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Please note: Sunday Worship From Highfields Church, Cardiff Obstacles to faith Service Leader and Preacher: Rev Peter Baker HYMN: Before Jehovah's awesome thronePETER: Good morning and welcome to our service. We've just been singing, "Firm as a rock your truth shall stand", but the struggle to believe can be a real one - fear, suffering, doubt these can all become obstacles to faith in God. But today we are going to explore the basis for a confidence, that no matter what, God is not only with us but for us. It's with such assurance that we turn now to prayer. Prayer: Lord God we thank you that this is Your world. You command the seasons, ordering their patterns. You govern the nations, shaping their destiny. Yet you exercise your majestic power with mercy. Your unchanging truth circles our lives at every point and your eternal love embraces us with tenderness. We praise you for the Son of Your love who came to share the joys and sorrows of our world. You loved us so much that you gave Him up to suffering. Lord our lives are often broken, You know our waywardness and we ask you to forgive us. May we be aware of the indwelling presence of Your Holy Spirit. The power which sustains us in the weakness of our bodies. The light which shines in the darkness of our doubts. Help us to respond today to the Spirit's encouragement to trust when You seem out of reach, to believe that you will not let us go or give us up. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. PETER: It seems that a life of faith is often characterised by what earlier generations called a "wilderness" experience. If we want to know God, they said, we must expect times of difficulty and testing. David wrote Psalm 27 out of such an experience. He didn't choose it; he was chased there by Saul, hunted like an animal. Yet David found the wilderness a place of truth, beauty, and love. A place where God became his refuge. READING: Andrea Crwys Psalm 27 1 The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. 3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident. 4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. 5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. 6 Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD. 7 Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. 8 My heart says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face, LORD, I will seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Saviour. 10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. 11 Teach me your way, O LORD; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. 12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence. 13 I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. Peter: In the Bible the heart is seen as the control and command centre of our lives. Here the priorities are shaped and the key issues decided. So in Christian worship reference is often made to the importance of a heart devoted to God, as it is here in our next hymn which we sing to the lovely Welsh Tune, Arwelfa. Come O Fount of every blessing Tune my heart to sing your grace HYMN: Come O Fount of every blessing READING: Ashleigh Crowter (Romans 8:28-39) In our New Testament reading from Romans Chapter eight, the Apostle Paul expresses his confidence in the unstoppable purpose of God to make us more like His Son and to bring us to heaven. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-- more than that, who was raised to life-- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. PETER: That tremendous passage has been the inspiration for so many hymns. Like the one we are about to sing. Words from the 19th century set to a tune composed just a few years ago. Before the throne of God above I have a strong, a perfect plea, a great High Priest, whose Name is Love who ever lives and pleads for me. HYMN: Before the throne of God above PETER: We walked along the sand and then the stone causeway towards the horizon. About a mile away stood St Michael's Mount, its castle battlements in dramatic outline against the blue sky and Atlantic Ocean. This historic site has been home to Celtic saints, a Benedictine priory, and a military garrison. Its beacon was the first to signal the approaching Spanish Armada, and it seemed an ideal diversion for a few hours during a holiday earlier this month. So with perhaps too much enthusiasm for my wife and mother in law, and certainly for my teenage daughters, who were all in single file behind me, I led the way. The first part of our journey across the bay was brief and finished inside the harbour wall. We then began the steep climb up Pilgrim's steps pausing to look back towards the mainland where we had parked the car. Later that afternoon, exhausted but educated, we returned to the harbour. Imagine my horror as a small noticeboard at the entrance to the Causeway said "CLOSED" ! In all my meticulous planning, I had overlooked one important factor - the times of the tide. That stone pathway which had carried us to the island safely, was now submerged beneath the heaving, cold waters of the sea. There was no way back ! I looked around for inspiration. We had a choice: wait for the tide to turn but that would mean a midnight walk, or wait for a boat. Swimming was out of the question ! Waiting seemed by far the most sensible option. So that's what we did, we sat on the harbour wall in a huddle and waited for a boat from the mainland to rescue us. Similar fears of being cut off, separated from safety, or unable to complete a journey are real ones. Most of us have panicked, if only for a moment, at the thought of missing the last bus or train home. Cold waiting rooms are never attractive prospects at the best of times. Yet David in the Old Testament, although on the run from Saul, and without the security of home and family, found God's waiting room a positive experience. He discovered that God is worth waiting for. I'm not very good at waiting for anything, whether a reply to an e-mail or sitting in a traffic jam. In the age of the instant, I suffer like so many others from hurry sickness. And yet a moment's reflection on the life of faith suggests that for much of what we believe, we have to wait. It's not ours yet. It will be, the boat is going to arrive to take us to the mainland. That was the Apostle Paul's conviction. His secure future with God made sense of his present fears. And there were plenty of those for him, such as suffering, that great leveller which can seemingly isolate us from God's presence. And yet Paul could say "all things are working for good". Including those things we don't understand and the circumstances that we would not choose. Visiting South Africa last year, I was tremendously moved to stand on Robben Island where Nelson Mandela suffered for so many years as a captive. In his autobiography, he describes his daughter's first visit to that island, in the fourteenth year of his imprisonment. She ran across the room and embraced him. Mandela had not held her since she was a young girl, and it was poignant to hug this fully grown woman, his child. Then she handed over her own newborn baby, Nelson's grand daughter, into his callused, leathery hands. "To hold a newborn baby, so vulnerable and soft in my rough hands, hands that for too long had held only picks and shovels, was a profound joy. I don't think a man was happier to hold a baby than I was that day." Mandela's tribal culture had a tradition of letting the grandfather choose a new baby's name, and Nelson toyed with various names as he held that tiny, helpless baby. He settled on Zaziwe, which means Hope. "The name had special meaning for me, for during all my years in prison hope never left me- and now it never would. I was convinced that this child would be part of a new generation of South Africans for whom apartheid would be a distant memory - that was my dream." That vision of hope sustained Mandela for a further thirteen years before it became a reality in his release. Christian hope has a much bigger agenda and vision even than that. It points us through and beyond the freedoms and dreams of earth to heaven. For without that horizon, faith will always struggle to cope with the demands of the real world in which people die, marriages fail, children are neglected, war is brutal and ugly. It is a vision of the future but grounded objectively in the self-giving of God through Christ at the cross. If God was prepared to go to that length Paul argues, then surely He will bring us to heaven. He will finish what He started. But we counter that assertion with what is perhaps for many the greatest obstacle to faith, our sense of failure. The awareness of a life cluttered with the mess of thoughts, actions and words against God and others. We move house in four days but for the past six weeks I have been urging the children to throw away their old school books - the toys, clothes and videos of childhood. Stuff that has in fact remained untouched in the garage since the last move! All of a sudden, things which have not occupied a single moment of their attention for eight years have become vital to their very existence ! Adults can have the same problem. As part of the house clearing exercise, I left outside the front door twenty-five black bags of rubbish, ready to take in the car to the local tip. I watched in amazement from the front room window as a man stopped, got out, and began to exchange the rubbish in the back of his car for the apparently better quality junk outside my house! Dealing with the past in our lives is not that easy either. Perhaps we've been deeply hurt, damaged by experiences beyond our control, profoundly affected by situations we would never have chosen. It's hard to believe that God is with us in all of that. We carry not only the burden of what may have been done to us, but also the heavy knowledge that we have wronged others and ultimately God in whose image we have been shaped. Not exactly the best qualifications for heaven, which after all is a place for those who have got life sorted, never have a moment's doubt and keep their noses clean. Heaven is for good people ! Not so, according to Paul. Heaven is for forgiven people - those for whom the death of Christ is proof of a divine love from which we can never be separated. Not even by our greatest fears. We are not promised that the things we fear will not happen to us. Faith is not an escape from reality. Faith knows that even if they do happen there is still nothing to be afraid of. Chaos, evil and death will not have the last word. Nothing can cut us off from God's love. Not now. Not ever. Not time and space. Not life or even death. Christian security lies not in our changing circumstances but in the unchanging love and faithfulness of God to us in Christ. Here the troubled heart finds an answer to fear, failure and the future. HYMN: In heavenly love abiding Intercessory prayers: Kevin Moss and Trish Reith and Mags Rees Peter: As we turn to prayer, we need to be honest with God about our struggles. Life can hurt but we have in Christ a great resource by which to live - His peace. Choir sing: My peace I give you My peace I leave you Trouble not your hearts My peace I give you My peace I leave you Be not afraid Prayer - Trish "How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity's song - all without lifting a finger that we could see. You have allowed bonds of love to be painfully snapped. If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself. We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of You O Lord scraped and torn. Through our tears we see Your tears. And by that cross-shaped wound we are healed . Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Thank You Lord that the mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of Your new day and who ache with all their being for that day's coming. They are those who realise that in God's realm of peace there is no one hungry, no one falsely accused, no one who suffers oppression, and no one without dignity." ( Words adapted from Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstoff) CHOIR SING: My peace I give You My peace I leave You Trouble not your hearts My peace I give you My peace I leave you Be not afraid PRAYER - Kevin Lord we call out to you on behalf of others who are trying to make sense of their confused and difficult lives. In the storms of doubt may your love be the anchor; in the valley of the shadow of death may your light shine. Remember in your mercy those in our world who need food but have none, who long for peace but experience only conflict. In particular we pray for the Middle East. We ask for a just settlement for Palestinians and security for Israel. We pray for those who do not enjoy the comfort of a home, the support of a family and the fulfilment of work. We pray for those who are refugees from war, those suffering persecution and those for whom grinding poverty has made life hard. CHOIR SING : My peace I give you My peace I leave you Trouble not your hearts My peace I give you My peace I leave you Be not afraid PRAYER - Mags We remember our nation in its spiritual need. Give to those who lead us wisdom and compassion. May the values of your kingdom be ours. Help us to protect the weak and vulnerable, to care for the oppressed and lonely and in all things to serve one another in love. We pray for those who want to forget the pain of their past but are finding it hard to come to terms with what has happened, to forgive and move on. Bind up broken hearts. Grant courage for each day. Revive hope. Banish fear. Renew the vision of your gracious care. Help us not to forget in the darkness what we have learned in the light. Bless again with the assurance that there is nothing in life or death which can separate us from your love in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Choir to sing : My peace I give you My peace I leave you Trouble not your hearts My peace I give you My peace I leave you Be not afraid PETER: Our final song brings us back to the trust we can have in God our great King and to the response of faith which calls us to live for the One who has given everything for us. King of Kings, Majesty God of heaven living in me HYMN: King of Kings, Majesty (A) Jesus said "Come to me all you who are weary and heaven laden and I will give you rest" Eternal God and Father, You create us by your power And redeem us by your love Guide and strengthen us by your Spirit That we may give ourselves in love and service to one another and to you; Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (B) The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be with us and remain with us always. Amen (C) May the love of the Lord Jesus draw us to himself. May the power of the Lord Jesus strengthen us in his service. May the joy of the Lord Jesus fill our hearts. And may the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be with us, and remain with us for ever. Amen Music play out |