You must know, rest in, think through, and act upon your new identity—you are in Christ.”
- PROVIDES
Martin Luther:
“Great God, what do I see and hear! The end of things created! The judge of mankind doth appear on clouds of glory seated! The trumpet sounds, the graves restore the dead which they contained before: Prepare my soul to meet him.”
Revelation 12:10
Romans 8:33
Martin Lloyd-Jones:
“To justify means more than to pardon; it means more than to forgive. As we have seen repeatedly in the first four chapters of Romans, it means that God makes a declaration, a judicial declaration, to the effect that that he has not only forgiven us, but that he now regards us as just and righteous and holy, as if we had never sinned at all….God not only imputes my sin to his Son, he takes his righteousness and imputes it to me.”
Jesus said in John 15:5, 9
Brennan Manning:
“Our identity rests in God’s relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.”
2. PROVIDES
Romans 8:34
Katherine Hankey:
“I love to tell the story, for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.”
Donald Grey Barnhouse:
“You do not have a problem too great for the power of Christ. You do not have a problem too complicated for the wisdom of Christ. You do not have a problem too small for the love of Christ. You do not have a sin too deep for the atoning blood of Christ. Jesus moved with compassion, loved men and women and he loves you. Do you have a problem? He can meet it, it does not matter what it is. The moment the problem comes into your life, he knows all about it….If there is fear in your heart, it is immediately known to him. If there is sorrow in your heart, it is immediately a sorrow to his heart. If there is a grief in your heart, it is immediately a grief to his heart. If there is a bereavement in your life or any other emotion that comes to any child of God, the same sorrow, grief or bereavement is immediately written on the heart of Christ.”
Tullian Tchividjian:
“Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours.”
3. PROVIDES
Benjamin Nugent:
“When good writing was my only goal in life I made the quality of my work the measure of my worth. For this reason I was not able to read my own writing, because I could not tell if something that I had written was good or bad. I needed for it to be good in order to feel sane. I lost the ability to assess how much I liked what I had written, to see what was accurately on the page rather than what I would like to see or feared to see.”
Neil Anderson:
“The more you reaffirm who you are in Christ, the more your behavior will begin to reflect your true identity.”