Worship Notes for Sunday, April 14, 2013
The parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10 provides the core of our service—who is our neighbor and what does it mean to love and serve them. Love of neighbor begins with love of God, and we start the service with the Call to Worship from Psalm 100 and the call to come before the Lord in worship with joy and singing. We continue by singing Praise My Soul the King of Heaven—we sing praise and bring our tribute for He has first loved us and has ransomed, healed, restored, and forgiven. Our song continues with Come Ye that Love the Savior’s Name as we pray for the indwelling love needed to make His name known among the nations and our neighbors.In the New Testament Reading from Romans 1, Paul reminds us that loving our neighbor is the fulfilling of the law and is that which we owe one another. The Prayer of Confession from I John 4 & 3 reflects our failure to do that—even at times while confessing that the Father’s love abides in us. We respond in thankfulness for His grace by singing I Will Glory in My Redeemer for He has ransomed us, bought our lives, and He owns our love even as He calls us to serve those around us.
We are confronted with the nature of love and God’s love for us in our Communion Hymns—My God, My Portion, and My Love and What Wondrous Love is This. Our final hymn, Awake My Zeal, Awake My Love, calls us to respond to the love of God by serving Him in the ways that we care for our neighbors and those in need. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.—I John 3:16
