03-24-2013 Sunday Evening Bulletin.pub

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The Lord’s Day Evening

Musical Offering .................. I Belong to Jesus ............................. M. Fraser

March 24, 2013 Six O’clock

I belong to Jesus, I am not my own; all I have and all I am shall be his alone. I belong to Jesus, he is Lord and King, reigning in my inmost heart over ev’rything. I belong to Jesus, blessed, blessed thought! With his own most precious blood has my soul been bought. I belong to Jesus, he has died for me; I am his and he is mine through eternity.

Welcome and Announcements

K4 Choir

Prelude

For many [the] story of God calling Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice seems pointless, indiscernible, and cruel. Yet God did not ask Abraham to do anything that he himself would not do. In fact, the command to Abraham was always intended to foreshadow what God would do centuries later on the cross of Calvary. The true Father would one day walk his beloved only Son up that same hill on which the Son would be sacrificed. But this time the Father’s hand was not stayed.

Songbook 35................................................. How Deep the Father’s Love

My friends, do you want to know how you can know that you are loved by God? It is not by looking at your circumstances. You must come to this mountain and look up at this cross. You must see that God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up” for you (Romans 8:32). Only then can you say, “Now I know. Now I know that I am truly loved, because you have marked me as your own, you have kept your promises to me, you have sacrificed your only Son for me.” (Nancy Guthrie)

Sermon ........................... A Gospel Dress Rehearsal ...................... Ben Griffith

Musical Offering .................................. Traditional Spiritual (arr. Ingram) Were You There?

Postlude

Youth Handbells

Corporate Call to Worship .................................................... John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Choral Call to Worship ...................................... Puerto Rican Folk Hymn Oh, How Good is Christ the Lord K5-1st grades

Invocation *Hymn 44 ............................................................. How Great Thou Art

(Children will be dismissed during the last verse.)

Prayer of Illumination Scripture Reading........................................................ Genesis 22:1-22

*Hymn 701 ...................................... Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It Benediction

*Please stand if you are able.

************************** But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." (Genesis 22:11-12) Notice that the mountain did not become a monument to Abraham’s obedience but to God’s provision. What Abraham was willing to do was a dramatic demonstration of his loving obedience to God, yet this story is not recorded for us primarily to inspire us toward sacrificial acts of obedience to God. It is here to paint in vivid colors the sacrifice OF God - what God was willing to sacrifice to demonstrate his love for us. The point of the story is not to convince or convict you that you must be willing to sacrifice for God what is most precious to you. It is that God was willing to sacrifice for you what was most precious to him. (Nancy Guthrie)

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis - "Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." (chapter 8)

March 24, 2013 6:00 p.m. Presbyterian Church in America Hattiesburg, Mississippi