Today's Service is a bit different. It is mostly devoid of worship music as our organist is on vacation and no replacement could be found. Today, we will spend time reflecting on the words to the hymns, other musical elements within worship, and the messages behind them. Of course, our in-person worship service will have the text to the hymns on the PowerPoint screen. If you have a hymn book, I encourage you to find the hymns and read them yourself this morning. Or better yet, tune in to our live streaming on Facebook at 11:15 am or join us at Olivet Presbyterian Church in West Elizabeth at 9:45 or Bethesda United Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth at 11:15.
Worship
Service for July 9, 2023
This
Sunday, we are doing something a little different when it comes to music. This Sunday, we do not have an organist or a
pianist who traditionally would lead us in our songs and in our music. So, this morning I want to spend some time
talking about the various elements of music during our worship service and
rather than singing the hymns, we will pay closer attention to the words of the
hymns and the stories behind the hymns this morning as we recite their lyrics. The very first part of worship, aside from
your arrival into the space is known as the Prelude – Every Sunday, the
organist or pianist plays something that we call the Prelude. But, what exactly is a prelude in regard to
music and what purpose does it serve in a worship service? By definition, a prelude is a piece of music
that traditionally leads into something else.
So, in worship, the purpose of a prelude is to set the tone for what is
to follow, inviting worshipers to gather, to transition from their busy lives
into a sacred place of communion with God and with one another. This morning, absent a musical, I’d like for
us to use the words to O God our Help in Ages Past as our Prelude, to invite
you to our sacred space where we gather together to worship God. This hymn recounts the years that God has
stood by the faithful in the past from before the earth was even made, God has
been there and been a shelter for all humanity.
That is the eternal gratefulness of our worship time together.
This
hymn is considered to be one of the grandest hymns in the entirety of English
hymnody. It is a paraphrase of Psalm
90. Originally, it consisted of 9
stanzas. In its present usage it is
normally stanzas one, two, three, five, and nine that are used. You’ll notice, too, that if you would compare
our two hymnbooks you’ll see that the Blue Hymnal begins with “Our God” and the
Brown Hymnal “O God”. The original hymn
was “Our God”, but John Wesley changed it in 1738 to “O God”. Many modern hymnbooks have reverted back to
the original of “Our God, our Help in ages past”. The author of this hymn, Isacc Watts, was a
literary genius even at a young age. It
is told that he had an annoying habit of rhyming even everyday conversations. One day he was even scolded by his irritated
father for this practice, for which he cried out, “Oh, Father, do some pity
take, and I will no more verses make.”
In the late 1600’s and early 1700’s hymnody consisted of mostly
ponderous psalms set to music of which Isaac complained. His father therefore challenged him to write
something better for the congregation to sing.
And for the next two years, Isaac Watts wrote a new hymn for every
Sunday worship service. Other hymns that
you’d recognize by Isaac Watts include: I Sing the Mighty Power of God, Jesus
Shall Reign, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, and Joy to the World. Back in those days, the lyrics to hymns were
often paired with already well-known tunes written by other musicians. The lyrics for O God, Our Help in Ages Past
were paired with a tune known as St. Anne, composed by William Croft in 1708.
One
more item of note for our better understanding of the hymns we sing is you’ll
notice words beginning with capital letter seemingly placed at random
throughout a hymn. There are two
purposes for this. The first is that a
word is capitalized if it is the first word of a new phrase for the lyrics of
the hymn. You’ll notice this at the
beginning of each line. Sometimes,
however, these capitals may appear in the middle of a line on the screen. This often occurs when space is limited and a
new line of the hymn has started without beginning a new line on the page. The second purpose is to highlight words
associated with the divine. So, all
pronouns like He, or even more ancient ones like Thy and Thou, that replace the
word for God are capitalized as well as all words that might be used to
describe God as a name for the Holy One.
This occurs in our hymn several times with phrases like Our Help, Our
Hope, Our Shelter – all capitalized.
Let us
prepare our hearts for worship by reading this hymn together.
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
Announcements:
Let us stand for our
Call to Worship
Call to Worship
L: We gather this day to worship!
P: But we bring with us heavy burdens which
weigh us down.
L: We gather this day to praise God!
P: But our hearts ache inside us and we feel
we can go no further.
L: Come all who are burdened and who feel
weighed down. Come to Jesus, God’s own
Son.
P: Lord Jesus, take our burdens and heal our
spirits. AMEN.
Sit
Before
we read our Opening Hymn together, let me tell you a little bit about it.
Throughout
the centuries the Welsh people have been recognized as one of the most
enthusiastic groups of singers in the world.
From the days of the Druids tracing all the way back to the 4th
Century before Christ, Wales has always been a land of song. Our Opening Hymn, Guide Me, O Thou Great
Jehovah, is a product of that musical heritage.
During
the early part of the 18th Century a young Welsh preacher by the
name of Howell Harris, was stirring Wales with his evangelistic preaching and
congregational singing. Another young
man by the name of William Williams (you know you’re talking about English or
Welsh people with names like Howell Harris and William Williams), anyway this
young man, although preparing to enter the medical profession, heard Harris
preach and gave his heart and life to God and decided to enter the ministry
instead. He served two parishes upon
graduation, but felt the call to minister to all of Wales and spent the next
forty-three years traveling nearly 100,000 miles on horseback, preaching and
singing the gospel. He was
affectionately called the “the sweet singer of Wales”. Although a gifted preacher, he is best known
for writing over 800 hymns, all in Welsh.
What Isaac Watts was to England, William Williams was to Wales. Unfortunately, this is the only hymn that is
widely known today with most of his hymns remaining untranslated. Although this was originally written with
five stanzas, we normally only sing three of them – stanzas one, three, and
five. This hymn compares the forty-year
journey of the Israelites to the promised land with the living of a Christian
life as a “pilgrim through this barren land”. Note also the various symbolic phrases used
throughout like, “bread of heaven”, “crystal fountain”, “fire and cloudy
pillar”, “verge of Jordan” and “Canaan’s side”.
The hymn tune to which we sing this hymn was written in 1907 by John
Hughes. Today, both the hymn tune and
the lyrics are so popular in Wales that it is not uncommon for a large crowd of
people at a public event, such as a rugby match, to burst into the spontaneous
singing of this hymn.
Remain seated
Opening Hymn – Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah #281/682
Prayer of Confession
Merciful and loving God, we
are grateful for Your redeeming love for us.
We confess that there have been times of doubt in our spirits. We confess that when the time of difficulties
are upon us, we don’t always believe that You will take our burdens. We feel we have to be in control at all
times, trying to demand the desired outcome.
Help us to place our trust in you.
Remind us that You surround us continually with Your care. You never just let us go to drift aimlessly
about. Open our hearts and spirits again
to Your healing powers. (Silent
prayers are offered)
AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Hear the good news, dear Friends! Jesus releases us from our burdens. Place Your whole trust in His abiding love.
P: Thanks be to God! AMEN.
It is
at this point in our service that we normally sing the Gloria Patri. But what is it and why do we continue to
retain this Latin element in worship.
The
Gloria Patri and the Doxology, which we’ll talk about later in our worship
service form part of what is called the Words of Glory in liturgy. The Gloria Patri was introduced into worship
during the 4th century as part of a corrective to a growing movement
of Arianism, a doctrine attributed to Arian, claiming that Jesus was
subordinate to God the Father, therefore, not entirely equal to God. So, the Roman Catholic Mass added this
one-stanza liturgical song to emphasize the belief in a Trinitarian God to whom
we owe all glory, from the beginning, through the present and into the
future. It remains as part of our modern
worship service as a deeply rooted nod to ancient liturgy.
Gloria Patri
Please Stand:
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy
Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without
end. AMEN.
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Please be seated.
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Welcoming
Lord, we come before your throne of grace today. It’s been quite a week for some, filled with
busyness and exciting activities; for others it has been a long and lonely
week. Still others have experienced
ongoing troubles and frustrations, sorrows and sadness. Throughout all these conditions and at all
times, You are with each one of us, giving us strength, calming our spirits;
healing our wounds, celebrating the delights and triumphs. This morning we name in our hearts and by our
voices loved ones who struggle with issues of health, loneliness, sorrow; we
name in our hearts and by our voices those who have found great joy. Be with each person, giving strength and courage
for all the times ahead. We especially
pray for….
Hear
now, also those prayers within our hearts in silence….
Help
each one of us to remember that we can always come to You with our burdens as
we lift our voices together 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.
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, forever.
AMEN.
Of the many gospel hymns written, this hymn,
Great is Thy Faithfulness, stands out like a beacon of light for its themes of
God’s goodness and faithfulness. This
hymn was simply a result of the author’s “morning by morning” realization of
God’s personal faithfulness and not as a result of sudden conversion or a
particular dramatic experience.
The author, Thomas Obadiah Chisholm was born
in a humble log cabin in Franklin, Kentucky on July 29, 1866. He began his career as a school teacher
without benefit of a high school degree or any other advanced training. When he was twenty-one, he became the associate
editor of the town’s weekly newspaper.
Six years later, he became a Christian during a revival meeting
conducted by Dr. H.C. Morrison. He was
ordained to the Methodist ministry, but was forced to resign for health
reasons. In 1909 he became a life
insurance agent, retired in 1953 and spent his remaining years in the Methodist
Home for the Aged in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.
In spite of poor health for most of his life, he managed to pen more
than 1200 poems, and a number of them have become the lyrics for hymns. In a letter he wrote that, “my income has not
been large at any time due to impaired health in my earlier years which has
followed me on until now. Although I
must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping
God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care, for
which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness.” In a packet of poems sent off to Moody Bible
Institute, Mr Runyan, a musician at Moody said of this poem, “This particular
poem held such an appeal that I prayed most earnestly that my tune might carry
over its message in a worthy way, and the subsequent history of its use
indicates that God answered prayer.”
Hymn – Great Is Thy
Faithfulness Hymn #276/139
Scripture Reading(s):
You’ll
notice that one of our Bible passages this morning was from the Psalms, Psalm
145. As far back as the ancient days of
the Old Testament, many of the psalms or spiritual poems were put to music,
particularly during the time when David was writing many of them. In fact, if you looked in your Bible, some
translations still include a word, Selah, which breaks up a psalm into
sections. Unfortunately, today many
translations omit it. This word Selah
was used as a musical notation within the psalm possibly meaning to pause, or
to begin the next section louder or softer.
One of the early church fathers, Tertullian, wrote in the 2nd
Century that a typical Christian worship service included the reading of the
scriptures and the singing of the psalms.
A collection of the psalms put to music is called a Psalter and during
the Reformation Period the Psalter was essential to the spread of the gospel
and the Reformation. The Genevan Psalter
was published in 1562 and went through 25 editions that year, alone.
In A
Brief History of Psalm Singing, the author, Warren Peel, wrote that a visitor
to Geneva in 1557 remarked, “A most interesting sight is offered in the city on
the weekdays, when the hour for the sermon approaches…The people hasten to the
nearest meeting house. There each one
draws from his pocket a small book which contains the Psalms with notes, and
out of full hearts, in the native speech, the congregation sings before and
after the sermon.” By the second half of
the 16th and 17th Centuries psalms were sung by just
about everyone except Quakers and Roman Catholics. Today, very few denominations use the Psalter
exclusively in their worship services.
But, it is somewhat of a pity that we don’t use the sung psalms more
often in our worship.
One of
the earliest Christian writings that offered teaching and guidance for the
church in worship was written some time in the 3rd Century. According to the author, an anonymous bishop
in the church, the apostles themselves laid down a rule “that at the conclusion
of all the Scriptures, the Gospels shall be read as being the seal of all
Scriptures; and let the people listen to it standing upon their feet, because
it is good tidings of the redemption of all people.”
So,
let us stand to as this morning’s Psalm and our gospel reading is read.
Psalm
145
Matthew
11:16-19, 25-30
Sermon – The Singing of the Psalms and the
Gospel in Music
Since I mentioned that the Psalms were often sung in
worship, here we will depart from having no music in worship and will listen to
Francesca LaRosa sing Psalm 145.
Following this, a Catholic monk and song writer, a favorite of mine,
John Michael Talbot, will sing a portion of today’s gospel reading.
Play music
Offertory –
During the time of the Offertory, the organist plays
something, or, at times, a choir offers a musical number
Today we will use Come, Thou
Fount of Every Blessing. This hymn was
written by Robert Robinson (can you guess what country he was from?) If you thought England, you’d be
correct. He was born in Norfolk, England
in 1735. His father died when Robert was
eight. His mother sent him to London to
learn barbering when he was fourteen.
Unfortunately, he fell in with a notorious gang of hoodlums and lived a
less than stellar life. At the age of
seventeen he attended a revival meeting by George Whitefield with his hoodlum
friends all for the purpose of “scoffing at the poor, deluded Methodists.” However, Whitefield’s sermon convicted young
Robinson and he converted to Christianity.
Several years later he felt called to preach and entered ministry of the
Methodist Church. When he moved to
Cambridge, he left the Methodist Church to become a Baptist pastor. He became known as a well respected
theologian through his prolific writings and penned several hymns. The lyrics to this hymn were written when
Robinson was only twenty-three years old, which contain many rather interesting
phrases characterizing his own life.
“Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come,” referring to 1
Samuel 7:12, where the Ebenezer is a symbol of God’s faithfulness. “Prone to wander – Lord, I feel it - Prone to
leave the God I love” another reference to his own lapses into sin,
unstableness, and unsavory behavior.
Remain seated as we take up today’s offering and read the
words to:
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Doxology – As I
mentioned earlier, the Gloria Patri and the Doxology are hold overs from
ancient worship as part of the Words of Glory.
These four lines that we sing every Sunday have been the most frequently
sung words of any known song for more than three hundred years. Even today nearly every English speaking
Protestant congregation still unites at least once each Sunday in this noble
ascription of praise. It has been said
that the Doxology has done more to teach the doctrine of the Trinity than all
the theological books ever written. The
author of this text was a bold Anglican Bishop named Thomas Ken. He was born in 1637, ordained in 1662 to the
ministry of the Church of England. King
Charles II appointed Ken as one of his personal chaplains. His bold character both won and taxed the
monarchs heart. King Charles, when it
was time to attend chapel, would usually say, “I must go in and hear Ken tell
me my faults.” The next monarch, James
II, did not find Ken to be as endearing and had him imprisoned in the Tower of
London. The next monarch, William III,
had him acquitted, but stripped him of his Bishopry and Ken spent his remaining
years in quiet obscurity. His four-line
stanza, now known as, the Doxology was actually the closing stanza for three
other hymns he wrote, Morning, Evening, and Midnight Hymns. Set to the tune of Old Hundredth,
composed by Louis Bourgeois of France, is said to be one of the most famous
hymn tunes of all time.
Doxology – Let us stand to say
this most famous four-line stanza.
Prayer of Dedication –
As you have received each one of us, O Lord,
receive also these gifts that we offer to You that Your love may be made known
through ministries of peace, hope and justice.
AMEN
Please be seated:
Our closing hymn is Take My
Life and Let It Be
Our
final two hymns, this one and our postlude were both written by women. Take My Life was written by Frances Havergal,
who was born in 1836. At the age of four
she began reading and memorizing the Bible.
At the age of seven she was already writing her thoughts in poetry. She was a devout student learning several
modern languages as well as Greek and Hebrew.
She was terrified of not being counted among God’s chosen elect, having
grown up as the child of an Anglican pastor.
But, after a conversion experience as a teenager, she found life to be
joyful and bright from that moment on.
She was also a skillful vocalist and was sought after as a concert
soloist. In addition, she was known as a
talented pianist. Despite these musical
talents, her life’s mission was simply to sing and work for Christ. The text for this hymn developed over the
course of several days. Each couplet, a
new revelation of what she needed to give over to Christ. Upon the revelation of “take my silver and my
gold” she says that she then shipped off every piece of jewelry she owned, over
50 pieces, to the church Missionary House for them to use for their
benefit. She wrote, “I don’t think I
ever packed a box with such pleasure.”
Remain seated:
Closing Hymn – Take My Life and Let it Be Hymn #391/597
Please rise for the
Benediction –
Go now in
peace with the love of Christ in your hearts.
You are released from your burdens.
Go with joy to serve the Living Lord.
AMEN.
The purpose of a postlude is
to conclude something. To bring the
service to an end and to allow final contemplation. Our postlude this morning is Blessed
Assurance, written by a young blind poet, whose name was Fanny Crosby. Born in the U.S. in 1820, Fanny Crosby
captured the spirit of the American gospel song more than any other
author. The Gospel movement was called
the music of the people and Fanny Crosby, its author. It is believed that she wrote more than 8000
gospel songs. Her hymns have been and
still are being sung more frequently than those of any other gospel hymn
writer. For most of her life, she penned
more than three hymns each week. Often,
a hymn text is written and then paired with a tune. But, in the case of Blessed Assurance, Mrs.
Joseph Knapp, an amateur musician and friend of Fanny’s came to her one day and
played this melody asking the blind poet, “What does this tune say?” Fanny responded immediately, “Why, it
says….Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine” and wrote the hymn on the spot. Fanny Crosby and Frances Havergal, the author
of our closing hymn, Take My Life, were contemporaries of one another and
although they never met, admired each other’s work. While Frances died at a young age, Fanny
lived to be 95 years old. To close our
service and take a last moment of reflection, let us read the words to Blessed
Assurance.
Postlude – Blessed Assurance Hymn #341/572
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