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Oct 15, 2017

The Story is for Everyone

The Story is for Everyone

Passage: Psalms 67:1-7

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Psalms

We’ve been exploring the Psalms in search of the overarching Story they tell--the Story God is writing and the one His people are wrestling both to understand and live into. But the idea of one grand story (a “meta-narrative” as some like to call it) has been deemed impossible, untenable, even dangerous. We’ll plunge right into that complicated controversy by listening to a Psalm that refuses to narrow the knowledge of God to a tribal loyalty and instead champions its universal applicability. But what we’ll find is less the language of being recruited to a team and more so an invitation to find a joy.

Order of Worship

Call To Worship: Psalm 96:10-13 ESV
Reading: Isaiah 42:1 & John 10:11, 14-16; 12:32 ESV
Corporate and Personal time of Confession (see below)
Assurance of the Pardon of God: Psalm 103.8,10-12
Central Text: Psalm 67:1-7 ESV
Sermon Title: The Story is for Everyone
Response: Communion
Benediction: Numbers 6:24-26 ESV

10.15.17 Lyrics

10.15.17 Slides

Illustrations:

Rectify

Silence - Two Religions

Readings & Related Scripture:

Call To Worship: Psalm 96:10-13 ESV

LEADER: Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.”

ALL: Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
LEADER: let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth.
ALL: He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness.

Reading: Isaiah 42:1 & John 10:11, 14-16; 12:32 ESV

LEADER: Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

ALL: I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ...I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.…And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Corporate and Personal time of Confession:
Father, we lower our heads before you and we confess that we have too often forgotten that we are yours. Sometimes we carry on our lives as if there was no God and we fall short of being a credible witness to You. For these things we ask your forgiveness and we also ask for your strength. Give us clear minds and open hearts so we may witness to You in our world. Remind us to be who You would have us to be regardless of what we are doing or who we are with. Hold us to You and build our relationship with You and with those You have given us on earth.

Assurance of the Pardon of God:
Psalm 103.8,10-12
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Central Text: Psalm 67:1-7 ESV
Psa. 67:1 May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
2 that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!

Psa. 67:4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
5 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!

Psa. 67:6 The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, shall bless us.
7 God shall bless us;
let all the ends of the earth fear him!

Benediction: Numbers 6:24-26 ESV
LEADER: 24 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Post-Service Text: Psalm 67:5 ESV
5 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!

Related Scriptures:
Gen 12:1-3
Ps 47:9
Psalm 87
Isaiah 19:24; 55:4-5
John 10:16; 12:32
Romans 15:8-12

Discussion Questions & Applications:

  1. What’s your first impulse when you hear it put that the Gospel is applicable to everyone? Joy? Ambivalence? Fear? Why?
  2. What’s wrong with the statement, “there just is no one truth--one all encompassing Story-- for everyone”? What all must you sacrifice if you would set aside any idea of a universal and binding outlook?
  3. Where would you find in Scripture the idea that Israel was called out from the nations to be a nation for the nations? Where do you find Israel either fulfilling or failing at that calling?
  4. How does this whole topic change for you when you see how it revolves less around “joining God’s team” and more so “finding God’s joy”?
  5. What keeps you from outlining the Story should someone ask you what directs your steps and holds you together? (1 Peter 3:10-17)
  6. What would it look like for you to live that “soft difference” of being neither silent nor disrespectful?

Quotes

  • Without God and the future life? It means everything is permitted now, one can do anything?' 'Didn't you know?'  Dmitiri Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
  • Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him.  Napoleon
  • If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilised morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality.  C.S. Lewis
  • Pretending that the world’s religions are the same does not make our world safer. Like all forms of ignorance, it makes our world more dangerous. What we need on this furiously religious planet is a realistic view of where religious rivals clash and where they can cooperate.  Stephen Prothero, God is not One
  • It is no small thing to hear, and to say, in a violent and brutal world, in a world where many easily use others for pleasure and profit, “God is love.” When there has been no real love in your life. . . then the most important question you will ever ask, and you will ever want answered, is “will someone ever love me?” It may be tawdry and sentimental and demand little from far too many comfortable folks who fill churches… In many of the churches I have been in — in rough places, hard places, places full of broken, unwanted people — there is nothing more important than to grab hold of that love and know that despite all the world does and has done, that love is yours. Charles Featherstone

Sermons/Resources:

“The Rival Conceptions of God,” a video on YouTube by the CS Lewis Doodle channel

“Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relationship between Church and Culture in 1 Peter,” by Miroslav Volf

“Charles Featherstone’s Book is Out,” a blog post by Rod Dreher with extended quote from Featherstone

“The Surprising Discovery about those Colonialist, Proselytizing Missionaries,” by Andrea Palpant Dilley

The Story Beneath the Story - Timothy J. Keller; John 1:9-18;32-34

Media & Songs:

10.15.17 Album

Podcast

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