Worship
for the Lord’s Day
Sept 20,
2020
The past two Sundays I
recorded the sermon from Bethesda’s pulpit.
This Sunday, the sermon is recorded from Olivet.
We are still making plans
to open up both sanctuaries on October 4 for in-person corporate worship. October 4th is World Communion
Sunday and we will give more details on how that will work next Sunday.
Be patient. We will be together in worship again, soon! Until then, let’s begin:
Prelude
Opening Prayer
Lord, lift us up and reside
in our hearts today. Help us listen
closely for Your word to us. Remind us
that You are always with us throughout all our lives. Give us confidence in Your presence today, so
that we might have the courage and the conviction to go out into Your world
ready to witness to Your love through our words and our deeds, for we pray
these things in Jesus’ name. AMEN.
Hymn Open My Eyes That I May See
Prayer of Confession
Lord, You know how
fickle we are as a people. We proclaim
Your presence with us and then we behave in ways which run counter Your
word. We get caught up in our own needs
and whine about the injustices we feel in our lives. Help us place our trust in Your mercy and
Your compassionate love. Forgive us when
we stray from Your ways and wander into paths of self-pity and
self-destruction. Lift us from the deep
chaos of our own making and put us back on track. Give us confidence in Your presence and Your
direction throughout our lives, for we ask these things in Jesus’ name. AMEN.
Words of Assurance
God’s powerful love and
mercy are working in our lives. God is
with us through all our experiences.
Though we try we cannot stray from God’s love. Rejoice!
This is the good news of the gospel for all of us! AMEN.
Affirmation of Faith –
The 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:
(Continued prayers for
all those affected by the Coronavirus, for our schools, for our national
leaders. We also pray for those affected
by the recent hurricanes and the wildfires that have damaged so much.)
Lord, Your blessings abound in our lives and we lift our
voices in gratitude for these gifts from You.
We also life our voices as our hearts cry out our concerns for those who
are ill, for those who mourn, for those who feel lost. We pray for those who have been affected by
the natural disasters of the world – in illness, in wildfires, in hurricanes,
and in tornadoes.
We also offer to You both our joys and our concerns, so
often intermingled in our lives….
Lord, we ask that You be with each of us and for those whom
we pray for this day…
Gracious God, You hear our cries and our shouts of
joy. Make Your presence known to us
again through the love and forgiveness of others as we have loved and forgiven
them.
We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior who taught us to pray 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 Come, Thou Almighty King
Scripture Readings
Old Testament: Job 1:1-3, 13-21, 42:1-6,10-17
There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That
man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from
evil. 2There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3He had
seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five
hundred donkeys, and very many servants; so that this man was the greatest of
all the people of the east.
13One day when his sons and
daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother’s house, 14a
messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were
feeding beside them, 15and the Sabeans fell on them
and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I
alone have escaped to tell you.” 16While
he was still speaking, another came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven
and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; I alone have
escaped to tell you.” 17While
he was still speaking, another came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three
columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the
servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18While
he was still speaking, another came and said, “Your sons and daughters were
eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, 19and
suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the
house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped
to tell you.”
20Then Job arose, tore his robe,
shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. 21He
said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there;
the Lord gave,
and the Lord has
taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Then Job answered the Lord: 2“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of
yours can be thwarted. 3‘Who is this
that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not
understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare
to me.’ 5I had heard of
you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
10And the Lord restored
the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job
twice as much as he had before. 11Then there
came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and
they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted
him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave
him a piece of money and a gold ring. 12The Lord blessed
the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand
sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand
donkeys. 13He also had
seven sons and three daughters. 14He named the
first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. 15In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s
daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their
brothers. 16After this Job
lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children, and his children’s
children, four generations. 17And Job died,
old and full of days.
New Testament: Matthew 20:1-16
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out
early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he
sent them into his vineyard. 3When he went
out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I
will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he
did the same. 6And about five
o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why
are you standing here idle all day?’ 7They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to
them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his
manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last
and then going to the first.’ 9When those
hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily
wage. 10Now when the
first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also
received the usual daily wage. 11And when they
received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made
them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching
heat.’ 13But he replied
to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for
the usual daily wage? 14Take what
belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to
you. 15Am I not allowed to do
what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am
generous?’ 16So the last
will be first, and the first will be last.”
Anthem – High Praise (Song of Job)
Sermon – Just like the hymns, you can click on the
sermon title to hear/watch a video of today’s sermon via YouTube.
Blessings
Out of Sorrow
(Job
1:1-3, 13-21, 42:1-6,10-17)
Over
the last month, I’ve been using Job during my Daily Meditations on-line. If you haven’t read them, it might be worth
going back over them and taking some time to reflect on the full encounter that
Job has with God. Over the month,
we’ve read of the debate in heaven between God and the Devil, we’ve watched as
Job’s world is turned upside down with tremendous pain and loss. We’ve discovered a wife who curses God and
Job due to her own grief, but we’ve also found friends who initially come to
Job’s side to support him, but soon turn against him and batter Job with
insults and reasons why Job is the one at fault. We listened as Job questions God over and
over again in his misery. And finally,
when God seems to be forever silent, distant, and content to remain in the
shadows, when God refuses to show his face and all hope to Job seems truly
lost, God responds. After 35 chapters of
mourning and debating, God responds, not by answering all of Job's questions –
but by simply showing up. When Job
finally gets a chance to speak again, he speaks as a changed, humbled man. No longer does he demand an answer from God. No longer does he insist that his
righteousness wasn't deserving of suffering.
"I
know that you can do all things; no plan
of yours can be thwarted. You asked,
'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not
understand, things too wonderful for me to know.
"You
said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I
will question you, and you shall answer me.'
My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore
I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."
Job
42:1-6
The
lessons here are critically important, especially if you happen to be in a
season of crushing grief, or painful suffering. What Job discovered has given people insight
for centuries, and the truths he learned haven't lost an ounce of their power.
A few
years ago I read the story of Robin Roberts, the anchorwoman for ABC’s Good
Morning America. I was captivated by
her story. She lost both of her parent’s
within a year of one another and in the midst of it all was diagnosed with
cancer. She struggled through chemo and
radiation treatments and after having been cured of cancer, found out that she
also had a rare blood disease. She
writes in her book entitled, We All Have Something, that what kept her
going was her family and her faith.
And
isn’t it true, we all have something.
There has been pain in our past, there have been heartaches, there have
been deaths we don’t understand or have left us numb and questioning God’s
existence. We have all gone through
something that might have rocked the very foundation of our faith.
Each
child is brought miraculously into this world and sooner or later, every person
also miraculously takes their last breath – the seconds, minutes, hours, years
in between those two events are the molding and shaping of a life that we feel
we have some control over. But when we’ve
had the opportunity to experience both ends of the spectrum – the beginning and
the end, we come to know and understand that a larger power is at work in the
world and that law simply can't be disobeyed. Life, and death, belong to God, and the
grasping of those very concepts shake us.
When
we grasp the power of God, we're just like Job. All of our questions, all of our complaints,
all of our priorities melt into sheer awe. The book of Job is a non-stop dialogue, first
between the Tempter and God, then between Job and his friends and wife, near
the end an outsider who has listened and observed what’s been going on, and
then finally with God, until it's time for Job to react to God. At that moment, Job says little more than,
"Oh."
My
ears had heard of you
but
now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore
I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes."
Job
42:5-6
After
that, Job is silent. After all the words
in the previous chapters, there is not another word recorded from his lips. Seeing God, and understanding God's viewpoint
from a macro vision of creation rather an a micro vision of the creature, changed
Job's entire perspective.
Out of
great sorrow comes renewed blessings, Job is blessed with children again, with
property and wealth. His prestige,
integrity, and honor are restored. Chapter 42 says that he died "old and
full of years," having seen his great-great grandchildren born from his
second set of children.
What
kind of God shows up for the trial, finds a man guilty, and then blesses him
beyond his wildest imagination?
Our
God does.
Millions
of golfers know the name of Harvey Penick. His first book, Harvey Penick's Little Red
Book, became a surprising best-seller, selling more than 1 million copies back in
1992, quickly earning the title of the best-selling sports book of all time. But by the time Penick even showed his notes
to a local writer, he was nearly 90 years old. Penick wanted to know, from a professional
point of view, if the book was worth publishing. The writer read it and told him he liked the
book. In fact, by the next evening, the
same man left word with Penick's wife that Simon & Schuster had agreed to
an advance of $90,000.
When
the writer next saw Penick, the old man seemed troubled. Finally, Penick admitted
that with all his medical bills, he said, there was no way he could advance
Simon & Schuster that much money. It
took a while, but finally the writer convinced Penick that the publisher would
pay him the $90,000 . . . not the other way around!
What a
joy to realize that instead of needing to pay God an insurmountable bill for
the penalty of our sins, God has decided to give us the priceless gift of grace.
Having
been shown grace, God expected and commanded that Job do the same. In the end, after that great debate through
35 chapters of dialogue and Job’s demand to God for understanding, it's
interesting that God only gave Job one set of instructions. He was to pray for his friends, the men who
had argued with him during his lowest hours. Job had been forgiven, and as a result, Job
was expected to forgive. This was the
command of God to Job, and Job was expected to comply. From the short ending to the book that
describes more blessings from the Lord for Job, and his friends' gifts to him
(42:11) we can assume he complied.
However,
God deals individually with individuals.
For each encounter God has with other characters in the scriptures, the
compliance is different. To Adam and
Eve, the command was to start populating the earth outside the Garden. For Moses, the job was to lead an exodus. For Isaiah, it was prophecy and national
leadership. For the disciples and Paul,
the command was to spread the Good News. And for each disciple, the individual commands
varied from day to day, from situation to situation. Some were comfortable with their tasks, others
were frozen in fear. Moses begged for
someone else to take the job, and Gideon made doubly sure the command of God
wasn't his own imagination. But despite
the fears of some of the great names in the Bible, the response never varied. They obeyed and followed through on what was
required of them. When God gives you
instructions or a responsibility, you are supposed to obey them. If you remember, Jonah tried to run away from
the responsibility that God had given him and we all know what happened to him,
right? He got swallowed up by a whale
and spit back up on the very land he had tried to run away from. For Job, the command was to forgive and
restore his friends, and to start over.
For
you? What is God calling you to do, what
responsibility has God given you? The
command could be simple or profound, convenient or life-changing.
Obeying
the God who loves you is to commit to the most satisfying, fulfilling, and
rewarding life possible.
Davon
Huss tells the story of a boy who came home one hot afternoon, anxious to take
a cool swim in the pond behind his home. He lived in south Florida, so taking a quick
dip was a common way to cool off.
He was
so anxious to get in the water, he didn't even go inside to change clothes. He just raced for the pond, dropping his
shoes, shirt, and socks along the way. His
mother spotted him diving off the dock, and went outside to check on him.
As she
watched her son swim toward the middle of the lake, she also spotted an
alligator moving from the far shore, toward her son! She began screaming the warnings, and the boy
stopped in mid-swim. He finally
understood the danger, and began racing back toward the dock. Just as he reached her, the alligator reached
him.
It was
a tug-of-war from a mother's worst nightmare. From the dock, she pulled his arms. From the water, the alligator held his legs. The water was quickly stained with blood.
A
farmer driving by heard the screams, and ran to help. He shot the alligator and
helped the mother call for help. The boy
survived, and after several weeks of hospitalization, was ready to talk with a
news reporter.
The
reporter asked the child if he could see where the alligator had bitten him.
With the typical pride of a boy, he showed off his healing wounds to the
interested reporter. "But wait," said the boy, "look at
these!" With that, he showed the reporter the scars on his arms. "I
have great scars on my arms, too. I have them because my Mom wouldn't let
go."
The
book of Job reminds us that there will be some painful moments in life, some so
painful there come times when we wonder if we'll make it another step. But as we look at the scars left behind, some
of the scars are from the times when God simply wouldn't let us go, because
some of the scars God leaves behind are the ones meant to rescue us.
Hymn How Firm A Foundation
Benediction
Go forth into God’s
world as God’s own children. Let the
love of Christ be reflected in Your life and Your deeds. Go with joy to serve the Lord. AMEN.
Postlude
