Drawing Near:

Welcome! Thank you for joining us for this week's ToGather.church. (Find out more.) We hope our worship guide blesses your home worship. Feel free to share it with your friends, family, home group, or house church. Gather in as safe a way as possible in these challenging times. If you are looking for a larger community to share prayer, fellowship, and discussion, please check out our Verse of the Day comments section!

Our ToGather.church family comes together to join our hearts in worship. We come together to meet Jesus, recognizing that he is the hope for our troubled world. We believe that God will lead us to better times, but until then, we will love each other, reach out to the lost and broken, and pray for God to empower us to serve and bless those around us.

Let's begin our worship time together with the old but powerful hymn, "Blessed Assurance," that reminds us that as we walk with Jesus, we can trust him to shape and fashion us into the people the Father wants us to be:

Opening the Scriptures:

We must try to view the world with the eyes and the heart of God. We must learn not to view each other, our world, and ourselves through our own self-serving point of view. We don't want to view each other harshly, unfairly, or with critical meanness. We don't want to view ourselves as overly important. Let's sing the following prayer song, asking God to give us his vision and heart to see our world, ourselves, and our Savior clearly. Let's sing "Be Thou My Vision" with Audrey Assad:

After such a beautiful and powerful ancient hymn that has stood the test of time, we come to a jarring message in our Verse of the Day:

Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion (Proverbs 11:22).

What a strange and shocking passage for our focus today!

Phil's message comes from this passage with its jolting image of a gold ring in a pig's snout. Why would Phil choose this verse? What in the world are we to do with this verse as we seek to live for Jesus? Let's see what Phil has to say about all of this today:

Rather than obsessing on ourselves — our looks, our status, or our importance — let's commit to follow Jesus and use our strengths, our interests, and our gifts to honor Jesus and bless others. The Zoe Group leads us in the song, "To the Least of These," to remind us that what we have received as blessings from God, we are to share with others:

Sharing the Supper:

The Lord's Supper is a special time in our worship when we remember Jesus. We remember both how Jesus lived and also how he died. He was a servant to those around him. He still serves and blesses us centuries later. Let's remember Jesus' sacrifice, welcome him to the Table of remembrance, and pledge to live for him as Randy Yarbrough leads us in our of Communion:

As we leave the Table of the Lord, let's commit, as we sing with Kurt Carr, to be like our Savior and "Bless Somebody Else" with Jesus' grace, mercy, and love:

Closing Blessing:

Let's commit to using our blessings to be a blessing!
Let's sing the fantastic new hymn, "So Will I (100 Billion X)" with Hillsong Worship. If all of creation worships God and declares his majesty, let's commit to join in its chorus of praise:

We close with a blessing prayer from Paul, the apostle, in Ephesians 1:16-19 NRSV. This blessing prayer will be shared by Fitia from Madagascar, one of our VerseoftheDay.com French translators.

I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power (Ephesians 1:16-19 NRSV).

May God bless you this week with his power and grace as you use all of your strengths, interests, and gifts to honor him and bring others closer to him.

Postscript:

Shortly after ToGather is posted each weekend, the videos are professionally captioned and posted on YouTube. See all of our ToGather.church videos on our YouTube® Channel.

Special thanks for Multi Transcription Services of America (MTSOA.com) for their fine work. See them for all your questions about marketing YouTube® videos and expanding your online reach. Email Lee for more info.

Special thanks for the use of images related to Jesus' ministry from The Lumo Project and Free Bible Images.