Worship led by Ken Cowell
Psalm 9. 1-2 I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. 2 I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.
If you wanted to learn how to praise and worship God you could do no better than to read the book of Psalms. Psalms is the hymn book for God’s people. It is like the song book we use each Sunday. The word “praise” occurs over 200 times in Psalms. The words “sing” and “song” also appear together over 200 times. So true worship involves singing. It is not just any kind of singing but singing that worships and glorifies God. There is also one other characteristic that is necessary to please God in our praise. That is joy. Verse 2 says, “I will be glad and rejoice in you;” The words “joy, rejoice and glad” combined occur over 400 times in the book of Psalms. It is praise with joy that pleases God, not from duty or obligation. We first praise God for who He is. “I will be glad and rejoice in you.” Then we praise Him for what He has done. “I will tell of your wonders.”
Last Monday Chris completed a 9 week running called Couch to 5 K. In the last week she ran for 30 minutes without a stop three times in the week. I gave her some flowers to congratulate her. I didn’t say “I’m giving you these flowers because it is the right thing to do.” That wouldn’t give her much pleasure. I gave them with joy in appreciation for her and celebrating what she had achieved. It gave much joy. Let’s bring pleasure to God this morning by praising him with gladness and joy.
SONG: 496 Shout for joy and sing your praises to the King
Song:n 268 I will enter his gates with thanks giving in my heart
Prayer
Luke 19.6 “So he (Zacchaeus) came down at once and welcomed him gladly.”
1 Peter 1.8 “Though you have not seen him, you love him; even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible joy.”
Is joy in the Christian life dependent upon our personality? For example if you have an outgoing personality, will it be easy for you to be joyful? However, if you are a more a reserved person it will be more difficult to be joyful? Christian joy has nothing to do with our personality, nor is it something I strive to work up. It is simply supernatural gift of God. We read the fruit of the Spirit is love then joy. This joy is part of God’s essence and character which he gives to every Christian. It is so important that God gives it to us when we first became Christians. The joy Zacchaeus received came when he met Jesus and it continued to be seen in his transformed life. This joy is one of the first evidences of showing to us that we too have truly met Jesus. Peter in his epistle reminds us that this joy is not based on seeing Jesus but believing in him. But that faith is leads to an experience of inexpressible joy through meeting Jesus. I am reminded of a song I used to sing many years ago. What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart. It’s not in our songbook but we will sing it on YouTube.
YouTube Since Jesus came into my heart. Hymnal Library 3:16
Romans 5.3 “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
Romans 8.28 “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.”
Not only does the Christian experience joy in salvation but also in suffering. The non-believer finds that difficult to understand. The suffering the believer endures is painful and hard but the joy comes in knowing there is purpose in the suffering. It is that we might grow in perseverance, and in a character to become more like Jesus. Behind the trial and suffering God is working for our good according to his purpose of conforming us into the image and likeness of Christ. We can rejoice in our suffering because God is still in control and with us in the suffering to bring good out of it for us. Without such trials we could never become mature and holy and we could never experience the goodness of God in a deeper way. Our next song reminds us that God is good is not just some of the time but all of the time.
Song: 1244 God is good all the time.
Philippians 4.4 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”
There are several kinds of joy in the Christian life. There is the joy of salvation and of God’s presence with us. We have the joy of Christian fellowship, serving God and answered prayer to name but a few. However, our joy can fluctuate without circumstances and our feelings. But there is one source of joy which never falters or fails. That is our joy in Christ. Jesus not only came into the world and go to the cross to save us. He has come into our lives to indwell us. Our greatest joy is “Christ in you the hope of glory.” We are told twice to “Rejoice in the Lord.” because it is very important. The most important thing about a car is not the body but the engine on the inside. Why is joy important? As Nehemiah told the people of God “the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Let’s rejoice in our final song in our wonderful Saviour and Friend who is within us.
Song: 480 Rejoice! Rejoice! Christ is in you
Prayer Time
Please continue to remember:
- Jan – thanks that her new medication is keeping her coughing under better control
- Peter – the doctors are pleased with how the surgery on his head is healing
- All in the church family that are struggling with health issues
- Those suffering in war-torn countries – pray for peace.
- Dawn – as she gives thanks that her appointment this week showed no signs of anything serious – more tests to follow
- Dawn’s mother, Betty – for recovery from cracked wrist in fall earlier this week
- Connie – in a lot of pain with slipped disc: also awaiting results of a biopsy.
- Sue – still suffering effects of lung infection
- Kevin – as he awaits results of tests
Remembrance Day
We now prepare to remember in silence all who in bereavement, disability and pain continue to suffer the consequences of fighting and terror. We remember with thanksgiving and sorrow those whose lives, in world wars and conflicts past and present, have been given and taken away.
“They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning,
We will remember them.”
2-minute silence.
Prayer: Ever living God, we remember those whom you have gathered from the storm of war into the peace of your presence; may that same peace calm our fears, bring justice to all peoples and establish harmony among the nations, through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN
Message by William Fleming
This is a weekend of Remembrance in which we remember the dead of two world wars and those service men and women who have died in subsequent conflicts. Let me be clear. War is awful. It is wicked and inglorious but in this wicked world it is sadly sometimes necessary for good to oppose evil. Politicians and leaders have a huge responsibility when they send our forces to war.
No parent or husband or wife or child of a service person killed in action needs to be told to remember but for those who have not suffered loss the memory quickly fades and as generations evolve the sense of loss and grief passes into history and constant reminders are needed. Just sometimes though an image can be so striking that it stays in the memory. I remember as a young man driving through North East France we came over the brow of a hill and I saw what I took to be vast fields of a strangely orderly crop but it was not until we got closer that I saw that I was seeing row upon seemingly endless rows of crosses that marked the graves of dead service men from the first world war. The sense of awe I felt was enormous.
My principal reading now is Ecclesiastes 11;9 through chapter 12.
If we pause for a moment and ask ourselves, “What, for human beings, is memory?” We might struggle to define it. As I was preparing for this message this definition came to me, “Memory is the storeroom of our knowledge and understanding. It contains what we have learned and experienced. Once we have learned a lesson it is filed away to be drawn on time and time again so that we do not have to repeat the learning process constantly. For example, once taught, we remember how to read write and count. We remember how to tie our shoelaces and men remember how to tie a tie. We acquire, by practice, skills and abilities that are embedded in our brains as memories that are then communicated to our muscles and moving parts so that men and women become craftsmen, chefs, scientists, surgeons, engineers, musicians, artists great sportsmen and so on. We remember too things to avoid. We will not willingly pick up items that are so hot they will burn us. We will not go into a field in which there is a bull. That is the positive side.
Sadly, I am sure that each of us here this morning will have experienced either personally within our family or at third-hand someone who has suffered or is suffering from what is loosely called dementia where there is a progression of a growing inability to form short term memory until it eventually becomes non-existent and then the long-term memory, including all the stored learning and skills and the ability to recognise close family members, seeps away until there is only the shell of the once vibrant, motivated human being. The fact is that without memory we are empty and have nothing to offer either to others or to ourselves. However, let me at this point stress that as human beings we are all God’s creation. We need to remind ourselves that as recorded in Genesis 2: verse 7 that God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living being. Just because age, illness or accident deprives one of us of our memories does not cancel out the plain truth that just as God breathed into Adam the breath of life, we are all, also, each one of us, His breathed creation. We are special and just as he cares for us, so we care for each other as part of His creation. Our salvation does not depend on memory or great intellectual capacity, and we are entitled to hope and pray that, similarly, if a loved one, who now appears an empty shell, has not trusted Christ as saviour, then God can still breath spiritual life into them. After all we need to consider that Adam had no say in the matter when God breathed life into him, and he became a living soul. That was an exercise of divine prerogative and God can, and will today, exercise that prerogative as an act of grace. No matter the condition of the created being God may still be gracious. We should never cease to pray and witness even if humanly speaking there no obvious hope.
Now as I am preparing this some other thoughts come to mind about God and his creation. Man is unique. He is unlike any other living thing. Although they all have the breath of life it was only Adam into whom God breathed the breath of life. That is the creation account in Genesis It was to man that God gave power and authority over all living creatures. He was the pinnacle of creation, and he was equipped with all he needed. But it seems to me that an extensive memory was not required. Man had to remember only one thing. “Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
It was only when that command was broken, and sin entered into God’s creation that man required an extensive memory to store up the experiences and learn the lessons that he and his descendants would need to survive for their limited life spans in the harsh environment to which he was banished. The first and lasting lesson was, “You will die,” and, as the learning process began, one generation taught another through learning and memory until today, the physicists, scientists and Ellon Musks of this world tell us man has learned so much and has so much received memory that he has the capacity to create an intelligence greater than his own and some fear that, despite God’s order that man was to have the rule over every living thing. man would become subject to science and technology’s creation of “Artificial Intelligence.” I have to say that I believe that there is only one intelligence greater than man’s and that is his creator, the Lord God Almighty.
Now I said that man was unique in respect of his ability to remember and pass on his acquired knowledge to subsequent generations that allowed them to build bit by bit until today we have the situation that the sum of knowledge, experience and expertise is so great that it exceeds the capacity of any one man’s brain, or indeed the capacity of any group of men to grasp it all. However, let us take a wider look at God’s creation and we will see that memory and learning is not an essential for existence in this world. I think we will agree that man’s present abilities are the sum of the experiences of thousands of years. But let us take a brief look at some of the humbler elements in God’s creation.
Have you ever looked at a spider’s web and wondered how an insignificant creature that hatched out of an egg and had never seen its parents, or any other adult spider know how to spin a web? I asked the question on the internet and the only answer I can find is that spiders hatch with the innate ability to know how to construct an intricate web. I am happy with that because it means that spiders were created with that ability. It is not something they have learned and stored up in their memory. It has to have been God given. Similarly, take a humble robin. It hatches out of an egg. It has never seen its parents build a nest, but it has the innate ability to construct an amazingly intricate construction in which to lay and brood eggs to produce the next generation. I am absolutely confident that 3000 years ago Robins and spiders were making their nests and spinning their webs just as they are today but in that same 3000 years consider the growth in the collective memory of mankind. There are so many examples like this in nature that, generally speaking, they support the idea that man has what may be a unique ability to learn, remember and record experiences in memory either in the grey matter or in writing and then pass them on to the next generation.
So, having set out my stall in support of man and his memory let’s have a look at memories.
Memories may be good or they may be bad. They may bring a smile or they may bring a frown. They may bring, tears or, in extreme cases, absolute terror. I have experienced all of those myself or been with people while they have been reliving something that happened to them. When my first son was born in the wilds of Lancashire I was excluded from the process of giving birth. I had delivered Dorothy to the maternity hospital’s door in the early morning and was dismissed with the advice that I would be contacted when the baby was born. True enough, I got a phone call to tell me I had a son and all was well. “No! I was not permitted to come and see the child until visiting time in the evening.” That visiting time is etched on my memory. I was able to see Dorothy who has her own tale to tell about her experience but as to seeing the baby….. at a pre-determined time, all the visiting fathers were summoned to a corridor where there was a window looking into the nursery and one by one the newborn babies were held up behind the glass with a name tag saying “baby (name)” for the communal inspection of all the fathers. I felt no joy and my memory is a confused and unhappy one.
The birth of my second son four years later in leafy enlightened Surrey was entirely different. Against my expectations I was there for the whole experience. I will not go into details, but my clear memory is one of great joy when I was able to hold him for the first time and know all was well with both mother and baby.
In contrast I remember being with someone who experienced utter terror because of a memory. He was a retired gamekeeper who lived by the river Tweed in Scotland and the local landowner had sought his assistance and gamekeeping experience to help with an issue when, almost without warning, there was a severe and continuous rumbling of thunder and this old man as a game keeper who, despite being used to firearms, was reduced to abject terror because the thunder triggered a memory of his having enduring severe artillery barrages in the first world war and the resulting appalling casualties. His son said that he always reacted like that during thunderstorms. He was probably suffering from PTSD. But for him the memories were so horrific that they came back to him under the stimulus of thunder.
Someone I knew was a mental nurse in Broadmoor mental hospital in which one of the notorious Kray brothers spent his last sixteen years. I am reliably informed that Ronald Kray, although he died of a heart condition died in abject terror of death tortured by his memories of the things he had done and his fear of the consequences for him. Was his terror logical? I think it was. In the last book of the Bible in Revelation 20 verse 12 it says of the last judgement that the dead were judged according to what they had done. The only exception to that justice was for those whose names were recorded in the lamb’s book of life. Let me say now that the whole thrust of the Christian message is that those of us who believe and trust in Christ will not receive the justice that we deserve but the mercy that we do not deserve. It is because of mercy that our names as believers are written in that book and nowhere do I read that once entered any name is ever removed. Although we might fear the manner of our death the fact of death because of Adam’s sin holds no terrors for us.
The Bible, as God’s written message to mankind, makes frequent use of the command to Remember or to keep in mind.
Exodus 13:3 Remember this day, the day you came out of Egypt. The land of slavery.
God instituted act of remembrance for all subsequent generations of his people. To remember day of deliverance from Egypt.
Psalm 89:47 Remember how fleeting is my life.
When we are young, we think that we will live for ever. A day seems endless: a year is a lifetime but when time has run and you look back, years have flown.
Luke 16: Jesus gives a brief account of the lives and deaths and post death situations of two men. One was rich and careless of his responsibilities towards God and his fellow man. The other was a helpless disease and sore ridden beggar called Lazarus. Both died. The rich man was in hell and the beggar was in heaven. Two important things. Lazarus not in heaven because he was poor and the rich man was not in Hell because he was rich. There was no injustice here. In interpreting the passage the totality of scripture must be regarded. One in his poverty worshipped God and gave thanks. One in his riches ignored him.
In the rich man’s post death recorded conversation with heaven there was no complaint of injustice. What was heaven’s response? Remember son! Cast your mind back to your life lived without God and the responsibilities you had to him and the life you chose to live. What was to be his greatest sense of loss? It was to come from his memories. But also he had compassion. He wanted Lazarus to be sent to his five brothers to warn them lest they too find themselves in hell. What was the response? If they do not believe God’s written word they will not believe even if one returns from the dead to tell them. We can look back and see in that a clear reference to Jesus’s death and resurrection and the failure to recognise his message. He came back from the dead but people still refuse to believe.
What will your memories be?
This rich man realised too late that a life lived without God was over in a moment. He received justice but not mercy.
How often have you heard the gospel message and it has elicited no response? How often has it left you cold and unmoved. How often have you been on verge of response but turned away. Take warning from this man and the words to him “Remember Son, you had your good times.” They are but fleeting.
The crucifixion of Jesus Luke 23:40-42
“We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
This man had nothing except life and that was forfeit.t.” No good works – he was a self-confessed criminal dying justly for his earthly crimes. No wealth. All he can do is beg to be remembered in mercy.
What words of comfort followed. This day you will be with me in paradise. The evil day was about to come with a vengeance on this man, but he had the wit to acknowledge and remember his creator.
Will you be so wise? Will you call out Lord Remember me in mercy. Or will you, again in the words of a hymn writer say, “Go spirit go thy way some more convenient day on you I’ll call.
Will you like the children of Israel be able to mark and remember this day as the one on which you were delivered from the bondage of sin?
Now at last we get to our principal reading from Ecclesiastes.
The key is verse 13 of Ch 12.” Here is the conclusion of the matter. This is the end of the matter all the arguments have been heard and now we have a summary of everything concerning life. “Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole (duty) not found in the Hebrew of man. To fear God and keep his commandment is the whole object of life. To live under the sun or exclusively upon earth is to live in half a world and constitutes vanity or a meaningless existence. To fear God and keep his commandments is to appreciate all that lies above the sun. To live is to have the whole of life and that is not vanity.
This section begins with an Address to youth because the time of youth is our formative years. – the time of visions and of choices that will shape our lives and condition our futures and the direction our lives will take.
In the advice to youth there are two clearly defined sections. The first in verses 9 and 10 of Ch 11, and the second in the first seven verses of Chapter 12. The first word of the first section is “rejoice” or as it is translated in the NIV “Be happy” and the first word of the second section is “remember. These are the two pieces of advice. “Rejoice” and “Remember”
Let’s look at the first one “Rejoice”. Scholars tell me that the word that we have here, “Rejoice” could better be translated, be merry, be full of glee and happiness or simply “Brighten Up” Cheer up. It is, if this is Divinely Inspired scripture, as we believe it to be, a command to be obeyed. Rejoice in your youth and in the fact of it. As those of us who are older will recall, youth is a time when you dream dreams; you build castles in the air; you plan extravagant schemes, and you are full of the joys of life. It is a time of development that is to be enjoyed.
Let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. “Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see,…” In simple terms rejoice in the fact of youth and let all the enthusiasm and developing forces express themselves to the uttermost. This view was captured in the famous student song “Gaudeamus igitur, quam iuveni sumus”.
Is this dangerous stuff? Well it may be but it is God’s advice. It is not natural to place unreasonable restraints upon youthful enthusiasm for life because of the fears of older people. But there is a constraint. As well as the command to rejoice, there is the warning, “but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgement.” This then is the foundation for a happy and safely rejoicing youth. In the middle of all this rejoicing there has to be the knowledge of the certainty that your actions are going to be weighed against a Divine standard. Judgement here is not condemnation. It has, surely the sense of assessing and making a finding and then pronouncing a sentence of either approval and commendation or condemnation and the actions that follow such findings. Therefore, the warning for youth is to rejoice and celebrate your youth but be aware of the One who sits above and who will judge your actions for good or ill in accordance with his standards. Live life to the full but be aware of impending judgement.
“So then banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body for youth and vigour are meaningless.” They are transient and will come to an end. We are not Peter Pan figures. We are mortal flesh. And as the years pass so we mature and for the enthusiasm of youth there is substituted the more fixed and certain attitudes of later life. And ths brings in the Second Section,
“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.”
When I was reading and researching for this passage, I came across a fairly astonishing statement that took my breath away. “Old people seldom seek the Lord.” That is not to say that old people are not religious. Many of them are but often their religion is sentimentalism, a superstition and confusion. They have no understanding or discernment about the things of God. In general, those who have spiritual understanding and discernment acquired it while they were young.
This command then, “remember now your Creator in the days of thy youth is an exhortation to young men and women to remember Him while they still possess the faculties and opportunity to do so.
Remember now Thy Creator.
I understand the word here is really in the plural - it means Creators. We are all of us here tonight, I hope aware of the fact that all three persons of the Godhead worked in creation.
Remember that our Creator is God alone. There is no God but him.
Allah is not God; Bhudia is not God; Vishnu is not God; Hari Krishna is not God. Jehovah alone is God all powerful all glorious, omnipotent, omnipresent, holy and just and true. If there are others who claim other Gods, they are misguided claims. There is no room in the Christian faith for tolerance of another God. “I alone am God,” says the Lord.
Remember that God in Christ is love and mercy and grace pardoning iniquity, transgression and sin.
Remember why God created you.
“The Lord made all things for himself, yes even the wicked for the day of judgement.” Proverbs
Remember that you and I are not worthy to live before the Lord God and not fit to die in our natural state.
We have broken God’s law.
We despised his grace.
We disregarded this gospel.
We have trampled under our feet the blood of his Son.
We deserve his wrath.
Remember what the Lord God our Creator has done to save such worthless sinners as we are.
Remember now your creator in the days of your youth.
Why in the days of your youth?
First these are the best days. God in the old covenant always laid claim to the first fruits and the best of the land and so he lays claim to the best of our lives. Is it right to keep the best for ourselves and leave God the leavings the scraps. Is it right for a young person to say, "I want to live my life now as I wish without regard for the claims of God on my life"? Time enough in later years to think about God.
Remember now your creator.
Remember him while your mind is capable of being enlarged and improved
Lay hold of the things of God
To apprehend the mysteries of the Godhead and to grasp the deep wonders of the Gospel.
Remember him because these are the days that you have. Not everyone will have an old age. But everyone has today. Everyone has his youth. Remember your creator while you have a today.
Remember Him because there is nothing more important or worthwhile in your life. Many a man or woman may have cursed the day of their birth and wished they were never born but no one ever wished they had not been born again.
Remember him.....before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say I have no pleasure in them.
I say it reverently, but I believe that the Bible knows its stuff. As I get older, I begin to appreciate the truth of this. I do not think old age is attractive. I am not sure that they should be called the golden years. They may be golden because by and large old people have more money and less to spend it on than when they were young but old age brings its troubles of loneliness, grief, pain, illness and frustrations and sometimes regrets over mistakes in youth.
I do not think that on its own old age has much to offer. But for some it is a time of joy. A believer can rejoice in his salvation and know for a certainty that the trials of this life will be over and the eternal joys of the next one beckons.
Prayer
Closing Song: 177 His Name is wonderful
Notices
- Wednesday 15th November – Coffee morning at 10.30am
- Next Sunday at 10.15am – Alpha Course session no. 4