God calls all of us, whoever we are and in whatever state of grace or disgrace we find ourselves, to worship Him. When we do so, we are refreshed, renewed, and restored to a proper relationship with God. We gather in gratitude to God for His continuous and unfailing love of us, asking Him to inspire us to seek to become new beings by His spirit working within us. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.

Each Sunday we gather in worship and praise of God and Jesus, with whom we have a lasting relationship of faith. Today we shall be thinking about the nature of climate change, and of Hurricane Ian. We are grateful to God that we were spared, but we shall pray for the many thousands who have permanently lost their homes, and for all the others who have suffered severe and costly damage. Therefore with relieved confidence, let us worship the God who created and sustains the Earth.

Each Sunday we gather in this place to worship and to sing God’s praises. We do so to deepen our faith in God, to renew our trust in God, and to revive our commitment to God. We do not come together simply for the sake of being together, or to help sustain a congregation and a small institution. Instead we convene to nurture and inform our faith, so that we may be more effective servants of God in the world. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship the God who gives us our faith.

We gather in praise of a God who gives each of us abilities which we alone possess. We do not fully understand why we were chosen to utilize these gifts, nor can we comprehend exactly how they operate. But we thank God that He enables us to accomplish those things which, by ourselves, we could never do, but which, through Him, we can bring to fruition. In gratitude for all things, let us with confidence worship God!

Each new day is a gift from God, and each Sunday is a double gift. On this day we unite to praise and thank God for all His goodness to us, and to ask His blessing upon our lives as we seek to do His will in His world. Worship is always an opportunity for spiritual growth and the promise of a new beginning. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.

We gather to worship the God whom we are convinced makes Himself known to us. But how does He do that? Does He do it individually, or collectively, or both? Today we shall consider how God reveals His nature and His will to us by means of longevity, and we shall ponder what that means. We are forever grateful that God makes Himself known to us at all, when it is not incumbent on Him to do so. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship the God of self-revelation.

Everyone has a story. We all came from a particular lineage, and a particular place, with particular parents and families and values. All of us bring our individual backgrounds into the world and nation and community. The God who made us individually unique also made us part of the one human community. As different and disparate and disunited as we may be, we who are here today gather as one people to give praise to our one God. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship the God who makes all of us one.

On the weekend of a national holiday, we like to believe that God has a special place in His heart for our nation and its history. Whether or not that is true, it is certainly true that God loves the American people, as He loves all the peoples of all the nations of the world. In grateful response to Him for his blessings to our country through the decades and centuries, we gather in praise and awe of the one who creates and sustains us. Therefore let us, with Independence Day confidence, worship God.

In the bright sunlight we see Him. In the mists and shadows and growing darkness we see Him. Even when we can neither see nor sense nor feel His presence, we somehow know He is there. In every moment of our lives, in every act and activity and action, we trust God is with us, however meandering or uncertain our way evolves along the path we tread. We gather in praise of the God who leads each of us, seeing His hand in matters both large and small. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.

All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to his own way. Nonetheless we have a Shepherd, one who never loses sight of us or gives up on us. He becomes the Hound of Heaven, the herder who seeks us and finds us wherever we go and whatever we do. In gratitude to Him for His steadfastness toward us and sorrow for our inconstancy toward Him, we gather to give thanks and praise to the God who created us, sustains us, and redeems us. Therefore let us, with chastened confidence, worship God.

Long ago a Judean rabbi went with his disciples to a place which then had acquired a new name: Caesarea Philippi, named after the Jewish puppet king who ruled over northern Judea. We are here because of the life and teachings of that man, and especially because of his death and resurrection, which followed shortly after this episode in two of the Gospels. We have been by him led into a life-changing relationship with the God who sent Jesus Christ into the world. Therefore let us, with Lenten confidence, worship God.

In his ministry Jesus explained how certain kinds of behavior would result in certain kinds of blessings. In worship we seek to understand better what that means, and to try to discover ways by which we might appropriate those blessings. But we do so, as God told Abraham two thousand years before Jesus’ time and four thousand years before our time, so that others may be blessed through us. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship the God of unending blessings.

For Jesus, the road to Jerusalem was a long and arduous road, which eventually and inevitably turned into the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows. Each Lent we walk that road with Jesus, pondering what he faced as he went along, and what we too must face as we go along. We do not go alone, however; God travels with us, and for that we are grateful. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.

We are blessed to live in a community which exhibits the beauties of nature so fully that hundreds of thousands of people each year come here to be re-created in the extraordinary scenes of the beach or the golf course or the morning light shining through the limbs of oaks or pines or palmettos. Today we gather in praise of the God who created the natural order and everything in it, and we express our profound gratitude for the beauty of the earth. Let us therefore, with confidence, worship the God of creation.

Everyone who lives anywhere on earth presumably is a citizen of a particular nation. When we gather in praise of God, we do so as Americans or Canadians or Koreans or Japanese or Sudanese. The God we worship is Lord of all the nations, and is above and beyond nations or nationalities or ethnicities. By His grace working in all our lives, we are made one people by Him. Therefore let us, with ecumenical confidence, worship God.

Winter seems finally to have arrived in the Lowcountry, although not with a bang, but with more of a tepid whimper. Over the passage of time, we all encounter personal ups and downs, good seasons and not-so-good seasons. Through it all, God is with us, to lead us when we are strong, and to pick us up when we have fallen. Great is God’s faithfulness to us in all of life’s complexities and challenges. Therefore let us, with the renewed confidence of a new year, worship God.

The hymn declares, “All beautiful the march of days/ As seasons come and go/ The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought/ The crystal of the snow.” Snow we won’t see, we trust, but yet another seasonal change we shall likely see, and a new year as well. Through it all, in all the events of our years and decades, even with COVID, God goes with us each step of the way. On this particular day we join together to go with God. Therefore let us, with confident hopes for a good new year, worship God.