(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 Allerton 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
Song – StF 88 – Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
Introduction
A promise box is a small tin with 100+ cards or tightly rolled slips of paper, each with one of God’s promises. You pick one out (with supplied tweezers if necessary) and find yourself soothed and encouraged. But never challenged: God is good; God loves you, etc.
All true, but it’s only a very one-sided take on the Bible, which actually challenges us quite a lot – our attitudes, thoughts, words, behaviour – as well as giving us those promises and many more. We need both, as today’s readings offer, including this story of how Isaiah was called to be a prophet for God.
Story
Isaiah sees a vision (based on Isaiah chapter 6)
One day, in the year that King Uzziah died, a young priest by the name of Isaiah was standing in the temple. Suddenly he had a vision of the Lord, high and lifted up, with his robes filling the whole temple. Above him were seraphim, who flew and cried out to one another in voices that shook the building: ‘Holy, and perfect, and pure, is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.’
The sense of God’s holiness overwhelmed Isaiah. He felt utterly unworthy: ‘I’m done for! I’m just a foul-mouthed rat. I can’t see such purity and live!’
Then one of the seraphim flew down. He plucked a burning coal from the altar with a pair of tongs and touched Isaiah’s mouth with it. Then the mighty voice rang out again, ‘See! This has touched and purified your mouth. Your guilt is gone; your sins are forgiven.’
Then Isaiah heard the voice of God himself: ‘I need a messenger. Whom can we send?’ And Isaiah heard himself say in response, ‘Here am I! Send me.’
God said, ‘Go! Call the people to hear, though they will not listen. They will never listen, nor will they ever perceive, for their minds have grown dull.’
Isaiah quavered out a question: ‘How long, Lord, will it be like this?’ and he heard the reply:
‘Till cities lie in empty ruins,
and desolation comes to this land.
Till I remove men into far-off exile.
But then a remnant shall return;
a shoot shall grow from the felled stump.
The holy seed shall not die.’
The sense of God’s vastness never left Isaiah. He called a stubborn people to listen. He warned them of exile to come, if they refused. He told them of God’s longing to forgive, and of their need to repent and turn away from their evil and back to the Lord.
But his vision went further, for he could see ahead: to a time of return, of new life, of regeneration when all people would know God’s love. Then there would be peace and harmony: not just between humankind, but throughout the whole creation: brought about by one who would be a suffering servant for God, and lead the whole world to know him.
Song – StF 477 – Teach me to dance to the beat of your heart
Reading
Comment
When things went wrong in Israel, God chose people like Isaiah to speak for him (prophets), to call people back to God. And this is one of his writings and he begins by quoting what people thought: Sins? What sins? We go church, worship, seek God’s ways – what’s wrong with that?
He points out (and it’s a warning to us) that worship is worthless if they were still oppressing people, and using Sunday time off to plan more evil.
Changes to inner attitudes and behaviour were needed, eg: •undoing binding oppressive yokes; •letting the oppressed go free; •sharing food and shelter with hungry and homeless (or in our case donating to charities that do these things).
Then they would enjoy the blessings of the Lord because then they would be living according to God’s laws which show the way to a blessed, prosperous, and secure life.
Isaiah gave two more examples:
Don’t enslave others, or point the finger, or speak wickedness… but pour yourself out for the hungry and afflicted, and then your light will shine, God will guide, and prosperity will come.
Don’t do your own pleasure on the Sabbath, talking idly… but honour the day as special, taking delight in it as God’s holy day, and then you will be blessed as in the days of old.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for the Bible, your words faithfully spoken by your chosen prophets and apostles, and written down for our encouragement, instruction, reproof, and help.
Please open our hearts and minds to your words, that we may believe what we read, and understand what we believe.
Because sometimes, Lord, it seems as if a mist of unseeing hangs over your word, preventing us from reading it, to our own great cost (as well as your great disappointment), for it is the word of life for us, both Old Testament and New. We sort of know that, but our concern lies dormant.
So please, Lord, open us to your Book, and open your Book to us, unblocking the channels of communication between us, so that we may truly hear you and respond.
And then help us to build our lives on the safe and secure words of Jesus, as they lead us to draw closer to you, the giver of life, as your revivifying Holy Spirit blows through us.
All this we ask through Jesus. Amen.
Song- StF 713 – Show me how to stand for justice:
Reading
Comment
This seems to follow on well from Isaiah’s last point about keeping the Sabbath. Jesus liberates a woman bent over for 18 years, and the synagogue ruler rebukes the people (and indirectly Jesus) for coming to be healed on the Sabbath (because that was regarded as work).
Jesus disagrees: he calls the ruler a hypocrite – ie, seeming holy but actually keeping the woman bound (Jesus calls it Satan’s yoke). After all, they readily enough untied animals for a drink on the Sabbath; surely they should all the more liberate this ‘daughter of Abraham’ on the Sabbath.
So the Sabbath is a day of doing good (as per God’s law), liberating those who are bound in some way, (like the man with a withered hand – Luke 6:9).
This challenges us to consider how we use Sundays.
Do we do just what we like (Isaiah 58:13) – eg, sports, shopping, entertainment, etc? Hard to resist the world’s ways?
It’s important to meet together as worshipping Christians (Hebrews 10:25), but is it to enjoy the Lord’s company, or do we waste the time in ‘idle talk’ (Isaiah 58:13)?
Do we listen to God in worship and prayers, allowing him to speak to us, and change us?
And do we use Sundays for the good of others (as God defines good), rather than trying to restrict their legitimate freedom?
What comes immediately before this synagogue episode is the parable of the fruitless fig tree that was a waste of space, and would be cut down if it didn’t mend its ways. So perhaps our self examination (helped by the Holy Spirit who sees our inner self) may reveal ways we have been misusing Sundays.
And the parable that follows our text is about the tiny mustard seed growing into a tree-sized shrub that birds can nest in, which may depict our spiritual growth as we follow Jesus’ teaching faithfully, in our use of the Sabbath, as in all else.
Song – StF 152 – This is the day that the Lord has made
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we have to confess that too often we are far too casual as Christians. We worship and sing casually, our thoughts wander, and we only half-heartedly apply what we hear.
So please forgive us, Lord, but also challenge us. Make us aware of our shortcomings. Show us how we should be, what we should do, and how we should do it. […]
And then help us as we resolve to draw closer to you and walk by the Spirit. […]
We lift up each other to you, Lord, that they may be similarly blessed by your words – challenging, but also life-giving.
And we name before you those we know, or know of, who particularly need your help:
For the illnesses they are suffering – of body, mind or spirit […]
For the problems they are facing – seemingly insoluble […]
For the worries burdening them – about themselves, others, or the world […]
Please give them the faith to trust in you as loving and caring Father God, for healing and help, or strength to cope, in the name of Jesus. 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
Offer to God all that you do and give for him, including thoughts and prayers, asking him to make of them (and of you) greater things than we can imagine.
Song – StF 660 – Called by Christ to be disciples every day in every place
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all.
Ponder this blessing,
for it is only by God’s mercy and grace
that we can make our way to him, through Jesus.
[…] means pause and ponder
