This is part of the worship series,
"Good News!”
Introduction
Lent 1 | Lent 2 | Lent 3 | Lent 4
Lent 5 | Palm Sunday | Good Friday | Easter Sunday
SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT
Call to Worship
Let us worship God,
who reconciled us to himself through Christ.
We are new creations;
the old has gone, the new has come!
Let us worship God as Christ’s ambassadors.
Through us and through our worship
may we announce the good news to all.
Let us worship God in spirit and in truth.
Praise God! We are reconciled, redeemed, renewed!
—Based on John 4:24; 2 Corinthians 5:17–21, The Worship Sourcebook, 2nd ed., J.1.2.2
God’s Greeting
Worship Song
“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” Neander
Call to Confession
This is the second Sunday in the season of Lent, a time when Christians traditionally have focused on repentance. Of course, any time is a good time to repent of sin, but for centuries the followers of Jesus have used this time leading up to Good Friday and Easter to carefully consider their lives and what is in their hearts. With this in mind, hear these words from Psalm 139: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23–24, NIV).
Prayer of Confession
Assurance of Pardon
Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.
—Psalm 130:7–8 NIV
Children’s Message
Children’s Song
“How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” Townend
Congregational Prayer
Good News Café
A woman in our congregation shared how her father’s transplant surgery affected her spiritually.
Scripture Reading
Mark 8:31–38
Sermon
“Good News—Worth Dying For!”
Sermon Notes
Just before the events of this passage, Peter had professed that Jesus was the Christ. In this passage, Jesus reveals what kind of Christ he would be: one who would suffer, be rejected, and be killed. The disciples had anticipated that the Christ would be a strong political leader who would crush their enemies! But only the way of the cross would bring the kind of salvation that humanity needed more than anything else. Shockingly, the followers of Jesus are called to emulate him, to voluntarily lose their lives for him and for the sake of the gospel (literally, “good news”). There is no long-term future in any life that is lived for oneself. While Christians ought not to live their lives recklessly, we have the privilege of putting petty, selfish ambitions aside and investing our lives in kingdom service.
Prayer of Application
Loving God, as strange as it may sound, we are grateful this Lenten season that Jesus, the Christ, our Messiah, walked the path of suffering, death, and sacrifice. We are grateful because it was through this that our souls—in fact our very lives—were saved! We pray that by your Spirit you will help us to gratefully put Christ and not ourselves at the center of our lives so that as we follow Christ’s lead, as we experience suffering and rejection and make sacrifices in this life, those around us would see in us people who have been shaped by the gospel. We pray that our Christian witness, as individuals and collectively as a church, would be so compelling that people would be prompted to ask us how we can continue to worship you no matter the circumstances. We pray that we would have openings to tell good news to those around us. All this we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Worship Song
“Lead On, O King Eternal” Shurtleff
Blessing
Closing Song
“God Be with You Till We Meet Again” Rankin
Revised Common Lectionary
Year B: Lent—Second Sunday in Lent
