Let’s talk about this amazing sermon series graphic, created by our friend Bruce Butler [check out his work at @wearewisebison]. We are posting this explanation with his permission. The Psalms are often called “The Songbook of God’s People.” Written over the span of 900 years, most of them around the time of King David, the Psalms are the world’s most famous collection of sacred songs, hymns, and poems. But instead of the rhyme and meter of modern poetry, Hebrew poetry was characterized by symmetry, contrast, and parallelism. The mirror image of a chiastic structure is subtly represented in the...
Resources for Worship Seek Culture’s Shalom – Worship and Formation Resources
I Pledge Allegiance – Worship + Formation Resources
Text: Job 1:8-22 | Listen to Message When we undergo trials, hardships, or painful periods of waiting, we instinctively ask God “why?” “Why did this happen? Why is this taking so long? Why me?” Why, why, WHY?! It’s a question, but it’s also a demand for information. For an explanation. We want to know the reason for our suffering – something, anything, that’ll convince us our suffering isn’t pointless. Some of the most famous suffering in human history happened to a man named Job. The Bible takes 42 excruciating chapters to tell his story. It all begins when he loses his...
Text: Matthew 6:25-34 | Listen to Message As the Coronavirus infection spreads exponentially, unemployment skyrockets, markets plummet, and the pandemic-driven quarantine drags on, many people are understandably anxious. So Jesus’ words about worry in The Sermon on the Mount are as relevant today as the day they were first spoken. Jesus reminds us, though anxious thoughts and emotions may arise – even several times a day – we are not hapless or helpless victims. We don’t have to give in to either worry itself or fear mongering. We can fight back and find inner peace. We’ll unpack this path to victory...
Worry + Worship amidst COVID-19 — Worship & Formation Resources
Text: Mark 4:35-41 | Listen to Message If you’re like most of us, you’re dealing with heightened levels of anxiety, stress, and fear because a deadly, invisible Coronavirus has reached pandemic levels around the world. Some of us remain hopeful that this goes away as quickly as it came on – through some combination of social distancing, herd immunity, a vaccine, etc. But as I write these words, it’s 100% guaranteed to get worse – probably far worse – before it gets better. And it’s 100% guaranteed to leave many layers of devastation and death in its wake. So anxiety, stress,...
Text: Genesis 3; Amos 5:24 | Listen to Message The notion that God would punish literally every sin – including ours – is repulsive to modern culture. Truth be told, we don’t want a righteous and just God; we want a God who’s nice. [Nevermind the fact that a God who is unjust is not actually good, kind, or nice to the victims of injustice.] But we can count on this: God, by definition, is only and always just. Just: God always responds rightly to both good and evil because he himself is righteous. Key Verses: Genesis 3; Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm...
Text: Genesis 2:3; Isaiah 6:1-5 | Listen to Message Our culture doesn’t think much about holiness – and they don’t think much of it, either. Holiness is associated with someone who’s “holier than thou.” It means religious piety. It means a lengthy list of rules and the No Fun Zone. Few are striving for personal holiness; perhaps fewer still are truly in awe of God’s holiness. Yet holiness is part of what makes God God. And without holiness, God would be neither worthy nor trustworthy. Holy: God is infinitely pure in all his perfections and works, wholly set apart from everything...
Text: Genesis 2:7; Habakkuk 2:18-20 | Listen to Message It’s one of the most obvious facts about God, but also one of the most underappreciated: he’s alive! We serve a living, personal God, and yet we often act as if he’s little more than a dead hero who wrote a book of rules we’re supposed to follow. God isn’t an abstract sovereign, impersonal force, cosmic force, universal energy, or simply the figment of someone’s overactive imagination. Living: God is a living, personal, relational, triune Being. Key Verses: Genesis 2:7; Job 12:10; Psalm 42:1-2; Jeremiah 10:1-10; Habakkuk 2:18-20; Matthew 16:13-18; John 11:25;...
