What does God do for us?
February 4, 2024
Lighting the Christ Candle
Welcome and Announcements
Call to Worship
Come, rejoice and sing! God’s love is showered over you this day and every day.
We gather to praise God and celebrate God’s presence with us.
God shows compassion to all who are weak and downtrodden.
We celebrate God who offers healing mercies to our troubled souls.
Praise be to God who has called us here.
Thanks be to God for God’s eternal love. AMEN.
Hymn: 290 Immortal Invisible, God only wise
Prayer of Adoration
O God, we are gathered here under the shelter of your wings, nurtured by your immense love, and encouraged, then, to fly by faith on the wind of your spirit.
You have spoken to us, promising, "They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles."
Humble us to trust that you will come to us in our weakness. Teach us how to wait, then, that we may learn how to fly.
And strengthen us with the assurance that we do not fly alone.
As we wait for your strength to fall upon us, we come before you to confess our weakness and our sinfulness. Hear our confession as we make it together….
Prayer of Confession:
How can we look at this world and not sing of your praises, O God? The beauty and majesty of the world is overpowering! Yet we have a tendency to take all that you do for us for granted. We turn our backs on people in need, the weak and downtrodden go unnoticed in our midst. We always believe that someone else will care for those in need. How foolish we are, O God! How ignorant we have become!
You have given to us all that we need. You have blessed us with the witness of Jesus Christ who came so that we might learn how you would have us live, in honor and peace. Forgive us. Heal our hearts and spirits.
Make us fully aware of all our blessings and our responsibilities. Give us again a spirit of joy in serving you. Help us be agents of peace and hope to others. For we offer this prayer in Jesus’ Name. AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
God comes among us to give us life
God comes to our despair to give us hope
God of all lifts us with his love, causing us to soar like eagles.
We have come humbly before God to confess our failures and to leave our burdens at his feet.
Let us trust that God has heard us.
Because God has heard us, we believe that God will sustain us
We believe that God will guide us
We believe that God will heal us
We are forgiven, loved and sent forth. Glory be to God.
Passing the Peace
Hymn: 319 Wherever I may wander
Scripture:
Isaiah 40: 21-23 p 1120
Psalm 147: 1-11 p 981
Sermon: What does God do for us?
How often do we pause to ponder all that God does for us?
I know we all will sometimes realize what God is doing in a moment, but we rarely pause to consider the totality of what God does day in and day out.
In the discussion of the passage from Isaiah, the commentator JENSTA, suggests that we are challenged to recognize our inability to understand the eternal goodness of God.
She asks, “Do we ponder the implications of the eternal care of God for his creation: land, sea, sky, people, plants, animals?”
Do we recognize how he hears all our prayers, heals all our ills, fills all our hearts with hope and all our spirits with joy?
Do we even understand how God holds all those things in his heart and manages it all of the time?
We, who get tired just helping out one another, cannot comprehend how God never gets weary of caring for us and the whole creation.
This is the mystery of God.
This is the grandeur of God.
This shows us that God and his ways are unassailable to the limits of human comprehension.
This all too often, can lead us to feel and say, that God isn’t caring for us; or is ignoring our prayers, and has turned away from is people.
Surely those feelings are very true for a nation that is in exile.
In difficulty and when feeling lonely, lost or cut off, it is far too easy to look only at our circumstances, and to blame God for leaving us in that state. Jensta points out that it is idolatry to demand that God and his ways make sense to us.
Faith filled eyes remind us:
God and his ways are mysterious and awe inspiring.
God and how he acts is greater than we can possibly imagine.
The idolatrous part of our nature makes attempts to tame God and box him into categories that we can understand, and perhaps even control.
But God is beyond all of that, and Isaiah’s intention is to inspire the people to see and to understand that God is always working on behalf of his people and all of creation.
All those ways God works for us is also expressed in Psalm 147. When we break that down into a list, we begin to see just how big our God is.
God builds up Jerusalem, and by extension all nations and cities, including Salmon Arm. What God builds is for the well-being of his people.
God gathers up the exiles. That is so important, because that reminds us that even when God is angry with his people, he still cares for them.
The many times that Israel is exiled are examples of those times, and a reminder that even then, God is working to bring them home. So that means that no matter what difficulty we are in, whether God is pleased with us or angry with us, God is working to bring us home, under his wing and into the constancy of his love and care.
The proof of that truth is seen in the ways that God heals our broken hearts and binds up our wounds. When we are ill, grieving, hurt emotionally or physically, God is working in us and for us to bring peace, hope and comfort.
But his care is not confined to his people, he knows all the stars by name and has created them and all the heavens without limit. There is no limit to the beauty that he gives to us.
The Psalmist reminds us that God’s understanding has no limit, nor does his power. All of that understanding, power, patience, grace, mercy and all the others gifts of God for us, is limitless. We can not wear out God. We will never reach the limit of what he wants to give us, and what he wants to do for us.
But we cannot begin to understand any of that, when we keep trying to tame, limit, box or control God.
God is best approached by us when we humble ourselves before him.
The psalmist writes that God sustains the humble. The best example that we have of that is Jesus, who humbled himself before God, giving up all that was his as co-creator and becoming a servant; not just of God, but also of the people he came to save. And that salvation is for all, even those whom God may cast to the ground and drive into exile for a while. That is not a state he ever cast us into forever.
Then the psalmist brings our attention to all that God does and will do for creation and the ongoing care of it and his people.
He brings clouds, and rain to nourish the earth. He makes the grass to grow on the hills, or in our case the trees to grow on the mountains. Certainly, great beauty, but beauty that benefits the care of the world and the hearts of the people who gaze upon it.
He provides food for the cattle and prospers the farmers; but he also provides food for the ravens, the sparrows, the whales, the lions and all other creatures on earth.
Then the psalmist ends with the things that give God no pleasure. It makes us scratch our heads.
He takes no pleasure in the strength of the horse, or the strong legs of the warrior. What does that mean?
The commentators suggest that this means that God does not delight in those that rely on their own strength. Or in those who do what they can do to help or save themselves.
I think that this ties back to the idolatry that Jensta spoke of in relation to the passage from Isaiah. When we rely on our own strength, then we limit what God can do, and we prevent him from acting freely and fully for us.
We need to remember that we cannot do what God does. We are not God, God is God. He can, will and is acting on our behalf and if we can’t praise him for that, the very least that we can do is get out of his way.
How do we do that?
The psalmist reminds us that the Lord delights in those who fear him. Fear in Biblical terms often means those who are in awe of him.
When we are in awe of God, we acknowledge that we don’t know how he acts, but we know that his love is all encompassing and that his capacity for bringing us into safety is limitless.
Being in fear and awe of God is for all of us a humbling experience, and we give ourselves over to his will. More than that, we put our hope in his unfailing love.
The best indication we are given about how we place that hope in God is given to the exiles by Isaiah.
It is a passage that is closely mirrored in the words spoken to Job as he sat complaining on his ash-heap.
Who are we, as the people of God, to question God and his ways?
Why do we complain that God’s ways are hidden?
Why do we believe that God has forgotten us?
Do we not know that God will never tire of us?
Are we aware that we will never understand God? Or that we are not meant to understand God?
Humbled before God, we realize that we cannot see the limits of who he is and what he does, and we embrace trust.
But we do come to know that this is what God does: He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak, so that we will know all our strength is in him.
When we rest in God, those who hope in the Lord, will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Is. 40 NIV
When we understand that we will never be able to know all that God does for us, then we will rest, and soar like eagles.
These past two weeks I have been on study leave. In the days after my mother’s death this has been a very good thing for me. The books I read were challenging and exciting and they redirected my thinking and heart from focusing on exhaustion and grief. It was like a time in an oasis.
That is an apt description of the theme of the books I read and how they explored the ongoing care of God.
The books built to an exploration that those who wait on God, will find God. Those who wait and don’t attempt to make things happen, will find what God is calling forth from them. I promise you will hear all about these teachings in the months to come, but for today I think we need to look at the necessity for all of us to stop, to just stop and rest in God in order to be able to soar like eagles.
Have you ever watched an eagle fly. Unlike other birds they don’t continually flap their wings. The lift them, catch an up-daft and then they soar and climb just on the wind under their wings. They glide upward with no effort. They turn, they swirl and they seem to dance; but most of all, they trust that the wind pushing on their wings will carry them where they need to go.
When we stop all our striving and rest in the Lord, then we are carried on the wings of the Holy Spirit. Then, when we relax into and trust that journey, God will take us where he wants us to go.
We will gain trust and strength.
We will gain faith and confidence—not in ourselves; but in God.
We will realize that the best gift we can give to God is our humility, our trust, and our faith.
I have a painting in my dining room, painted by a well-know local artist in New Glasgow. It is a scene painted of Melmerby beach, and was purchased as a gift for me, when the congregation was closing and I was about to be unemployed. When the artist heard why I was being given the painting he asked for a couple of days to make an alteration.
What he added to the painting was footprints. First two sets side by side and then only one. A reminder for me that in the difficulty of the journey I was about to start, that I was being carried by God.
In the whole myriad of things that God does for us, day by day, week by week, year after year, time without end, the most profound thing is that he carries us when our own strength fails us. More importantly this is what God always wants to do for us, carry us because we place our full confidence in him and rely only on his strength.
This is the time to question God; but to trust him and relax in the strength of the wind beneath our wings.
Glory be to God. Amen.
Hymn: 313 O worship the King
Offering and Doxology 830
Offertory Prayer
We thank you God, that in the offering of our lives, talents, gifts and wealth, we proclaim the gospel, and live the promise of hope!
Through our giving and living cause us to preach to the world, the truth of your love. Send us forth to share your love with all the people we meet! Bless our offering we pray, with strength and power and fill it with your compassion for your world and your people, that your grace will grow in every place. Amen
Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession
O Holy God, we ponder all that you have done for us, with thanksgiving. How can we adequately thank you for your mighty gifts.
Sun, rain, the bounty of the earth. Hope, peace the bounty of heaven. All have been equally given to us, and we are your grateful people.
JOYS
We pause in this moment to recall the needs we have expressed. We thank you that you have heard us and know the desires and concerns of our hearts.
CONCERNS FOR COMMUNITY, FRIENDS AND FAMILY
CONCERNS FOR THE WORLD
Ukraine, that children taken by Russia be returned to their families and peace come to their land
Peace in Jerusalem, and between Israel and Palestine
A stop to terrorism attacks in the Red Sea and responding attacks by the USA
Now O God, we pause in silence to hear what you are calling forth from us in this moment.
….
With thanksgiving, we pray together as Jesus has taught us, saying, 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 debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen
Hymn: 338 Let all things now living
Benediction
May you run and not be weary.
May you rise up on the wings of eagles.
May you know without doubt
that the everlasting God goes with you!
Blessing Song: Lead me Jesus 646 BP Sing twice
Lead me Jesus I will follow,
down the dusty pathway
all along the sea
Teach me Jesus to be loving
your disciple I will be
CCLI 11394548