Intimations
- Baptist Union of Scotland Prayer Livestream – The monthly prayer livestream takes place on Sunday, 6 December, 7.00–7.30pm. You can access the prayer livestream by going to the Baptist Union of Scotland YouTube channel. This month’s theme is ‘Come, Lord Jesus’ and we will be praying for our churches during Advent and for our nation, particularly at this time of pandemic.
- Today we held our first Sunday service in Panmurefield Baptist Centre since March. If you are interested in attending in person on 13th or 20th December at 10am please contact us. You can also join us on Zoom at 10am, please let us know if you would like an invite.
- Advance Notice – We will having our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services on Zoom. Contact Us if you would like an invite
Jam Kids
The older JAM Kids might like to check out some Bible stories about people who also experienced ‘lockdown’. The videos along with a link to some questions to think about together, can all be found here.
JAM young adults Ignite Live have a separate programme at 11:30am. Please contact Gary Torbet on garytorbet@btinternet.com for more details.
Call to Worship
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,
Isaiah 9: 6-7
and the government will be on His shoulders.
And He will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of His government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over His kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and for ever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
We are grateful to Helen Rice for selecting the songs for worship for this service
Baptist Union of Scotland – Video on the theme of Hope
The Baptist Union of Scotland is producing four Advent videos. In total there will be four videos, each around 5 minutes long, on the themes of Hope, Peace, Love and Joy. Each video will contain an introduction, scripture reflection, a story from one of our churches and a spoken carol. This Sunday is Advent Week Two on the theme of Peace.
Opening Prayer
Opening prayer
Heavenly Father,
In this Advent season we come with real joy and expectancy to acknowledge today who You are and what You have done for us. When we consider those amazing words spoken with respect to the baby born in Bethlehem: He will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
There is no parallel to His amazing entrance into our world with all its frustrations, disappointments, sadness and evil. Yet You created this world to be a perfect place for humans and other creatures to inhabit, but we as the species with the responsibility for caring for it have failed time and again and continue to do so across the world.
Lord have mercy upon us. Even in 2020 in the midst of a virus pandemic the insanity of terrorist conflicts and wars go on as before as if nothing unusual was taking place this year. Yet we have hope-filled expectation that it will not always be this way. We look forward with great joy to Jesus second coming, with confidence because His first coming took place just as the Bible had declared hundreds of years earlier.
We live in the tension of our struggles and worries of health issues, work pressures and so much more, but bring them to You today. We confess our sins once more confident of Your forgiveness in the name of Jesus, and seek a fresh empowering by Your Holy Spirit for the demands of another new week. Speak into our lives today as we gather for this act of worship, we pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son our Saviour, 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.
Prayers for Others
Thank you Lord once more we can come before You with our prayers for others at the start of another new week. We come with thankful hearts that the first vaccine against the Covid-19 virus has been licensed for use by the regulatory authorities in our country. We are very conscious that it is extremely difficult to transport and thus presents logical challenges for getting it to some of the most vulnerable people in Care Homes.
We pray for wisdom for the medical staff overseeing the distribution of this vaccine and pray that it will soon start to have an impact on the number of those catching this illness and on those requiring hospital treatment. We are well aware that inoculating millions of people will place an extraordinary strain on Health service workers as they balance this work with existing care for other patients. Grant them all the necessary health and strength to persevere through these next few months of carrying out this important task.
We pray too for the many businesses suffering severely as a result of the limitations on their operations. We ask that where possible funding might be provided to allow them to remain afloat and be able to recommence their work as restrictions ease further at some point in the New Year. Lord for all who are struggling with life and their responsibilities at this time we pray that You would give a send of Your peace and assurance and the strength to persevere through to better days.
We now bring before You the particular things of concern to us personally in the wider world …
We also bring before You other churches including:
Stranraer BC – We pray for the Baptist church family in Stranraer as they meet week by week either online or in person for some people. We pray that they will know the nearness of God during this time.
Strathendrick BC – We thank God for their church family and the ability to remain connected to each other through modern technology and reach new people through their Facebook services. We thank God that their young people are able to take part in Youth Alpha again. We pray for those struggling because of lack of physical contact in their fellowship due to lock down. We pray for wisdom in deciding when it is the right time for them to open up their physical church services again.
Stromness BC – We pray for Stromness Baptist in Orkney as they continue to seek to make Christ known on the island. We give thanks that our churches in Orkney work well together and pray that this unity would increase kingdom witness in Orkney
We also remember in our prayers other people with particular needs that are connected to our own families or congregation:
Lord we continue to remember those with ongoing health issues remembering Peter and Maureen S and Ian McF, Dorothy G and John C. We also continue to remember Lawrie, Nicola L’s Dad, Betty W, Alva D and Anne M as they seek to make further progress in the recovery of their health and strength, together with the Steer’s niece Rachel and Ann W’s sister Margaret at this time as well. We pray also for other with ongoing health needs that You would grant them the strength that they need at this time
We continue to pray for those of our number who even without the virus-pandemic restrictions would be unable to meet with us for worship. We pray Your blessing upon them at this time.
In addition, we bring our own and other needs on our hearts to You today…, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, Amen.
Bible Readings
The desert and the parched land will be glad;the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendour of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendour of our God.
Isaiah 35: 1-6
3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; 4 say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution He will come to save you.’
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 6 Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’ 4 Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
Matthew 11@ 2-5
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. 9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! 10 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered.
James 5: 7-11a
Before we come to listen to God’s Word let us sing:
The Message
Hope-Filled Expectation Matthew 11:2-5 & Isaiah 35:1-10
Introduction
Our lives are a mixture of expectancy of things that we trust will take place in the future as well as a response to what has happened in the past or is currently taking place in the present. We live very much in the present, but for the vast majority of us we have hopes and dreams of a better future, if not for ourselves then for our children or grandchildren, or some other people.
It is not just a human experience, but one for the natural world around us as well. In winter as we look in our gardens or in other places where plants and trees flourish it seems so bare. The apparent absence of life is obvious, but we know that in the seasons of nature it is a period of waiting in expectant hope for what lies around the corner. We are well aware that the leaves have fallen, the flowers are gone and things look grey and bare. However, we also know that there are seeds and bulbs planted in the ground, hidden and dormant, but you might look out at your garden or at the flower beds in the park and wonder whether the colour and life of spring will ever return.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ every parent of a young child has heard these words from the back seat of the car on a long journey. The adult or adults in the car are well aware of the expected time length for the journey, but this would not be true for the children. The child may grasp fully that this a special visit to your grandparents. It might even be a birthday celebration or Christmas. But the difference between fifty miles or 150 miles is something that they have yet to understand. The child’s mind is fixed on arriving at their destination and on spending time with the people they are looking forward to meeting.
As adults we may keep quiet or articulate quite differently the same kind of longing for our hopes to be fulfilled. It can be a little thing like waiting for a parcel to be delivered at home and you are hanging about for the four to six hour time window allocated. You want it to come at the beginning of the waiting time, but it seems that the majority of times it is much closer to the end of the allocated time slot. There are much more serious waiting times, for example, a senior high school pupil sitting external exams or a student their university finals and waiting the months for the results to come out. All of us can recall our own examples in family life or the workplace of the tension of waiting for something that was important to us.
To change tack for a moment, in our Christian lives there are times of waiting not for Spring to come or the end of a car journey, or whatever example came to mind in your own life, but waiting for God to do something. There are lots of things we pray for, but there is either no apparent answer or even worse circumstances changing so that God’s answer appears to be a ‘no’ when we were convinced that a ‘yes’ to our request had to be the right way.
Have you been or are you currently disappointed with God about a situation that hasn’t turned out the way you thought it should do. It is really tough coming to terms with a situation where our hopes for the future appear to be dashed or that absolutely nothing has happened that you can see in response to your many prayers to God about something. We need to be honest and bring our disappointments to God in our prayers. Let Him know how we are feeling. God can handle us being honest with him about how we feel.
1. The prophetic declaration (Isaiah 35:1-6)
The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendour of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord,the splendour of our God. 3 Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; 4 say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution He will come to save you.’ 5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 6 Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. (Isaiah 35:1-6)
John the Baptist knows this passage and others from the Bible and saw his ministry as being that of a forerunner for Jesus to usher in God’s kingdom. His preaching majored on divine judgement on sin and a call for repentance from God’s people. A flavour of it is seen in Matthew 3:5-12:
People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptised by him in the River Jordan. 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptising, he said to them: ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father.” I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
10 The axe has been laid to the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.11 ‘I baptise you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and He will clear His threshing-floor, gathering His wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’
It is easy to picture this prophetic solemnity of the wrath of God against sin being pronounced and John took his work seriously and saw spectacular responses from the ordinary people of the day. They walked for miles to hear him preach and many lives were remarkably transformed for good. The nation was truly influenced by this man of the desert in the few years prior to the start of Jesus’ earthly ministry. It appeared that everything was on track for God’s future kingdom on earth being realised in his lifetime.
Put yourself in the place of John the Baptist for a moment. You aveh proclaimed the coming Kingdom of judgement and fire. You have criticised the ‘powers that be’ and called them to repentance and radical life-change. You have seen Jesus baptised, sent out by the Spirit, and your hopes are well and truly set on Him being the fulfilment of hundreds of years of waiting. But then, suddenly, you’re thrown in jail…
What might be the ‘spanner in the works’ for you? For some people addiction issues of drugs or alcohol bring them crashing to their knees in despair. For others a very serious or even a terminal health diagnosis is discovered and their perspective on life is totally changed in a few moments; a tragic death in the family or a relationship breakdown are amongst the other most serious things that can happen to someone; in 2020 the struggles of so many people to keep going in their workplaces or for some the loss of employment or businesses. We want to be hope-filled expectant people, but there are times when our ‘get up and go’ has gone. The uncertainties of our lives can be deeply unsettling. To return to John the Baptist:
2. John’s Disappointment (Matthew 11:2-3)
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 3 to ask Him, ‘Are You the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’ (Matthew 11:2-3) John the man of energy and passion striding around the Jordan Valley proclaiming God’s message to vast crowds of people suddenly sees his life’s work come to a complete halt when he was thrown into prison. He suddenly had endless amounts of time on his hands and very little to do most days. John was expecting Jesus to preach in a similar style to his own and go a step further and lead some radical changes in society. For a start the occupying forces of Rome that many people hated are still in power.
Corrupt priests and teachers are still in charge of the temple. The vengeance and divine retribution promised by Isaiah is not yet in evidence. Where is the judgement and fire God’s Word said was coming (Matt 3:5-12)? It leads John to confer with some of his closest remaining followers and send them to Jesus to ask this question? ‘Are You the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’ (Matthew 11:3).
John seems confused, even disappointed. This wasn’t quite the glorious future he had imagined. Perhaps we can empathise with him in the areas where we have felt disappointed or discouraged. We should follow John’s example of being honest with God about our disappointments – asking questions, lamenting difficult experiences, handing them over to Jesus.
We see in this passage that Jesus is big enough to deal with our sadness and confusion. However, it is okay to admit we are not okay! If someone as prominent in God’s service as John the Baptist had doubts and fears, struggles and disappointments, then we too as human beings will also have our vulnerable moments. When times are particularly tough and our emotional and mental resilience is strained we will struggle with retaining a sense of perspective on our lives. But God knows and understands. Jesus, just a short time after this question was raised by John’s disciples, says:
‘Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.’ Let Jesus help you through what you are going through even now.
3. Jesus’ declaration (Matthew 11:4-5)
4 Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 6 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of Me.’ (Matthew 11:4-5).
To understand what is going on with John, we can think back to the themes we have already explored in the past weeks. One is that Jesus is a different kind of King to the one everyone expected. His Kingdom is not about power and might, but love and self-sacrifice. His victory doesn’t come with swords and chariots; instead it lifts up the poor and sick and vulnerable. He does not force or coerce people to follow Him; instead He reveals the heart of God to them and invites them to freely choose Him as their Lord. So Jesus responds to John: Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Matthew 11:4-5)
These are all fulfilments of Isaiah’s prophesy. Remember Isaiah 35:5-6: 5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. 6 Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. (Isaiah 35:5-6).
They are beautiful, remarkable acts of kindness and justice. They are not, however, the judgement and victory over their enemies that Israel had hoped for. This is not the goal that John had pictured, and he begins to doubt if Jesus is the Messiah after all. John has his mind so fixed on his idea of the destination that he is missing the journey. He imagined a future of judgement and justice which has not yet arrived, and he is allowing this to distract him from the signs of the Kingdom of God which Jesus is already displaying. Like John, we need to allow God to meet us in our waiting, to see how He is bringing His Kingdom around us even though we have not yet reached our final destination.
Jesus was not behind schedule or changing the direction of His ministry. Remember His opening sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth when His ministry began. In Luke 4:18-21 He states:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ 20 Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’
The congregation present that day would never forget the opening words of that sermon as long as they lived. They might have accepted or rejected them, but they could not deny the clarity of Jesus’ claims. The problem was that like John the Baptist they had very fixed ideas of how God would work in the future and as a result so many of them failed to grasp Jesus’ true identity.
We too are human and not divine and our perspective on the present and the future is at best partial. There is no way, for example, that we could have anticipated on 1 January 2020 that church worship services would be mostly on a zoom platform and the a long list of other changes that have happened in each area of our lives this year. What are your hopes and fears? Take them to the Lord in prayer as Joseph Scriven’s old hymn ‘What a friend we have in Jesus’ repeatedly reminds us.
The way God works or plans to work in your life in the coming months or in our church family may be very different to what we had hoped for or planned in 2020. John the Baptist was struggling with his doubts and feeling very low in spirits, but in his cases his fears were misplaced. God was at work in the person of Jesus. John had rightly, earlier in his ministry, declared Jesus to be the coming Messiah the Jewish people had been waiting for. What he was now viewing as a setback at best or something worse was simply incorrect. He could not grasp how God was at work in and through Jesus on earth. Do you and I need to stop and ask the Lord to open our spiritual eyes to see how He is at work in His world at the present time? Do we need to ask the Lord to show us if we have had an inadequate grasp of how He is working in the world today?
The growth and spread of God’s kingdom will not be stopped by violent people, even though they do their worst. It will not be stopped by indifferent people who simply have no time for God in their lives. It will not be stopped by religious people who are so totally focussed on their practices that they forget it is about going God’s way not our own. God’s kingdom is a surprising kingdom where the last shall be first and the humble exalted and highlights grace-filled relationships between the followers of the servant-King. Are you a citizen of this kingdom? What was Jesus wanting here to teach John or anyone else?
4. God’s kingdom is a two-stage process (James 5:7-8)
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near (James 5:7-8).
A key reason why John was disappointed is that he failed to see the two-stage process of what God was doing in Jesus. We spoke during the last two weeks about the “now and not yet” of God’s coming Kingdom. The promises of the Old Testament appear to say that in one decisive moment God would establish his Kingdom, judge wrongdoing, and put everything right. However, in practice it seems this plan has been split into two stages:
Stage One – Jesus, the Messiah is born to the world. He kicks-off the Kingdom of God on earth, bringing healing and truth and love. He dies to restore all of creation to God, and rises again the victorious King of the world. His resurrection body is like the first shoots of new life and growth coming out of the barren winter soil – a promise and a model of the new life which will come for all of creation.
Stage Two – God will complete the work He began in Jesus. The judgement of sin and injustice; the cleansing of heavens and earth; the putting right of all things; these promises have not yet been realised in their fullness; the New Testament writers make it clear that we live in between Stage One and Stage Two, and that we are to wait with patience and hope for Stage Two to arrive. In his letter, James uses an image of seeds planted in the ground to help us with this:
Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near (James 5:7-8).
God has shown us the seeds of His Kingdom. We have seen glimpses of the new life that came with Jesus, and hope for the restoration of all of God’s creation. But right now, most of our seeds are still in the ground, and we won’t see the fullness of the crop until Jesus returns. So God calls us to be faithful farmers – imitating Jesus wherever we find ourselves: using our gifts, caring for the sick, reaching out to the lonely, tending God’s planet, proclaiming the good news – and trusting in that glorious day when the fullness of the harvest will come, and our disappointment will be no more. Our hope-filled expectations of Jesus’ return have at last been realized. Praise God for that, Amen.
Our song before we come to communion is:
The Lord’s Supper
Jesus invites all Christian who have committed their lives to follow Him to participate in this act of worship. The apostle Paul wrote these words of Scripture in I Corinthians 11:23-26 to guide our observance of Communion.
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: the Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ 25 In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
Prayer: Choose your own words of prayer to give thanks for the bread and wine that represent the costly gift of His body and blood for us.
Take the bread: Jesus said: ‘This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.
Take the wine: Jesus said: This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’
Our last song is:
Closing Prayer
Thank You Lord for the wonder of Your coming as a baby in Bethlehem. You experienced the vulnerability of human life and understand when we too feel acutely our vulnerability and weakness. However, we are privileged to have hope-filled expectation of God at work in our lives this week because You promise never to leave us or forsake us. We look forward to Your coming in glory, but are willing to wait with patience confident in Your final victory. We trust You to provide for us all the strength we need, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
