WORSHIPING TOGETHER – Sunday September 20, 2020
We are excited that we were able to worship both in person and online today. We pray that you were encouraged by the message, My Sheep Never Follow A Stranger, shared by Pastor Dale. We want to thank all of those who helped prepare for and participated in this week’s service. We are so grateful for your contributions.
As you continue to worship together this week in your online and household groups, we offer the following as a guide:
Opening Prayer: (Read by a Single Voice)
Sovereign and Almighty Lord, we come before you today to glorify your Holy name. We give you our thanks and praise, grateful that you have called us and that we hear your voice. Help us to always recognize your voice, to know it, and to follow only it. Please protect us from the voices that call so loudly, trying to drown out your voice. Help us to recognize them as false. We desire to have steady hearts for you alone. We are grateful for you, our Great Shepherd, who will never let a single one of us fall away. We are grateful for you, the Lamb, whose blood has cleansed us. To you alone we give our praise. Amen.
Reading Scripture: (Take Turns Reading)
28 Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Matthew 19:28 (NIV)
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:21-24 (NIV)
Checking In:
- How do you distinguish between the voice of the stranger and the voice of Jesus?
- What obstacles do you face, and what are you willing to risk, to obey the voice of Jesus?
Close in prayer for one another and then with these words: (Take Turns Reading)
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39 (NIV)