Lord Have mercy…
On the lost in foreign lands
On the hopeless needing helping hands
On the broken- desolation’s child
On the unwed mother’s lonely mile
On the blind who stumble in the dark
On the ones who miss the mark
On the hungry, void of bread
mourners ’round their loved one’s bed
On secret shame, remaining still
On those embattled for Your will.
On an outcast soul’s despair
When broken hallelujahs fill the air
Amidst the wreckage, You are there
May we be angels unaware.
In an apple tree I see him as the Creator and sustainer of life and flavor.
In a flower, I see him reveling in color and transformation
In a rock I see Him as timeless and unexplainable
In a meadowlark, I see him as a lover of sight and sound.
In wind I see His refreshing presence.
In a thoroughbred, I see power and purpose, speed and grace.
In a storm I see the breadth and height of wonder
In the sleeping breath of an infant I see trust and provision
In sand and waves I see the constancy and movement of His work.
In stars I see His fingers’ fearsome and infinite reach
In moon, it’s perfect circular presence, I see His love of quite nights– The kind of nights that inspire romance and cherished words spoken beneath it’s ambient beauty.
He is in all things, through all things, and beyond all things.
These sights speak words that poets cannot exceed.
A love song to the lost
They are revelation to the doubting
But most of all, in each oft ignored marvel of the divine, He whispers, “I did this for you.”
Call to Worship
Reader 1: We’d like to welcome to this worship service our honored guest,
Reader 2: the matchless King, His Holy Majesty,
All: Jesus!
Reader 3: The Christ.
Reader 4: And Peter said, “You are Christ the Son of the Living God.
All: Jesus!
Reader 1: The Anointed One sent from the throne of the Father.
All: Jesus, the Lord.
Reader 2: The Lord—whose arrival was announced by a host of angels.
Reader 3: The Lord—the Master of our lives.
All: Jesus!
Reader 4: Our peace—not a state of mind, but a person. For He is Peace.
Reader 3: Oh, war-torn nations, prepare yourselves for the coming of the Prince of Peace.
All: Jesus!
Reader 2: Wonderful Savior. If you have ever come to the realization of who we are and who He is and what He does, how can you doubt that Jesus’ name is Wonderful.
All: Jesus!
Reader 1: Counselor—The God who listens and directs. He is light in darkness, voice in silence, and wisdom in a land of lostness.
All: Jesus!
Reader 4: The Almighty God.
Reader 2: Who could He be? The Savior who controls the land and the sea.
Reader 3: Oh, brother,
Reader 4: sister,
Reader 1: friend,
Reader 2: are you fearful, distraught, and hopeless? Look to this Undefeated Warrior whose name is Jesus. The nations and kingdoms of this terminal society are a drop in the bucket, dust on the scale in comparison to the arsenal of Almighty God. So hop on board or get out of the way. His Kingdom’s coming through!
Reader 1: His name is Mighty Jesus,
Reader 3: The everlasting Father.
Reader 4: Have you mourned at the death bed of your earthly father? See the joy of a loving Father who never dies. He lives forever.
All: Jesus!
Reader 3: The Word of God.
Reader 2: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was Jesus. Think of the mystery. God’s power resides in the vibrating vocal chords of the believer. So speak His name.
All: Jesus!
Reader 1: The fourth man in the furnace, the Damascus road intercom, the stone in our sling, the wave-walking, foot-washing, life-giving, soul-cleansing Son of God.
All: Jesus!
Reader 3: The Friend.
Reader 2: No greater love hath any man but this man named
All: Jesus!
Reader 4: The Bread.
Reader 3: We will not starve because He nourishes and sustains us.
All: Jesus!
Reader 2: The Mediator.
Reader 1: The One whose holy hands stretch to the throng of mankind from the throne of God.
All: Jesus!
Reader 3: The Physician who touched my sin-scarred soul and made me truly whole.
All: Jesus!
Reader 2: The Lamb.
Reader 4: The gentle sacrifice taking our place on the alter.
All: Jesus!
Reader 1: The Conqueror who puts all things under His feet, who crushed the head of the enemy and who reigns on high.
All: Jesus!
Reader 3: The Way.
All: Jesus!
Reader 2: The Truth.
All: Jesus!
Reader 4: The Life.
All: Jesus!
Reader 1: The Answer.
Reader 3: We welcome this morning to our worship service our friend, His Majesty—
All: Jesus!
Duet scene on grace and blessing
Reader 1: Once upon a time, in a town called Legalville,
Reader 2: Legalville?
Reader 1: Never heard of Legalville?
Reader 2: Nope.
Reader 1: It’s near Religion City.
Reader 2: I’m still clueless.
Reader 1: It’s really not all that important. Now where were we?
Reader 2: We were reading a story about an old crusty man who lived in Attorneyland.
Reader 1: That’s Legalville.
Reader 2: Whatever.
Reader 1: Once upon a time, there was a man in Legalville. He was a beggar who collected cans and reusable bottles. He collected them in an old grocery cart that needed a serious wheel alignment.
Reader 2: I think I used that cart last week.
Reader 1: But the story isn’t about you.
Reader 2: I hope not.
Reader 1: People would see him and shake their heads. There’s old Jed, the can man, they’d say in a pitiful tone. They would pity his existence, but they would just leave him alone, out in the sun.
Reader 2: Doesn’t exactly sound fun.
Reader 1: It wasn’t. Jed didn’t know the world was any larger than Legalville, U.S.A., until something incredible happened.
Reader 2: Good. I hate sad stories.
Reader 1: An attorney visited his cardboard refrigerator box shack with good news.
Reader 2: Good news?
Reader 1: The best news he could hear.
Reader 2: OK?
Reader 1: Take a swing at it. What is the best news old Jed could receive?
Reader 2: That’s easy. Jed, your troubles are over! Your long lost uncle, that you never met, died last week. He left $2 million to your father. Since he passed away last year, that means the money is yours.
Reader 1: How’d you guess?
Reader 2: It’s my line. (shows his script to #1) See?
Reader 1: Right. Anyway, Jed went nuts.
Reader 2: Two million dollars, and I didn’t even have to poll the audience or phone a friend! $2 million! That’s great! I’m rich!
Reader 1: The attorney alerted the media, who immediately went to the alley where Jed lived, between First National Bank and Trust and Renaldo’s Bar and Grill.
Reader 2: The mob of cameramen and news- people knocked down the cardboard refrigerator box door,
Reader 1: exposing his sleeping bag, charcoal grill, and 13 pairs of mismatched socks.
Reader 2: Wow! This is the best day of my life! I feel like a new man,
Reader 1: Jed said as he wiped a tear from his eye, with a used paper napkin from the dumpster at the downtown McDonald’s.
Reader 2: Accountants and Wall Street investors rushed to his side to serve him.
Reader 1: Ladies suddenly found him very attractive.
Reader 2: Legalville proclaimed the day “Jed Day.” The whole town said, Jed! Move away from there!
Reader 1: (to #2) I saw that one coming a mile off.
Reader 2: I couldn’t resist.
Reader 1: The reporters called out, You just won $2 million! What are you gonna do next?
Reader 2: Just you wait,
Reader 1: Jed said, with a three-tooth grin that stretched from ear to ear. The reporters continued, You can go to Disneyland. You can eat steak! You can get dentures and (waving off the smell with his hand) deodorant.”
Reader 2: I’ve already got the whole thing planned. Do you know how long I’ve lived in this cardboard shack? Fifteen long years. Do you know how much generic dog food I’ve eaten?
Reader 1: We don’t even want to imagine, Jed.
Reader 2: This is my plan. I’m going to buy new cardboard and rebuild this old place. I’m going to eat canned brand-name dog food and Spam. Do you know how long it’s been since I had fried Spam for breakfast?
Reader 1: You can’t be serious!
Reader 2: I know. I don’t want to spend it all in one place, but I’m going for broke. I’m movin’ up in this world. I’m getting plastic plates instead of paper plates. I’m going to the grocery store, turn in that old cart, and buy the best one they have. I know they don’t usually sell them, but if I wave a few hundred thousand in front of them, they’ll probably give me a couple of those huge, family-sized ones. Do you know how many recyclable cans I could cart around in those babies?
Reader 1: Jed
Reader 2: He was a millionaire who didn’t understand.
Reader 1: He just didn’t get it.
Reader 2: He couldn’t look beyond his slum life into his new life.
Reader 1: In the following days, he was swindled out of every dollar he inherited.
Reader 2: There may be millionaire-beggars in this church,
Reader 1: content with their spiritual condition in a guilt-ridden cardboard shack on a rundown alley in Legalville.
Reader 2: We have been given a rich inheritance:
Reader 1: unfathomable spiritual blessings.
Reader 2: We are eternally royal.
Reader 1: We are not the nephew of a millionaire,
Reader 2: we are sons and daughters of the King of it all.
Reader 1: Yet the spirit of Jed is still hanging around, plodding through life, pushing a squeaky grocery cart.
Reader 2: Give “thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.”
Reader 1: You have been qualified for the inheritance of God.
Reader 2: “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.”
Reader 1: So, grace recipients, let’s crawl out of our cardboard boxes of spiritual poverty.
Reader 2: Leave the dog food of the world on the shelf.
Both: We have been given eternal wealth and a chance to dine with Almighty God.
Based on Colossians 1:12-13
Wordspring Creative by Matt Tullos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.tullos.org.
Here’s a creative way to end a worship experience.
Leader: As we leave this place . . .
Congregation: Keep us mindful of the hungry, the downcast, and those in need.
Leader: As we leave this place . . .
Congregation: Teach us to seek those who are lost as You sought us.
Leader: As we leave this place . . .
Congregation: Protect our hearts when those around us reject the message.
Leader: As we leave this place . . .
Congregation: Strengthen our homes, our families, and our faith.
Leader: As we leave this place . . .
Congregation: Keep us ever mindful of Your coming, ever grateful of Your grace, ever thankful for Your blessings, ever seeking Your face.
Leader: As we leave this place . . .
Congregation: We pray, Lord, Emmanuel, You will always be with us.
Leader: Go ye, therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth.
Wordspring Creative by Matt Tullos is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.tullos.org.
When He cried out in the garden in the cool of the evening, He was worthy.
When He flung a rainbow across a waterlogged world, He was worthy.
When He whispered in the ear of an old, old man and said, “It’s a boy,” He was worthy.
When He walked with a young songwriter/shepherd and heard “surely goodness and mercy” for the first time ever, He was worthy.
When He spoke through mules and on walls and in furnaces, He was worthy.
And when He, through unequaled grace, stepped into flesh and became like us, He was worthy.
When He spit in mud to open eyes,
When He loosed the captives, When He turned over the tables in the temple,
When He calmed the torrent, When He stooped to reconcile,
When He fed the masses,
When He washed the calloused, When He touched the untouchables
When He (wonder of all wonders—this precious truth!) open-handedly stretched out His arms on an old Judean beam (could it be?) and bore the anger, sin, rebellion, pride, and idolatry of us all, He was worthy.
He was worthy when He breathed His last.
He was worthy when the Roman seal was plastered on that borrowed tomb.
He was worthy when no one believed anymore.
And when the grave could hold Him no more, When He felt the vibration of His own creation,
When the veil was shredded, and when the accuser was silenced, ransoming the souls of a multitude of millions in one weekend, HE WAS WORTHY! And when I look at who I am, and then realize who He is, I can’t help proclaiming,
“You are worthy. You are worthy. You are worthy.”
So now two words that should always unite us, and despite style, taste, or reason, should never divide us—
Let’s worship!
The following reading works well as a prayer to end a sermon or worship set on brokenness and repentance.
Father God, the one who pursued me…
I repent of my prayerlessness
My carelessness
My discouragement because of flesh
My pride when I need brokenness.
Too many times I have fallen back on my own devices
Seeking things, seeking answers, seeking acceptance
I cry out to circumstances
And the more I seek to do
The more a fall away from You.
I use words to manipulate
To compensate
To demonstrate my own righteousness
I trust my public spokeness
While You long for my private brokenness
Holy brokenness of pride
Where grace and mercy reside
Grace that pierced your hands and side.
Brokeness brings self-confidence to dust
That turns my doubting into trust.
Every hurt that I’ve been through
When I’ve wondered what to do
Brings me back to faith in you
I find in these days, in my fallen ways
That I’m so far away from what’s true
And now my cry is Lord bring me back to you.
Bring me back to my passion
A divine realization,
the days of pure joy in salvation
Bring me back to total trust in your grace
When all I seek is Your holy face.
My trust in self tends to misconstrue
So God bring me back to You.
Reader #1: I am a nation birthed from a yearning to breathe free. I am freedom’s shore. I came hundreds of years ago to find a haven where I could worship my God.
Reader #2: I found hunger, disease, and fear. I suffered torturous winters and sweltering summers, but the walls of a dictator no longer consumed me. I was free, and the freedom that I felt was worth the struggle. I died a thousand deaths to keep my freedom.
Reader #3: I was seized by ship, hunted like a wild animal across the barren beaches of my eastern coast. I was beaten, hanged, and buried, but not defeated. Never defeated . . .
Reader #4: I was brought here not by choice. I was shipped to this land by men who bought and sold me like cattle. A slave—I had no choice. I had no ownership, but my heart dreamed of a day when freedom would sing my name. I lived only for the promise of the fiery chariot that would take me to a land of true freedom. And now after centuries of struggle and destitution, I too am this nation. Once kidnapped by it, now a part of it.
Reader #5: I heard of the millions being slaughtered in gas chambers and concentration camps, and I ruthlessly sought to destroy the villains who would commit such atrocities. I am a hero. I had mercy upon those who had no mercy on me.
Reader #6: I have seen the scandal, humiliation, triumph, and assassination of my leaders. I have longed for freedom and yet have abused the very tools of its making. I have killed the innocent, murdered the wise, and ignored the poets of each generation. Still, in my heart is a hope that has never diminished, a hope that was rooted on my day of birth. I have pledged my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor on that hope that I will be free. Will I seek not only peace and freedom, but also the Author of peace and freedom? Only God can say, for it is He who must be sought, and if I do not seek Him, I will never know.
Reader #7: I am Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, and King. But I should never forget that I am also Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Manson, and Al Capone.
Reader #1: I will only rise if I am willing to fall.
Reader #2: To fall to my knees
Reader #3: and recognize the God that brought me here.
Reader #4: I am the best and the worst of man.
All: I am America.
Before there was anything there was a Name.
Before seas and land, before dust was formed into flesh
Before Babel’s broken tower, before the ark was set in place
Before there was anything
Before prophet, priest or king…
There was a Name.
No other name in history
could banish demons, calm the sea.
It echoes through eternity.
Chains are broken, souls set free
by His Great Name!
His Name birthed stars and pinned them in the sky.
His Name brought angels to Bethlehem
from the greatest and the least
To see the One True Name
And when we speak His Name all heavenly hosts revere.
It reaches past our weakness and our fragile, thin veneer.
It’s a Name above every name- spoken in each race and tongue.
There is power and blessing
Perfection and peace.
There’s understanding!
Even when we feel pain,
there’s healing, faith and redemption,
at the mention of His name.
And it doesn’t matter the size of your burden,
the scale of your mountain,
the weariness of your journey…
In that Name there is hope and joy and rest
In his Name we are blessed.
His Name is listening for the echo of worshipers.
In the midst of this earthly mess
His Name redeems.
The all-sufficient king
The warrior of righteousness
Over every living thing…
And no matter how deep the hurt,
or the chains you have bound you for years,
We are free! All those things that drive us insane
are stepping stones to holiness with the power of that Name.
What is that name that changes us?
Who is the fourth person in the furnace
The One who closed the mouths of lions
Who crushed the head of the accuser
And exiled demons from the weak.
And opened muted mouths to speak.
What is that Name?
What is the greatest name we’ll ever say?
Who remains victorious to this day?
Who is this one greater than the grave?
Who lived and died to save?
Who conquered death and walked away
With scars of crimson stain
The one who bears the mark
Jesus is His Great NAME!
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