Worship Next Sunday
September
23, 2012
Preaching:
Pastor Stephen Magee
Sermon
text: Acts 15:30-41
Sermon
title: Strengthening
the Churches
Music:
Opening
Hymn 76 Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
Preparation
Hymn 376 Open Now Thy Gates of Beauty
Response
Hymn 358 For All the Saints
Closing
Hymn 345 Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken
Confession
of Faith: Apostles Creed
Old
Testament Passage: Genesis
37:11, 37:20, 39:1, 40:23, 41:1, 41:53-57
Preparation
Guide
Sunday:
Genesis 37, Acts 15:19-29
Monday:
1 Samuel 13, Acts 15:30-51
Tuesday:
1 Samuel 14
Wednesday:
1 Samuel 15
Thursday:
Genesis 38
Friday:
Genesis 39
Saturday: Genesis 40, Acts 15
Suggested Bible Study and Prayers
(Passages
that we will refer to in next Sunday's worship)
Genesis
41
Father of Mercy,
we are impatient in suffering. Please forgive us. We could so
easily believe that You have forgotten us, but this is a lie. You
kept Joseph in prison for at least two years after he should have
been helped by the cupbearer of Pharaoh. At just the right time,
Jacob’s son was brought from that prison-house in order to
interpret Pharaoh’s dream. Your ways are right. Your servants
know that You give the interpretation of Your Word to Your prophets.
All glory to You, O God. Who but You would have the wisdom and power
to bring life and health out of the miseries of Joseph? Who could
have known that You were working abundant salvation through the death
of Your holy Servant Jesus? Bring us through times of famine and
testing in the current age, and lead us into the age to come where we
will have blessings beyond anything we have ever experienced or
known. Fill us now with Your Holy Spirit, that we might rightly
serve you in this day when we are strangers in a strange land.
Though we may have the respect of men and great wealth and honor, we
know that we are not yet home. We long for the resurrection, O Lord.
Help us to be competent and useful now until the trumpet blows, and
the dead in Christ are raised. Help us in our day of hardship, that
we might be fruitful in the land of our affliction. May we have bread
to share with the hungry, and storehouses full of grain when the
severity of trouble comes upon Your people. In all our service, we
will remember You, O Lord, for You give us our daily bread.
Acts 15
Great
God, there was much dissension in the early church, and there are
important disagreements in the church today. Help us to distinguish
between those matters where love must cover a multitude of sins, and
those matters that must be more fully discussed for Your good
purposes. Give us the courage and discipline to call together
eminent and godly servants of the truth in order to gain greater
clarity by Your Word and Spirit. Make their deliberations a
productive and worthwhile use of Your resources. Thank You for the
wonderful truth that was displayed so powerfully in Your church in
days of old when the age changed from the time of the Law to the new
day of the gospel. Thank you for the way of life by grace through
the faith that remained the same in both ages. Yet thank You once
again for the clarity that the ceremonies of the Law have been
fulfilled in Christ. It is now clear that we do not need to be
Jewish before we can be Christians. The way of life for us in not
through circumcision, Passover, and the regulations of clean and
unclean. Nonetheless, we thank You for the record of these matters
in the Law, for they show us the wonders of Christ. He has become
our circumcision through His death on the cross. Through Him alone
we have been rescued from sure destruction, for He is our Passover.
By His blood sprinkled upon our hearts we have been cleansed by the
Holy Spirit from the guilt and stain of sin.
