Call to Worship: God is a Consuming Fire (Hebrews 12)

Leader: We have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them

Congregation #1: We have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.  We have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. 

Congregation #2: We have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Leader: See to it that we do not refuse him who speaks. 

All: Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire. Amen.

Call to Worship: Trees, Not Channels (Psalm 1)

Leader: Blessed is the one...whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.

Response: That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.[1]

Leader: The tree is no mere channel, piping water unchanged from one place to another, but a living organism which absorbs it, to produce in due course something new and delightful, proper to its kind and to its time.[1]

Response; Like water through the tree, God's grace does not retain the same form. It is expressed in as many unique ways as there are children of God. We are your children.

Leader: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, on each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. 

Response: And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.[3] We are your people.

[1] Psalm 1:1a,2-3 (NIV)
[2]Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 15 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), p. 48 as cited by Tim Keller, Prayer (New York, NY: Dutton, 2014), p. 148

[3] Revelation 22:1a,2b (NIV)