Pass Over Me: The Day Of Atonement

Pass Over Me

The Day of Atonement

(Order of Worship & Sermon)

Praise Team:

“Rise up people of God and stand in the presence of your appointed meeting with God. This is a time of worship. Lift up your hands in praise and celebration to Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who holds the power to cleanse you of your sins!”

Celebrate Jesus, Celebrate

How Majestic Is Your Name

Worship Meditation:

Pastor: This past week on Wednesday afternoon at sundown the Jewish people began the celebration of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur is the holiest day in Israel and it concludes a 40-day season of repentance. A time to examine your life. A time to return to God. According to scripture, Yom Kippur is a divine appointment with God. Like any meeting, this “appointment with God” requires preparation. Today, we must prepare our hearts to meet with God, to examine our own lives. The Bible says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Are you willing to cry out with David this morning, “I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin”?

God instructed the Israelites in Leviticus 25:9, “Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month - the Day of Atonement - you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land”. The blowing of the shofar, or the ram’s horn, reminded the people of the binding of Isaac, who offered his life to God, and of the ram that was slaughtered in his place. The sound of the shofar is a call to repentance. Perhaps in recent days more than any other time you have heard the Call to Prayer of the Muslims. In the same way, the blowing of the shofar is a call to enter into the presence of God. The noise of the ram’s horn is the almost unbearable sound of our sins detonating. It is a cry from the soul - from the depths of our being - for forgiveness, the breaking of the heart. Today, let us offer ourselves to God in a repentant heart as we reflect on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ our Savior and Redeemer, the One who makes atonement for our sins.

In your hearts, bow before the Mighty God who sits in judgment upon His throne.

Come to the altar; pour out your tears to the Lamb of Glory; for the Day of Atonement is approaching.

Praise Team:

O Sacred Head, Now Wounded (Hymn # 137)

Oh, How He Loves You and Me

Prayer: O Lord, you have searched our lives and you know each one of us by name. You know when we sit and when we rise; you perceive our thoughts from afar. You discern our going out and our lying down; you are familiar with all our ways. Before a word is on our lips you know it completely, O Lord.

Have mercy upon us, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out our transgressions. Wash away all our iniquity and cleanse us from our sin. For you know our transgressions, and our sin is always before us. Against you, you only, have we sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.

Cleanse us with hyssop and we will be clean; wash us, and we will be whiter than snow. Hide your face from our sins and blot out all our iniquities.

Search us, O God, and know our hearts; test us and know our anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.

Praised are You, Adonia our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who has made us holy by the sacrifice of your son Jesus; and who has called us to hear the call of the shofar, the call of repentance. Amen.

Message

Invitation

Songs of Praise – (Possible – Celebrate Jesus, Celebrate)

Offering

Benediction

Pass Over Me

The Day of Atonement

Sept. 30, 2001

AM Worship

Intro.: (TURN TO LEV. 16) Yom Kippur is designated as a national day of judgment in Israel. Historically, only on this day, the holiest day, could the High Priest enter the section of the temple known as the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies was the place of God’s presence and the High Priest would plead before the Lord on behalf of the people. Five times the High Priest would purify himself in the ritual bath; five times would he change his priestly clothes. He would first sacrifice a young bull and sprinkle the blood on the judgment seat of the Lord for his own sins. Then he would select one of two goats and sacrifice the goat, sprinkling its blood on the judgment seat for the sins of the people. Then he would lay his hand on the other goat and symbolically transfer the sins of the people to the goat. A red sash was tied around its horns, and it was sent away into the wilderness, representing the sins of the people being sent away.