God’s Law Convicts Us of Sin:
Micah 6:8 says, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (ESV)”
John Perkins, a black pastor who left his native Mississippi as a young man running from a lynch mob later came back to pastor there for decades, defines justice as “An act of reconciliation that restores any part of God’s creation to its original intent, purpose, or image… making right any of the things that have gone wrong in this very good world that God has made and among the… human beings He created to inhabit it.”
Where have you failed to labor to make right what has gone wrong in the world? In your home? In our community? In your own heart?
Where have you failed to show mercy, either in your heart or in your actions?
Where have you failed to walk humbly with your God?
We Confess Our Sin to God:
Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and apart from your grace, there is no health in us. O Lord, have mercy upon us. Spare all those who confess their faults. Restore all those who are penitent, according to your promises declared to all people in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may now live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of your holy Name. Amen.
God Freely Forgives:
“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Isaiah 1:18
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God’s Grace Gives us Joy and We Sing:
“There is a fountain filled with blood”:
There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains: Lose all their guilty stains, Lose all their guilty stains; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains. E’er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die: And shall be till I die, And shall be till I die; Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die.
We Listen to God Speak:
Philippians 2:5-11
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (ESV)
God Moves Our Hearts to Sing:
When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of glory died My richest gain I count but loss And pour contempt on all my pride Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small, Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Broken for the Body 