Evening Worship Service

Prelude: Day by Day, and with Each Passing Moment arr. Edwin Childs

Call to Worship

Invocation

Hymn 457: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing Nettleton

Text: Robert Robinson (1758)

Come, thou fount of ev’ry 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 God’s unchanging love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer; hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, wand’ring from the fold of God:
he, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be;
let that grace now, like a fetter, bind my wand’ring heart to thee.
Prone to wander – Lord, I feel it – prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.

Prayer of Confession

Heavenly Father, loving King, our thoughts and motives, our words and actions cannot be hidden from your sight. Our pride and self-pity, our cowardice and sloth, our anger and envy are laid bare before your eyes. We open ourselves to you and humbly ask for your forgiveness. Do not look upon our wrongdoing but cover us in the righteousness of Christ. Reassure us that his blood is our peace, his death is our freedom, and his Spirit is our power; and let our hearts know that in your service is perfect freedom. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

The Gospel’s Assurance of Pardon: 1 John 4:9–10

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Doxology Tallis’ Canon

Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host: praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Prayer of Illumination

Scripture Reading: Romans 3:21–31

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Sermon: The Righteousness of God Rudy Heuer

Hymn 520: Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness Germany

Text: John Wesley (1740)

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
my beauty are, my glorious dress;
‘midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
with joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in thy great day;
for who aught to my charge shall lay?
fully absolved through these I am
from sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

When from the dust of death I rise
to claim my mansion in the skies,
ev’n then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.

Jesus, be endless praise to thee,
whose boundless mercy hath for me -
for me a full atonement made,
an everlasting ransom paid.

O let the dead now hear thy voice;
now bid thy banished ones rejoice;
their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness.

Offering Prayer

(In person offerings may be made via the oak boxes. Give online at tenth.org/give or mail checks to: 1701 Delancey Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103)

Offertory: I Call to Thee Johann Sebastian Bach

Confession of Faith: Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 91

Question: How do the sacraments become effectual means of salvation?
Answer: The sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that does administer them; but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them.

Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper

Words of Institution

Distribution of the Elements

Bread

Scripture will be read while communion kits are distibuted, then all please join in singing:

Hymn 253: There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood (stanzas 1–3) Fountain

William Cowper (1771)

There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
and sinners, plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains:
lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
and sinners, plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
and there have I, as vile as he, washed all my sins away:
washed all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
and there have I, as vile as he, washed all my sins away.

E’er since by faith I saw the stream your flowing wounds supply,
redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die:
and shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.

(We will all partake the bread together at the direction of the minister.)

Cup

(We will all partake the cup together at the direction of the minister.)

Proclamation of the Mystery of our Faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!

Hymn 87: The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Want Crimond

Text: Scottish Psalter (1650)

The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want; he makes me down to lie
in pastures green; he leadeth me the quiet waters by.

My soul he doth restore again; and me to walk doth make
within the paths of righteousness, e’en for his own name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk in death’s dark vale, yet will I fear none ill,
for thou art with me; and thy rod and staff me comfort still.

My table thou hast furnished in presence of my foes;
my head thou dost with oil anoint, and my cup overflows.

Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely follow me:
and in God’s house for evermore my dwelling place shall be.

Benediction

Postlude: Fugue in C Major Johann Sebastian Bach

Serving this evening:
Rev. Greg Hobuagh, platform
Colin Howland, organist