Welcome to Sunday worship in a format no previous generation of Christians has experienced in this land when no physically gathered congregations are meeting. However, in homes around the land, small or larger groups will meet on-line to participate in a shared experience of worship.
On Sunday evening there is a National Prayer service at 7pm that churches across the country are welcome to attend on-line. National leaders of different networks of churches are sharingin this event. Please check on the Baptist Union Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/157011591021372/ for the link to join the service on Sunday.
As we gather on a Sunday morning we do so mindful that we meet in the presence of the Lord Jesus through His Holy Spirit who is here to bless and encourage and equip us for the week to come.
Let us read together in our own contexts aloud the words from Psalm 67:
May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make His face shine on us –
2 so that Your ways may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.
3 May the peoples praise You, God;
may all the peoples praise You.
4 May the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for You rule the peoples with equity
and guide the nations of the earth.
5 May the peoples praise You, God;
may all the peoples praise You.
6 The land yields its harvest;
God, our God, blesses us.
7 May God bless us still,
so that all the ends of the earth will fear Him.
It is good to praise the Lord in song. In future weeks we hope to have a more polished order of service, but I am grateful to Kevin for choosing some songs that you can use to sing God’s praises. Please click the videos to access the songs. Apologies that you may need to click tabs to avoid adverts coming up
Opening Prayer:
Father we thank You and praise You for the privilege of gathering together in Your name to worship You. We recognise around the globe around two billion people in their own way will typically gather to worship You.
In our small gatherings today we rejoice that nothing can prevent us joining with others in honouring Your holy and majestic name. We come in the wonderful name of Your Son our Saviour who died in our place on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and to give us new life in its fullness. Thank You for the wonderful gift of salvation.
We come confessing our sins of the past week, asking afresh for Your forgiveness, knowing that the blood of Jesus shed on the cross for us purifies us from everything we said and did that was wrong. Fill us afresh we pray by the power of Your Holy Spirit to equip us for the new week that lies ahead of us, for Jesus sake, Amen.
Let us say together the words Jesus taught His disciples when He said:
‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.'”
For Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever Amen.
Let us sing:
Please listen to this declaration – Who is Jesus?
Special links for children and young adult activities
JAM Kids’ focus: There is the first of a series of Bible based activities for children on the Out of the Box website. This series looks at the Armour of God from Ephesians 6
JAM young adults Ignite Live have a separate programmeon the Zoom platform –parents of teenagers can get a link code by contacting Gary Torbet on garytorbet@btinternet.com
Our Bible passage for reflection is Lamentations 3:1-33: Please take time to read through these heartfelt words from the prophet Jeremiah.
I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath. 2 He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; 3 indeed, He has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long. 4 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. 5 He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.6 He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead. 7 He has walled me in so that I cannot escape; He has weighed me down with chains. 8
Even when I call out or cry for help, He shuts out my prayer. 9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone; He has made my paths crooked. 10 Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding, 11 He dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help. 12 He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows. 13 He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver.
14 I became the laughing-stock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long. 15 He has filled me with bitter herbs and given me gall to drink. 16 He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has trampled me in the dust.17 I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. 18 So I say, ‘My splendour is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.’
19 I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. 20 I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. 21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.23 They are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness. 24 I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.’
25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. 27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. 28 Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. 29 Let him bury his face in the dust – there may yet be hope. 30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace. 31 For no one is cast off by the Lord for ever. 32 Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. 33 For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone. [Amen]
Prayers for Others:
1. Pray for our Governments in Edinburgh and London for wisdom in all their decisions
2. Our National Health Service staff as they serve our communities so effectively especially at these critical times
3. Pray for Christian Churches across our land, and across the world, that we may effectively adapt to the new digital environment for our worship and witness, but also that we may serve our communities appropriately at a time of great practical and spiritual needs.
4. Pray for specific people and families in need of our prayers
5. Pray for ourselves as we seek to live through these difficult times
Message
There is the option of a filmed short message on this theme. Please click this link to access:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G-hbyOQwmQvY8Owy7NUuAS14y2ibtCbe/view
Introduction
Disorientated! Confused! Stunned! Submit your own adjectives to describe your feeling after what we have been through last week as a country, and unusually, what we have been through together as a world family in country after country.
One of the remarkable things I have found encouraging this week –there have been a few things! – was the solidarity with Christians friends on different continents who got in touch to share their experiences of restricted living due to the spread of the Covid-19 virus. What is more Christian friends in a variety of locations are sharing this service with us today. Instead of our regular-sized congregation, the numbers participating virtually today will be substantially higher than that and I would expect both here and around the world the numbers participating would be higher than might normally gather in church buildings.
The world has changed for ever. We will never go back in three, six or twelve months’ time to the world we left behind. There will of course be many similarities when this crisis is finally over, but other things like our relationships with other people will be different. We will treasure the freedom to associate in the same physical location once more with family and friends and church families, but we will also retain new ties of friendship with newer friends across the world. The global family of people who have gone through this time together in our respective countries will to some degree acknowledge our common human solidarity better than they did even a few weeks ago.
I have already used Lamentations chapter three for our reflections last week, but I felt it right to remain here for our first Sunday as a virtual congregation. To a degree greater than before we can sit with Jeremiah in his confused and emotional state, wondering what does the future hold for me? What might happen in coming days to my family and friends?
Asking questions is good, but sometimes there is no-one who is going to give us the answer. Sometimes we have to live in that uncomfortable place between the past and the future, a borderland that seems to lack promise and certainly doesn’t fill us with joy and confidence for the journey we must now take. Let us sit with Jeremiah in his shoes as well as our own and very briefly reflect on his heart cries as well as his wonderful testimony of faith.
1. God where are you when I need You? (Lamentations 3:1-18)
(a)God is against me (Lamentations 3:1-6) I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath. 2 He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light;3 indeed, He has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long. 4 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. 5 He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. 6 He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.
Jeremiah is articulating here not only his own feelings but those of his fellow citizens in a similar situation, that included people of faith and those who had not had space for God in their daily experiences; had they been abandoned by God in their time of need? The list we could give of people struggling today is lengthy: to name but a few – those wondering will I still have a job or career at the end of this crisis, or even sooner? What about my university options when I couldn’t sit my examinations? What about even my survival if I catch the virus given that I have underlying health conditions that make me vulnerable to serious struggles with covid-19 should I contract it?
How does Jeremiah express his current feelings or those of many of his fellow Jews all those centuries ago? He made me walk in darkness rather than light(Lamentations 3:2b); is that how you are feeling today? In his large book, Jeremiah expressed his feelings this way: Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn and horror grips me (Jeremiah 8:21).
You cannot read these words in verses 1-6 of Lamentations 3 without grasping a window into his anguish of heart. It is okay to be honest with God about how you are feeling today. He knows exactly what is going on in your inner being so there is no point in not being honest with him with our struggles as well as with our joys. Life has both – this week in our congregation I rejoiced with someone who has got more work when they feared not being able to continue.
On the other hand I was saddened to listen to others who had to stop work or lost employment as a result of covid-19. Today as every Sunday as God’s people gather together, our experiences of the past week are decidedly mixed, although at a time like this far more of us will be struggling to make sense of what is going on
(b) God has taken away my sense of hope (Lamentations 3:7-18) He has walled me in so that I cannot escape; He has weighed me down with chains. 8 Even when I call out or cry for help, He shuts out my prayer. 9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone; He has made my paths crooked. 10 Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding, 11 He dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help. 12 He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows. 13 He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver. 14 I became the laughing-stock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long. 15 He has filled me with bitter herbs and given me gall to drink. 16 He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has trampled me in the dust. 17 I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. 18 So I say, ‘My splendour is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.’
No exit! If that is the road sign visible on the highway where you are driving your car, it is time to take some drastic action and make a U-Turn and go in a different direction.
For Jeremiah it seemed like every way he turned to go there were ‘no exit’ signs popping up time after time. But most seriously of all, what happened when he tried to pray? Even when I call out or cry for help, He shuts out my prayer. 9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone; He has made my paths crooked(Lamentations 3:8-9). Here is a God-honouring person experiencing a ‘dark night of the soul’ when it appeared even God has gone silent on him.
It gets worse further on in this passage: He dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help. 12 He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows. 13 He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver.(Lamentations 3:11-12). And then to make matters worse, he declares: He has trampled me in the dust. 17 I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. 18 So I say, ‘My splendour is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord (Lamentations 3: 16b-18).
Do you feel hopeless today? Do you despair of any resolution of what you are going through? Then you are sitting with Jeremiah and his fellow citizens of Jerusalem in need of assistance. Is our situation hopeless or are there some blue skies of hope hidden behind the dark clouds that hang so heavy over us?
2. Experiencing the wonderful love of God (Lamentations 3:19-33)
(a)Compare and contrast (Lamentations 3:19-21) 19 I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. 20 I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: When you go through really difficult times you will never forget that experience. It is real. At the moment for many of us the current restrictions feel a bit unreal but our television screens displaying scenes in Italy at the present time show just how serious is this health crisis.
When we feel overwhelmed we imagine our trials lasting ‘for ever’. This perception is too much for anyone to bear for any length of time. However, there is an incredible contrast that floods his consciousness that transforms his understanding of the bigger picture. The problems are still there. The consequences of what happened in Jerusalem, in terms of the death and destruction was very real. But, something prompted him to see in afresh way that God was there with him in this situation. In effect, that Emmanuel (which means ‘God with us’) really was with him. God had not left him to cope on his own. Are you feeling alone and struggling to cope with what you are facing just now- please turn and ask the Lord to uphold and support you and walk with you through this time.
(b) The faithfulness of God (Lamentations 3:22-26) 22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. 24 I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion;therefore I will wait for Him.’ 25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. Jeremiah experienced what the Psalmist in Psalm 103:11-13 stated: For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
God is entirely trustworthy. He stands alongside us through the hard times of life whether we can sense His presence or not. This does not mean we have instant answers miraculously to all our prayers. By contrast, it means we trust that God will do the right thing for His people because of His great love for us. There are a lot of things we can do without if we know someone unconditionally loves us. God’s children on earth who have put their faith and trust in Him can have that wonderful assurance of His amazing love to us – even in the midst of the storms of life. Do you need to hear that today?
(c) The humble submission of His people (Lamentations 3:27-33) 27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. 28 Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. 29 Let him bury his face in the dust – there may yet be hope.30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace. 31 For no one is cast off by the Lord for ever. 32 Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. 33 For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.
Years ago I sat with a wonderful Christian who told me of the earth shattering news they had recently received of a terminal medical diagnosis. It was what they said next that stands out: ‘Why not me; I have no right to be exempt from what others go through because of my Christian faith!’
When we refuse to give in to our trials, but instead endeavour to stand firm in the storms of our lives –God is glorified and His people are enabled by His supernatural power to bear witness to the wonderful grace of God. Jeremiah’s closing words here are inspirational: Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. 33 For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone (Lamentations 3:32-33).
Some people have been asking –why did God permit Covid-19 to appear? I and we will never know answers to so many ‘why’ questions. What we do know of God and His attitude towards us at this time is given here in Lamentations 3:32: Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. God wants to work for good in this and every situation- so be encouraged that God knows what you are going through and will walk with us each step of the way, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Closing Praise:
Here are some inspiring songs to sing declaring the greatness of God and our calling to go forward as people who have faith in our amazing God.
Benediction: The Grace
May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore, Amen
Remember tonight the national online prayer service at 7pm in Scotland