Guide for Home Worship
November 29, 2020
Please note: the sermon will not be available until after the 9:00 am worship service at The Quechee Church.
Printable Worship Guide
Welcome
Thank you so much for joining us! The following page will take you through the order of worship for this Sunday. To access the recorded songs and sermon, use the embedded audio players in each section.
If you are new, welcome! We also want to invite you to learn more about us. You can do so by selecting the button below.
A few tips for parents:
- Plan for your time – read through the guide and prepare the room where you are gathering
- Make your time joyful – have fun!!!
- Remember, it’s primarily about a relationship, not a task to scratch off
- Have your kids participate in age and maturity appropriate ways – reading, singing, etc.
- You are welcome to print out our Children’s Worship Bulletin here.
Time of Reflection
“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”
~G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News
“Or if you are a true believer, and he still puts thorns in your bed, it is only to keep you from falling into the somnolence of complacency and to ensure that you ‘continue in his goodness’ by letting your sense of need bring you back constantly in self-abasement and faith to seek his face. This kindly discipline, in which God’s severity touches us for a moment in the context of his goodness, is meant to keep us from having to bear the full brunt of that severity apart from that context. It is a discipline of love, and it must be received accordingly. ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline’ (Heb 12:5). ‘It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees’ (Ps 119:71).”
~J.I. Packer, Knowing God
“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything – God and our friends and ourselves included – as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”
~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“God is the highest good of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean. . . . Why should we labor for, or set our hearts on anything else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness?”
~Jonathan Edwards, The Christian Pilgrim
Opening Prayer
(select someone from your group to open your service in prayer)
Call to Worship
Isaiah 62:10-12
LEADER: Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people;
CONGREGATION: Build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples.
LEADER: Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth:
CONGREGATION: Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your salvation comes;
LEADER: Behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.”
CONGREGATION: And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.
Songs and Liturgy
(sing as a group and/or sing along to recorded versions)
COME, THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING
(Robert Robinson & Asahel Nettleton, 1757)
Come, Thou Fount of ev’ry blessing,
Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
Here I raise mine “Ebenezer”;
Hither by Thy help I come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure;
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wand’ring heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above.
Oh that day when freed from sinning
I shall see Thy lovely face
Full arrayed in blood-washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry
Bring Thy promises to pass
For I know Thy pow’r will keep me
Till I’m home with Thee at last.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
Responsive Reading
2 Peter 3:9-13 (ESV)
LEADER: The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
CONGREGATION: But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
LEADER: Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
CONGREGATION: But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Advent Reading
(If you would like to follow along with the Advent Readings – with or without candles – you can do so by reading the Advent Explanation and this week’s Advent Readings below. You may find an Advent wreath diagram here.)
A Word of Explanation:
For many centuries Christians have used the Advent Wreath to remember and celebrate the coming of Christ. The word advent simply means “coming” or “arrival”. With the Advent Wreath, we celebrate not only the birth of Christ 2000 years ago, but also our rebirth in Him through faith. And we look forward with anxious anticipation toward his Second Advent for us.
Week 1 Readings:
Isaiah 59:19-20
From the west, men will fear the name of the LORD, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the LORD drives along.
“The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” declares the LORD.
Isaiah 60:1-3
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Candle Instructions (optional)
As you light the first purple candle, say “This candle reminds us that we have hope because of the promise of the coming Redeemer. God is our hope.”
Prayer Time
(You may have an open time of prayer or select someone to pray)
- Pray for our nation – that the good news of Jesus Christ would draw people to know God genuinely and personally.
- Pray for those suffering from the ongoing spread of the coronavirus.
- Pray for those experiencing racial injustices; specifically, that God would bring hope, reconciliation, and restoration through the good news of His Son.
- Pray for those in authority at every level in our country, that they would govern wisely and justly.
Listen to Sermon
“The Goodness and Severity of God”
preached by Pastor Ryan Bouton
Download Audio
Exodus 34:5-7, 2 Samuel 6:1-15, Romans 11:22 (ESV)
Exodus 34
5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
2 Samuel 6
1 David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. 2 And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baale-judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who sits enthroned on the cherubim. 3 And they carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart, 4 with the ark of God, and Ahio went before the ark.
5 And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. 6 And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. 7 And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God. 8 And David was angry because the Lord had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez-uzzah to this day. 9 And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and he said, “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” 10 So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. 11 And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household.
12 And it was told King David, “The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.” So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David with rejoicing. 13 And when those who bore the ark of the Lord had gone six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fattened animal. 14 And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.
Romans 11
22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
Confession of Faith
adapted from Romans 5 and Romans 8
LEADER: What do you say about your sin?
CONGREGATION: Something exceedingly awful! I am ungodly and in need of divine forgiveness. Because of my sin, I stand under the just and eternal judgment of God.
LEADER: Is it not harsh and unreasonable for God to demand such a punishment?
CONGREGATION: By no means, for God, being the Creator of all things, has a right to rule His creatures and, being perfectly righteous, is the only one who could properly make such a judgment.
LEADER: What, then, do you say about your Savior?
CONGREGATION: Something amazing! At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
LEADER: What then shall we say in response to this?
CONGREGATION: If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things.
Sharing Time
(have everyone share one thing that struck them from the sermon)
Song of Reflection
HIS MERCY IS MORE
(Matt Papa, Matt Boswell)
What love could remember no wrongs we have done?
Omniscient, all knowing, he counts not their sum.
Thrown into a sea without bottom or shore.
Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more.
What patience would wait as we constantly roam?
What father, so tender, is calling us home?
He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor.
Our sins they are many, his mercy is more.
CHORUS:
Praise the Lord,
His mercy is more.
Stronger than darkness, new every morn.
Our sins they are many, his mercy is more.
What riches of kindness he lavished on us.
His blood was the payment, his life was the cost.
We stood ‘neath a debt we could never afford.
Our sins, they are many, his mercy is more.
(CHORUS)
©2016 Messenger Hymns (Admin. by Music Services, Inc.) CCLI #1791178
Benediction
(The leader or individual should read this aloud relishing in the confident assertion that Christ has conquered.)
Luke 12:29-32
LEADER: Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
PEOPLE: Amen!
Worshipping God through Giving
God has called us to be generous. He has entrusted this earth and all that is in it to us, but it is, ultimately, His! The Father gave what was most precious to Him, His own Son, in order to die for our sins. He has given to us abundantly beyond all that we could possibly ask or imagine! He is a benevolent and generous Giver! So, we give.
First, we want to remind you to continue your regular giving to TQC. This supports the ongoing work and ministry here in the Upper Valley and around the world through our missions support. Second, please consider giving to our Benevolence Fund, which supports local community care, both inside and outside the church. This is vitally important right now! As we see needs sprouting up around the community, we want to be positioned to extend a loving hand of support to those in need.
Giving Numbers
Budgeted Giving YTD: $84,000
Actual Giving to Date: $62,775
Difference: (-$21,225)
updated as of 10/31