Lord’s Day 11: Q&A 29-30: Looking Elsewhere

Now we turn to God the Son: Our Savior, Jesus Christ. Salvation, we believe, is found in no one else. Q&A 30 takes a swipe at ‘others’ who do not wholly trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and I think with content like this there’s room for pride on our part. It’s written in a way that leads the reader to lean into some ‘us vs. them’ mentality. Those who look for their salvation in saints, themselves, and elsewhere. It makes it easy for us to rest on our figurative laurels, foretting that we are ‘those.’ Despite our best efforts, we look for our salvation elsewhere, even if not explicitly. I think it’s important to remind ourselves and our congregations of the fact that we’re never perfect, and when we may be tempted to call out the speck of sawdust in another’s eye, we should first check and see if we have a plank in our own.

In that line of thinking, one of our resources for this Lord’s Day this week is a Prayer of Lament: something that doesn’t often make its way into most of our church services. This for a number of reasons that I won’t expand upon here, but sometimes a Prayer of Lament is needed. In writing for this Lord’s Day, I tried to think of practical ways in which a lot of churches would be able to see the idea of looking for salvation elsewhere. The things that came to mind were the more standard issues of relationships and possessions becoming idols, but also the growing problem (at least in the US) of trying to hitch the church to the wagon of political power. This can be a touchy subject, but one that also shouldn’t be ignored. The line that needs to be toed for me is one that finds a balance between calling out things that are absolutely antithetical to the message of the gospel while still having grace for brothers and sisters in Christ who lean towards those things. Prayers like this may not be for you, but I hope that it may at least get your gears turning to find new and creative ways to be able to address hard subjects from up front.

LORD’S DAY 11

Q&A 29

CALL TO WORSHIP

Leader: Come, let us worship and bow down.

People: Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God and we are his people.

Leader: Let us praise our Savior, Jesus, the Son of God.

People: We give thanks and praise, for we have been rescued from our sins.

Leader: Let us give thanks for the Holy Spirit, who lives within us and brings us closer to God.

People: Amen! Praise be unto our Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit!

Q&A 30

PRAYER OF LAMENT

Jesus, you are the only way to salvation: you and you alone. As your people, the flock under your care, we know this, and yet we often act like this is not the case. Rather than seeking you above all else, we have turned away from you time and time again. Instead of your church being a beacon of hope to lead people to you, we have become a beacon of political power to lead people to put their hope in sinful humans. 

We have dirtied your Good News to the nations with good news for us and only us. We have ignored the diversity of your body for the sake of being right in our own eyes. We seek worldly power for your church instead of the true power that you offer, our Servant King. 

We confess to you and lament how we have strayed from you, dear Lord. We acknowledge that we have denied you as our only way to salvation by leaning on others. 

You are all we need, Lord Jesus. You are all we need. Bring your church back to you that we may be the shining city on a hill you created us to be. Empower us, Holy Spirit, not to lead others to vote like us, but to lead others to live as you would have us live.

We pray this in the powerful name of our only Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.

CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE

Lord our God, we confess to you that we do not lean wholly on you for our salvation. Jesus, we do not cling to you as our only hope as we should, but instead we hold on to you loosely, grasping for other things. We admit that we have held our possessions, our relationships, our politics, and even your church above you and have sought salvation in them instead of you. Forgive us, Lord Jesus, and have mercy on our wayward souls. Draw us ever closer to you and let everything else fall away, we pray.

-time of silent confession-

Leader: Brothers and Sisters, there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. Jesus and Jesus alone is our salvation. Through him, all of our sins are forgiven. In him we have all we need for our salvation.

People: Thanks be to God for the redemption and salvation we have through Jesus, our Lord!