January 28, 2018

We’re in week three of Genesis at Park Church. In this series, we discuss God’s foundational worldview for His people and their purpose in the world. Here’s how you can prepare for this week:

1. Read through our text, Genesis 1:29–2:17.

In our text this week, we read a second account of the creation of man in addition to several commands and charges given him. On the most fundamental level, we see the goodness of creation and the goodness of human work.

2. Read, pray and sing through the service:

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 145:1–3, 15–18

Praise To The Lord The Almighty (Joachim Neander, arr. Citizens)
Great Are You Lord (Jason Ingram, Leslie Jordan, David Leonard)

CONFESSION OF SIN: From God Honored in The Valley of Vision

O God, praise waiteth for Thee,
and to render it is my noblest exercise;
This is Thy due from all Thy creatures,
for all Thy works display Thy attributes
and fulfill Thy designs;
The sea, dry land, winter cold, summer heat,
morning light, evening shade are full of Thee,
and Thou givest me them richly to enjoy.

Thou art King of kings and Lord of lords;
At Thy pleasure empires rise and fall;
All Thy works praise Thee and Thy saints bless thee;
Let me be numbered with Thy holy ones,
resemble them in character and condition,
sit with them at Jesus’ feet.

Deliver me from the natural darkness of my own mind,
from the corruptions of my heart,
from the temptations to which I am exposed,
from the daily snares that attend me.

Until the day of life dawns above
let there be unrestrained fellowship with Jesus;
Until fruition comes, may I enjoy the earnest of my inheritance
and the firstfruits of the Spirit;
Until I finish my course with joy may I pursue it with diligence,
in every part display the resources of the Christian,
and adorn the doctrine of Thee my God in all things.

His Mercy Is More (Matt Boswell, Matt Papa)

What A Beautiful Name (Ben Fielding, Brooke Ligertwood)

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: John 1:12–13

GREETING, SERMON, & COMMUNION
RESPONSE: Song & Prayer

O Come To The Altar (Brock, Brown, Furtick, and Joye)
Be Thou My Vision (Mary Elizabeth Byrne, Eleanor Henrietta Hull, arr. Bazan, Ascend The Hill)

BENEDICTION

in Preparing for Sunday

January 21, 2018

This is week two of Genesis at Park Church. If you didn’t read last week’s Preparing for Sunday post that explained a little more about why we chose Genesis to take us through May, you can find that here. As for this week, here’s how you can prepare for worship:

1. Read through our text, Genesis 1:26–28.

God made mankind in His image and gave them dominion over all the earth, commanding them to be fruitful, fill the earth, and subdue it. As mankind continued on after choosing to disobey God in the garden (and again and again thereafter), we’ve always had confusion about purpose. The “Great Mission” in verse 28 is God’s declaration of His purpose for mankind on the earth; a means to His glory.

2. Read, pray and sing through the service:

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 8

How Great Thou Art (Stuart K. Hine)
This Is My Father’s World (Maltbie Davenport Babcock arr. Gungor)

CONFESSION OF SIN: From The Worship Sourcebook

Merciful God,
You made us in Your image,
with a mind to know You,
a heart to love You,
and a will to serve You.
But our knowledge is imperfect,
our love inconstant,
our obedience incomplete.
Day by day, we fail to grow into Your likeness.
In Your tender love, forgive us
through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.

Here’s My Heart (Louie Giglio, Chris Tomlin)

Man Of Sorrows (Matt Crocker, Brooke Ligertwood)

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: 1 Peter 2:24–25

GREETING, SERMON, & COMMUNION
RESPONSE: Song & Prayer

Fairest Lord Jesus (August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Joseph August Seiss)
Great Are You Lord (Jason Ingram, Leslie Jordan, David Leonard)

BENEDICTION

in Preparing for Sunday

January 14, 2018

We’re excited to begin a new series this Sunday on the book of Genesis. Genesis is written to lay a foundational worldview for the people of God and to reveal His purposes in the world. Where did we come from? Why do we exist? How do we interact with each other? How do we engage in the world? Where did beauty come from? Why is there so much brokenness? Where can we find hope? What’s our role in the world? These are some of the foundational questions that Genesis answers. We hope our time in this book will lead us to know God and engage in this world with wisdom, faithfulness and hope.

Here’s how you can prepare for this first week:

1. Read through our text, Genesis 1.

Our series is split into two narrative “movements,” with Part I beginning in a predictable place: “In the beginning…” As we reflect on the formation of our world and our bodies, we see God’s authority and glory depicted in a most foundational way.

2. Read, pray and sing through the service:

CALL TO WORSHIP: John 1:1–5

Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee (Ludwig van Beethoven, Henry Van Dyke, Edward Hodges)
Our Great God (Fernando Ortega, Mac Powell)

CONFESSION OF SIN: From Prone to Wander by Barbara R. Duguid and Wayne Duguid Houk

You are the great Creator, who has made all things from nothing. In the beginning You made man in Your image and declared all Your handiwork to be good. You took pleasure in Your creation, crowning it with the light of Your presence as You walked with Adam in the garden each day. But Adam fell, exchanging the glorious light of Your love for the darkness of sin and rebellion; each one of us sinned in Adam, and we continue to sin. We are lovers of darkness as we hide ourselves from You in guilt and despair. We thank You that our sin and darkness can never overwhelm the shining brightness of Your glory. Though we still are drawn to walk in darkness many times each day, You sent your Son into this world to shine the radiant light of Your love on vile sinners like us.

Thank You, Lord. Jesus, all things were made through You. You are worthy of the worship of angels, yet You laid aside your crown and took on our flesh in order to destroy our darkness. Born as a helpless babe, You are the Messiah who came to redeem us from the fall and reconcile us to God. Though You were the Light of the World, You were slain by darkness in order to satisfy the wrath of Your Father as You paid for the sin of Your people. Then bursting forth from the darkness of death, You rose again into the glorious light of day and victoriously carried our human flesh and blood into the courts of heaven. There in heaven, those You have redeemed will worship You forever as Savior and King.

Holy Spirit, draw our hearts from darkness to light. Show us the glory of our Redeemer and cause us to revel in His love and bask in the warmth and joy of His great pleasure in us. Cause us to hate the darkness of our sin and flee to the brightness of His love, which welcomes us as treasured family members and carries us as honored guests to the table of celebration. We come in His holy name, amen.

The Stand (Joel Houston)

O Praise The Name (Anástasis) (Benjamin Hastings, Marty Sampson, Dean Ussher)

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: John 1:12–13

GREETING, SERMON, & COMMUNION
RESPONSE: Song & Prayer

What A Beautiful Name (Ben Fielding, Brooke Ligertwood)
All Creatures Of Our God And King (William Henry Draper, St. Francis of Assisi)

BENEDICTION

in Preparing for Sunday

Bread & Wine 2017 Recap

An evening to taste and see the glory of God through His good creation.

Where the person of God is enjoyed through wine, food, and conversation. On Tuesday, December 5, Park Church hosted its fifth annual Bread & Wine event at Moss Denver. Each year, we create a space where the eyes of our hearts are opened to the beauty of our Creator. How do we do that? By turning our attention to a specific element that God has gifted us for our enjoyment, to be used as a unique way to illuminate how we can relate to God. This year the focus was music. Music is a marvelous conductor that uses the “instruments” of melody, notes, and sounds to create a symphony that our hearts are drawn to, pointing to the ultimate Musician, God Himself. Bach said, “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.” We see the centrality of music in the life of God’s people throughout history. After crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites sang with joyful hearts to give thanks—a jubilant cheer of crying out to God for what He had done. We find trumpeters and musicians joining in song to praise God (2 Ch. 5:13), and a call from Paul to sing and make music from our hearts (Ep. 5:19). This night recognized the importance of music as an instrument for us all to create and creatively respond to our Father. So what happened at Bread & Wine? The event started off with a hang-out time where people came in, poured their wine, and enjoyed appetizers and socializing while Bruce Butler played a live instrumental set. Across the beautiful setting of Moss Denver, we had Jennie Pitts display her artworks that added to the splendor of the atmosphere. Jennie was introduced and spoke a bit about her artwork and her inspiration behind them. Following this, we had Nicole Langford perform a musical piece on the viola. The piece was introduced with poetry that reflected how the artist experienced the beauty of the composition. Lights were turned off to enhance the focus of listening. This moved into a discussion time, where people were encouraged to ask various questions to each other about what they experienced, including other questions about the way we engage with music. As the conversations dwindled down, we proceeded into a Q&A panel with Nicole and Matthew Langford, Joel Limpic, and Bruce Butler. They were asked asked about being musical artists, why music matters, how faith impacts our ability to create and listen to music, should there be specific music we do or don’t listen to, etc. Together, led by Mark Wilkins, many joined in worship to close out the night with “This Is My Father’s World”, “Great Are You Lord”, and the “Doxology”. Praise God from whom all blessings flow indeed! May we be a people who respond to His gifts with fire in our hearts to listen, enjoy, and sing to our creative Triune God who sings over us. Credits: Blog, video & photography created by Jacques Gerber, our arts intern at Park Church.
in Blog • Bread & Wine • Music and Liturgy

January 7, 2018

At Park Church this week, we celebrate Epiphany with a one-off sermon entitled Follow Jesus. Learn more about Epiphany and find corresponding resources for personal worship at The Christian Year. Here’s how you can prepare for this weekend!

1. Read through our text, Matthew 9:35–39.

In our text this week, Jesus goes throughout all the “cities and villages” of His region to teach, heal, and proclaim the Gospel. He encourages His disciples that the world is ready for the Gospel, but needs messengers of the Gospel sent to it. In the same way, He now goes throughout all the world, encouraging our request-prayers for “laborers” to persist.

Epiphany celebrates the fact that the Light has gone out into all the world. Let this be especially “real” and striking to we who are on the other side of the world from where Jesus first spoke these things!

2. Read, pray and sing through the service:

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 23

House Of God Forever (Jon Foreman)
How Marvelous (I Stand Amazed) (Charles H. Gabriel)

CONFESSION OF SIN: Isaiah 53:4–6

Come Ye Sinners (Joseph Hart, arr. Robbie Seay)

All The Poor And Powerless (David Leonard, Leslie Jordan)

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: John 9:10–11

GREETING, SERMON, & COMMUNION
RESPONSE: Song & Prayer

O Christ Our True And Only Light (Johann Heermann, James Lepine, Joel Limpic)
Hallelujah, What A Savior (Bliss, Carter, Ivey, Suh arr. Austin Stone)

BENEDICTION

in Preparing for Sunday

December 31, 2017

This is the last week of Your Kingdom Come: Gospel Promises from Isaiah, observing Christmastide. During Christmastide, we take time to savor and celebrate the incarnation of Christ. You can learn more about the season and find additional music, visual artwork, and prayers for Christmastide at The Christian Year.

1. Read through our text, Isaiah 54:1–17.

Isaiah 54 marks the reversal of everything after the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 arrives. God is reversing things for His people, making them into a fruitful people who reflect His glory.

2. Read, pray and sing through the service:

CALL TO WORSHIP: Luke 1:49–55

Joy To The World (Isaac Watts)
He Who Is Mighty (Katie DeGraide, Rebecca Elliot)

CONFESSION OF SIN: Isaiah 64:6–9

All The Poor And Powerless (David Leonard, Leslie Jordan)

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: Issiah 54:10

Here Is Love (Edwards, Limpic, Raab, Rees)

THE WORD MADE FLESH (Ligonier):

We confess the mystery and wonder of God made flesh
and rejoice in our great salvation
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

With the Father and the Holy Spirit,
the Son created all things,
sustains all things,
and makes all things new.
Truly God,
He became truly man,
two natures in one person.

He was born of the Virgin Mary
and lived among us.
Crucified, dead, and buried,
He rose on the third day,
ascended to heaven,
and will come again
in glory and judgment.

For us,
He kept the Law,
atoned for sin,
and satisfied God’s wrath.
He took our filthy rags
and gave us His righteous robe.

He is our Prophet, Priest, and King,
building His church,
interceding for us,
and reigning over all things.

Jesus Christ is Lord;
we praise His holy Name forever.
Amen.

GREETING, SERMON, & COMMUNION
RESPONSE: Song & Prayer

Throughout Every Season (God With Us) (Joel Limpic, JD Raab)
Hallelujah, What A Savior (Bliss, Carter, Ivey, Suh arr. Austin Stone)

BENEDICTION

in Preparing for Sunday

Advent Prayer Guide, Week Three

We come to our third and final Wednesday in the season of Advent as we pray through The Lord’s Prayer found in Matthew 6:9-13:

Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Two weeks ago we looked at God as being our Father only because of the work of Jesus in our place. We also prayed that His name would be hallowed and set apart in our hearts as our greatest treasure. Last week we prayed that His kingdom would come and will would be done in Denver as it is in heaven. Before we move into final petitions found in this prayer, let’s remind ourselves who it is we pray to! We pray to our Father who’s made us His own. He’s the King of the universe and can do anything—nothing is too great for Him! Take a moment to praise Him for His power, love, and kindness to save and adopt you into His family. Song Ideas: All I Have Is Christ, Be Lifted Up Today we’ll be looking at the final three petitions in this prayer. In his book “Eat This Book,” Eugene Peterson commented:

The Prayer has six petitions: the first three pray for the furtherance of God and His work—His holiness, His will, His kingdom; the matching triad is oriented around human needs—food, forgiveness, deliverance. The pair of triads is connected by the phrase, “on earth as it is in heaven,” which is to say that prayer has its source in heaven, the home country, so to speak, of God, but the action takes place on earth—our home country. Prayer that is not firmly grounded “on earth” is not prayer as our Lord taught us to pray.

We are going to look at each petition and then in turn take time to pray through it, closing our time in prayer.

Petition #4: Give us this day our daily bread

As our Creator and our Father, we are instructed to ask God to provide for us our daily bread. Up to this point, every request has been God-centered (note the use of the word “your” in all the prior petitions) and now we become honest about our own needs. We can often fall in an “either/or” ditch in prayer: we can either only focus on praising God and asking nothing from Him because we feel guilty about that. We tell ourselves, “He already knows what I need before I ask, so I won’t ask.” There’s a ditch on the other side which treats God like a cosmic vending machine. We only come to Him when we want something. He becomes our Genie in a bottle instead of our heavenly Father. Jesus rejects this false dichotomy by teaching us to adore and ask; to praise and petition. In this petition we learn that He knows He’s made us with real human needs and we are to come to Him in our need to ask Him to provide for our basic needs.

Where do you need God to provide today? Physically? Spiritually? Emotionally? Are there others we need to pray for?

Petition #5: Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors

Jesus reminds us here that part of our relationship with God as Christians will continue to be coming before Him in confession and repentance. Confession isn’t a “one and done” act when you initially come to faith. Rather, it is to be an intimate and repeated practice of being honest before God about all the ways you wander from Him (both things you’ve done and things you’ve left undone). The aim of this prayer for forgiveness is not to seek the judicial forgiveness which you already received from God when you first came to Him in faith, but rather relational forgiveness. What is at stake in this prayer is not union with God, but rather communion with Him. The amazing thing is that we’re promised in 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Not only are we to ask for forgiveness from God, but we are to image and imitate Him in how we forgive others! Unforgiveness and Christianity are incompatible because forgiveness lies at the heart of our relationship with God and must manifest itself in our relationship with others too.

Where do you need to ask God forgiveness today? Be specific. Where do you need to forgive others today?

Petition #6: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

It’s so easy to forget this powerful reality: there is a war happening right now as we speak. It’s a spiritual war where there is real good and real evil at work all around us! The Bible likens Satan to a prowling lion (1 Peter 5:8), a schemer (Ephesians 6:10), who is both a murderer and a father of lies (John 8:44). His aim is tempt us and ultimately destroy us. Jesus teaches us to call out to our Father of lights to protect us from this father of lies. We are to ask Him to take every situation in our lives, both pleasant or unpleasant, and use it for His glory! Satan wants to take that exact situation and use it to tempt us to forget God or even curse Him. God wants to use it to shape us to love Him more and look more like Him.

Where do you most naturally find yourself tempted by Satan? Which are the top three areas you are most prone to wander in? Where are you currently being tempted? Where do you need deliverance? What about those around you? Take the next few minutes to cry out for deliverance both for yourself and others.

Resources

“Look At The Book: Part 2: Deliver Us From Evil” (John Piper)
“The Lord And His Prayer” (NT Wright)
in Blog • Joel Limpic