Sermon Cloud

A Vision for the Order of Service at Kaleo El Cajon

Order of service:

Greeting and Call to corporate worship

2 Songs (Standing)

Prayer

1 Song (sitting)

Scripture reading

Preaching of the Word

Communion

Offering

2 Songs (Standing)

Benediction

Greeting/Call to worship

The greeting comes and meets us where we are as a family.  The greeting acknowledges that we know each other, that we have something in common, and that we who were once far off have now been brought near by the blood of Christ.  However, while the greeting meets us where we are, the call to worship is a call to take our eyes off of ourselves and place them upon our God.  One of the most important things to remember as we come to worship God is that we do not come with full hands wanting to share with God our time and talents.  Instead, we come to God with empty hands begging him to fill us; to fill us not with things, but with himself.  We come to him like David did in Psalms 63 where he says, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”  And when we come to God in this way we find what David found, that God’s steadfast love is better than life (Ps. 63:3).  We come together on Saturday nights to experience and declare that our God is better than life.  We come together to worship him because we have found that he and he alone can satisfy us.  Now it is important for us to remember that worship deals with magnifying God and it not something that we do once a week in a service, but it is something that we are to be doing all week long.  However, because of how easily we can be distracted, we come together on Saturday nights to remind ourselves of all that God is for us through Christ and to magnify him together.  Now the way we magnify our God is by cherishing him above all things.  We magnify our God by showing that he and he alone can satisfy us.  We magnify our God by enjoying him.  We magnify our God by prizing him above anything else that this world might try to offer us.  And so everything that we do on Saturday nights is geared to either awaken or express genuine, heartfelt satisfaction in all that God is for us in our precious savior Jesus Christ. 

Because this is what our worship service is all about, the call to worship is going to be grounded in the character of God.  During the call to worship we will proclaim from God’s word beautiful things about the character of our God and we will call the people to respond with worship (Psalm 63:3-7).  We will declare his beauty and call the people to respond by gazing.  We will declare his power and call the people to respond with awe.  We will declare his compassion and call the people to respond with gratitude.  We will declare his sufficiency and call the people to respond by resting in his finished work.  The call to worship is a call to look at our God and find him to be altogether lovely and totally satisfying and to respond to his beauty with joyful gratitude.

2 Songs (Standing)

We respond to the call to worship by rising to our feet to sing songs to our great God.  Psalm 95 begins “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!  Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise.”  Psalm 96 begins, “Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day.  Declare his glory among the nations…”  We want to be a singing people.  There is something powerful and moving about music and God has created this wonderful medium to be used ultimately to proclaim his beauty.  The call to worship gets our eyes off of ourselves and on to our majestic God and singing is our response to God’s majesty. 

Ephesians 5:18-21 says, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence to for Christ.”  This passage not only proclaims the importance of singing but it gives us some insights into what our singing ought to be like.  It seems like our singing includes different types of songs.  It is to be diverse.  Our singing is to come from hearts moved by the Spirit and full of thanksgiving.  Lastly, isn’t it interesting that in the same sentence that talks about singing we have the verse submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ?  All of us are aware of how many divisions singing has caused in the body of Christ.  People don’t like contemporary music or they don’t like drums or they only want to sing hymns or they hate hymns, etc.  Our vision of singing is that our music would grow to reflect the diversity in the body of Christ and the diversity of our city.  We don’t want to sing only one type or genre of songs.  What that means is that there will be services where you love 2 songs and don’t really have a natural appreciation for one or two songs.  That is ok.  That doesn’t mean you don’t sing, it doesn’t mean that you just wait to see if you like the next one better.  We are filled with the Spirit and if the song is about the majesty of our God we sing and in singing songs that we might not feel are our favorite we worship by submitting our preferences to others who might find that to be their favorite songs.  We worship when we love the songs and we worship when we declare by singing songs that we don’t like that our God is bigger than our preferences, that he is more beautiful than our tastes and that worship is all about him and not about us. 

We want our songs to reflect the diversity of our city.  At some point we want to learn some songs in Spanish and other languages that are represented in El Cajon.  It is a beautiful thing to sing songs in another language because it reminds us of how big our God is and how with his precious blood he has purchased people from every tribe and nation and tongue and brought them together and made them one.

Lastly, we want our songs to include both the heart and the head.  In other words, we want songs that accurately describe the majesty and beauty of our God.  However, we want them to be sung in arrangements that move our hearts so that both our hearts and minds might be aligned in worshipping our God who is worthy.

Prayer

After singing 2 songs we will have someone come from the congregation and lead us in corporate prayer.  This prayer will be on a specific topic which will be assigned to this person the week before.  In other words this may be a prayer of thanksgiving, a prayer for missions, a prayer for our city, our country, or our people.  The reason we feel that having someone from our congregation lead the people in prayer should be a special part of our service is because:

1. Being able to enter into the very presence of our creator through Prayer is such a vital aspect of our worship and such an amazing privilege that we feel compelled to make it a part of our service. 
2. We pray because we need God.  We know that unless God comes and meets us in our worship, all we do is for nothing (Ps. 127).
3. Letting someone who is not leading worship or preaching lead the people in prayer reminds us of the priesthood of all believers.
4. The prayer with the topic will be assigned to a person the previous week and then they will be able to discuss it with their MC.  The MC will then work together to think about how best to pray for this topic so even though only one person offers up the prayer, the whole community will have a sense of participation in this.
5. God calls us to be a people of prayer and for many who may not know what it looks like to pray we get to see and hear different people from the community pray each week and this will help all of us grow in our love and understanding of prayer.

1 Song

After the prayer we will sing another song as we prepare our hearts to hear the reading and preaching of God’s word.

Scripture reading

After another song, someone else will come and read the passage we will be preaching from that week.  I Timothy 4:13 says, “Until I come devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.”  Romans 10:17 reminds us that “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”  We believe that the public reading of God’s word is powerful and that is why we are giving it a special place in the service.  Not only this, but we want to distinguish it from the preaching of the word because it is the ultimate authority.  What is read from God’s word is authoritative, it is powerful for it is breathed by God himself.  What is preached from the pulpit is powerful as well, but it is a derived power.  The power of preaching comes in as much as the preaching accurately interprets and expounds God’s word.  And so the public reading of Scripture reminds us that the word of God is the only foundation on which the preacher should build his message. 

We also believe that having someone from the congregation read the Scripture gives people a greater sense of participation in the service and allows the congregation to get to see and know more of the people who help lead and serve at the church.

Preaching of the Word

We separate the reading of God’s word from the preaching of God’s word in order to highlight both.  Certainly preaching is worthless if it is not accurately expositing the truths of God’s word, however, it is also true that God’s word must be understood in order to change us.  The reading of God’s word is not some magic formula.  The words themselves don’t transform, it is the God that they depict who transforms.  It is in gazing at God’s glory which the Scriptures so powerfully depict that changes us.  And so we have preaching.  We have preaching both to explain and to herald the word of God which is read.  I love how Piper defines preaching, it is “expository exultation.” 

First, it is expository because it is meant to unfold, clarify, explain, and display the Gospel from the Scriptures.  Psalm 119:130 says, “The unfolding of your word gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.”  In Luke, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus began with Moses and all the Prophets and “interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”  Jesus didn’t show them new Scriptures.  You see the problem wasn’t that they didn’t know their Bibles; it was that they didn’t rightly understand them.  They didn’t know that Moses and the Prophets had spoken about Jesus and about how he must suffer and die for his people.  The Pharisees knew their Scriptures, they searched them because they thought that in them they might find life, but the problem was that they did not rightly understand the Scriptures.  What was the problem with their understanding of the Scriptures?  They missed Jesus.  They missed the glory of God who took on flesh and dwelt among them.  All of us are prone to the same mistakes that these men faced.  We are prone to read the Bible, but to miss the majesty and beauty of Jesus.  This is why we preach.  In preaching we exposit the word of God.  We explain it in a way that displays the weight of the glory of God and helps us see how his glory ought to radically affect our everyday lives.

However, preaching is not merely exposition.  Preaching is not a conversation, it is not casual talk about the Bible; it is more than just teaching.  Piper writes, “Preaching is the heralding of a message permeated by the sense of God’s greatness and majesty and holiness.  The topic may be anything under the sun, but it is always brought into the blazing light of God’s greatness and majesty in his word.”  Let me say it again, preaching is the expounding and heralding of the glory of God seen in the face of Christ by someone who is looking at it.  You see, Jesus is the glory of God.  He is the glory of the one and only full of grace and truth.  He is infinitely beautiful, infinitely powerful, infinitely just and good and majestic and holy and worthy of all worship.  He is the Son of God, the creator of heaven and earth who took on flesh and bled and died for pathetic sinners and then rose again from the dead and offers any who would believe in him joy and rest and satisfaction if they will merely get their eyes off of their small lives and gaze upon his beauty.  That is what preaching is.  Preaching is heralding the news that Christ is better.  That he is more lovely, more worthy, more ultimate, more majestic, more necessary and more satisfying than whatever else has your attention at the moment.  This God cannot be truly seen without radically moving us to worship him.  I feel almost at a loss of words to really explain what I am talking about.  There is a story that Whitfield once told in a sermon that I believe sums up what I am talking about well.  Whitfield once said: 

“I’ll tell you a story. The Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1675 was acquainted with Mr. Butterton the [actor]. One day the Archbishop . . . said to Butterton . . . ‘pray inform me Mr. Butterton, what is the reason you actors on stage can affect your congregations with speaking of things imaginary, as if they were real, while we in church speak of things real, which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?’ ‘Why my Lord,’ says Butterton, ‘the reason is very plain. We actors on stage speak of things imaginary, as if they were real and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.’”

“Therefore,” added Whitefield, ‘I will bawl [shout loudly], I will not be a velvet-mouthed preacher.”

Do you see what he is saying?  He is saying that there are basically three ways to communicate.  You can speak about imaginary things as if they are real, that would be acting.  Second you can speak about real things as if they were imaginary, and this is what happens when pastors fill their sermons with lighthearted jokes and speak about glorious and weighty and eternal things as if they were opinions or good advice or as if anything less than your eternal joy or eternal misery were at stake in what he was saying.  Or, you can speak about our precious savior, Jesus, as if he was real, as if he truly came and hung on a cross and bled and died and rose again and even now sits at the right hand of God the Father making intercession for us.  Do you see how preaching is more than just saying theologically accurate things about God?  Preaching is exultation.  Preaching is saying theologically accurate things about God as if they were real and affected every aspect of your life because they are real and they do affect every aspect of your life.  My prayer is that God would give me and everyone else who fills this pulpit the grace to preach in such a way that the weight and majesty of God is not merely heard, but is felt through the exultation of the preacher.   

And so the aim of our preaching is that people would see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of our precious savior Jesus Christ and find themselves transformed into his image.  That is our aim.  We want everyone who hears the message from those who are still dead in their trespasses and sin to those who have been faithfully following Christ for decades to catch a greater glimpse of the glory of God in the face of Jesus and be transformed from one degree of glory to another.  Because of this we will endeavor to preach Christ in every sermon.  It may look different from different texts but from each text we will try to show how the glory of God so beautifully depicted in that particular passage was ultimately revealed to us in the face of Jesus. 

Communion

We will take communion every week.  Communion is one of the two ordinances that Jesus left for the church to observe.  The meaning of communion is very rich and full, but I want to emphasize a few of the reasons we take communion and what it is supposed to symbolize. 

1. When we participate in communion we symbolize the death of Jesus because our actions give us a picture of his death.  When we break the bread we are symbolizing the body of our Savior which was broken for us.  When we dip the bread into the wine we are symbolizing and being reminded of the blood of the new covenant which Jesus shed for us.  I Corinthians 11:26 says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
2. When we take communion we are not just symbolizing the fact that Jesus died on the cross, we are demonstrating that his death was “for us.”  Luke 22:19 says, “and Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”  And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood…”  When we take communion we are reminded that Jesus’ death on the cross was “for us.”  That his blood was “poured out for us.”  As we participate in communion we are reminded of the benefits of the cross “for us.”
   1. As we affirm that Jesus’ death was for us, we are confronted by the depths of his love for us.  Greater love has no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends.  Jesus laid down his life for us.  He loves us and with his blood he has washed away our sins and has restored us to fellowship with God the Father.
3. Communion also offers us spiritual nourishment.  Just as ordinary food nourishes our physical body, so communion was given to feed our souls.  Communion nourishes our souls by reminding us of the truths of Christ’s death on our behalf.  It nourishes our souls by reminding us of the depths of Christ’s love for us.  It nourishes our souls by reminding us that the one who did not withhold his only son but freely gave him up for us will not fail to take care of us today.
4. Communion also reminds us of the unity of believers.  Paul says, “Because there is one break, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”  I Corinthians 10:17.

So, God has given us communion to remind us of the Gospel that all of us are so prone to forget.  We take communion each week because we need to be reminded of the bloody death of our Savior for us.  In a world full of distractions, communion is a tangible way that we are reminded about that which is of ultimate importance.  As we get up from our seats, as we walk forward, as we rip the bread from one loaf, as we dip it into the cup, as the wine drips down our hands and we put the bread in our mouths and chew it and swallow we are reminded that our Savior died a bloody death on the cross for us.  We are reminded of the extent of his love for us.  We are reminded that whatever promises we have heard preached in the sermon that day we can believe them because our Savior died for us.  We are reminded that however great our sin, however deep our shame, however strong our fears and anxiety, the cross is bigger.  The son of God leaving heaven and coming down to earth and giving his life on the cross for his people is greater than our sin, it is deeper then our shame, and it is stronger than our fears and anxiety.  By walking up in a line of other people and breaking the bread from one loaf we are also reminded that we are not alone.  We are not the only ones who stand in desperate need of the cross.  What unites us together as a body is that we all by faith have declared our desperate need of a savior and have found that his provision has been enough.

As we take communion we will take a moment and talk about communion each week.  Either in the sermon or after the prayer before people come up we will take a moment and briefly explain communion.  Because of what communion symbolizes we believe that it is only suitable for believers to participate in communion.  Because of the warnings in I Corinthians 11 we believe that people should examine themselves before they take communion specifically to insure that they are not harboring sin against others in the church, but are rightly discerning the body.

Offering

One of the ways we worship our God and show the world that Jesus and not money is our ultimate treasure is through our offering.  Even though this is a very sensitive topic and often people feel uncomfortable when we talk about money, 15% of everything that Jesus said had to do with money.  Jesus spoke more about money than he did about heaven and hell combined.  Why?  I believe he spoke so much about money because he knew that for most of us money would be one of our greatest temptations.  So, one of the reasons that we will take offering every week is so that we might be confronted by the fact that God and not money is all that can truly satisfy.  However, we also must remember that we don’t give money in order to make God happy, we don’t give money in order to gain his approval; we give money because we already have all we need in our savior.  We give money because the satisfaction that many people think only money can buy is already ours through Jesus.  And we give money so that the Gospel might be preached in places where it has yet to be heard and so that human suffering might be alleviated.  Paul tells the Corinthians that they “will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.  For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but it is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God” (II Cor. 9:11). 

Do you see what Paul is saying?  You see, giving not only forces us to remember that it is Christ and not money that alone can satisfy us, but God uses our gifts to provide for the needs of others so that they might give thanks to God.  Our giving is meant to spread the Gospel, it is meant to demonstrate to others the amazing grace that we have been given and the generosity that has flowed out from it.  We live in a world where 2 billion people have never heard the Gospel and over 30,000 children starve every day.  We live in a world of great need and through our giving we pray that some of this suffering might be alleviated and that some who have never heard about Jesus might come to know him.

And so we give money so that others might come to know the Jesus that we find so much joy in worshiping.  Paul calls us all to remember the amazing grace that we have experienced.  He calls us to remember our precious savior who “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich.”  Our savior left the wealth of heaven to become homeless.  To wander around with nowhere to lay his head until the day that he went to the cross and gave his life so that we might be freed from sin and death and hell.  He gave up what was really his in order that he might fill us with himself and now he calls us to be radically generous from hearts overwhelmed with the satisfaction of who he is.   

What makes talking about money so uncomfortable is that so often we really believe that money will make us happy.  And so when others talk about the importance of giving, we feel like they are trying to take our happiness.  But you see that is believing the lie.  The truth is that if we would stop depending upon our money for our security but instead would cast ourselves upon our savior we would find in him the greatest satisfaction we have ever known.  B.B. Warfield writes, “Oh, my dear Christian!  If you would be like Christ, give much, give often, give freely, to the vile and poor, the thankless and the undeserving.  Christ is glorious and happy and so will you be.  It is not your money I want, but your happiness.  Remember his own word, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”  So, my friends, this is why we take an offering.  We take an offering for your joy.  We take an offering to give you the opportunity to show that Christ and not money is your treasure, we take an offering so that you might store up for yourself treasures in heaven.

So, this is why we take an offering.  Now I want to explain how we are going to do it.  We have decided that the best way for us to take an offering is going to be to pass around a plate during one of the final worship songs.  We will pass the plate while we are standing and singing not just while a song is playing.  Let me explain a few of the reasons we have chosen to do it this way.

1. Since we believe giving is such a beautiful and important part of our worship service, we wanted it to have its own place in the service.  We wanted it to be something that we talked about, celebrated, and were confronted with every week.
2. While we really like the box idea and not passing a plate we could not find a time in the service that we felt was ideal for it.  The way it is done right now we felt was a little bit distracting from our time of taking communion and we wanted to remove that distraction.  We want you to be able to meditate on communion after you take it, to chew on the bread and really taste the wine as you return to your seat.  We don’t want you distracted by anything else while you are remembering what your savior did for you on the cross.  This is why after taking communion you will not go and get your children either but we will leave our children in the nursery until the end of the service.  We want you to have some time, to go back to your seat and continue to pray and thank God for his amazing gift.
3. Now we know that one of the dangers of passing a plate is that people feel self-conscious and we don’t want that.  That is why we will pass the plate while we are all standing and singing a song.  So, for those who are not giving it will only be a momentary pause from the song to pass the plate by and you can do it without feeling self-conscious because everyone around you is singing and for those who are giving it provides a sweet way to be singing songs of praise to God while at the same laying down your gift before him.
4. The long pause between communion and the last song will also give you an opportunity to get your money together and think about the joys of giving in a way that is not rushed.     

2 Songs (Standing)

Benediction

The idea of a benediction comes from Numbers 6:22-27 and it is God’s idea.  God comes to Moses and commands the priests to bless the people of Israel saying, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”  This is the benediction and its purpose was “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”  This is what we long to do as we end the service.  We want to put God’s name upon his people; to send you out, not as orphans, but as children of the king.  To mark you with the name of your God who is the great I Am, who is for you, and in Christ he has blessed you with every heavenly blessing.  In a beautiful way the pronouns are singular in this passage.  And so while the benediction is said over the community there is a sense where it is to be taken as a particular and special blessing to you.  If you know Christ then you individually have found favor with God through the blood of his son.  You are a child of the king.  You stand under the radiant smile of the Most High and he shall grant you peace.  This is why the pastor raises his hands during the benediction.  What he is saying is that he wished he could lay his hands on each of you and remind of all the blessings that are yours in Christ. 

In his letters, Paul picks up on these benedictions and uses them to bring his letter to a close.  Often these benedictions include both affirmations about the grace and peace of God in which the people already participate as well as prayers that they might appreciate and experience these blessings even more.  And so often in our benedictions we will remind you of who you are in Christ.  Remind you that you are sons, children of the King, beloved, friends of God, clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus, more than conquerors, and blessed with every spiritual blessing.  However, we will not only remind you of all that you are through Christ we will call you to go out and live that way.  Your God is in control, go live in peace.  You are a child of the king, live in joyful, confident, gratitude toward your Father.  You are more than conquerors through Christ, don’t be afraid. 

The benediction is a special time because it is a farewell and a call that as we part ways, go and love your savior.  Don’t forget all that you have heard and felt in this place.  Don’t leave this building and think that you are leaving the presence of God.  Go out from here into the world full of his peace and overwhelmed by his grace.  It is the call to live in the light of the reality that you have heard here even as you return to your everyday lives.  And each Saturday night as we gather together again we become aware of God’s faithfulness to us during the week.  He has answered the prayer of the benediction.  He has brought us back together again to seek his face and to worship him as a community.