As we deal with the new normal presented by the coronavirus, I've decided to post worship services I led in the past. Although this is in no way a substitute for gathering with our brothers and sisters to praise the Lord, I hope it helps those of us who feel Sunday is incomplete without some kind of worship. I'm also posting separately the sermons preached during these services. Below is the service I led at Cove Presbyterian Church on March 19, 2017. It was the third service in a series entitled, "Why: Answering Some of Life's Hard Questions." We used the Book of Job to grapple with the following questions:Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why don't people understand me?
Why don't I understand what's going on?
Why is God allowing this to happen?
Why doesn’t he make things clear?
In this fourth service, we addressed the question: Why is God allowing this to happen?
As with all our services, worship is intended to be a free expression of our love for God and the joy we feel when we accept that love. Of course, there are many ways for us to express that love and joy.
We started the service with the announcements. As the Bible entered (marking the beginning of our worship), we sang "This is the Day that the Lord Has Made."
Instrumental and vocal music are important to our worship. Songs give us the chance to praise God and to help focus our attention on the theme of the service. During the service, we have the opportunity to sing songs that reflect different musical styles. Since God has called into his church as individuals with a variety of tastes, this offers us the chance to display our sensitivity for our fellow worshipers and to grow in our knowledge of how we might praise God. Our first song was “Good Good Father.”
Our prayers represent our communication with God. Of course, as Paul wrote, the Holy Spirit “...intercedes for us with groans too deep for words”; therefore, God already knows our needs. Still it’s important that we put them into words, as well as the regret we feel for our sins and our thanks for all God has done for us.
During the Our Congregational Prayer, we confessed our sins and hear the assurance that we're forgiven. We also lifted our concerns and needs to God. We closed this prayer with The Lord’s Prayer. After we collected the offering, we praised and thanked God for his presence in our church and within our lives. During the offering, the choir sang “Thy Will Be Done.”
God’s word is at the core of the worship service. It’s often reflected in the songs we sing and the prayers we pray. But it’s most clearly present when we focus a passage from the Bible and apply it to our daily living in the sermon. This morning, the message was based on passages like Job 30:16-31:
Then Job answered: “Listen carefully to my words, and let this be your consolation. Bear with me, and I will speak; then after I have spoken, mock on. As for me, is my complaint addressed to mortals? Why should I not be impatient? Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth. When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh.
“Why do the wicked live on, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? Their children are established in their presence, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them. Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and never miscarries. They send out their little ones like a flock, and their children dance around. They sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the pipe. They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol. They say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We do not desire to know your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’ Is not their prosperity indeed their own achievement? The plans of the wicked are repugnant to me.
“How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? How often does calamity come upon them? How often does God distribute pains in his anger? How often are they like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away? You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’ Let it be paid back to them, so that they may know it. Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty. For what do they care for their household after them, when the number of their months is cut off? Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those that are on high? One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure, his loins full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist. Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of good. They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.
“Oh, I know your thoughts, and your schemes to wrong me. For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’ Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony, that the wicked are spared in the day of calamity, and are rescued in the day of wrath? Who declares their way to their face, and who repays them for what they have done? When they are carried to the grave, a watch is kept over their tomb. The clods of the valley are sweet to them; everyone will follow after, and those who went before are innumerable. How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.”
The title of the sermon and the question we’ll consider is this: “Why is God allowing this to happen?”
During the service, we celebrated Holy Communion. When we gather around the Lord’s table, we believe that even though Christ's body and blood are not physically present in the bread and the juice, he’s with us in a special spiritual way. Jesus is the host of this meal and when we share the communion, we can experience his presence in a special way. For that reason, the elements are spiritual nourishment in Christ by faith. In fact, when the community as the Body of Christ gathers around table and celebrates the Lord's Supper, it’s “transformed” into the Body of Christ, or “reformed” into the Body of Christ each time it participates in this sacrament.
We began this celebration by receiving the invitation to gather around the table. And then we prayed together, thanking God for giving us this opportunity to share in his presence. After hearing the meaning of the sacrament, ruling elders brought to the congregation the bread and the cup, that we held until everyone is served. And then, as the Body of Christ, we ate and then drank together. At the end of the celebration, we prayed, asking the Lord to help us take the meaning of communion out into the world.
The service ended with the song, “On Eagles Wings.”
Below is the podcast of the service.
I want to thank the following persons who were involved in the service:
Choir Director: Ray Seifert
Organist: Janice Torrance
Bell Choir Director: Sue Willson
Video Technician: Peggy Baldt
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