I Will Enter His Gates

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! Psalm 100:4

I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart.
I will enter His courts with praise.
I will say this is the day that the Lord has made.
I will rejoice for He has made me glad.
He has made me glad; He has made me glad.
I will rejoice for He has made me glad.
He has made me glad; He has made me glad.
I will rejoice for He has made me glad.

This Is the Day

This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

This is the day, this is the day, that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.
We will rejoice, we will rejoice, and be glad in it, and be glad in it.
This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day, that the Lord has made.

Blessed Be the Name

Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore! Psalm 113:2

Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord!
Blessed be the name, blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord!
Glory to the name, glory to the name, glory to the name of the Lord!
Glory to the name, glory to the name, glory to the name of the Lord!

Behold What Manner of Love

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God...1 John 3:1

Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us.
Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us.
That we should be called the sons of God.
That we should be called the sons of God.

Worship: Offering Sacrifices to God

Many Christians set a goal of reading through the Bible each year. If you or someone in your family has done that, then you may know that it’s not at all hard to get started. The book of Genesis is full of exciting stories that tell of God’s wondrous acts: creation, the flood, the call of Abraham, and Joseph’s exciting life. Exodus follows with baby Moses in the basket, the ten plagues, and crossing the Red Sea. But then you get to Leviticus, and the reading gets difficult. In Leviticus, God gave His people detailed instructions on how they were to offer sacrifices when they came to worship Him. We can be thankful that Jesus fulfilled and ended those requirements, but we can still learn a lot about worship from the Old Testament system of sacrifices.

·       First, the Old Testament sacrifices remind God’s people that sin is a serious problem that keeps us from knowing God the way we were meant to know Him. Even if we don’t feel guilty or if we don’t break God’s law on purpose, our sin still separates us from God. (Genesis 3, Leviticus 5:7). Old Testament sacrifices were made daily as a dramatic picture of the ongoing and serious problem of sin.

·       Next, we learn that sin must be paid for. (We call this payment atonement.) Under the Old Testament system, the animal being sacrificed served as a substitute for the person bringing the sacrifice. The animal’s death was accepted in place of the worshiper. In that way, the worshiper’s sin was covered (for that day, anyway), and he was permitted to come before God.

·       Third, we learn that sacrifice is costly. Only the very best animals and first and finest produce could be offered as sacrifices (Leviticus 22:17-22). The prophets taught that God was not pleased with people who tried to get away with giving God what was useless or left-over (Malachi 1:6-15).

·       Finally, we learn that sacrifice was never just a matter of following a set of instructions. God always wanted his worshipers to come with the right attitude:  sorry for their sin (Psalm 51:17), grateful for God’s deliverance (Psalm 54:6-7), and committed to obeying God (1 Samuel 15:22).

God established the Old Testament sacrifices, but those sacrifices in themselves were never enough to completely deal with sin. They had to be offered over and over again. It was never possible for animal sacrifice to settle once and for all the payment for human sin. In God’s plan, those animal sacrifices pointed ahead to the perfect sacrifice—the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross (Hebrews 10:1-4). Jesus is the perfect substitute and sacrifice who takes away our sin completely and forever.

We can approach God in worship through the sacrifice of Jesus, but that doesn’t mean that we no longer offer sacrifices of our own. The New Testament teaches that when we come to God in worship, we offer spiritual sacrifices (1 Peter 2:4-5). We’ll look at three ways the New Testament Church is taught to offer sacrifices.

·       Read Romans 12:1-2. Paul reminds us that God showed great mercy in forgiving us and making us able to love and serve Him. Therefore, we should offer the sacrifice of our bodies—meaning our whole selves—fully and completely to Him. We should live every minute of every day in grateful obedience to God. This includes faithfully attending and participating in our church’s worship services.

·       Read Hebrews 13:15-16. The writer of Hebrews talks about the “sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.” With our voices we can thank God and tell others of His goodness. When we gather for worship with God’s people, the songs, prayers, and confessions declare who God is and what He has done for us. When we join our voices willingly and joyfully with God’s people, we offer the sacrifice of praise.

·       Read Philippians 4:14-20. In his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul includes a note of thanks for the gift of money he received from them. But he goes on to teach that their gifts were a “sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” When we share our money and material goods to help other believers in times of need and to support the work of the church and missionaries, we offer sacrifices to God, and He is pleased.

Jesus’s atoning sacrifice allows us to come before God in worship with confidence and joy. We do not have to be afraid of God’s anger and the judgment that our sins deserve. But that doesn’t mean we can come carelessly. We must remember the great price that Jesus paid, so we must come with gratitude and reverence. Our love for God makes us want to offer up to Him all that we are, all that we do, and all that we have as sacrifices that are pleasing to Him.

Hymn of Praise: “Lamb of God”

The writer of today’s contemporary hymn comes from a ministry family: her great-grandparents were traveling preachers, her grandfather was a church planter, her grandmother wrote Christian songs, and her father was a pastor and church musician.  Twila Paris has continued the family tradition, writing hymns and songs that are included in many hymnals today.

The title of today’s hymn reminds us of the words of John the Baptist who said that Jesus was “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” The people who heard John would have thought of the Passover celebration when Jews sacrificed a lamb and shared a special meal in remembrance of how God spared them from the tenth plague in Egypt and delivered them from slavery.  Of course we know that the Passover didn’t only look back to God’s work in Old Testament times; it also looked ahead to Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross.   The words of this hymn point out many contrasts in Jesus life: He had no sin, yet He walked this guilty sod; He was a gift of love, yet He was crucified and scorned; He was a King, yet He was called a fraud. In becoming that capital-L Lamb, He became our Good Shepherd who gave Himself for us, his small-l lambs.

“Lamb of God”

1 Your only Son no sin to hide
But You have sent Him from Your side
To walk upon this guilty sod
And to become the Lamb of God

Chorus: Oh Lamb of God, Sweet lamb of God
I love the Holy Lamb of God
Oh wash me in His precious Blood
My Jesus Christ the Lamb of God

2 Your gift of love they crucified
They laughed and scorned Him as he died
The humble King they named a fraud
And sacrificed the Lamb of God

3 I was so lost I should have died
But You have brought me to Your side
To be led by Your staff and rod
And to be called a lamb of God

When we sing this hymn, we offer up a sacrifice of praise to our Lord for His great sacrifice by which we are ransomed “with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” 1 Peter 1:19

Activity: Jesus, the Perfect Sacrifice, takes away our sin.

John the Baptist called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We call this act of taking sin away the Atonement. The Atonement can be difficult to understand, but today’s object lesson might help. (Parents, you should try this ahead of time to make sure you can get it to work. Here’s a demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjPvFddVVyE&feature=emb_imp_woyt)

Here’s what you will need:

Smooth glass plate

A glass or mason jar

Colored water

Coin (I used a penny)

Votive candle

Matches or lighter

What you do:

Hold the penny (coin) up and tell the children that since there is a picture of a person on the coin, this person will represent all of us. Place the coin on the plate, over to the side.

Next, slowly pour the colored water onto the plate, tell them that this colored water represents our sin. Explain that the Bible tells us that we all have sinned. (Quote Romans 3:23). Go on about how there is not a single person that has not sinned, except for Jesus. Make sure the penny (coin) is completely covered with water before you stop.

Take the candle and tell them that this is going to represent Jesus. The Bible tells us that Jesus is the light of the world in John 8:12. Light the candle and place it on the center of the plate.

Place the glass or jar over the candle and explain that when Jesus died and was buried, he bore our sins in his body so that we could be forgiven as we’re told in 1 Peter 2:24.  The water should start moving into the glass. When the candle goes out (representing Jesus’ death), the rest of the water will immediately be sucked up into the glass. Pick the penny up to show that it is no longer covered in sin, and neither are we when we trust Jesus as our Savior.

How it Works:

The flame consumes all the oxygen in the glass, extinguishing the candle, and creating a vacuum which in turn draws the water up inside the glass, leaving the coin dry.