Worship
Service for July 14, 2024
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: We have been called here to face into
God’s gracious way of living. We are to
leave the past behind us and walk into these new days of our ministry.
P: Sometimes we’d rather remember how things
used to be. Sometimes we are afraid to
be disciples.
L: But this is a new day, and Christ is
sharing freedom with us. It is a day to
put aside all fear, to leave doubting behind, and to take courage in God’s
loving call.
P: We will look to the new day, and we will
set ourselves on the Jerusalem road. We
will strive for faithfulness, even at the cost of popularity, and we will be
disciples of Christ, renewing and healing the world around us.
Opening Hymn – God of the
Ages, Whose Almighty Hand #262/809
Prayer of Confession
Most holy and most merciful
God, in Your presence we must face the sinfulness of our nature and the errors
of our ways, intended and accidental.
You alone know how often we have failed by wandering from Your paths, wasting
Your gifts, and underestimating Your love.
Have mercy upon us, O God, for we have broken Your requirements for
justice and overlooked opportunities for kindness. Humble us with Your truth and raise us by
Your grace that we may truly be the people of Christ and the witnesses of Your
Spirit. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Rejoice!
God, whose love is poured over you at all times in all places, has
healed your hearts and spirits. Be
people of peace and joy, bringing hope to others.
P: Thanks
be to God for His love and grace. 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
Holy God,
as we enter this space of quiet and prayer, we are reminded that our prayers
are sometimes one-sided. So, today our
prayer is not only for the usual things we pray for, but also for the opposite
things.
We pray
today not only for the sick who need your tender care and your compassion as
they go through treatments and healing, but we also prayer for those who are
well, lest pride rule happy hearts. We
pray not only for the poor who struggle with daily living, face days of hunger,
who worries about making ends meet, but we also pray for the rich who find it
so hard to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
We pray not only for the troubled, those who are depressed and worried
about today’s difficulties, but we also pray for the favored ones, lest peace
with the world be confused with the peace of God. We pray not only for the dying, those who
face terminal illnesses, cancer treatments, but we also pray for the living,
since they face eternity as well.
We pray
not only for the burdened but also for the casual, lest indolence rot the very
soul they hope to save. We pray for not
only the President of our country and leaders around the world, but we also
pray for the people of the world, because it is they who pay for misrule when
it comes. We pray not only for
missionaries on foreign shores, but also for the rest of us who still don’t
know that in Christ there is no east or west, north or south, but one great
human family in a house that grows smaller and smaller by the years.
We pray
not only for ministers of the Gospel, but also for people of the gospel, since
all who believe are called to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. We pray not only for fair weather, but also
for bad weather, since nature is impartial and often prodigal, and human
estimates of good and bad do not count.
We pray not only sinners to turn and be saved, but also for the rest of
us who think we have no sin and are in the greater need of penitence and
healing. And finally, Lord, we pray not
only for others, but also for ourselves, because salvation and righteousness
begins right here, in the household of God.
We especially pray today for…
We pray
with words spoken aloud, but also with hearts unburdened by language in this
time of silence.
Hear us as
we pray... 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 – It is well with my Soul #705
Brown
Scripture Reading:
First Scripture Reading – Psalm 89:20-37
Second Scripture Reading – Mark
6:30-34, 53-56
Sermon – Rest
for Your Soul
How is it that our world seems to be spinning faster and faster
with every passing year? And that our
lives just seem to get busier and busier?
And that even with all of the progress we have made, we seem to have
less time than ever?
As you know, many of our modern inventions were created to give us
more time. Dishwashers, washing
machines, microwave ovens, even cars and cell phones. These are great inventions, and I’m sure we
are all thankful to have them. But they
are supposed to help us to do more in less time. So why is it that we seem to have less free
time than ever before?
The pandemic seemed to slow the world down for a little while, for
many people but now that the pandemic is over, we seem to be getting back to
business as usual. The world is speeding
up again – at breakneck speed.
With that in mind, Christ’s offer in today’s gospel reading to his
first disciples, to “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a
while” seems like a good invitation.
Those chosen disciples had just returned from their first mission
trip. And they were excited. They “gathered around Jesus, and told him all
that they had done and taught.” They
were healing the sick, and casting out unclean spirits, and proclaiming the
gospel. And they were ready to do more,
to build on their success. But Jesus
responded to their enthusiasm with this invitation to “come away to a deserted
place all by yourselves and rest a while.”
Jesus knew that this rest was the most important thing that his
disciples could do now, the most needed thing.
They have done important work, but now it was time to rest.
But I don’t think that Jesus meant that this rest would simply be
a physical rest. I think Jesus is
offering them spiritual rest, rest not just for their bodies, but for their
souls, as well. What Jesus is doing is
inviting his disciples to do what he did regularly. Back in Chapter 1 of Mark’s Gospel we have a
great example of this. Jesus is in
Capernaum, home base for his ministry.
And “the whole city was gathered around the door” of the house where he
was staying. And Jesus “cured many who
were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.” Everything was going well, and his ministry
and influence was growing.
So, what did he do? “In the
morning, while it was still very dark,” we read in Mark 1:35, Jesus “got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he
prayed.” Jesus followed up his healing
and teaching by resting in prayer. Not
by sleeping or taking a much needed nap.
He actually had to give up a little sleep, and leave while it was still
dark so that no one would stop him. But
he did this, and he went to this deserted place to pray, and to get some needed
spiritual rest. Some rest for his
soul.
When we think of rest, we usually think of rest for our
bodies. But when Jesus thinks of rest, he’s
usually talking about rest for our souls.
And those two things are very different.
Unfortunately, in this fast-paced world of ours, we often forget to do
either of these.
Studies have shown that we Americans currently average 6.8 hours
of sleep a day, which is down by more than an hour from the preindustrial era. Many studies talk about our ancestors
sleeping twice each night – a biphasic sleep where most people slept from 9 or
10pm until midnight or so, then would get up for an hour or two, then sleep again
until morning. Most of us are actually
familiar with this pattern, we just don’t know it. That second sleep for us is usually
characterized by a quick trip to the bathroom, followed by vivid dreaming and a
lot of tossing and turning just before we wake up in the morning.
Of course, we all know that there are many studies these days that
show that getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night is important for most of us. But many of us are not getting that kind of
physical rest. And our physical health
is affected by that; we simply get sick more often.
Ok, so that’s what we know about physical rest. But what about spiritual rest? Are we getting enough of that? And what happens when we don’t get enough
rest for our souls? When we don’t spend
enough time in prayer? When we don’t
spend enough time in worship? When we
don’t spend enough time with God’s Word?
I think it is similar to what happens when we don’t get enough
sleep. Our souls become vulnerable to illness.
We might become, for example, more and more frustrated and burned
out, even if we are doing good things.
We might forget why we are doing those good things. We might forget to rely on God when we are
doing those things. Or forget that it is
really not about us; but rather, it’s about God.
I think that this is why in today’s scripture reading, Jesus is
encouraging his disciples to get away and rest a while, after they have
returned from their mission trip. Come
away to a deserted place, Jesus says – perhaps even the same deserted place
where he prayed? – and rest a while.
But I have to wonder what his disciples thought about that. Did they wonder if this was really the best
idea? Shouldn’t they capitalize on the
success of that mission trip, and keep spreading the gospel? Keep healing the sick, casting out demons,
and doing the work of bringing God’s kingdom to earth? But no.
Jesus knew that the work of ministry needs to be followed by rest. By spending time with God in prayer.
Why? Often times, that’s the only way we
can process in our minds and in our spirits what has happened, how we’ve been
changed and what we can do with all that change, how we behave and act in the
future. If we don’t take that time to
rest and process, we’ll simply go back to doing things the way we’ve always
done them.
And isn’t that the case in our world now? Doesn’t our work need to be balanced by
rest? And especially by resting in
God? Isn’t that what it means to
“remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy”?
Aren’t we simply doing what God modeled for us in Genesis, when after
creating our world, the Lord rested? We
need a reset button. But not a reset
back to the factory setting, but rather a reset to where we’ve grown and how we’ve
been changed. By doing so, we’re simply
doing what Jesus modeled for us in Mark Chapter 1, when he got up while it was
still dark and went to a deserted place to pray.
Dallas Willard wrote the book, “The Ruthless Elimination
of Hurry.” He said that “Hurry is
the great enemy of spiritual life in our day.”
If you want to be the person that God is calling you to be, “you must
ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”
Or as Corrie ten Boom put it, “if the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll
make you busy. Busy is good enough to
the devil, because it doesn’t leave any time to worship or pray or rest in God.”
I like this quote from an unknown author, “If you are too busy to worship, you
are far busier than God intended you to be.”
God intends for us to spend time in worship, and in prayer. We need this spiritual rest, just as we need
physical rest.
But it is also good to remember that we don’t worship, pray, and
rest in God simply to rest. This rest
has a purpose. It equips us to continue
doing the work to which we are called.
It helps us to proclaim the gospel, and serve people following the
example of Jesus, and strive for justice and peace. Spiritual rest helps our spiritual work, just
as physical rest helps our physical work.
After Jesus spent time in the deserted place praying, he got up
and went back doing what he was called to do.
Spiritual rest leads to spiritual work, to serving and loving and
proclaiming and striving for justice and peace. If you remember, in
today’s gospel reading, the deserted place that Jesus took the disciples to did
not stay deserted for long. “Many saw
them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the
towns.” So, what did Jesus do? Did he tell the crowds to leave, or did he go
with his disciples to find a new and more deserted place? No, when he saw the crowd, Jesus “had
compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he
began to teach them many things.” The much
needed rest led to the very needed mission.
Which might raise the question of which is more important, or
which should be done next. Rest, or
work? And I love the answer I once came
across, using the analogy of breathing.
Which is more important, breathing in or breathing out? It all depends on which one you did last!
If you have been spending lots of time doing ministry, then it is
probably more important to take time to go to a deserted place, or at least a
relatively quiet and solitary place, and rest a while in God’s presence. On the other hand, if you have been spending
time in prayer and worship, resting in God’s presence, then it is probably more
important now for you to do ministry.
Which is more important depends on which you have been doing more of
lately. There is rhythm to the Christian
life that Jesus himself models for us, and that today’s Gospel reading
illustrates very well.
This lesson doesn’t come only from Mark, but from Matthew
11:28-29, as well. It is one of my
favorite Bible passages:
“Come, to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy
burdens, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls.”
Rest for our weary souls is what Jesus offers to us all. And we all need that rest. We all carry heavy burdens at times. We all find ourselves weary at times. If this is one of those times for you, then
hear Jesus’ words today and come to him.
Cast your burdens at his feet.
Entrust him with what is troubling you.
Come to him, all who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and find
rest for your souls.
And then, of course, when you are done, go. Go and be his hands, his feet, his ears, and
his voice. Go in his name to feed the
hungry and care for the sick, to comfort the despairing, and share the good
news of his love for us all.
Come, and then go. Breathe
in, and breathe out. Worship and pray,
then love, serve and proclaim. Both are
important to the Christian life. Both
are commanded by Jesus himself.
May all you who are weary come to Jesus, and find rest for your
souls. And may all you who are rested,
go out into the world to continue his mission on this earth.
Thanks be to God. Amen
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Lord, take these gifts, multiply them for your
use in the World and make our hearts and hands busy with the burdens of those
in need. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – God Be With You Till We Meet Again #232 Brown
Benediction –
Dear
Friends, find rest for your souls so that you can be people of peace and joy,
bringing hope to others. AMEN.
Postlude
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