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Good morning! Merry Christmas! [Music]
See, it’s not too early. I say Merry Christmas on this morning because that is the promise of Christmas. Today, we celebrate the fulfillment of why Jesus was born in the first place: to live, to die, and to be raised once more. So again I say, Merry Christmas! Thank you.
Okay, I’ll say it again: Merry Christmas! There we go.
Just a few announcements this morning. At the close of worship, as a response to the benediction, we are inviting everybody to join us in singing the Hallelujah Chorus. The words are found in your hymnal as number 39 if you need the words. But there will be a group of us coming down front to help lead the congregation, and it is meant for everybody to join in and sing. So we invite all of you.
This week, we’ve got a lot of things going on. Again, on Wednesday evening, we will be resuming prime time as we continue to study Pilgrim’s Progress. We will be having sloppy joes this week, so we need people to sign up for the sides to go with it on Wednesday.
Friday is the last day to bring in stuff for the rummage sale, so please bring whatever you’re bringing on in so that can be sorted and prepared. There is a sign-up sheet in the back for those who are going to come to help work with the rummage sale.
Sunday school will resume next Sunday for the adults and for everybody else. After worship, please, if you signed on for lilies to be given in memory of or in honor of, please take them. I’m allergic, so this is actually the hardest Sunday of the year for me with all the lilies, with the smell of them and the pollen. But please take them so you can take them home to enjoy. Those that remain will be taken to our shut-ins.
Other than that, that’s all the announcements that I have. Are there any others from the floor?
Seeing none, then please let’s go ahead and stand and pass the Peace of Christ.
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Lastly, we do ask that everybody, if you would, please try to remember to sign the black two pads on the center aisle just as a nice reminder, because we like to know who all is worshiping with us, and we like to celebrate you guys being with us here.
So, He is risen!
Our call to worship this morning comes from Psalm 48.
Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, His holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion in the far north, the city of the great king.
Please let us stand and sing as we worship that great king with hymn number 367, ‘Christ the Lord is risen today.’
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Please remain standing for the prayer of adoration.
Within her citadels are great as our Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, His holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion in the far north, the city of the great king.
Within her citadels, God has made himself known as a fortress, for behold, the kings assembled. They came together; as soon as they saw it, they were astounded; they were in panic; they took to flight. Trembling took hold of them; there anguish as of a woman in labor. By the east wind, you shattered the ships of Tarshish.
As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, which God will establish forever.
Please join me in the corporate prayer of confession.
Holy Lord, You are the Sovereign One. You are the faithful One. You are strong to save. We are the poor ones, plundered and oppressed by the powers of this world. We needed and still need Your saving power in our lives. We turn to You in faith, begging for Your mercy.
Jesus is the only righteous One, but You withheld Your mercy from Him so that wicked sinners like us would receive it instead. Jesus died for us as an atonement for our sins, so forgive us, Lord, and help us to always live repentantly in Him.
You raised Him from the dead, so now we also hope for a resurrection like His. Keep us steadfast in this hope that we will be raised to life and share in His eternal inheritance. Teach us to faithfully proclaim to rule the world: He is risen, He is risen indeed.
Amen.
You may be seated for silent prayers and confessions.
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We have thought on Your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of Your temple. As Your name, O God, so Your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness.
Let Mount Zion be glad; let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of Your judgments. Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels that you may tell the next generation that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever.
This is the hope and the promise that is found on every page of scripture: that the Lord is eternal; that Jesus, His Son, came to earth, lived, died, and was raised, and shall continue on forever. Eternally, eternally, the Son from before the foundation of the world, eternally our King is enthroned.
And it’s because of this promise we’ve been given His Holy Spirit to dwell within us, raising us to new life. The promise of the Resurrection that we get to celebrate today and every Sunday—the promise and the hope that by the work of Christ on the cross our sins are truly forgiven.
Amen.
We now continue our worship by returning to the Lord our tithes, our gifts, and our offering.
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Yeah, thank you, Jesus!
Lord of all creation, Our Father in heaven, Holy Spirit, we thank You, we praise You, we honor You, and we worship You. We gather to worship, to celebrate in joy, and offer our thanksgivings and praise. As part of that, we return some of what You have given to us, a token of our appreciation for the great goodness of Your Providence, for all that You have given to us in this life.
We ask that You take these gifts, that You use them, that You multiply them, that You give us wisdom, and let us be good stewards as we use them to further Your will as we work to build Your kingdom in Your name.
Here and now we pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
You may be seated, and the kids can come down front.
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Well, good morning!
So, is there anything special about today?
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Yes, it’s Easter! And what does that mean? That Jesus has risen! And that’s what we get to celebrate. In fact, we get to celebrate this every Sunday because we’re remembering Jesus’s resurrection. Jesus doesn’t die every year; Jesus died once for all of us. But we get to celebrate and remember what He has done every year.
And so I just want to read a little bit more of the Easter story than we get typically on Sunday mornings.
Because on Friday, after Jesus had died, Jesus was buried. A man named Joseph from a city called Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’s body. He took Him and laid Him in a tomb that had never been used, one that Joseph had bought intended for himself.
Then the women who had been with Jesus—His mother Mary, Mary of Magdalene, the other Marys, and all those who were with them—went with Joseph to see where Jesus was laid. But because it was so late, it was getting on to evening time, it was Sabbath. They could not prepare His body; they couldn’t wrap Him in linens, they couldn’t anoint Him with oils as they usually did. But they knew where Jesus was buried.
And so then we get through Saturday, and we get to Sunday, to today.
And then, on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices that they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of Jesus. What they found instead is, as they were wondering, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.
And in their fright, the women bowed down their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not