Sunday Service 4th August

More than just comfort

4/8/24

Call to worship

Hymn 189: Be still for the presence of the Lord

Time for all: John

Hymn 186: Father God, I wonder 

Reading:  1 Kings 19: 1-8: Peter

Prayer

Hymn 540:  I heard the voice of Jesus say

Sermon

Prayer

Hymn 542: Lord speak to me

Benediction

Welcome to our meditation for 4th August.

Here’s the thing.

I think a lot of us strive to be comfortable.

If only we had enough, then we would be happy, but how much is enough?

And I think the Bible is trying to tell us that we will never be content, never be at peace, never stop being restless, until we deal with something else.

We will look at that after our reading and prayer.

Prayer

Heavenly Father,

long gone are the days, if they ever really existed,

when the family gathered round the Bible for morning and evening prayers;

when every meal began with a blessing.

We cannot turn the clock back to those more innocent days, and we don’t want to,

but we do need to be reminded to be thankful for all that we have

and mindful of the needs of others.

So let this prayer today,

and the offerings that go with it, be an all-encompassing thank you for the many everyday blessings that we enjoy.

God bless to us our daily bread;

bless the farmers and bakers who produce it, the staff that deliver it;

bless those who lack availability to basic food, those who cannot afford it or live in such unpredictable and dangerous areas of the world that they cannot get supplies in...and show us how to be a blessing to them.

God, bless to us the water that we drink and its purity,

and which we use to make our tea; the water that we wash and swim in; and which we all too often squander.

Bless also those in areas of the world where water is scarce that they might find enough fresh and clean water to drink today...and show us how we can be a blessing to them.

Bless to us, O God, the sleep that we need to restore us in body, mind and soul.

Grant rest to all who are weary,

and make us tireless in working to create a world in which all may lie down in safety and rest in peace.

May we never tire and may we always take steps to make sure the world is a safer, gentler place at night, than it was in the morning.

So each day may we be the blessing that the world needs us to be, agents of your kingdom, working to make this world closer to your kingdom every day...

Our Father,

Which 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,

And 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, the power and the glory, for ever.

Amen.

Sermon

This is a very complex moment in Israelite history.

Israel as we know it had split into two kingdoms.

The Southern Kingdom called Judah, stayed faithful to the dynasty of King David.

The Northern Kingdom called Israel, felt that King David and his family were corrupt and so others took over, who became just as corrupt.

The thing about the northern kingdom was, that often their kings drifted from the faith, followed a god called Baal.

And the prophets of God had a hard time against them.

The incident that we read about Elijah follows a big stramash between Elijah and the prophets of Baal.

Elijah had challenged them to a duel.

Both groups set up sacrifices but didn’t set them off, instead they were to call upon their God to light the sacrifices.

Well the prophets of Baal called out to him but got no response.

When Elijah prayed to God he incinerated the sacrifice.

It was a phenomenal show of power Elijah called on the prophets of Baal to be seized and killed, all 450 of them.

The King and Queen, Ahab and Jezebel, saw this as a threat to their leadership, which meant they thought this was a legitimate threat on their lives, so they sent out a message to Elijah that there was a price on his head now.

After putting so much effort into winning this victory for God, Elijah then has a crash of confidence.

What was the point of it all?

The people hadn’t changed.

The nation hadn’t changed.

What difference had it made.

All that effort and his life was now in danger.

So he runs away.

First of all he runs to the southern kingdom, Judah, thinking that King Ahab wouldn’t; dare send his men into the kingdom of his greatest enemies.

There he finds rest.

A loaf of bread, some water, some more rest.

And then he heads further south.

Out of the southern kingdom of Judah and into the wilderness, to Mount Sinai where Moses met with God and where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, the rules and guidance for the people to live by.

I think that there is a message for us today in this passage.

It is not a great message or a profound message.

But I think it is an important message.

We are still in the holiday season.

Most of the church organisations are resting and so are most of our volunteers.

But the truth is that often we are not resting in the right way.

We are not preparing ourselves for the winter ahead.

And if we don’t do that then we will get tried quickly and drained and not be able to do the work God is asking us to do in our lives.

And this resting comes in two stages.

The first stage is; are we looking after ourselves physically?

I hate to say this, but I think many of us don’t take our physical health seriously enough.

In this passage Elijah has got himself exhausted, maybe even burnt out.

And God doesn’t start by giving him lots of wise words to follow, many inspirational texts to keep him going.

God deals with the physical body first.

Safety, water, bread, sleep; the basics of life.

God looks after that.

If we are not looking after our physical body, then we are not looking after the body God gave us to do his work.

Our physical body is a big part of how our spirituality functions... or doesn’t function.

A couple of weeks ago Roseanna and I were looking after one of my daughters dogs for the week.

She gave us food to give him, she gave us instructions as to what medicine he needed.

What she forgot to tell us is that she allows her doge to sleep on their bed.

Well my wife wasn’t allowing tat dog to be our bedroom let alone be on our bed.

So for the first two nights that dog whimpered and howled and barked throughout the night.

After that the dog gave up, but as soon as it was light he would outside the door barking demanding that he go for a walk.

A week of interrupted sleep.

Trust me, it affects you spiritually.

If you don’t think so then go without sleep for a week and see how tolerant and patient you are, see how forgiving you are, how loving you are.

See how your bad temper rises more quickly.

Look at your levels of frustration and anger and how they appear more and more frequently.

Here is a statistic that I read last week that shocked me.

We are more likely to make sure that we give our pets their medicine, than we are to give ourselves our medicine.

Think about that...

We are more likely to make sure that we give our pets their medicine, than we are to give ourselves our medicine.

We neglect ourselves, we neglect our physical body.

I don’t know if this is because we don’t think that we are good enough.

I don’t know if this is because we think we are unworthy.

Or that in some perverse idea we think we deserve to be punished for not being perfect and that this is our way of punishing ourselves.

The truth is that we need to get a better image of our physical body.

God gave us this body as a gift, and it is our job to look after it, and often we don’t.

We need to start looking after our body.

Because it is through this body that God is working, and wants us to work for him.

So make we need to make sure we eat the right things.

We need to make sure we get enough sleep.

But that isn’t enough.

Elijah is given all those things.

He is in Judah where the king of Israel can’t get at him.

He has been given bread and water and rest.

But that isn’t enough, Elijah’s spirit it still broken.

So he is driven to the holy Mountain, the place where he knew God would be.

So first of all, God is everywhere. That is taken as a given.

But God doesn’t feel he is everywhere to us.

We are human beings and some places just seem more holy to us.

So here’s my question...when was the last time you went to a holy place to sit with God?

The was a guy called James Currie, he was a minister in St James in Pollock. He wasn’t famous for being the minister in Pollock; he was famous for pilgrimages to the Holy Land. He did nearly 50 of them.

He would take groups of 20 to 50 people off to the holy land and guide them round the places that Jesus and the prophets had walked.

Every time he came back he was energized and had purpose and felt his life had meaning.

He loved the people of Pollock, he loved working there, but Pollock was the work that drained him,

he needed a place that built him up, and that place was Jerusalem.

We are not just physical creatures, we are spiritual creatures, and we are lost if we have no purpose.

We cannot life fulfilled lives until we know our life has meaning.

We will not find peace in our hearts, until we find that peace in God’s purpose.

And often whatever gives us purpose and meaning can drain us as well.

So we need to balance that out with a place that builds us up.

That is often a place where we see God isn’t just interested in what we do for him,

that we see that we are not just tools for God so that his work is done on earth,

we are also God’s work, we are also God’s love,

God is seeking to work on us because he cares for us.

But if we keep God at a distance,

if we keep our lives so busy that we have no time for God,

then we can’t get his help.

God could be screaming at us to change the way we are doing life, but if we are keeping g our ears closed then we hear none of his warnings.

Each of us has a Holy Place, often more than one,

these are places where we feel God is close to us.

or maybe instead of holy places, God has put Holy people into our lives,

people who build us up, people who care for us just for being us.

So I close with this challenge.

When was the last time you went to one of your holy places, or spent time with one of your holy people.

When was the last time you rested with God?

I suspect that if we did that, then like Elijah,

we would rediscover just how loved we are,

we would see that the world is different from the way we perceive it to be,

we would find a joy that maybe had been missing from our life.

Because we would be reminded that God is with us, and with that we would find hope.

Let us pray

Heavenly Father

we are creatures of body, mind and spirit, not separate, but intricately woven together.

Both need to be nourished and tended if we are to be whole.

Both need to be nourished and tended if we are to be strong enough to continue on the journey of life.

We give thanks for the ways in which our needs have been met thus far;

and for the people who have helped that to happen:

For those you have put in our lives who have fed us, reassured and challenged us, and faithfully kept company with us along the way.

We pray for those whose journey is hard, and whose resources are few:

parents who cannot afford to feed their children unless they go without themselves;

those who will die of hunger very soon, unless they are killed first by enemy attack.

Lord, give them bread for their journey and peace for their souls.

We pray for those who risk their own lives to bring aid to others in desperate need.

Not angels, but brave, compassionate people determined to do what they can as long as they are able.

Lord, give them bread for their journey and peace for their souls.

We pray for those whose minds are troubled,

haunted by past trauma or worried about the future;

those for whom religion is not a source of comfort, but something else to worry about.

Lord, give them bread for their journey and peace for their souls.

We pray for those setting out on a new adventure,

eager and full of hope;

and for those who have had change forced upon them through illness, or ageing, or just the normal changes and chances of life.

We pray for all who are grieving a sore loss; and for all drawing close to journey’s end.

Lord, give them bread for their journey and peace for their souls.

Help us over the week to see the gift of life that you have given us, and the body with which you call us to enjoy that gift, and may we find bread for our journey, and peace for our souls.

Amen.