Saving Grace

Saving Grace is our worship theme for the fourth Sunday of Lent, March 18, 2012. Our focus scriptures are Ephesians 2:1-10 and John 3:14-21.

The passage in Ephesians explodes with the amazing grace of God! As J. B. Phillips translates verse 1, we live drifting along on the stream of the world’s ideas. Scarcely realizing it, we respond to an unseen rule, not of life but of death. Yet even though we are spiritually nothing but the walking dead, God still loves us. And in Jesus’ death and resurrection God snatches us up and transports us from the realm of the world to the realm of heaven. This is an act of pure grace. We did nothing to deserve it. We contributed no power of our own. We can only receive this great gift with grateful hearts.

Likewise, in John 3:14-21, God loves the world and everyone in it and sends Jesus not to condemn the world, but to save it. Again, there is nothing we need to do to earn this salvation. All we need to do is recognize and receive God’s love.

Here are two Calls to Worship that fit these scriptures and worship theme. Please feel free to use or adapt anything in this post that is helpful to you.

Call to Worship   “The Grace of God”   from Ephesians 2:1-10

     L: Sisters and brothers, let us confess it: once we were dead!

     P: Once we ran blindly after the things of this world.

     L: We were selfish. We lived to please ourselves.

     P: To put it bluntly, we were under Satan’s spell.

     L: Yet, miracle of miracles, even stinking dead God still loved us.

     P: God’s grace saved us!

     L: God caught us and raised us up with Christ.

     P: God made us citizens, not of the world but of heaven…

L: not of this time, but for all eternity.

All: So we are saved by grace through faith. Not our doing, but God’s.

       Praise God! Let us worship God!

Call to Worship   “Falling in Love with God”

          L: God loved the world so much…

          P: How much?

          L: Enough to send Jesus into the world to save everyone.

          P: Enough that we never need to earn God’s love, only receive it.

          L: Enough that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

          P: Christ takes our sins with him to the cross.

          L: As we gaze at his cross, Jesus makes us fall in love with God.

       All: Thanks be to God! Let us worship God!