Soli Deo Gloria

Caprice, Op. 5 No. 2: Andante Religioso Alfredo Piatti

Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major: Moderato Franz Joseph Haydn

Sydney Lee, cello

Norman Carter, piano

Call to Worship

Invocation

•Hymn 80: Lord, with Glowing Heart I’d Praise Thee Ripley

•Prayer of Confession

O most great, most just and gracious God; You are of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, but You have promised mercy through Jesus Christ to all that repent and believe in Him. We confess that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We have neglected Your holy worship. We have not sought first Your kingdom. You have revealed Your wonderful love to us in Christ and offered us pardon and salvation in Him, but we have turned away. We have run into temptation, and the sin that we should have hated, we have committed. Have mercy on us, most merciful Father! In Your Son is our salvation, in Your promises our hope. Take us for Your children and give us the Spirit of Your Son, through Jesus Christ our only Savior.

•The Gospel’s Assurance of Pardon: Titus 3:4–7

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.

Prayer of Preparation

God’s Word Read

•Hymn 478: I Love to Tell the Story I Love To Tell The Story

•Offering Prayer

Offertory: O How Amiable Ralph Vaughan Williams

O how amiable are Thy dwellings: Thou Lord of hosts! My soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord: My heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young: even Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house: They will be alway praising Thee. The glorious majesty of the Lord our God be upon us, prosper Thou the work of our hands upon us. O prosper Thou our handiwork. O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.

Tenth Church Choir

Sermon: Read Mark Learn Dr. Liam Goligher

Prayer

•Hymn 301: Join All the Glorious Names Darwall

•Benediction

Postlude: Trumpet Tune in C Major David Johnson

Serving this evening:
Jared Cochrum, platform
Colin Howland, organ

About Worship

Confessing Our Sin

The Lord Jesus taught His disciples to pray: “and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). This follows necessarily from His direction to first hallow God’s name. A recognition of God’s true holiness leads us to see ourselves for who we really are before Him, that is, as sinners. The placement of the confession of sin at the beginning of Tenth’s worship services is designed to highlight two basic facts. First, as we come to worship a holy God we must recognize His perfection and our sinfulness. Second, we come at His own gracious invitation as sinners saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. So, in praying a confession of sin we worship Him by acknowledging His holiness and His grace. In Luke 7 Jesus has a meal in the home of a Pharisee named Simon. While sitting at the table a “woman of the city, who was a sinner” approaches Jesus and anoints His feet with ointment and her tears. Jesus commends her, saying, “Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven–for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47). It is a spiritual axiom that we can only love God as much as we realize we are forgiven by Him through the precious blood of Christ.