Worship Notes for Sunday, November 3, 2013

Today we celebrate All Saint’s Day and are reminded of the Great Cloud of Witnesses that has gone before who are arrayed around the throne of God and who join in worship as we gather on the Lord’s Day as His called people. Again and again in Scripture we are called to remember the goodness of the Lord and His kindness to His children. Part of the assurance of our faith is built on the reality of a God who keeps His promises, whose mercies are new every morning, and whose faithfulness is indeed great. This gratitude also refocuses our attention away from our own situation and on our God who decrees His “eternal purposes according to the counsel of His will [and] has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass” (Shorter Catechism #7). We recall God’s faithfulness and His power in working in and through the saints that have gone before and His instruments for His glory.The compassion and love of the Father is on display in our next section of Luke 13. Even as His people have turned away from the narrow gate, the care and kindness of Christ is revealed. The Call to Worship from Psalm 103 calls us to bless the Lord and reminds us of the forgiveness He offers and the compassion to those who fear Him. We continue with singing a version of Psalm 103, Praise My Soul the King of Heaven for “Father-like He tends and spares us.” Love Divine, All Love’s Excelling sings of Christ as “all compassion” and the desire to inherit the promised rest where the hosts above serve Him.

The Old Testament Reading from Isaiah 49 is a familiar passage that highlights the care of the Father of those in need and the peoples that will come from afar to receive the comfort and compassion He alone can give. At times we feel like God has abandoned us, but He reassures us that even as a mother cannot forget her feeding child, He will not forget His people. As a sign of that, He has engraved us on the palms of His hands as fulfilled in the scars from the nails that still mark the hands of Christ.

The Prayer of Confession from Psalm 79 prays for deliverance and atonement for our sins as well as for compassion to speedily come meet us. We continue by singing How Deep the Father’s Love for Us that powerfully reminds us of the extreme depths of God’s mercy and grace in giving His only Son for the redemption of His people.

The Hymns of Communion include Psalm 9: O Lord Most High as the Psalm for November and Not What My Hands Have Done—“’Tis He who saveth me, and freely pardon gives; I lobe because He loveth me, I live because He lives.”

We conclude by singing For All the Saints and rejoicing in the testimony of the saints to the glory of Christ who has redeemed us from the curse, set us free, and called us to live in holy obedience to the praise of His glory.

http://www.cornerstonepresfranklin.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Cornerstone-Bulletin-11.03.13.pdf