Here is the worship guide for Sunday, April 25, 2021
PDF version of the worship guide to download or print.
The livestream will begin at 10:30 a.m. on our Facebook page or YouTube page.
Welcome and Announcements
Opening Prayer
Hymn: “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”
Words: Robert Robinson. Music: traditional American melody.
Come, Thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, mount of Thy redeeming love.
Hither to Thy love has blest me; Thou has brought me to this place;
And I know Thy hand will bring me safely home by Thy good grace.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God,
He, to rescue me from danger, bought me with His precious blood.
Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.
O that day when freed from sinning, I shall see Thy lovely face,
Clothed then in the blood-washed linen how I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace.
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry, take my ransomed soul away;
Send Thine angels now to carry me to realms of endless day.
Hymn: “There Is a Higher Throne”
Words and Music: Keith Getty and Kristyn Getty.
There is a higher throne than all this world has known,
where faithful ones from ev’ry tongue will one day come.
Before the Son we’ll stand, made faultless through the Lamb;
Believing hearts find promised grace; salvation comes.
Hear heaven’s voices sing; their thund’rous anthem rings
through em’rald courts and sapphire skies.Their praises rise.
All glory, wisdom, pow’r, strength, thanks, and honor are
to God our King, who reigns on high forevermore.
And there we’ll find our home, our life before the throne.
We’ll honor Him in perfect song, where we belong.
He’ll wipe each tear-stained eye as thirst and hunger die.
The Lamb becomes our Shepherd King; we’ll reign with Him.
Hear heaven’s voices sing; their thund’rous anthem rings
through em’rald courts and sapphire skies.Their praises rise.
All glory, wisdom, pow’r, strength, thanks, and honor are
to God our King, who reigns on high forevermore.
Hymn: “The King of Love My Shepherd Is”
Words by Henry Williams Baker, set to a traditional Irish melody
The King of love my Shepherd is, whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am His, and He is mine forever.
Where streams of living water flow my ransomed soul He leadeth,
and where the verdant pastures grow, with food celestial feedeth.
Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed, but yet in love He sought me;
and on His shoulder gently laid, and home, rejoicing, brought me.
In death’s dark vale I fear no ill, with You, dear Lord, beside me;
Your rod and staff my comfort still, Your cross before to guide me.
You spread a table in my sight; Your saving grace bestowing;
and O, what transport of delight from Your pure chalice flowing!
And so through all the length of days Your goodness fails me never.
Good Shepherd, may I sing Your praise within Your house forever.
Time of Prayer
Sermon: “Sealed from Every Tribe”
Revelation 7 (ESV)
1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, 3 saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.” 4 And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:
5 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed,
12,000 from the tribe of Reuben,
12,000 from the tribe of Gad,
6 12,000 from the tribe of Asher,
12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali,
12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh,
7 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon,
12,000 from the tribe of Levi,
12,000 from the tribe of Issachar,
8 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun,
12,000 from the tribe of Joseph,
12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
the sun shall not strike them,
nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Song: “Never Cease to Praise”
Words and music: Jeff Bourque.
May we run this race, may we keep the faith,
may our eyes be fixed on Jesus,
that we’ll not lose heart in our struggle with sin,
and through suffering know endurance.
May we arm ourselves with the mind of Christ
to rejoice in trials and be not surprised.
May our hearts be so consumed by You
that we never cease to praise.
May our company be the saints You’ve called,
may we all stand firm in one spirit,
that the gospel’s truth may resound on earth,
that all living things may hear it.
May the fruits of faith mark the path we trod
through the life of Christ to the glory of God.
May our hearts be so consumed by You
that we never cease to praise.
May the words we share be Your grace and peace.
May our tongues speak Your proclamations
that the many parts of the body of Christ
be affirmed in their right relation.
As we long and wait for the groom to come,
may we learn to love, and spur each other on.
May our hearts be so consumed by You
that we never cease to praise.
When that day arrives, and our race is won,
when our griefs give way to deliverance,
we will fully know, as we’re fully known,
all our groans will end as new songs begin.
And a multitude from every tribe and tongue,
wearing robes of white, will stand before Your throne,
And our hearts will be so consumed by You
that we’ll never cease to praise!
May our hearts be so consumed by You
that we never cease to praise.
Benediction
Ephesians 6:24 (ESV)
Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.