Call to Confession: 

Each Sunday in our regular services we take a moment to confess and repent alongside one another. It’s a way we regularly take seriously our sin and lay it before God. Let’s prepare our hearts by hearing these words from 1 John 4:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

Prayer of Confession: 

Glorious God,

We praise you for the simple truth of knowing and being known by you. Yet, so often we live and enjoy this world ignoring you as its creator. We’ve enjoyed comfort without knowing you as the provider. We’ve feared that if we love others sacrificially, we will lose the world and so we fight for our kingdom to come instead of yours. Father, forgive us.

Lord Jesus, you have loved us with a sacrifice we will never fully understand. And you did it out of great love, so that we might live, and live fully. Holy Spirit, grant that we might feel this truth deeply today and be reminded of it often. Give us boundless gratitude and increasing grace to live as you would call us to live and love in our daily lives. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: 

In the scriptures we find assurances of our forgiveness and encouragement in our walk.  So hear the continuation of these words from 1 John 4 and rest in their truth for us:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.