MVOPC 22 January 2012
Call to Worship: Psalm 98:1-3
Opening Hymn: 39 “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”
Confession of Sin
O You whose chosen dwelling is the heart that longs for Your presence and humbly seeks Your love: We come to You to acknowledge and confess that we have sinned in thought and word and deed; We have not loved You with all our heart and soul, with all our mind and strength; We have not even loved our neighbor as ourselves. Deepen within us our sorrow for the wrong we have done, or for the good we have left undone. But You, O Lord, are full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy; there is forgiveness with You. Restore to us the joy of Your salvation; Bind up that which is broken, give light to our minds, strength to our wills and rest to our souls. Speak to each of us the word that we need, and let Your Word abide with us until it has wrought in us Your holy will. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon: Proverbs 28:13
Old Covenant Reading: Psalm 90:1-17
New Covenant Reading: Colossians 2:1-5
Hymn of Preparation: 309 “Rejoice, the LORD is King”
Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 3:18-23
Sermon: Servants or Celebrities?
Hymn of Response: 44 “How Great Thou Art”
Confession of Faith: Nicene Creed, p. 846
Doxology (Hymn 732)
Closing Hymn: 679 “’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”
PM Worship: Hosea 13:14e-14:10 – Return and Be Healed
Adult Sunday School: The Faith We Confess – The Lord’s Supper – Part I
Suggested Preparations
Monday (1/16) Read and discuss 1 Corinthians 3:18-23. Unlike those who are “always searching but never coming to a knowledge of the truth”, Paul is quite willing to come to a conclusion. His comparison of worldly wisdom with the true wisdom from God is a call to personal commitment. As Richard Hays points out:
Paul, unlike Socrates, is not merely calling for epistemological humility and the cultivation of an inquiring mind. Instead, he is calling his readers to take upon themselves the obedience of faith. Paul’s particular application of the logic of the cross to wisdom and knowledge parallels the call of Jesus: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it (Mark 8:34-35).” In the same way, those who cling to the world’s wisdom will lose it, and those who surrender their “wisdom” for the sake of the Gospel will find God’s wisdom.
Read or Sing Hymn: 39 “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” Prayer: Ask that the LORD would grant you a wise and discerning heart.
Tuesday (1/17) Read and discuss 1 Corinthians 3:16-17. No one stands in front of the Matterhorn in order to contemplate how big he or she is. No one wonders through the Metropolitan Museum of Art contemplating his or her own beauty. And no one walks out of Edison Labs thinking: “Compared to Thomas Edison, I am rather clever.” Such experiences help us put life and ourselves in the proper perspective. That is part of what Paul is doing in today’s passage. Factionalism had arisen in the Corinthian congregation for the same reason it arises in any congregation: People have switched the price tags. They were imaging that they should be celebrated as individuals but that the gathered church was not a particularly big deal. With great incredulity Paul responds: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” None of the Corinthians would even dream of running up to the Temple in Jerusalem with a hammer and chisel and simply taking a few whacks at one of the golden cherubim – but that is precisely what they were doing to each other – the glorious Temple that is Christ’s Church. There is a second truth that Paul reveals in this passage in order to motivate the Corinthians (and us!) to take the gathered church more seriously. First, it may be helpful to see the five-fold structure of today’s passage:
- You are God’s temple
- God’s Spirit dwells in you.
- If anyone destroys God’s temple, …
- God will destroy him
- You are that temple
Last week we looked at how God will reward those who faithfully build up Christ’s Church. This is the flip side of that story. God is jealous for the Temple where He dwells and He promises to vindicate that Temple by destroying those who would assault her. This should be a great encouragement to us as we live together in a world that is often quite hostile to the Church. It should also cause us to be more sober minded about how we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ. Prayer: Ask God would grant the members of our congregation a sense of the splendor of His Church.
Wednesday (1/18) Read and discuss Psalm 90:1-17. At first blush, this might not appear to be the most encouraging Psalm in the Bible. Moses speaks of how fleeting our life is, how the LORD sees all our sins, and that He will cause us to return to the dust. These are not the sentiments we normally hear at a High School graduation ceremony – but maybe they should be. For rather than being a cause for despair, grasping the transient nature of this life is a corner stone of having a truly meaningful life. At different points in our journey, we all recognize that all our dreams will not come true simply because we have them. The classic American mid-life crisis is simply the realization that we are not going to become astronauts, renowned scientists, or many of the other things we dreamed of in our youth. Most of us don’t have to wait until mid-life for this reality to set in. So we fight against it by placing our hopes in things that promise to make life meaningful or through “entertaining ourselves to death” in an effort to escape reality. Today’s psalm offers us a far more fruitful approach. Moses begins by claiming that the Eternal God is the dwelling place for His people and ends by calling out to the LORD to establish the work of our hands. We were created by and for God and our only hope for lasting significance lies in Him. As the poem by missionary C.T. Studd puts it: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” Read or Sing Hymn 309 “Rejoice, the LORD is King” Prayer: Ask the LORD that He would send renewal to His churches in New England and revival and reformation to our region.
Thursday (1/19) Read and discuss Colossians 2:1-5. Jesus isn’t simply the starting point of the Christian life. Because many evangelicals have focused on trying to get people to “make a decision for Christ”; and because Christ is then presented as the solution to the problem of being lost; Christians can easily be tempted to ask “Now that Jesus saved me, what’s next?” Satan is happy to answer that question with something, indeed anything, other than Jesus Himself. What Paul makes clear in today’s passage is that we never move beyond Jesus Christ “ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” As one New Testament scholar puts it:
Christianity, says the old slogan, is Christ. Put him in the middle of your picture of the world, and the world will stop spinning in incomprehensible circles and begin to make sense. Find him, and you’ve got the treasure. It may take you a while to get it all out of the treasure chest and inspect it, but when you do you’ll find – so Paul is saying in verse 3 – that all the wisdom and knowledge that ever there was finds its full meaning in Him. He is, quite simply, what it’s all about.
Read or sing Hymn: 44 “How Great Thou Art” Prayer: Pray that the young people in our congregation would grow up with Jesus Christ at the center of their worldview.
Friday (1/20) Hosea 13:14e-14:10. The book of Hosea is filled with promises of the imminent judgment of the northern tribes of Israel (frequently referred to as Ephraim). Yet, this clear note of judgment functions primarily as the dark background over which we can see the beauty of the good news. As James Montgomery Boice writes:
The greater message of the book is of an eventual restoration in which the death of the nation will be overcome. This is the meaning of the story of Hosea and Gomer with which the prophesy began. Though fallen, Gomer was eventually restored. It is also the message of the Word of God generally. Though ruined by sin, we (who believe on Christ) are to be completely restored in spirit, soul, and body that we might be new creations in which God alone is glorified.
One thing is certain. Restoration will not be apart from a genuine repentance, involving both a frank confession of sin and a radical return to God. Sin brings death. It is only the grace of God received through faith that brings blessing.
Recite the Apostles Creed. Prayer: Prayer: Give thanks that Christ raises the Church from the ashes into an eternally glorious future.
Saturday (1/21) Read and discuss 1 Corinthians 3:18-23. Paul’s whole line of argumentation began with a very real problem in Corinth: The Corinthians were dividing up into factions and attaching themselves to leaders. Using himself, Apollos, Peter, and the person of Christ to make his point, Paul has them say: “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, etc …” Why would people act like this? The answer is simple. People identify with celebrity in an effort to elevate themselves by association. It is interesting; therefore, that Paul doesn’t tell them that they are thinking too highly of themselves and what they possess. Instead Paul lets them know how dramatically they underestimate what is now theirs in Christ Jesus our Lord. So instead of boasting in mere men, the Corinthians (and all Christians) should make our boast in God:
For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
As Paul wrote to the Church in Rome: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” Read or sing Hymn 679 “’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”. Prayer: Please lift up tomorrow’s morning and evening worship services.
