Worship
Service for June 23, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: In the midst of life’s storms, God is
there.
P: What have we to fear?
L: In the darkness and terror, God is with
us.
P: Of whom shall we be afraid?
Opening Hymn – For the Beauty of the Earth
#473/182 5 vs. Blue
Prayer of Confession
God of love and power, we
listen to the stories of miracles and doubt that these things can happen
today. We look at the waves of
misfortune, distress, misery, distrust, and anger and wonder how we can still
those waves. We feel the pressures of
power and fear flooding into our lives, threatening to drown us and wonder
where You are. Forgive us for the
littleness of our faith. Forgive us for
our doubts. Help us place our trust in
You. Help us fix our eyes on You and on
the ministries to which You have called us.
(Silent prayers are offered)
AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Fear not!
God is with us, stilling the storms and raging fears in our lives. God is full of grace, mercy, and salvation.
P: We
place our trust in God, always! AMEN.
Gloria Patri
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
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
Lord of
wind and water, of calmness and peace, be with us this day. Calm our fears as we face uncertain
futures. Help us to relinquish control
and to place our trust totally in You.
Remind us to continue to faithfully work for good, with gratitude for
the many blessings You have poured upon us.
When the waves and torrents threaten us, let us again turn to You,
remembering Your saving mercies and love.
Give us courage to become disciples who can calm the seas of doubt and
anger, bringing hope and peace.
As we have
brought before you situations that require Your help and healing, remind us
again that You are with each person and situation, offering Your love and
grace. We thank You, Lord, for the many
ways in which You have healed us. For
all the goodness You have poured on us.
We especially pray this day for…
Holy God,
we offer our own words of thanks and request prayers of healing in this time of
silence.
In
gratitude and love, we pray these things offering our one voice in the words
Jesus 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. 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.
Hymn – How Great Thou Art #467/147
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
133
Second Scripture Reading – Mark
4:35-41
Sermon – Facing
the Storms of Life
Imagine sailing along in the middle of the ocean on a big
ship. All of a sudden, the worst storm
you’ve ever seen rolls in. Waves are
crashing, the sky becomes dark, and you’re thrown about the boat with no way to
keep your balance. You don’t know what
will happen in the coming hours as the angry ocean wrestles with the ship. You wonder if you will ever make it out of
this storm.
When we are in the middle of one of life’s storms, we often
ask, “God, why is this happening.” I
think there are at least four reasons why we can find ourselves in a storm.
One, we live in an imperfect world. Unfortunately, all of us will face life
challenges, until we get to Heaven. Good
things and bad things happen to all of us.
Matthew’s writer tells us that, “God makes His sun rise on the evil and
on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45b).
Two, we create storms through our own bad choices and foolishness. Jonah found himself in one of these storms
when he tried to flee from the presence of the Lord. He ended up being swallowed by a fish because
of his disobedience to God. God wanted
Jonah to do one thing and Jonah refused, choosing something else.
Three, as difficult as it might seem to admit, God uses
storms to help us mature. That doesn’t
necessarily mean that God sends them on purpose, but rather God uses the things
that come to all of us anyway, to mature our faith Sometimes God allows us to go through storms
for our own development. In our reading
today and in a similar story in Matthew 14, Jesus commanded His disciples to
get into a ship and sail to the other side of the sea, right into a storm. He did this to teach them a lesson about
trusting in him. Sometimes, God sends us
through storms to teach us.
Four, we get dragged into storms by other people. Paul experienced this kind of storm in Acts
27. Paul did not choose to be a prisoner
on the ship. In fact, he was an
experienced sailor, made many journeys at sea, and even endured a shipwreck. When the ship he was on headed into the storm,
he knew everyone aboard was in trouble. He
tried to warn people, but they wouldn’t listen.
All of us face storms that are not of our own making. Sometimes children have problems because of
their parents’ choices and vice versa. Sometimes
we face challenges because of other people’s decisions.
Whether we face the normal storms of life, storms from our own
sin, storms for our development, or storms we have been dragged into, we will
all face storms in our lives. The
question for you is: How will you navigate the storms?
Storms are a fact of life. We need to know how to weather the storms of
life. Serious illness. Disease. Accidents. Catastrophes. Unemployment.
Lost retirement savings. Death. Loneliness. Hardships. Personal problems. To mention only some of them. What storms have you been through?
How do you weather the storms of life? This is what this passage is about. From Jesus and his disciples, we learn to
weather the storms of life through prayer and faith.
Verses 35-38 state: “On that day, when evening had come, he
said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him
with them in the boat, just as he was. A
great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was
already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion…”
A good number of Jesus’ disciples had been fisherman on the
Sea of Galilee. They knew by experience
that the Sea of Galilee was notorious for its sudden storms. The storms unexpectedly swept down over the
water from the higher elevations of the surrounding mountains and cliffs. The storm on this occasion was especially
furious. The high winds also whipped up
the sea into vicious waves. The waves
swept over the disciples’ boat, spilling huge amounts of water into it,
threatening to swamp and capsize it, and to throw them into the sea. The disciples were frightened and frantic.
While all this was happening, Jesus was sleeping calmly in
the back of the boat. We might wonder
how he could sleep so calmly through such a storm while his disciples were so
frightened. Here we see the genuine
humanness and faith of the man Jesus. He
got tired physically and needed sleep, just like we do. He slept so calmly because he knew his
heavenly Father was with him and watching over him. He simply put himself into his God’s hands,
unafraid of anything that might happen or overtake him. If only we remained so calm and trusted in God’s
care through our own storms of life, right?
How many of us, during those kinds of storms stay awake all night,
worrying and fretting over what might happen?
How many of us lose sleep, concerned about things we have no control
over?
Here, in Mark and also it’s parallel story in Matthew, Jesus
teaches us and shows us that we can remain steadfast in knowing that God is
there, calming our souls, our spirits, our minds, and our psyches.
The end of verse 38 states: “And his disciples woke him up,
saying, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
Here we learn to turn to Christ in our own storms of life,
in the troubles or hardships or dangers that have swept down upon us. How are we weathering them? When the storms of life are crashing down
around our ears, they are frightful and painful. What do we do then to batten down the hatches?
To bail out our sinking boat? To fight off the wind and the waves of
adversity? We need to do what the
disciples did--turn to Christ. Pray:
“Lord, save me from drowning. I am about
to perish!”
As Jesus was present with his disciples in their storm of
life, so he is with us in our storms of life. He does not leave us to struggle alone and to
drown. He is with us to hear our pleas
for his help. He is there to answer us
in the midst of our troubles.
This requires faith in God and in God’s promises. This is what the disciples lacked at that
moment in their storm of life. They were
frightened. They saw themselves
perishing in the sea. Panic stricken
they woke up Jesus with their plea to save them.
Verse 40 tells us, “And he says to them, ‘Why are you
afraid? Have you still no faith?’” He rebuked the wind and the waves, they ceased,
and the sea was calm, once again.
Thanks to Jesus the disciples’ storm of life was over. His almighty, powerful word was sufficient for
the task. His word was authoritative. His word accomplished what he said and
commanded. He, who during the six days
of creation said, “Let there be,” and it was done, commanded the wind and waves
he had created to be still and they hushed.
The power of his almighty word revealed he was much more
than a mere man. And in that moment, the
disciples suddenly recognized God among them, in the flesh, standing there in
the form of Christ. According to verse 41,
“And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is
this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’”
How is our faith during our storms of life? In the face of hardships and troubles and
dangers is our faith strong and as firm as a rock? Or, is our faith no better than the faith of
the disciples? Would Jesus rebuke us
also for the littleness of our faith?” Would he say to us, “O you of little faith,
why are you so afraid?”
How confident are we when we must undergo surgery? How strong are we when we have lost our job,
have no income, and bills are raining down on us? How firm are we when our loved one is dying
and change and loneliness are looming before us? Does Jesus have reason to rebuke us? “O you of little faith, why are you so
afraid?”
I say all that and ask all that because of Scripture and
the stories that are told in these pages. And yet, I know, we all know and have
personally experienced, that these great endings are not always the endings that
come to us. We are not always saved from
the storms of life. We are not always
healed. We are not always shown a
rainbow at the end of the storm. What
does scripture have to say to us, then?
This is what I know: death and the grave may claim us for a
moment. We and our loved ones, all –
yes, each and every one of us will leave this earthly life at some time or
another. But death and the grave cannot
hold us. Scripture tells us that we,
like Christ, will be raised to life imperishable. If this is indeed true, again; what is there to
fear?
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Merciful God, we thank You for the many ways
that gifts are offered in Your service.
Accept our gifts, we pray, and bless now this morning’s offerings, that
we might do Your will in this place and in all the world. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee #310/89
Benediction –
As the Lord
has given to you such peace and healing, now go into the world offering God’s
love and hope to others. Go in
peace. AMEN.
Postlude
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