On Sunday, we had our annual testimony service. In preparation for this service, everyone in the congregation can prepare a testimony of God’s working over the last year, and select a hymn for us to sing (which may or may not go along with their testimony). On the day, each person gives their testimony and then we sing their song (we usually only have time for one verse per person).
One of the benefits of getting older is when your kids give you gifts like this:
Psalm 78:1-7
1 Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:
3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.
5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children:
6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:
7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:
This hymn was written by Henry Downton, an Anglican minister who for a time served as English chaplain in Geneva.
We sing it to a version of the tune, GOTT SIE DANK DURCH ALLE WELT, from Freylinghausen’s Geistreiches Gesangbuck, which you can hear by clicking the embedded video beneath the text of the hymn.
Isaiah says (1:18):
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
John says (1:29):
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
We’ll listen in to a conversation between Isaiah and John, with a particular emphasis on Isaiah 50 (since I preached on that chapter on Sunday 🙂 ).
Explanation: The last Sunday of the month, we have Scripture reading testimonies in our church — no comments, just reading Scripture that people have read in the last week or two.
A few weeks ago I preached the final message in my series on “Church on Purpose” — a look at the reasons for some of the things we do. I planned the series to end in December with a sermon on the incarnation of Christ — “The Word was Made Flesh” — using John 1:14 as my starting point. I’d like to write on this sermon in several installments.
I already touched on this in “The Reason” for Everything. I talked briefly about the meanings associated with the Greek word logos, translated as “Word” in John 1. (This article will make more sense if you read that one first.) Now, I’d like to look at how ancient philosophers used logos, and how John showed the shortcomings of human philosophy when compared to God’s wonderful self-revelation.
I’m sure those who say it mean well, but I’ve never particularly liked the saying, “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Maybe it just seems a little too cutesy to me, or something. Maybe it’s the grumpy side of my computer programmer psyche. Whoever invented computers must have had a tender place in their heart for curmudgeons.
Mind Renewers 