LaGrave Live
The Book of Romans | 8:40 am (EDT) 9-13-26
About The Service:
Pastor Jonker will begin the fall sermon series on Romans, beginning with Romans 1: 1-17. We will celebrate communion.
Order of Worship:
https://lagrave.org/wp-content/uploads/2026-9-13-AM-Order-of-Worship.pdf
About the Church:
We are a traditional CRC church in the middle of Downtown Grand Rapids, MI, worshipping at 8:40am, 11:00am, and 6:00pm. (10:00am and 6:00pm during the summer months)
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Connection: https://www.lagrave.org/contact
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The September special offering is for the Pregnancy Resource Center. Services include abstinence education, testing, prayer, consultation, information about pregnancy/adoption/birth control and the distribution of food/formulas/diapers/baby clothes.
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Righteousness From Above: Launching a Fall Sermon Series on Romans
At LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church, Reverend Peter Jonker opens a fall sermon series on the book of Romans, using Paul's opening chapter and Martin Luther's own struggle to show that the righteousness of God is a gift that comes down to sinners rather than a mountain they must climb, in a service that also includes a children's message on manna and the Lord's Supper.
Opening Worship And Call To Confession
The 8:40 service opens with an organ prelude, tolling bells, and the congregation singing From All That Dwell Below the Skies and Praise the Lord! O My Soul, Rejoice!, led by two soloists and the full choir. Pastor Kristi Mannion welcomes worshippers back to LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church's fall rhythm of 8:40 and 11:00 services, invites everyone to a Ministry Celebration in the multipurpose room after the service, and announces the start of a new fall sermon series through the book of Romans. She reads Psalm 139's words about being searched and known by God, then leads the congregation in a shared prayer of confession asking to be freed from an unchangeable past and opened to a future of transformation. She closes with words of assurance from Romans 8, reminding worshippers that neither hardship nor any power in creation can separate believers from the love of God in Christ Jesus, before the congregation sings Nearer, Still Nearer.
Children's Message: Manna For The Journey
Reverend Peter Jonker calls the children forward for the message before the Lord's Supper, joking about how early it feels to be up for the 8:40 service before welcoming a large group down front. He retells the story of the Israelites freed from slavery in Egypt and marching through the desert toward the promised land, a place with no food of its own, and how God fed them every morning with manna, a bread-like substance gathered fresh each day. He tells the children that although Michigan has plenty of food and water, people's hearts still grow tired, sad, or worn out, and that the Lord's Supper works like manna for the soul, feeding and strengthening hearts the way manna once fed hungry travelers in the wilderness. He says he hopes the children will one day eat this food with the rest of the congregation, then sends them back to their seats with the blessing The Lord be with you.
Prayers, Announcements, And Global Concerns
Pastor Kristi Mannion returns with two pastoral notes: a bulletin misprint wrongly named Cindy Smith as having emergency knee surgery when it was actually Elaine Smith, and an update that Dan Beimers remains hospitalized at Corewell Butterworth with ongoing infection complications after cancer treatment. She leads the congregation in a long pastoral prayer giving thanks for daily provision and naming the spiritual hunger for goodness and wholeness that only God can meet. The prayer turns to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, asking that the congregation trust God's security rather than fallible human structures. She prays for men of the church on retreat up north, for missionaries Michael Huizington in Zambia and Tim and Tammy Holwerda in Cairo, Egypt, and for church members Elaine Smith, Dan and Carol Beimers, Kelsey Canton, and Ron Shoemaker who are recovering or receiving therapy, closing in Jesus' name before the choir sings an anthem.
Launching The Book Of Romans
Reverend Peter Jonker reads Romans 1:1-17 and announces an ambitious new sermon series that will carry the congregation through the book of Romans from now until the Sunday before Thanksgiving. He notes that even the apostle Peter, in 2 Peter 3, admitted that Paul's letters contain things hard to understand, joking that Peter must have just finished reading Romans when he wrote it. Still, Jonker insists the rewards of wrestling with the book are enormous, pointing to how it reshaped the lives and missions of Augustine, John Wesley, and especially Martin Luther throughout church history. He reads the passage aloud, highlighting how Paul greets Jews and Gentiles in the preamble before pivoting at verses 16 and 17 to what scholars call the theme statement of the entire letter: that the gospel is the power of God for salvation because in it the righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that comes by faith from first to last.
Luther's Flip: Righteousness That Comes Down
Jonker unpacks why Paul's announcement of the righteousness of God struck Martin Luther as anything but good news. He quotes Luther's own words describing how, though an outwardly impeccable monk, he stood before God feeling like a sinner and came to hate rather than love a God whose justice hung over him like an unreachable mountain. Jonker compares this to Isaiah's terror before God's holiness in Isaiah 6. He then argues that righteousness is not a churchy abstraction but an everyday pursuit, the thing people mean when they say they need to get right by exercising, working, or fixing their finances. The turning point, Jonker explains, came when Luther realized he had the direction backward: the righteousness of God is not a peak believers must climb but a gift that comes down to them in Christ, who stood beside sinners at gravesides, touched desperate crowds, and shed his blood on the cross so that people could be washed clean and made new.
Closing Stories And The Lord's Supper
Jonker closes the sermon with two stories about receiving grace rather than earning it. He describes a wordless gesture his colleague Kristi Mannion makes whenever someone shares hard news, a small lifting of the hands he reads as trusting God's mercy without needing to fix everything. He then recalls Christian activist Dorothy Day telling psychologist Robert Coles that she abandoned her memoirs after writing only the title, because thinking of Jesus's visit to the world left her needing to write nothing more. The congregation then moves into the Lord's Supper, with Jonker and Kristi Mannion leading the traditional liturgy of thanksgiving, the Lord's Prayer, and the words of institution over bread and cup. Jonker tells worshippers that in this bread the righteousness of God comes down to them for the complete forgiveness of sins, and the congregation shares communion through several hymns before Jonker pronounces the closing blessing of grace, love, and fellowship over the gathered church.