Sunday Meditation, March 22
Christ, Our Hope in Life and Death
One of the challenges that [the philosopher Blaise] Pascal lays before us is that of silence: if cultural “noise” is generated to allow us to forget or to avoid the reality of our human condition, then surely silence is useful as one context in which that condition can, indeed must, be faced. The measure of a man or woman, one might say, is the ability to sit alone and be silent in a room for an hour, contemplating nothing but their own mortality in the light of eternity.
—Carl Trueman
Scripture for Meditation: II Chronicles 20:5, 6,9, 12b
Jehoshaphat . . . said, “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. . . . If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand . . . and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save. . . . We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
English Standard Version. © 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Used by permission.
Hymn of Longing: How Sweet and Awful Is the Place
How sweet and awful is the place
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores!
While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast
Each of us cry with thankful tongues
“Lord, why was I a guest?”“Why was I made to hear Thy voice And enter while there’s room
When thousands make a wretched choice
And rather starve than come?”’Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.
Pity the nations, O our God,
Constrain the earth to come;
Send Thy victorious Word abroad,And bring the strangers home.
We long to see Thy churches full,
That all the chosen race
May with one voice, and heart, and soul,
Sing Thy redeeming grace.
—Isaac Watts, 1674-1748
Hymn of Security: O Lord, My Rock and My Redeemer
O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer,
Greatest treasure of my longing soul,
My God, like You there is no other;
True delight is found in You alone.
Your grace, a well too deep to fathom,
Your love exceeds the heavens' reach;
Your truth, a fount of perfect wisdom,
My highest good and my unending need.O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer,
Strong defender of my weary heart;
My sword to fight the cruel deceiver
And my shield against his hateful darts.
My song when enemies surround me,
My hope when tides of sorrow rise,My joy when trials are abounding;
Your faithfulness, my refuge in the night.O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer,
Gracious Savior of my ruined life.
My guilt and cross laid on Your shoulders,
In my place You suffered bled and died.
You rose, the grave and death are conquered;
You broke my bonds of sin and shame.You rose, the grave and death are conquered;
You broke my bonds of sin and shame.O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer,
May all my days bring glory to Your Name;
May all my days bring glory to Your Name.
WORDS & MUSIC: Nathan Stiff © 2017 Sovereign Grace Worship. All rights reserved. CCLI #2783020
Prayer of Blessing
Responsive Reading: Psalm 42
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
English Standard Version. © 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Used by permission.
Hymn of Confession: His Mercy Is More
What love could remember no wrongs we have done?
Omniscient, all knowing, He counts not their sum.
Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore.
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.Chorus:
Praise the Lord, His mercy is more.
Stronger than darkness, new every morn.
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.
What patience would wait as we constantly roam?
What Father, so tender, is calling us home?
He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor.
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.What riches of kindness he lavished on us.
His blood was the payment, His life was the cost.
We stood ’neath a debt we could never afford.
Our sins they are many, His mercy is more.Matt Papa and Matt Boswell © 2015 Messenger Hymns (BMI) Getty Music Publishing (BMI) Getty Music ASCAP Designee (ASCAP) (admin. by Music Services, www.musicservices.org)/ Love Your Enemies Publishing (ASCAP). All rights reserved. Used by permission. CCLI #2783020
Prayer of Corporate Confession
Silence for Personal Confession
Assurance of Pardon: I Corinthians 15:3-5
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
Response: Thanks be to God.
Confession of Faith: Heidelberg Catechism
Question 1: What is your only comfort in life and death?
Answer: That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
Hymn of Hope: Christ, Our Hope in Life and Death
What is our hope in life and death?
Christ alone, Christ alone.
What is our only confidence?
That our souls to him belong.
Who holds our days within his hand?
What comes apart from his command?
And what will keep us to the end?
The love of Christ in which we stand.
Chorus:
O sing hallelujah! Our hope springs eternal.
O sing hallelujah! Now and ever we confess:
Christ our hope in life and death.
What truth can calm the troubled soul?
God is good, God is good.
Where is his grace and goodness known?
In our great Redeemer's bloodWho holds our faith when fears arise?
Who stands above the stormy trial?Who sends the waves that bring us nigh unto the shore,
The rock of Christ?
Chorus:
O sing hallelujah! Our hope springs eternal.
O sing hallelujah! Now and ever we confess:
Christ our hope in life and death.
Unto the grave, what will we sing?
Christ, He lives! Christ, he lives!
And what reward will heaven bring?
Everlasting life with him.There we will rise to meet the Lord;
Then sin and death will be destroyed.And we will feast in endless joy,
When Christ is ours forevermore.
Chorus:
O sing hallelujah! Our hope springs eternal.
O sing hallelujah! Now and ever we confess:
Christ our hope in life and death.
(repeat)
Now and ever we confess:
Christ our hope in life and death.
Keith Getty, Jordan Kauflin, Matt Papa, Matt Boswell, Matthew Merker
2020 Getty Music Publishing, Messenger Hymns, Love Your Enemies Publishing, Matthew Merker Music, Getty Music Hymns and Songs, Jordan Kauflin Music (Admin by Music Services) CCLI #2783020