(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 St Andrews Methodist 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
Children’s worship: St Andrew’s services always begin with songsforchildren, who then leave for their own classes. Here is one such praise song:
Song – StF 6 – Father we love You
Children leave, and now we reflect on Jesus’ teaching – so very different from that of the world we live in.
Reading:
Comment: This is the start of the so-called ‘Sermon on the Mount’, and it was addressed to his disciples, ie, believers, though the crowds were also there in the background.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit: who know how little spirituality they have, and are open to God’s promises as we live under his rule.
Those that mourn: over the state of the sinful world, or our own sin, for we have the comfort of knowing God’s forgiveness in Jesus.
The meek: meek doesn’t mean being willing to be kicked around like a limp doormat (not that many doormats are limp). It means being humble under God, willing to be servants of him and of others, like Jesus himself (Luke 22:25-27).
Who hunger and thirst for righteousness: who long for the world (and our own lives) to be put right, because that’s God’s big plan, through Jesus.
The merciful: God forgives those who in turn forgive others (Matthew 18: 23-35).
The pure in heart, who, following God’s forgiveness, seek to rid ourselves of sin.
The peacemakers: between people and God; wherever we see discord; and live at peace with others as far as we can (Romans 12:18). And promoting harmony in all creation, even just recycling stuff and picking up litter.
The persecuted: for living as Christians, thus challenging consciences by right living; or other faiths by promoting Jesus; or regimes who won’t tolerate rival ‘Lords’ (eg, China).
There is huge persecution of Christians in >50 countries, some very severe.
The challenge for us is: are we obviously Christian enough to be worth persecuting?
Prayer:
Lord God, thank you for sending Jesus to us, with his revolutionary teaching, which turns the world’s false values right-way-up. We thank you and praise you that when we put him at the centre of our lives, trusting him as our Saviour and following him as our Lord, all begins to make perfect sense to us.
Please, Lord, open our eyes to ways we don’t follow his teaching, and help us to turn back from our wrongs and follow him more obediently and faithfully, trusting him for the outcome of all that he calls us to do.
We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Song – StF 703 – In an age of twisted values
Reading:
Comment: Who do you feel are the top dogs who should run things? The elected? The Strong? Successful athletes? Popular celebrities? The titled? The rich? The clever (science, arts)? Should they tell us what we should do?
But God doesn’t want those who think they know what to do, but who are prepared to be led by him, trusting him to know what’s best: ie, meek. Those who don’t think themselves better than others, or want to boss them around, but are willing to serve, like Jesus: looking out for each other and helping s best they can, using the gifts they’ve been given (Jeremiah 9: 23-24; 1 Corinthians 1:31).
If we are wise in the world’s estimate, or strong, or rich, or have high status, and have been successful, then it’s hard to think that only God knows how the world can be put right (though he created it) and that he alone can guide and empower us to do the right things.
The point is, the world does not now work in the way God set it up. Things went wrong when humans disobeyed God, so those well versed in the way of the world are not best placed to run the church in God’s way. They trust themselves, not God. The way of the cross makes no sense to them. Whoever heard of victory through death, as with Jesus?
And yet that’s the victory that defeats Satan: we are forgiven through Jesus’ death in our place; we are thus made righteous before God, and Satan can no longer accuse us or control us, because we are no longer sinful in God’s sight.
And that’s how Jesus is working to fix the broken world – one person at a time – and we help his work when we do what he tells us, wherever we are, guided by his Spirit, whom, wondrously, he has sent to be with believers always, and actually within us. (John 14:15-17).
We, the fellowship of believers, have to accept that we are dealing with what cannot be fully understood, because God’s mind is bigger than ours. Early in my faith journey this text made a tremendous impact on me: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). I have tried to follow it ever since.
Song – StF 287 – When I survey the wondrous cross
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, we praise you for your great plan to save the world through Jesus. Please will you help us to play our part in furthering his work. We have already asked that we may live by his teaching, please help us also to follow his example of being servants to others, helping where we can, however we can, even if it’s only listening patiently.
It gets hard to do this when we are ill or under the weather. So we ask you to heal those we know who are sick (in any way), and now name before you […]
Please strengthen those who are being tempted to give up by problems they are facing […]
Or distracted by this world’s glamour and glitter, false though you show them to be […]
Or those we know, or know of, who are facing persecution for their faith in you as Lord […]
Lord, please bless those we have brought to you, and also ourselves for the help we need, that we may all the more thank and praise you as we see your kingdom advance in the world.
In the name of Jesus, we ask all of these things. Amen.
Lord’s Prayer:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who 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: Lord God, please accept all that we offer to you, in any form of money or anything else, and make of it, and of us, greater things than we can possible imagine, through Jesus. Amen.
Song – StF 370 – Breathe on me, Breath of God
The dawn of glory
The sun rose in the cold, snowy dawn,
creeping slowly over the hills and lightening the wide valleys.
I watched, up there on the narrow road, frozen but fascinated, as the golden tinges spread across the hills, from grey to white to blinding gold. Glorious! Glory!
Glory to the Creator God who could find such colours.
Glory to the Majestic Lord who could command such, out of nothing, with a word.
And in the clear valley, pin sharp in the frosty air, men were stirring by the town.
Diesel was frozen in the fuel tanks of the lorries parked overnight, and old tyres were burning under them to thaw them out.
Great columns of black smoke, plumes of it, rising to the skies, hardly finding a breeze to drift on, hanging in the air.
The men stamped their feet and thumped their arms as they waited: “Get some warmth. Get the lorries started. Get the day going!”
Oblivious, you might think, of their black against God’s pristine white and gold.
Yet the miracle of that morning was that the black did not smudge the light. It couldn’t seem to do it. The great expanse of glory was, not untouched, but untinged.
The greatness of God shone, and contained the figures far below, the puny fires, the billowing smoke.
And so is God’s miracle in our Saviour Lord, so great:
to swallow up our waywardness
and to go on spreading gold across the human landscape of cold experience,
for those with eyes to see.
Song – StF 353 – Jesus is Lord! Creation’s voice proclaims it
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore. Amen.
