Songs for Sunday, May 26, 2024 @ Christ Community Church

Sunday is coming, and I’m excited. I am tired, but I am definitely excited to gather with my faith family and make much of Jesus!

This past week has been great. Our youth mission team and chaperones have laid paving stone, scraped paint, brushed animals, relined a duck pond, carried boulders and railroad ties, weeded and mulched flower beds, rafted (and carried rafts through) the King River, served as extras in the Great Passion Play, and spread the gospel of the King of kings while offering cold water and prayer as well. We have read through passages in Ephesians studying what it means to walk with Jesus. We have gathered in worship. My back and arms ache, but my heart is full.

One of the things that has been most impressed on me throughout the week has been through conversations with folks about Jesus. If you ask people about Jesus, you get all kinds of answers: I was raised in the church; I try and do good things — more good than bad; I am religious; I am not (very) religious; I believe there was a man named Jesus; and even, are you asking for donations?

The conversation that followed pointed folks to Jesus being Lord, Jesus being Savior.

Some of the conversations led to clarity where people were able to share that Jesus was indeed Lord and Lord of their lives as well. But one conversation ended with a chuckle and “I just cannot believe that” (referencing Jesus raising from the dead).

What about you? What do you believe?

What do you believe about sin? The Bible is clear that all of us are sinners (Romans 3:10, 23) and that the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), that if we are not saved we are “dead in [our] trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1-2).

What do you believe about salvation? The Bible tells us that we do not have to succumb to the wages of our sin because “the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23) — that “God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). If we put our trust in Him by confessing Him as Lord and believing that God raised Him from the dead we can be saved by grace through faith in Jesus taken from the wages of our sin to being made alive in Him (Romans 10:9; Ephesians 2:4-5, 8)!

These are more than questions for strangers you encounter in times of evangelism; these questions need to be what we ask ourselves. Jesus is either Lord to us or we are lost. There is no halfway.

What does that mean for us? Well, Sunday at Christ Community, we are going to do as we always do. We are going to point to Jesus. Big John is going to preach the gospel. We are going to sing the gospel. We are going to read Scripture together. We are going to affirm that without Jesus we have no hope and hold fast to Him like an overweight poor-swimming pastor after being nearly knocked out and floating away on the boat that all of the good swimmers were no longer in (you had to be there).

I can think of no better way to spend a Sunday than gathered with a bunch of sinners who know we cannot save ourselves and point to the God who saves and saved us. I need to hear my brothers and sisters proclaiming the gospel back to me in reading and singing the Word.

Won’t you join us?

Here are our Scriptures & songs:

Scripture | Psalm 30 —

¹I will extol you, O LORD, for You have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me. ²O LORD my God, I cried to You for help, and You have healed me. ³O LORD, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.

⁴Sing praises to the LORD, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy Name. ⁵For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

⁶As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” ⁷By Your favor, O LORD, You made my mountain stand strong; You hid Your face; I was dismayed.

⁸To You, O LORD, I cry, and to the Lord I plead for mercy: ⁹“What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You?

Will it tell of Your faithfulness? ¹⁰Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me! O LORD, be my helper!”

¹¹You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, ¹²that my glory may sing Your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever!

Song | Holy Water —
Scripture Inspiration: Romans 10:9-10, Romans 5:12-15, John 8:34, John 3:3-21, Matthew 3:11, Romans 6:1-11, Galatians 2:19-20, Proverbs 16:24, 1 Corinthians 13:1, Numbers 19:17, Romans 6:1-7, Matthew 11:28-30, Acts 3:19-21

Song | Graves Into Gardens —
Scripture Inspiration: Psalm 34:10, Isaiah 55:1-3, Psalm 53:1-3, Luke 15:11-24, Romans 6:23, John 6:26-35, Revelation 7:13-17, Matthew 11:28-30, 1 John 4:8, Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 24:7, Ezekiel 36:26, Romans 12:2, Psalm 37:4, Exodus 8:10, Deuteronomy 3:24, Jeremiah 10:6, 1 Samuel 2:2, Isaiah 40:18, Romans 5:6-8, Psalm 138:8-9, 1 Kings 8:39, 1 John 3:20, John 15:15, Psalm 139:7-12, Hebrews 4:13, Psalm 30:11, Isaiah 62:2, Galatians 2:19-20, John 14:6, 1 Corinthians 15:20-49, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Exodus 14:1-31

Scripture | Philippians 3:8-11 —

⁸Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— ¹⁰that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, ¹¹that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.