A Sojourner's Hope
Big Idea: God provides you with the hope you need to sojourn joyfully.
1. Sojourning Is Hard
2. God Gives Us Hope
Preparing for Sunday
Come Ready to Worship
Each week, we provide the following resources to help you spiritually prepare for communal worship. Investing time in preparation will enable you to grow and worship God more deeply during the Sunday Service. Resources for the upcoming Sunday are available by Saturday morning.
Preparation Questions: 1 Peter 1:1-9
1. How often do you intentionally remind yourself of the hope you have in Christ?
2. When you face trials, persecution, or suffering, how might meditating on your eternal inheritance change the way you respond?
3. Is Jesus someone you genuinely love, depend on, and rejoice in? How do your life choices, desires, and daydreams align with your answer?
4. In what ways are you living like a permanent resident of this world rather than a chosen sojourner awaiting your eternal home? What practical changes might help you live more faithfully as a citizen of heaven?
Sunday Songs
You can listen to our musical lineup for the Sunday Service using the YouTube links or the Spotify Playlist below.
Song Highlight: Almost Home
This week’s hymn highlight is Almost Home by Matt Papa and Matt Boswell. This beautiful song is written as an encouragement and reminder to press on in the Christian walk together and to keep our eyes set on the heavenly Kingdom above. Musically, it has the style of what is called a "sea shanty". Sea shanties were old folk songs that were commonly sung on ships as work songs and had strong, driving rhythms that were used to accompany and regulate their labor. They were commonly sung during synchronized labor (hoisting sails; rowing) on large ships, whaling boats, and merchant vessels. While shanties had previously diminished in use, they gained a recent resurgence last year after a singer went viral singing an old whaling sea shanty on TikTok (of all things!). Because of this newfound popularity, many songwriters have begun writing songs in this style with strong leading rhythms and motivational melodies that will make one ready to hoist a sail or swing an ax!
All this to say, Matt Papa and Matt Boswell wanted to write a song with a little bit of a sea shanty feel to it. So they wrote this song about saints pressing on towards their heavenly home with an uplifting rhythm and inspiring melody. I think it is quite fitting as often the Christian life is analogous to a journey or a battle. We labor on and press forward against the evils of the world doing the work that Christ has called us to do. In reminding us of the blessed hope that awaits the Christian, this hymn calls us to take courage amid the darkness knowing that the dawn is coming when Christ will return and make all things new. In that we hope and because of that we press on in faithful anticipation of the blessed shore where we will be with Christ and His people forever.