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Evening Worship Service
5:30 p.m.
We prepare for worship by hearing God’s Word, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
God Calls Us to Worship
*Call to Worship
*Prayer of Invocation
*Salutation
*Hymn #457 “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”
God Calls Us to Confess Our Sins
Corporate Confession of Sin – Psalm 86, pg. 815
Assurance of Forgiveness – Romans 8:31-39
*Hymn#508 “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”
God Calls Us to Confess Our Faith
Confession of Faith: WCF Chapter 19:5-7, pg. 859
God Speaks to Us
Scripture Reading: Psalm 119:41-48
Sermon: “Freedom in God’s Law”
Congregational Prayer
*Psalm 119:41-48, pg. 103 (Tune #647)
God Dismisses Us with His Blessing
*1 Thessalonians 3:12, 13
~
“He meant what He said. Those who put themselves in His hands
will become perfect, as He is perfect – perfect in love, wisdom,
joy, beauty, and immortality. The change will not be completed in
this life, for death is an important part of the treatment. How far
the change will have gone before death in any particular Christian
is uncertain.
I think this is the right moment to consider a question which
is often asked: If Christianity is true why are not all Christians
obviously nicer than all non-Christians? What lies behind
that question is partly something very reasonable and partly
something that is not reasonable at all. The reasonable part is this.
If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s
outward actions – if he continues to be just as snobbish or spiteful
or envious or ambitious as he was before – then I think we must
suspect that his ‘conversion’ was largely imaginary; and after
one’s original conversion, every time one thinks one has made
an advance, that is the test to apply. Fine feelings, new insights,
greater interest in ‘religion’ mean nothing unless they make our
actual behavior better; just as in an illness ‘feeling better’ is not
much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is
still going up. In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge
Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by results. A tree
is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the pudding is in
the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave
well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world.
The war-time posters told us that Careless Talk cost Lives. It is
equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk. Out careless lives set the
outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way
that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.”
C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity”
