Decline Yet Favor

Worship Notes for Sunday Nov. 15, 2020 at Christ Covenant, Matthews, NC

This week Christ Covenant will look at Genesis 6:1-8. What a strange and difficult passage! It causes lots of questions, and yet it also presents clear, unavoidable truths.

As for questions, who are all those people and why does it sound so different from our own experience? It’s easy to fixate on those intriguing mysteries (although, I expect our pastor, Kevin DeYoung, will dive into that some…) while missing the very sobering fact that man is in drastic decline.

Further, how should we respond in worship with this passage in mind?

At the very minimum we can respond with repentance and thanksgiving. Repentance is the obvious response, for sin has affected every faculty of mankind, and our decline is always evident. Holiness is perennially falling on hard times. Indeed, some Christians so over emphasize the right desire to avoid legalism that they intentionally avoid disciplines that lead to holiness. Holiness is not hip. It’s obvious, of course, that we must not revel is our decline so that grace may abound. God forbid!

Even so, even in this bad-news passage thanksgiving becomes the refrain, for hope is held out as favor from God. To make the point, allow me to restate a well known verse: but God shows his ‘favor’ for us in that while we were still sinner, Christ dies for us.

So, this week in worship we read, confess, pray, and sing of our need for Christ and give thanks for the favor we have through him. His anger is but for a moment, but his favor is forever.

After singing “Praise his for his grace and favor” and “look on me with thy favor,” we will turn to the finished work of Christ. Finally, we will confess in song that “no strength of our own and no goodness we claim.” Instead, we are glad to sing, “the Lord is our power, the Lord will provide.”