(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit and with the congregation at SaltaireMethodist Church and led by Roy Lorrain-Smith one of our circuit Local Preachers.
Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links
Song – StF 1 – All people that on earth do dwell
Introduction: “Get back to basics”, we’re sometimes told. OK, but we need to remind ourselves of what those basics are. Some were covered in the hymn: •God is our maker; •we are his people; •and our proper response is praise, everywhere, always. But there’s more in our readings to follow.
First, in Exodus, we’ll hear God offering afresh to his OT people a basis for relating to him and living in their promised land, even before he had given them the Ten Commandments (which still apply today).
And then in Matthew’s gospel we’ll see Jesus preaching and healing and preparing his disciples for their future role, from which we can learn something of what he may want us to do, as we come to him as our Saviour and follow him as our Lord.
This is God’s loving outreach to those who will hear and heed him.
Song – StF 443 – Come, let us sing of a wonderful love
Reading:
We all know about the Ten Commandments, even if we can’t recite them, still less keep them all. They are our standard of behaviour. They may seem oppressive and restrictive, with their “Thou shallt nots”, but most laws are like that, easier than telling us what we can do. Eg, speed limits are “No more than”.
But far less well known is that they were not imposed on the people of Israel, but offered: If you will keep my laws (my covenant), then you’ll be my treasured possession among all peoples. And the people freely accepted: “All that the Lord had spoken we will do.”
Then Moses was called back up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, written on tablets of stone by the finger of God – not to be altered, ever! (And the other worship and holiness laws which no longer apply since the time of Jesus; and the spelt-out moral code which does still apply just as much as ever.)
The people were confirming their long-standing status as the children of promise, which began with Abraham, and continued down his line through Isaac, and Jacob (renamed Israel) and his twelve sons who became the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel as they multiplied for 400 years in Egypt, having originally gone there to escape a seven-year famine.
So now they were to be given the law and the land to live them out in, thus (it was intended) to show the nations round them how blessed was a life lived under their God, the Lord.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you for the Ten Commandments, and all your other moral laws which show us how to live well on this earth. Please help us to obey them […]
Teach us how to live in a way glorifies you today, which shows others how great you are, and how blessed is life lived close to you […]
Lead us in the role you have called us to, each of us and as a church, in which we can best glorify you, wherever we now happen be […]
Give us whatever we need to be able to do your work, and the heart to do it willingly […]
All this we ask in the name of Jesus, who perfectly kept and fulfilled the whole law, saves us from our failures, and leads us in the way we should go. Amen.
Song – StF 475 – O God of Bethel, by whose hand
Reading:
Jesus went through all the cities and villages:
- Teaching in synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, which gives us a picture of his itinerant lifestyle. He read from a scroll, and said it was about him, explaining how! (eg, Lk 4:16-30). •I wonder where they stayed? Given hospitality? Inns? Slept in the open air?
- Healing every (kind of) disease and affliction. It proved his claim to be the Messiah, bringing promised messianic blessings, and giving a foretaste of the much greater blessings yet to come, in heaven. •Did people queue, or elbow, or did he go from group to group?
- He had compassion in the crowds: lost and aimless, hanging on his words which were •so different; •so positive, with a ring of truth; •so clear, explaining things; •so satisfying, and giving hope.
He was the good shepherd they had so long lacked, and desperately needed.
Then he said to his disciples:
- The harvest is plentiful: what ‘harvest’? Offering forgiveness? Converts to faith in him? Calling sheep into his flock, to follow him? Giving positive hope in him?
- But the labourers are few: what would harvest labourers do? Can we do anything like Jesus to attract the harassed and helpless – offering the truth and security of Jesus?
- So pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest: pray for more labourers, to be called by God, and gifted with harvesting skills, perhaps able to open God’s word to those without hope and always searching in the wrong place. And it’s God’s harvest.
Then he sent his disciples out, and gave them authority to:
- Cast out demons, of deceit with his truth; and of fear with his words of hope.
- Heal the sick, in his name; he does the miracles through them (Acts 4:31; 15:12; 19:11).
- Proclaim that the kingdom of God was at hand, ie, in Jesus himself.
- And they were to do it free (on that occasion), because their calling and authority had been given free to them.
No such work is ever to be done in the harvester’s own name. They’re never “graduates”, who can then independently do the work they’ve been taught. We are called, led, and enabled by the Holy Spirit to do whatever work he decides to entrust us with.
Song – StF 388 – Let every Christian pray
Prayer: Lord of the harvest, please send out labourers to your harvest.
Your harvest now may or may not be the same as in times past, and the labourers may or may not be the sort of people we expect, so please give us insight into how you are now working, that we may support and encourage them, whoever they turn out to be […]
Give us the gratitude to thank you for past harvests, and the faith to praise you for harvests yet to come, whatever they turn out to be And keep us praying, that all your harvests come richly […]
Thank you for the harvest of growth in medical skills, and we ask for more. We lift up to you those we know in need of healing – from whatever ailment, of body, mind, or soul – for all healing ultimately comes from you […]
Thank you for the harvest of peacemakers, able to mediate between antagonists. Please also give us more of those gifted to lead others to make peace with you, through Jesus […]
Thank you for the harvest of awareness of environmental ills, and the realisation that we must adopt new lifestyles. But only you can change our selfish natures, and we beg you to end the crippling famine of hearing your word and responding to it as we should […]
We lift up these prayers to you, in the name of Jesus, Saviour and Lord. Amen.
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,
As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory,
For ever and ever.
Amen.”
Dedication of offerings
Dear Lord, please accept all that we give to you, in whatever form and by whatever means: in money or in kind, and in the use of our time and whatever abilities you have given us. And please make of all out offerings, and of us, greater things than we can possibly imagine, through Jesus, our Saviour and our Lord. Amen.
Song – StF 82 – O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
The Grace
The grace of our lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all, evermore. Amen.
