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August 11, 2024
Resources and content for this Sunday.
*Call to Worship | Job 1:21 | Rev. Blake Arnoult
God invites and calls us into his presence to worship him.
21 Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
*Song of Adoration | All Creatures of Our God and King
We begin by responding with praise to God for who he is and for what he does.
All creatures of our God and King,
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
Thou silver moon with softer gleam,
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou rushing wind that art so strong
Ye clouds that sail in Heaven along,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou rushing morn in praise rejoice,
Ye lights of evening find a voice,
Chorus
Thou flowing water pure and clear
Make music for Thy Lord to hear
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou fire so masterful and bright
That givest man both warmth and light,
Chorus
Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship Him in humbleness.
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son
And praise the Spirit, Three in One
Chorus
Music and Lyrics: St. Francis of Assisi, William H. Draper
*Confession of Faith | Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q.86
With the church in history we confess a basic statement of what Christians believe.
Leader: What is faith in Jesus Christ?
Congregation: Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.
*Song of Confession | From The Depths Of Woe I Raise To Thee
Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs are simply prayers that are sung. We respond in repentance and praise for God’s redemptive work in Christ.
From the depths of woe I raise to Thee the voice of lamentation;
Lord, turn a gracious ear to me and hear my supplication;
If Thou iniquities dost mark our secret sins and misdeeds dark,
O who shall stand before Thee? (Who shall stand before Thee?)
O who shall stand before Thee? (Who shall stand before Thee?)
To wash away the crimson stain, grace, grace alone availeth;
Our works, alas! Are all in vain; in much the best life faileth;
No man can glory in Thy sight, all must alike confess Thy might,
And live alone by mercy (Live alone by mercy)
And live alone by mercy (Live alone by mercy)
Therefore my trust is in the Lord, and not in mine own merit;
On Him my soul shall rest, His word upholds my fainting spirit;
His promised mercy is my fort, my comfort and my sweet support;
I wait for it with patience (Wait for it with patience)
I wait for it with patience (Wait for it with patience)
.Though great our sins and sore our woes,
His grace much more aboundeth;
His helping love no limit knows, our upmost need it soundeth.
Our Shepherd good and true is He, who will at last His Israel free
From all their sin and sorrow (All their sin and sorrow)
From all their sin and sorrow (All their sin and sorrow)
Music and Lyrics: Martin Luther, Richard Massie
Confession of Sin
We fight the temptation to hide our sin and instead acknowledge it openly to God, but we do so in light of the grace offered in Jesus.
Our great and everlasting God, whose eternal power and divine nature have been seen through the things you have made; we acknowledge that we are without excuse. For although we have known you, we have not honored you as God nor given you thanks, but we have become futile in our thinking; and our senseless minds have been darkened. Claiming to be wise, we have become fools. We have been filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, and malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and craftiness, we are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Yet we do also sincerely acknowledge, that when we were weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. We most joyfully confess that you have proven your love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Forgive our sins, we pray, through him who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our salvation. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon | 1 Corinthians 1:23-25 | Rev. Blake Arnoult
The good news of the gospel is that we are forgiven in Jesus Christ. This assurance is based on God’s words of promise and it is therefore certain.
23 We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
*Song of Response | Thy Mercy My God
We respond in repentance and praise for God’s redemptive work in Christ.
Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song,
The joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue;
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last,
Hath won my affections, and bound my soul fast.
Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here;
Sin would reduce me to utter despair;
But, through Thy free goodness, my spirits revive,
And He that first made me still keeps me alive.
Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart;
Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found.
Great Father of mercies, Thy goodness I own,
And the covenant love of Thy crucified Son;
All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine
Seals mercy, and pardon, and righteousness mine.
Music and Lyrics: John Stocker
Prayer of Thanksgiving
We offer our gratitude to God in prayer in response to his gifts and blessings to his people and ask that he make us faithful managers of these gifts.
Song of Thanks | I Stand Amazed
As we offer our prayers so we also offer up our thanks in song.
I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me, a sinner condemned, unclean.
How marvelous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvelous! How wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!
For me it was in the garden, He prayed: “Not my will, but Thine.”
He had no tears for His own griefs, but sweat-drops of blood for mine.
Chorus
He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calvary, and suffered, and died alone.
Chorus
When with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall see,
’Twill be my joy through the ages to sing of His love for me.
/ Chorus /
Music and Lyrics: Charles Hutchison Gabriel
Prayer for Christ’s Church
We lift up our requests to God knowing that he hears us when we pray.
*Reading of Scripture | Ruth 1:1-17, 22; 2:1-3; 4:13-17 | Rev. Blake Arnoult
God reveals himself and his work and speaks to us his people through his Word.
1 In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, 5 and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the LORD had visited his people and given them food. 7 So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. 8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 The LORD grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. 10 And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” 11 But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 12 Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, 13 would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.” 14 Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
15 And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16 But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” …
22 So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.
2:1 Now Naomi had a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. 2 And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” And she said to her, “Go, my daughter.” 3 So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. …
4:13 So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son. 14 Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! 15 He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” 16 Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. 17 And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Pastor: The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God
The Preaching of the Word | Rev. Blake Arnoult
“Ruth: Curses, Promises, Redemptions”
Christ in the Old Testament
Pastoral Prayer
Sacrament of Communion
Sacraments are visible signs of the invisible grace of God - what Christ does by his Holy Spirit within us. Communion (also called the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist), as the distribution of the elements of bread and wine, symbolizes a meal. Communion is a sign of fellowship. That sign signifies more than just the future heavenly fellowship that is to come. The outward sign signifies the inner reality that sinners already experience fellowship with God in the Spirit because of Jesus. Communion is not a meal for good people. It functions as a renewing seal to desperate sinners of that fellowship we have with our holy and gracious God.
You will be invited to come forward. If you are not a Christian we encourage you to spend this time in reflection on what you’ve seen and heard in the worship. Children who have not received their first communion are welcome and encouraged to come forward with their families to witness their partaking. We invite children who are ready to make a public profession of faith in Christ to arrange a meeting with the elders, and thus become “communicants” at the Lord’s Table.
Pastor: The Lord be with you.
People: And also with you.
Pastor: Lift up your hearts!
People: We lift them up to the Lord.
Pastor: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
People: It is right to give him thanks and praise.
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Words of Institution
Pastor: Let us proclaim the mystery of the faith:
People: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Hallelujah!
Pastor: Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. Hallelujah!
People: Therefore, let us keep the feast.
Pastor: The gifts of God for the people of God.
Please let an usher know if it is difficult for you to come forward. We would be happy to serve you at your seat. All communion bread is gluten-free. All communion wine is made from grape juice.
A communion prayer for those searching for the truth:
Lord Jesus, you claim to be the way, the truth and the life. If what you claim is true, please guide me, teach me, and open to me the reality of who you are. Give me the ability to follow you no matter what it might cost me. Give me an understanding for you that is coherent, convincing, and leads to the life that you promise. Amen.
Communion Song | All I Have is Christ
We celebrate our communion in faith and song.
I once was lost in darkest night, Yet thought I knew the way
The sin that promised joy and life, Had led me to the grave
I had no hope that You would own, A rebel to Your will
And if You had not loved me first, I would refuse you still
But as I ran my hell bound race, Indifferent to the cost
You looked upon my helpless state, And led me to the cross
And I beheld God’s love displayed, You suffered in my place
You bore the wrath reserved for me, Now all I know is grace!
Hallelujah all I have is Christ
Hallelujah Jesus is my life
Now Lord I would be Yours alone, And live so all might see
The strength to follow Your commands, Could never come from me
O Father use my ransomed life, In any way You choose
And let my song forever be, My only boast is You
Chorus
Music and Lyrics: Jordan Kauflin
Departing Song | The Church's One Foundation
We begin to end in faith and song.
The church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.
Elect from every nation,
Yet one over all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.
Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
’Til, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blessed,
And the great church victorious
Shall be the church at rest.
Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee.
Music and Lyrics: Samuel John Stone, Samuel Sebastian Wesley
*Benediction | Psalm 121:7-8 | Rev. Blake Arnoult
God sends us out with his blessing. A benediction is not a prayer. We don’t bow our heads. We lift them up and even lift up our hands to receive his blessing as we are sent out as participants in his mission to the city of man.
7 The LORD will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The LORD will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Fall Kick-Off Party
Sunday, August 25, 11:30am
Join us for our annual Fall Kick-Off Party on August 25! We will gather at Pickleball Social for fun and games, including a pickleball tournament! Anyone who is interested in playing in our pickleball tournament can sign up through our weekly email or on our website!
Bible Studies
Women’s Evening Study: Date Change! Tuesday, August 27
Our women’s evening study on Prayer will meet on Tuesday, August 27! Join us at the home of Susan Arnoult at 7pm. The study will resume meeting on the first Thursday of each month on October 3.
Men’s Morning Study: Wednesday, August 28
Our men’s study on Prayer will meet on Wednesday, August 28 at 7am at Bean and Bottle! 9655 Katy Freeway Suite 100. The study will resume meeting on the first Friday of each month on October 4.
Women’s Morning Study: Wednesday, August 28
Our weekly women’s study on Prayer begins at 10am on Wednesday, August 28 at the Wade home!
Kids’ Sunday School
Begins Sunday, September 8, 9am
Cornerstone Kids’ Sunday School will begin on Sunday, September 8 for the first week of our 10-week series on Justification!
Youth Bible Study
Begins Sunday, September 8, 9am
Cornerstone Kids’ Sunday School will begin on Sunday, September 8 for the first week of our 10-week series on Justification!