Emmaus City Liturgy | Sunday, September 14, 2014 – I Peter Sermon Series | Born Again for More: More Mercy, More Refining, More Joy

Emmaus City Liturgy – 1 Peter Sermon Series: Born Again for More: More Mercy, More Refining, More Joy | 1 Peter 1:1-9 

1 Peter 1:1-9 | Born Again for More Sermon Audio:

For previous sermon series notes and audio, click on the links below:

• Titus: Growing in Grace and Good Deeds // January 5 – February 16, 2014 
• Genesis: Covenant & Kingdom // March 9 – June 15, 2014
• Facets of the Gospel I-V: Redemption, Justification, Union in Christ, Adoption, New Creation // July 6 – August 17, 2014 
• 1 Peter: The Hope of Humble Holiness for the Sake of the World // August 24 – September 14, 2014

This post will feature themes, verses, hymns and songs (audio and lyrics), and prayers that complement the sermon text. Key notes from the sermons will also be included.

Curious to know more? Want to spend some time with us? Don't hesitate. Contact us and come join us. In the meantime, enjoy the readings and listening to the songs below.

THANKING GOD | WORSHIP THROUGH CELEBRATION, PRAYER, AND SONG

Sharing Moments of Gospel Celebration

  Prayer of Thanksgiving and The Lord’s Prayer

From Jesus in Matthew 6:9-13

Our Father in heaven, may Your name be kept holy.
May Your Kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

Give us today the food we need, and 

Forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from evil.

(For Yours is the Kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen.) 

Thy Mercy My God
By Sandra McCracken (original by John Stocker)

1799 A.D.

Thy mercy, my God,

Is the theme of my song, 

The joy of my heart. 
And the boast of my tongue;
Thy free grace alone, 
From the first to the last,
Hath won my affections,

And bound my soul fast.

Without Thy sweet mercy

I could not live here; 

Sin would reduce me
To utter despair; 

But, through Thy free goodness,
My spirit’s revived, 

And He that first made me 
Still keeps me alive.

Thy mercy is more than

A match for my heart, 

Which wonders to feel
Its own hardness depart; 

Dissolved by Thy goodness,

I fall to the ground,
And weep for the praise

Of the mercy I’ve found.

Great Father of mercy,

Thy goodness I own, 

In the covenant love
Of Thy crucified Son; 

All praise to the Spirit,
Whose whisper divine 

Seals mercy, and pardon, 
And righteousness mine.

RECEIVING JESUS | WORSHIP THROUGH LISTENING AND PRAISING

1 Peter 1:1-9 | 1 Peter Sermon Series: Born Again for More
More Mercy, More Refining, More Joy

 Sermon Texts

1 Peter 1:1-9 

Sermon Notes 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” – 1 Peter 1:3-4

What we have in Jesus – mercy, refining faith, joy – is perfectly secure in Him. When He is our security and our inheritance, we only need to turn back to Him who is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading for us and in us in order to persevere and rest in whatever we do.

1) Born Again for More | Mercy (Imperishable, Undefiled, Unfading Hope for Mercy) 

"I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room." – Blaise Pascal, French philosopher

Can we rest in the mercy we have been given from God without seeking to earn our identity or our self-worth by anything we do or say, but by who God is and what He has done for us in His mercy through Jesus?

"But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." – Titus 3:4-7

“If you want God's grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing. But that kind of spiritual humility is hard to muster. We come to God saying, "Look at all I've done," or maybe "Look at all I've suffered." God, however, wants us to look to him - to just wash. … you don't realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.” – Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

Chronos time: Moving on to get to the next thing

Kairos time: Pausing to recognize that every moment God is speaking and at work

We need to take the time to turn back to the mercy we have in Jesus (i.e. repentance)

Repentance | Turning back to God and asking, "What are You working to transform in me right now?"

• Observe | What is going on?

• Reflect | What am I (potentially wrongly) believing about God, and myself, and life?

• Discuss | What is really true about God, and myself, and life?

Instead of jumping to what we think we should do to change our situation (i.e. alleviate pain, escape, change others), we need to stop and ask (in this order):

• Who is God? 

• What has He done? 

• Who am I? 

• What can I do in light of all of the above?

2) Born Again for More | Refining (Imperishable, Undefiled, Unfading Hope of Refining)

"Everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face." – Mike Tyson

"(You) by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." – I Peter 1:5-7

We all have ideas of how we're going to become a better person, but we can't control our circumstances. And we most often don't know what's best for us. So when God's loving refining comes for His children, are we going to receive it well, no matter how hard, or are we going to go searching for what's worth it and comfortable?

I Don’t See It

By Propaganda, featuring Braille

   

“ … One day, I'm going to make it, but what is "it"?
Objects?
Things?
And it's all to realize that "calm",

It really ain't that calm.
And the struggle is much more enjoyable when the

End ain't clutched
Like the moment you realize you're consumed

With first-world problems
I guess that means you made it
But it's eerie how uncomfortable it is
When we get too comfortable.

When they close in

All the curtains

To convince you

That it's night time
Don't believe 'em,

Don't believe 'em
And when they tell you

It's a must-have

And you can't live without it
Listen, you don't need it,

you don't need it.
And when they tell you sweet this and only this is beautiful
Tell 'em I don't see it,
I don't see it.
Don't believe 'em,

You don't need it,

I don't see it,
I don't see it.

It's kinda like that notion that if you accept these set of notions
Then your soul's premium's Secure, right?
And you're searching for new mountains to climb as if you conquered the first one
You ain't done, you just comfy!
And it seems like

Your soul's tenacity

Done moved to the suburbs
And them neatly aligned trees and perfectly manicured lawns
And them safe schools and parks is a good place

To raise a beer belly, right?
And them identical strip malls on every corner of your mind can feel a little cluster-phobic, Right?
And it's there, you realize that There is no "there"
‘Cause this type of perfect,

Boy it just ain't worth it.
Don't you dare close them curtains, it ain't night time
And you don't need

Another object,
And that right there is

Not beauty
Homie, it's eerie how uncomfortable it is 

When we get too comfortable. …”

Are we willing to believe that comfortable is dangerous and that God's refining may be more safe than the materialism and consumerism we so often settle for?

Remember: "(You) by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials ... " – 1 Peter 1:5-6

Why are we being guarded? Because we’re in danger. But many of us don’t want to see the world around us and its many temptations as dangerous as they are. And many of us aren't bold enough for Jesus to begin to feel how much He is despised. We need to be willing to step into a faith that sees God as more powerful than the dangers we fear and the the temporary pleasures we so often settle for.    

“When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.” – Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters

We need to move forward through the fire with Jesus (i.e. belief or refining faith)

Believe | Respond to Jesus in faith, hope, love and obedience to what He is saying to do

• Plan | How am I going to remember what’s true about God, myself, and life?
• Accountability | Who is going to help remind me?
• Action | How am I going to act in faith?

Instead of jumping to what we think we should do to change our situation (i.e. alleviate pain, escape, change others), we need to stop and ask (in this order):

• Who is God? 
• What has He done? 
• Who am I? 
• What can I do in light of all of the above?

3) Born Again for More | Joy (Imperishable, Undefiled, Unfading Hope of Joy) 

"Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." – 1 Peter 1:8-9

Through mercy and refining, what we have been given above all is Jesus, the source of our joy, the salvation of our souls.

“ … I’ve been struck by the profound need for and protest of joy. I wonder what would it mean for Christians to be marked by joy. It seems like the true opposite of the culture wars—and the best response—is not to simply be more progressive or even more moderate, but to be able to walk into the midst of the culture’s bar fight and be subversively and humbly joyful and hopeful, able to love vulnerably and faithfully whether or not we’re rejected. … ” – “A Joyful Indifference” by Tish Harrison Warren (priest in the Anglican Church in North America who works with InterVarsity at the University of Texas-Austin) responding to Matthew Lee Anderson (author of The End of Our Exploring: A Book About Questioning and the Confidence of Faith)

“ … what (we), young and old, most desperately need is a ... manifestation of joy. Tish Harrison Warren sounds the martyrs note, without overstriking it: ‘Throughout history and even now, Christians in many parts of the world face not only rejection but violent brutality. What they face is incomparably worse than anything we experience … yet they tutor us in compassion, courage, and subversive faithfulness.’ Yet if we do not grasp the joy of the martyrs, we do not understand them at all. ... Lord knows that I am not yet perfected in my joy. But Christians need a flagrant disregard for the coming wave of disrepute, a disregard which quickly turns the pathetic instruments of stigmatization into jewelry and art. Without that, and without Jesus’s presence among us, whatever “argument” we have will come to no effect. Pessimism and the joy of the martyr may look almost the same, but as Chesterton noted, the one dies for the sake of dying while the other for the sake of living. … “– “On Disrespectable Christianity” by Matthew Lee Anderson (author of The End of Our Exploring: A Book About Questioning and the Confidence of Faith, mereorthodoxy.com) responding to Tish Harrison Warren 

"It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like a child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." –  C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

What is obtaining the outcome of our faith and the salvation of our souls? Loving Jesus. Believing in Jesus. Jesus in us, the hope of glory. This is what will only give us lasting joy through the fire.

Always

By Kristian Stanfill

2011 A.D.  

 My foes are many,
They rise against me

But I will hold my ground.
I will not fear the war,

I will not fear the storm, My help is on the way (2x)! 

Oh, my God, He will not delay,
My refuge and strength always!
I will not fear, His promise is true
My God will come through alwaysAlways!

Troubles surround me,

Chaos abounding,
My soul will rest in You
I will not fear the war,

I will not fear the storm,
My help is on the way,

My help is on the way!

(Repeat Chorus)

I lift my eyes up,
My help comes from the Lord! (4x)

From You, Lord, from You, Lord!

(Repeat Chorus)

Oh, my God, He will not delay

My refuge and strength always, 

Always!

RECEIVING JESUS | WORSHIP THROUGH CONFESSION AND COMMUNION 

  Emmaus City's Purpose and Prayers for Communion 

BEING SENT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT | WORSHIP THROUGH PRAISE, MISSION, AND BLESSING

God Undefeatable

By Austin Stone Music

2011 A.D.

Behold the King who conquered

And overcame our sin.
Behold our glorious Victor
Whose mercy knows no end.
And He is true, He is right,

Death is broken, He is alive!

God undefeatable,

Kingdom unshakeable,

In majesty and power You reign!

Love undeniable,
Matchless and bountiful
To waken us to life You came,

Yes, You came!

And now our way is certain,

Our souls in You secure. 

Through every pain and struggle
Your victory endures.
For You are true, You are right, Death is broken, You are alive!

(Repeat Chorus)

The love of God is greater

Than we dare to hope or dream! (2x)

The hold of God is stronger

Than we dare to hope or dream! (2x)

(Repeat Chorus 2x)

Prayer for Redemption Church Plant in Providence, RI

Benediction 

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. … And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power forever and ever. Amen.” – 1 Peter 5:6-7, 10-11

Next liturgy post: Sunday, October 5, 2014 – Delighting in and Longing for Jesus: Searching, Serving, Speaking | 1 Peter 1:8-12

– Sully

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