CALL TO WORSHIP
Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.
Who is he, this King of glory?
The LORD Almighty— he is the King of glory.
—Psalm 24:7-10, NIV—
Invocation: Our Father, you are in heaven, high and lifted up, higher than our highest thoughts. Holy is your name; beside you there is no other! You are God, and you alone! Receive us into your kingdom—the coming kingdom—the kingdom of your anointed Son, Jesus, whose name we bear. Receive us, for we come to you in his name—we pray in him and with him. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. —based on Matthew 6:9-10, 13—
CONFESSION OF SIN
Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you have led us into the light. We thank you for sending the Savior to call us from death to life. We confess that we were dead in sin before we heard his call, but when we heard him, like Lazarus, we arose. But, O Father, the grave clothes bind us still. Old habits that we cannot throw off, old customs that are so much a part of our lives that we are helpless to live the new life that Christ calls us to live. Give us strength, O Father, to break the bonds; give us courage to live a new life in you; give us faith to believe that with your help we cannot fail. All this we ask in the name of the Savior who has taught us to come to you. Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way,
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
—Isaiah 53:4-6, NRSV—
SONGS
O Worship The King
My Savior My God
I Have Decided To Follow Jesus