Key Bible Passage(s):

Rom.5:1; Phil.4:6-7; Rom.8:28-29

Tier 1

The Dismissal is not merely signaling the end of the service. It is a commission to go and put into practice what you’ve experienced and learned through being part of that service. We are sent out with a confidence that the Spirit has been at work to better equip us to ‘love and serve’ Christ now than we were before. We have rehearsed worship, and that has been preparing and training us to live a life of worship, of love and service. And now we are to go and do worship in the circumstances of everyday life.

Tier 2

We are to go in peace. This peace is an incredible reality that points to our experience of completeness, and the recovery of what was lost in the fall and with the presence of sin. This is being restored and renewed through our participation in Divine Worship, and we are called now to take that ‘peace’ with us into the reality of life (Is.26:3). That peace is established in our relationship with God and therefore in our relationship with each other, and with the circumstances of our lives, which we now see as the arena in which we display the character of Christ.

We must devote, not only times and places to prayer, but be everywhere in the spirit of devotion; with hearts always set toward heaven, looking up to God in all our actions, and doing everything as His servants; living in the world as in a holy temple of God, and always worshiping Him, though not with our lips, yet with the thankfulness of our hearts, the holiness of our actions and the pious and charitable use of all His gifts.

William Law

Group Discussion:

What does it mean to love the Lord? …and to serve Him?

What does this mean when someone in the Church is in need?

…when we are facing a situation that is not fair?

…in our relationships with those who are not Christians?

How comfortable are you in being commissioned to love and serve the Lord?

How has the service helped you be better placed to love and serve the Lord?

Homework

Over this half-term we will be working to memorise Matthew 5:27-32. You will have to keep refreshing Matt.5:1-26, Matt.6:5-34 and Matt.7:1-28 whilst you do this.

(we’ll memorise the whole of the Sermon on the Mount over the 3 years of DTP)

To Be a Christian Q&A 357-368

How is your Rule of Life shaping up? How can i build ‘service’ into this, see TBAC Q&A 254?

As we are beginning to build our Rule of Life (and we’ll look at this properly next term), it might be worth getting some sense of how ‘habit’ works. One attempt to explore the psychology of habit, and of changing habits is James Clear’s Atomic Habits. Here is a short (-ish) overview of the main ideas of the book: