January 22, 2025

“There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God, and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God’s favor to them in life, through death and on forever.”

— J.I. Packer

Something dramatic happens when we consider God in his glory and holiness. In the dazzling vision of God and all that he is - we cannot help but see all that we ought to be but aren’t. If we are to stand in his presence, something drastic must be done for us that we cannot do for ourselves. 

Liturgical Movements

Reverence

Reconciliation

Revelation

Response

Renewal

Today’s movement, RECONCILIATION, includes the Confession of Sin, Assurance of Grace,  and the hymns that reflect and apply the wonderful hope of our forgiveness by grace through faith in Jesus.

 In 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul describes our salvation by grace: “For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The forgiveness we have through faith in Jesus cannot be accessed apart from faith, as if simply participating in the liturgy by rote could accomplish our justification. Nor can  our forgiveness by grace through faith be added to: Christ’s perfect righteousness (which covers all sins past, present, and future) is counted as ours the moment we trust in him by grace.

So why confess anything ever, let alone on Sunday morning? In doing so we don’t grow in forgiveness; we grow in our relationship with the Lord through faith. At every turn in our struggle against sin, we learn more about the awful truth of ourselves. As we confess, we discover that Jesus has “beat us to the punch” with the grace that “superabounds” to forgive our sin (Romans 5:20). And so we find ourselves confessing those things that God has already forgiven and experiencing the fullness of what God has done for us in Jesus. Truly, God has seen us at our worst, but in calling us to himself through Christ, he invites us into the awe-filled reality of being fully known and fully loved, apart from any effort on our part to catch his attention. 

Invocation: Psalm 84
Confession of Sin: Isaiah 55:6-9
Assurance of Grace John 5:24 and Psalm 117
Scripture Reading: Nehemiah 8:9-18
Sermon Text: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12
Confession of Faith: Heidelberg Catechism 116-117