Encounter
During the month of January we will be starting a new series called “Encounter”. We will be looking at “encounters” that people have with Jesus. These are normal, everyday people, just like you and me. We will see how He interacted with them and how that “encounter” changed their life forever. Hopefully, the same will happen for us. As we see these people encounter Christ, and see the forgiveness that is extended to them, we will be able to easily relate to them, and Christ will use the pages of Scripture to change our lives as well. Please invite and bring all your friends and family to this new series which is very timely for the new year and everyone’s new year’s resolutions to go back to church.
January 3 service:
Living Faith – Sojourn
Sermon – John 9
We Have Not Known Thee – Mars Hill Church Worship
Amazing Grace – Hymn
You Reign – Hillsong United
How Deep The Father’s Love For Us – Stuart Townend
Sending Song:
You Are God – Charlie Hall
See you on Sunday where we will “Encounter” God together.
Sunday, Dec. 27
We are privileged to be able to gather as a church body every week. As always, we want you to be able to prepare your hearts for worship. We desire for you to come as focused on the Gospel as you can. Bring a friend this coming Sunday and hear how our God is mighty to save!
This Sunday’s service:
Nothing But The Blood – Matt Redman
Sermon – Nehemiah 9
Hosanna – Hillsong United
It Is Well – Hymn
Mighty To Save – Hillsong
Let God Arise – Chris Tomlin
Sending:
Marvelous Light – Charlie Hall
See you Sunday!!
Pray for Matt Chandler
I have talked about Matt Chandler already here and here.
I have been warned time and time again never to make someone a hero of yours that is still alive. (By hero, I do not mean Savior. I love Jesus and worship Him only. A hero is merely a person that God uses to point me to Him more than others.) I have always been told that if you’re going to have a hero, they need to be dead because you know that they have fought the good fight and finished the race and kept the faith. The news of one of my heroes, Matt Chandler, has me devastated.
I have been listening to his sermons for about 3 years (and I went and downloaded all of his other sermons from his previous years). What I have found having listened to him so much is that he believes completely in the sovereignty of God in all things and that God does all things for His glory. Matt has continually preached to his church that no matter the circumstances, good or bad, that we are called to seek to glorify God in every situation we go through.
Here’s the amazing thing, this isn’t just something he preaches. HE IS LIVING THIS OUT HIMSELF.
On Thanksgiving day he had a seizure and was rushed to the hospital. He soon found out that he has a tumor on his frontal lobe and then had it removed. The pathology came back some days later saying that it is malignant. He is 35 years old, married with 3 children that are 6yrs, 4 yrs, and a newborn.
I don’t know him personally. I have no idea how much he has cried with his wife, how much he has cried over his children, if he has asked God, “Why” and I don’t want to pretend I know everything he is thinking. What I do know are the things he is saying during this are absolutely amazing, and honestly, would be very difficult to say if it were me.
On his twitter, on Dec 1st he wrote, “I’m overwhelmed by all the prayer and support…1st Doctor today at 12:45…I’ll let you know when we do…Christ is All“. To say “Christ is All” is awesome. To point us all to Jesus as our only hope we have is great.
He then posted this video (this is a must see) to his church, which is simply amazing. This is a great example of how a Christian is to choose to suffer well for the glory of God and for a pastor is to truly pastor his church well.
Later he posted this on his twitter while waiting to hear if the tumor was cancerous, “Path report is 2ndary at best…good report doesn’t mean much, bad report doesn’t mean anything…my days r numbered and nt by ths report“. To have this kind of perspective on our fragile lives as a 35 year old is rare. I am challenged to want to live and think this way.
Matt, you are a hero of mine. You were already before this, not because you preach so well (which you do amazingly), but because the Holy Spirit used you, like few men in my life, to convict me, call me to Christ and to hope in the Gospel, and desire to be a better worshiper of Christ. But now, you are even more a hero of mine to see you walk through this (from a distance) the way you are. No doubt, it is very difficult to be able to say in the midst of trial, “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain“, but you are giving us an incredible example to hope only in Christ and His love and His sufficiency.
Matt, we are praying for you and your family and your church.
Sunday, December 20
Each week our desire is for you to be as prepared as possible as we gather together as a congregation to worship our Lord Jesus. We want you to know the songs we will sing corporately, what verses we will be reading and studying ahead of time and how to prepare. All of this is an effort for you to worship Christ and have your heart prepared to see and savor Him.
Get plenty of sleep on Saturday night, wake up early on Sunday with a nice cup of coffee and your Bible. Spend some time reading the Scriptures and praying that morning for Christ to reveal Himself to you in His Word. Come expecting to worship Him and to desire to have places in your life shown that need to be sanctified and ready to give those areas over willingly.
This week, on Sunday December 20th & December 24th, in accordance with the holidays, we will be looking at Philippians 2:1-11 in a 2-part sermon.
Christmas is the season we celebrate the birth of Jesus. This is when God became incarnate. These verses in Philippians speak about the incarnation of Jesus. This Christmas, we’ll take a little bit of a different look than usual at the birth of our Savior. We’ll look at Philippians 2 and His incarnation, and what that means for us during this holiday season and all year round.
This Week:
Salvation Is Here – Hillsong United
Sermon – Philippians 2:1-11, Matthew 1:18-25
What Child Is This? – Christmas Hymn
Mighty To Save – Hillsong
How He Loves – DC*B
Glory To God Forever - Steve Fee
Sending Song – To Know Your Name – Hillsong
See you on Sunday!
Sunday, December 13
This week, again, we would love for you to prepare your hearts and minds for worship this Sunday. Preparation for worship on Sunday morning begins before your arrival to church. Along with learning these songs and reading over the text, we would also encourage you to pray for yourself to come to the service focused on Christ and His Gospel. You should go to bed early on Saturday night and wake up early on Sunday and spend time in the Word and in prayer. When you do these things, you are better prepared to engage with God.
This Week:
O Come, O Come Emmanuel – Christmas Hymn
Sermon – 1 Timothy 5:17-25
Jesus Paid It All – Kristian Stanfill
Before The Throne Of God Above – Shane and Shane version
Doxology – Mars Hill Worship
Sending Songs:
In The Mystery - Hillsong United
Consume Us – Remedy Worship
See you guys on Sunday!
A New Song
At least seven times the Bible mentions singing a new song to the Lord:
Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. -Psalm 33:3
Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! -Psalm 96:1
Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. -Psalm 98:1
I will sing a new song to you, O God; upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you… -Psalm 144:9
Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the godly! -Psalm 149:1
Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants. -Isaiah 42:10
…and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. -Revelation 14:3
As you can see, new songs are a huge part of our worship to God. But why?
Here are a few reasons:
1. Our God is infinite in worth. No song we could ever sing would fully describe him or come close to grasping the weight of his glory.
2. God is a creative being and we are made in his likeness. Therefore we will worship him always in creative and in new ways.
3. God is always doing a new thing. He is at work in new ways, redeeming all of creation unto himself. We can’t HELP but sing new praises to him! How could we contain the joy of his salvation in the same words and melodies as we have sung before? It can’t be done! A new song MUST arise in our hearts as we grow in our knowledge and understanding of who God is and what he is doing. We MUST worship him anew always with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
These new songs take a few different forms:
1. A newly written original. Totally new lyrics applied to totally new melodies.
2. Updating and changing songs that have been sung in the past. These songs could be hundreds of years old or three years old. You can alter a melody, chord progression, or change lyrics to make the song fit the context in which you sing.
3. In intimate times of worship, privately and corporately, a new song may arise in you spontaneously by the Holy Spirit’s leading. Follow his leading. Sing new words of praise to Jesus. Sing a new song! They don’t need to be planned nor rehearsed. Just worship Jesus in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:23).
At Remedy we try our best to be writing new songs as often as we can. We want to make a practice of singing songs that are totally new as a church so as to be biblical in our worship. We have received quite a few requests from various people for the words and chords to some of our originals. I am attaching the music below for “Our Redemption” and “Consume Us.” As new songs are written, I will do my best to post the music for them on this blog. Enjoy!
Guard Your Ways
As believers, we should strive to sin less and less. How can you guard your way so you do not sin?
Psalm 39 is written by David. He says in verse 1, “I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue“. His desire is to not sin and guard his way in his faith in God.
I see 4 ways from Psalm 39 that we can guard our way in life and sin less.
1. Guard your mouth. (v. 1b)
2. Honestly consider that your life is fleeting. (v. 4-6 & 11b)
3. Only hope in God, not in anything else, like sin. (v. 7)
4. Pray to God for help. (v. 12)
1. Guard your mouth. – The Bible is filled with warnings regarding our speech. (James 3, Ephesians 5 etc…) Make every effort to never sin with your mouth. Your speech cannot speak wrongly of someone and praise God as well. Your speech cannot be unwholesome. Killing the sin of sinning in your speech will go a long way to guarding your ways.
2. Honestly consider that you life is fleeting. – If we were to know the day and time of our actual death, we would live differently. If you and I knew when we are going to die, we would live less selfishly, enjoy the little things more and definitely not be captivated by the world and the sin it has to offer. We would live for God whole-heartedly and not choose to sin. (James 4:14)
3. Only hope in God, not in anything else, like sin. – Our only hope is faith in Christ. We forget this so often because we live in a fallen world that does not only hope in God. They do not see or live for the beauty of Christ. Therefore, this causes us to live like them (sadly) and hope in false idols like relationships, jobs, money, power, fame, etc… This is not what Christians should do. We should only hope in God. Surely if we did, we would guard ourselves from many sins.
4. Pray to God for help. – The second half of verse 12 in this Psalm says, “hold not your peace at my tears“. This is after it says, “Hear my prayer“. In the end, the way we will sin less is only by the goodness of God. So, we pray. We beg Him for mercy on us. We beg Him to help us persevere in the faith. We must have Him. We pray to sin less. He will give us “peace” that shows us that He is more beautiful, loving, satisfying than anything else. Our hearts are idol factories (Calvin). They make idols continually. As soon as we have identified an idol and have some semblance of control over the idol, our hearts have already created another one that we must identify and kill. This is why we must pray. We guard our ways, and sin less by praying.
God desires for us not to have sin in our lives. These 4 things are not the only things we can do to kill sin, but, according to Psalm 39, these are some things we can do. May God grant us the grace to do these things and live lives that please Him by sinning less and Guarding Our Ways.
Something New
Cameron and I have decided to try something new for the next few months.
Each week (from now on at the beginning of the week) we will post the set list that we will sing together as a church before Sunday.
Why?
Each week I know the set that Cameron has selected and I go into iTunes and create a playlist with just those songs. I then put that set on repeat and listen to them a lot as I study, etc… What this does is make me very familiar with the songs, so that on Sunday I know the songs pretty well and don’t have to keep reading the words, but can focus better on Christ (not the words) and worship Him through song with more focus and affections.
We want you to be able to take this opportunity every week as well.
So from now, every Monday or Tuesday, we will post the songs for the coming Sunday so you can become more familiar with them.
I will also post the text that I will be preaching from so you can read it and be as ready as you can be to hear from the Lord, focus on the Gospel, worship Him in Spirit and Truth and get the most out of our corporate gathering as God is able to give to you.
This Week:
O Come All Ye Faithful - Christmas Hymn
Our Redemption – Remedy Worship
How Great Thou Art – Hymn
Hosanna – Hillsong United
Sermon – 1 Timothy 5:1-16
In Christ Alone – Stuart Townend. (For iTunes, check out Matt Papa’s version)
Sending Song – You Deserve – Hillsong United