01/29/2023 = Genesis 12:1-4 = “Embracing God’s Miraculous Call Together”

(Click HERE to see the Facebook Live video feed of this service, starts at 6:00, sermon begins at 34:30)

(Click HERE to donate to Lidgerwood church’s mission and ministries.)

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Mark Wheeler

Genesis 12:1-4                                                                                                                  

01/29/2023

“Embracing God’s Miraculous Call Together”                                                        

Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church

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Welcome to worship, friends – let’s start right in with our Prelude of Praise . . .  The Sweetest name of All

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And let’s join in as Pastor Kathy leads us in our Call to Worship – from Psalm 119

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Good morning Friends!  Welcome worship at Lidgerwood!! Shalom Aleichem!

It seems like every week we get a little update about our boiler/furnace. I just want to make sure everyone understands … that someday it will be too hot in here and it will be our AC that gets talked about…..

We have had to re-light the pilot every few days to keep the boiler running, We are also adding water to the system every few days because the mysterious leak seems to be getting worse…. Thank you to all who try to help with portable space heaters and mittens….

For the last 2 weeks – and probably for the next 12 months or so – we will be celebrating, what Ken Stone has called, the beginning of LPC’s 2^nd 100 years!  But we cannot fully and properly celebrate that commencement unless we also remember and celebrate what God has been doing with us in the 1^st 100 years!  I expect that in the mix of those two celebrations we will discover what God plans for our miraculous future.

Later today, immediately following our worship service, we have a pot luck lunch (everyone is invited, whether you brought something or not – if Jesus can multiply fish and bread, certainly He can multiply casseroles and pies. (And some of us could probably afford to share better, too….))

This lunch is also the beginning of our Annual Congregational Meeting in which we elect our new Church Officers, address one minor Terms of Call mis-hap, and dream together about what God might be calling us into in the weeks and months to follow!  How do we embrace God’s miraculous call together?!

Welcome, friends, from around the world, to this worshipping community!

Let’s take a second to welcome each other, those in the room and across the globe, to a moment of Sabbath in God’s presence and peace, and with others whom we love and with whom we grow together. Tell your loved ones, whoever you can see , “The CALL of Christ be to you – and also with you!!”

Welcome to this “gathering” in God’s name. We are assembled in NorthEast Spokane, WA, along with people from all over the world. We are very glad you are “here” with us.

Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit presence and power, in your homes, through your phones and computers, in this building here, and in your lives. Pray with us … and hear and be transformed by God’s Word.

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Choir –! Thank you leading us in worship with this Sunday’s Choral Anthem – :  “Fly Away” Medley

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Listen in as Pastor Kathy opens our Prayer time in Confession and Thanksgiving

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11    Gloria Patri

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• what are some praises, thanksgivings, adorations we want to offer?
• Is there a person or a situation you want to lift to our Lord for His answers and grace?

15   We pray this in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray:   [The Lord’s Prayer]

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Let’s prepare to receive a Word from our Majestic God by singing a song of Song of Devotion and Praise  – that also calls His followers to offer ourselves to Him together – I Surrender All  – #579!!

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Lord Jesus, what have we done to make things right with our families, or to succeed at work or school, or to discover how we fit into Your glorious plan so far this year?  On THIS day, dear Lord, help us to set our sights on Your purposes for us as a church, as Your corporate Body of Christ, and to embrace Your miraculous call together.  Embracing miracles seems impossible … so help us accept and do the impossible.  It is by the Word of Jesus Christ that we pray this prayer.  Amen.

Last June I was blessed to join a group of people connected with Whitworth University to leave the good ol’ USA to visit some of the sites of the Holy Land!  We got to walk on some of the same stones that Jesus walked on, climb some of the same mountains that Elijah climbed, hide in some of the same caves that David hid in, and go along part of the same route Abram went on 4,000 years ago!

On this trip, we constantly looked back at the history of Bible events, and caught glimpses of how God is acting in and through us today.

We cannot, I believe, get a true understanding of where God is calling us, what He wants us to do, unless we also understand where we’ve been, where we came from, and who has been in our family tree.  And in that reflecting we’ll also discover something about how God has been there the whole time, and how, while we may not be able to sense His presence alongside us every step of the way … He’s here too!

Like we did for the 1^st 2 Sundays of 2006, this morning as we voyage out on this new journey of faith, let’s look at a man of faith from the Old Testament – a man who Embraced God’s Call and trusted God to accomplish His purpose, and the people who miraculously grew from that original call.  Let’s turn to Genesis 12:1-4. —

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1. The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
2. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3. “And I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you.”
4. So, Abram left as the Lord had told him ….

This Genesis 12 passage is a pivotal text.  The Call of Abram links the traditions of God’s providential care for the world … and God’s specific electing call of Israel, God’s chosen people.

As we noted two weeks ago, the history of Israel does not begin in a vacuum, but in the context of confusion, alienation, scattering, and judgment.  The family of Abram had descended naturally, of course, just look at the genealogies in Genesis 10-11.  But all of that natural development of a family resulted in nothing spectacular!  All the who-begot-whoms just added more children and another generation to the story-line.

But then the genealogy stops!  Genesis 11:30 quietly, maybe even with a little grief, says, “Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.”  Abram’s family-line was spent!  It was at an end!  It had no where to go!  It had played out!  Sometimes you just have to know when to fold ’em.  Abram was there.  He was 75 years old … and Sarai was well past the age of child-bearing – she was barren!  Abram and Sarai had no hope!

It was within THIS situation of hopelessness that God speaks His creative, life-renewing, and miraculous Word.  This is His miraculous Call to which Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church is a part!  It’s a miraculous call.  Do we embrace it together?

Without warning, with no explanation, out of the blue, did you hear to whom God spoke His powerful Word of Call?  He Called His power into a situation of barrenness!  He brought potency into impotency!  He spoke hope into hopelessness!  This is Good News!  That’s Gospel Good News! 

Anyone who has ever heard the unspeakable bad news of the death of a loved one, a child not home from school, another pregnancy that didn’t make it full term, can relate to the lives Abram and Sarai lived.  But then God gave them the Gospel Good News that they WOULD bear children – more than the stars in the sky; give them a new country – filled with their descendents; one of those descendents that would bless, even save, the whole world!  Their family was NOT at the end of its rope!  No … now they had miraculous hope!

This God is the One who is Almighty and miraculous.  Not Abram or Sarai, not Mark Wheeler or Kathy Sandusky, not even Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church.  It is God who is Almighty.  He does not depend on our apparent potential!  He never has.  Abram and Sarai were quite without any potential!  Old and barren.  Good luck God – yeah, right. 

About 2,000 years later there was another couple without much visible potential – Joseph and Mary.  Heck, they weren’t even married yet – and just in case we think that that doesn’t necessarily preclude potential; Mary was still a virgin!  But God Almighty did not depend on their apparent potential either – from a virgin’s womb, a child is born, a son is given; and the government shall rest upon His shoulders; and His name shall be wonderful counselor, almighty God, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

What about 2,000 years later still?  Is Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church without much apparent potential?  Well friends, since when did that matter to God?       

The speech God gives to Abram holds all the weight of burden on Himself.  Really, Abram needs to hear and follow, but God has promised to take on all the heavy work necessary to begin a whole new people in history.  It is a promise that requires trust in the miraculous.  It is God’s Word of a future spoken to a people who had no future left!  They had no hope of a future.  But the God of the miraculous was on the move.  The obvious difference between the barrenness of Sarai, the impossibility of the nation of Israel, and this speech from God, is the definition of Israel.  That’s who God’s people are.  Is that who we are?

So, what we discover is that the God who calls Abram is a … particular kind of God.  He is unique.  Maybe because He’s the only God there is.  He creates everything there is … out of nothing.  A number of years ago, Ken told me a story about how scientists have developed their knowledge base so deep and so wide now they don’t need God.  Science can do everything God can do!  So God challenges the top scientist.  The scientist says, “OK, I’ll make a man, life.”  He bends down to pick up a pile of dirt and God says, “Whoa there.  Make your own dirt.”

God creates from nothing.  Just 11 chapters earlier we read how all that is created is from the Word of God … out of nothing – ex nihil.

God intervenes into human despair in such a way as to bring about creative hope and new life!  Abram trusts God.  It is a trust that says God can make all things new.  What ever we find ourselves in, and sometimes it is a messy pile of yuck – and it makes us wonder, and angry, and confused, God can and does make all things new.  We might need to look for it, but He’s there.  If we can’t wrap our faith around that, we might need some help; but He’s there.

Abram and Sarai had a long wait.  Their names changed to Abraham and Sarah, and they still had to wait.  They got to their new land, and they still had to wait.  They suffered loss, and gained new, and they still had to wait.  25 years they waited until finally Isaac was born!  And the next generation showed 12 sons.  And after them more descendents.  The Israelites are well on their way.  The Jews have been started.  And after 2,000 years, Jesus, from the line of David, from the line of Judah, from the line of Isaac, from the line of Abraham, was born … and the whole world was blessed.

Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church is at a crossroads in our life history that requires God’s miraculous call.  I believe He is in the process of sending it to us.  We – not just me, and not just the Elders, we – need to learn how to hear His voice and how to follow His lead.  It is the same God.  He creates out of nothing.  He sends Jesus for us, who was resurrected from the grave.  Paul says in Romans 4:17, “God gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”

Are we ready to Embrace that Miraculous Call Together?  I hope so, cuz none of us can do it on our own.  What is Lidgerwood PC, the next 100 years?  Only God Almighty, God of the Miraculous, knows.  Let’s listen to Him; He is way bigger than us.  Amen.

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Receive our tithes and offerings as symbols of our very lives and livelihood, given as response to Your life given for us! Bless it, and by it bless the world around us. In Christ’s name, Amen.

– Offering (4449 N Nevada St, Spokane, 99207 ; or click HERE, or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)

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25-28  Expedition Song #523 –  Trust and Obey – just the first , second and the last verses!    

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We continue with this benediction:     May we Grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit.
And give glory to God, today, and forever! Amen.

And as we do that:   “May the Lord bless you and protect you;may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;  may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”

31   Announcements      

• Annual Congregational Meeting & Potluck Lunch –January 29, to receive our Annual Report and  to elect all our new officers
• Called Session Meeting – immediately after the Congo Meeting
• Thru the Bible check-in – tomorrow at noon, at the church and on the Thursday bible Study Zoom link – bring your own sack lunch!

Resources: 

Journey of Discovery Bible Study: The Call of a Witnessing Community; 2005; P. 7.

Wheeler, Mark; “Embracing God’s Miraculous Call Together”; Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church; 01/15/2006.

01/22/2023 = Ezra 3:10-13 = “God Is at Work Doing New Things” (Rev Katie Stark)

(You can see the video of this service on Facebook Live HERE – starts at 4:00, sermon at 33:00)

(Thank you for donating to Lidgerwood Church’s mission and ministries HERE)

1                                                                                                                                              Mark Wheeler

Haggai 2:1-9, Ezra 3:10-13                                                                                        

01/22/2023

“God Is at Work Doing New Things” (Katie Stark)                                      

Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church

Welcome to worship friends – we are so glad you are here today! – a quick word about our boiler/furnace –  we are in for a treat today – we’ll introduce her in more detail in a bit – but know that we are in for a treat today – our Presbytery’s Missional Expeditor (yeah, we have that – and we’re the only one!), the Rev. Katie Stark, is bringing us God’s Word today!

Let’s begin with our Prelude of Praise #377 . . .  We Praise You, O God

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And let’s join in as Ashley Davis leads us in our Call to Worship –

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Good morning Friends!  Welcome worship at Lidgerwood!! Shalom Aleichem!

We are in the middle of a short series in Genesis 12 that asks us to see how God is calling us forward and what that call might mean in terms of how God uses us to bless the world around us with God’s Good News! 

Today. Katie leads us in a discovery of God might already be doing right now!

We have been talking about how the year 2023 is a BIG year for the life of Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church because it is, in fact, our first full year in our 2^nd century of ministry from this particular building.  That is worthy of celebration!  But it is also worthy of a little extra special attention at trying to discover precisely what God might have in store for us in our 2^nd century of ministry! 

Welcome, friends, from around the world, to this worshipping community!

Let’s take a second to welcome each other, those in the room and across the globe, to a moment of Sabbath in God’s presence and peace, and with others whom we love and with whom we grow together. Tell your loved ones, whoever you can see, “The WONDER of Christ be with you – and also with you!!”

Welcome to this “gathering” in God’s name. We are assembled in NorthEast Spokane, WA, along with people from all over the world. We are very glad you are “here” with us.

Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit presence and power, in your homes, through your phones and computers, in this building here, and in your lives. Pray with us … and hear and be transformed by God’s Word.

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Choir –! Thank you for leading us in worship with this Sunday’s Choral Anthem – listen to these words – this song is a prayer for God’s help – but it also declares what God does in our lives:  It Is Well with My Soul

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Listen in as Ashley opens our Prayer time in Confession and Thanksgiving

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12    Gloria Patri

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• what are some praises, thanksgivings, adorations we want to offer?
• Is there a person or a situation you want to lift to our Lord for His answers and grace?

16   We pray this in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray:   [The Lord’s Prayer]

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The Old Testament Prophet Haggai, chapter 2, begins with these words:

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¹ In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: ² “Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, ³ ‘Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? 

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⁴ Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, ⁵ according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. ⁶ For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. 

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⁷ And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. ⁸ The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. ⁹ The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.’”

Let’s prepare to receive a Word from our Majestic God by singing a song of Song of Devotion and Praise  – that also calls His followers to be together – Ten-thousand Times Ten-thousand  – #746!!

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Rev. Katie Stark, Presbytery Missional Expeditor and Co-Director of Cyclical Inland Northwest – bring us God’s Word!

25   Ezra 3:10-13

¹⁰ And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel. ¹¹ And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, “For he is good,  for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.”

And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. ¹² But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, ^(C)old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, ¹³ so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

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Receive our tithes and offerings as symbols of our very lives and livelihood, given as response to Your life given for us! Bless it, and by it bless the world around us. In Christ’s name, Amen.

– Offering (4449 N Nevada St, Spokane, 99207 ; HERE, or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)

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31-34  Expedition Song #712 –  The Kingdom of God Is Justice and Joy –

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Katie’s Benediction:    

37   Announcements      

• Annual Congregational Meeting & Potluck Lunch –January 29, to receive our Annual Report and  to elect all our new officers – correct one budget item (Terms of Call)

01/15/2023 = Genesis12:1-4 = “Embracing God’s Call Together”

(Click HERE to see the Facebook Live recording of this service – starts at 17:40, sermon begins at 40:50)

(Thank you for clicking HERE to donate to Lidgerwood Church’s mission and ministries)

1       Mark Wheeler

Genesis 12:1-4                                                                                                                   

01/15/2023

“Embracing God’s Call Together”                                                                   

Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church

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Welcome to worship friends – let’s start right in with our Prelude of Praise #181 . . .  As with Gladness Men of Old

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And let’s join in as Ashley Davis leads us in our Call to Worship – from the opening chapters of Genesis

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Good morning Friends!  Welcome worship at Lidgerwood!! Shalom Aleichem!

Last week I pointed out that the year 2023 is a BIG year for the life of Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church because it is, in fact, our first full year in our 2^nd century of ministry from this particular building.  That is worthy of celebration!  But it is also worthy of a little extra special attention at trying to discover precisely what God might have in store for us in our 2^nd century of ministry! 

This “Journey of Faith”, I’m here to announce, will not be an overnight, get-rich-quick scheme of “church-growth” or mission-statement writing.  It will, rather, be a slow, methodical search for our identity in God’s big picture-plans.  The CSI folks on TV, while they start and end the program in about 40 minutes, take their time to make sure they don’t overlook any details in their search process.  While we won’t have those cool little flash-lights or laser techniques or anything – I wish! – their careful search program describes our process. 

And, while I believe we are on the right track, as Will Rogers once said, “Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.”  We can’t just sit here.

Welcome, friends, from around the world, to this worshipping community!

Let’s take a second to welcome each other, those in the room and across the globe, to a moment of Sabbath in God’s presence and peace, and with others whom we love and with whom we grow together. Tell your loved ones, whoever you can see , “The faithfulness of Christ be with you – and also with you!!”

Welcome to this “gathering” in God’s name. We are assembled in NorthEast Spokane, WA, along with people from all over the world. We are very glad you are “here” with us.

Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit presence and power, in your homes, through your phones and computers, in this building here, and in your lives. Pray with us … and hear and be transformed by God’s Word.

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Choir –! Thank you leading us in worship with this Sunday’s Choral Anthem – listen to these words:  Sing to the Lord a New Song

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Listen in as Ashley Davis opens our Prayer time in Confession and Thanksgiving

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12    Gloria Patri

13-15  

• what are some praises, thanksgivings, adorations we want to offer?
• Is there a person or a situation you want to lift to our Lord for His answers and grace?

16   We pray this in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray:   [The Lord’s Prayer]

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Let’s prepare to receive a Word from our Majestic God by singing a song of Song of Devotion and Praise  – that also calls His followers to be together – Bind Us Together  – #690!!

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Lord Jesus, we’re now more than two weeks into the new year – what have we done to make things right with our families, or to succeed at work or school, or to discover how we fit into Your glorious plan?  On THIS day, dear Lord, help us to set our sights on Your purposes for us as a church, as Your corporate Body of Christ, and to stay focused on You all the time.  It is by the Word of Jesus Christ that we pray this prayer.  Amen.

Like we did last Sunday, this morning as we go aboard this new adventure, this continuing journey of faith, let’s look at a man of faith from the Old Testament – a man who Embraced God’s Call and trusted God to accomplish His purpose, and the people who grew from that original call.  Let’s turn to Genesis 12:1-4…. —-

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1. The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
2. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3. “And I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoles on the earth will be blessed through you.”
4. So, Abram left as the Lord had told him ….

Our understanding of and appreciation for the Call of Abram, I believe, is seriously limited and distorted if we think of it as just the faithfulness of one isolated individual person, an example of how one person might hear and obey God’s voice.  Far from being simply the story of an individual wanderer and his explorations of wonder, the Abram of the Bible is significant because it tells the tale of a whole people’s beginnings.  Abram’s call is not an individual call and pilgrimage, but the call and pilgrimage of a particular family, a family through whom all the families of the earth are to be blessed!  It is therefore the call from God to you and me, and us, as well!

But, even more dramatic than THAT, the story of Abram and Sarai, whom we later learn to call Abraham and Sarah, doesn’t just form the beginnings of God’s chosen people, the Israelites through whom Jesus Christ was born, but this story has to do with the re-forming of all of creation!  Remember, Genesis 12:1-4 is not the beginning of the Bible!  There are already 11 chapters of Genesis under our belt when we first meet Abram!  Those 11 chapters account for nearly 2,000 years!

What happened in those 1^st 2,000 years that needed reforming?  What is the context of this passage from Genesis 12?  Why did God call Abram, set him apart from the rest of humanity, and promise a Savior through his bloodline?  Here’s a very quick rundown so we can get an idea what was going through God’s mind:

Those 1^st 11 chapters of Genesis paint, with broad strokes – there’s very little detail: 2,000 years in 11 chapters, the next 200 years take another 14 chapters and the next 2,000 years takes almost 900 chapters! – we’re talking broad strokes and somber tones, a picture of the predicament of the human race upon God’s good earth.

First, in the Creation stories God creates the whole universe, everything there is, and He calls it all “good”, and when He creates the humans in His own image He calls that part of creation “very good”!  But by the end of the second story about Creation, Adam and Eve have already decided to sin and have acted on that decision!  By the end of the very next chapter these humans, created in God’s own image, commit front-page headline news: fratricide, one brother, in a fit of jealous rage, kills the other brother!  As a result, first Adam and Eve are removed from the Garden of Eden, and now they are all removed from any part of Eden!  Separated from God by their sin.  As we resolve our lives to be more Christian in 2023, we must ask ourselves how separated we are from God, too.

This story is followed up with another story of corruption and violence.  God goes looking for His human creation, those created in His own image that actually live like they love their God, and God can find only one man!  When we read Genesis 6 we get a sense that God’s heart was broken by the willful disobedience of humankind.  As a result the earth is flooded and all but Noah and his family, and enough of all the rest of created order to start over again, are wiped out.  Humanity gets another chance.  And immediately after the flood we show we didn’t deserve it.

The next event recorded in this 2,000 year story we discover how the newly re-forming creation is once again falling apart.  They experience a total break-down in communication and the scattering of the human race across the face of the globe.  This is the story of the Tower of Babel, a story about the people trying to reach the heavens so that they could know as much as God knows and be as powerful as God Almighty is. 

Into this world of chaos and crime, disorder and sin, God calls Abram and Abram hears Him … and Abram obeys what he hears.  And as a result, the Israelite nation, the people chosen by God, the people through whom Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem and saved the whole world who call Him Lord and Savior.  WE are that people today!  Into today’s world of chaos and crime – have you seen the newspaper this week? – God calls US.  Do we hear Him?  Will we obey what we hear?

You see, even these first 11 chapters of Genesis are placed within the context of God’s call.  Genesis 1-11 concerns the affirmation that God calls the world into being, to be His faithful world.  The entire first 2,000 years deal with the tension between God’s will for and call to creation and the mixed way in which creation follows that will – or doesn’t – and answers that call – or doesn’t even hear it!

It’s hard work trying to hear God, isn’t it?  There is so much noise, so much chaos, so much disorder.  In fact, hard work barely even describes it.  Alone, impossible is more like it.  But that’s the thing.  When God called Abram, He also called a whole new community of followers.  When God calls us, He calls us into a fellowship like Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church, so that we can help each other to be faithful.  And bigger than just LPC, God calls us into a community of churches, like the PC(USA) or the Fellowship of Churches.  Together we hold each other accountable; we keep each other in line; we help each other stay in God’s Word and to grow in faithful living and to witness God’s grace to the world around us.

Someone has pointed out that snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together – remember the week before Christmas?  The God who created the universe is the same God who called the nation of Israel together and who calls His Church into being and who put Lidgerwood Presbyterian where and when we are!  This Genesis 12 call of Abram is far more than just God calling one human being to follow Him.  The purpose of that call is to fashion an alternative community in a creation gone awry, to embody in human history the power of God’s blessing, to construct another way for God’s creation to know His love for us. 

It is God’s plan that in this new family all human history can be brought together into the unity and harmony intended by the God who calls us.  Like snowflakes, what we can do when we “stick together”?

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Listen to this poem, written by my new favorite poet [Amanda Gorman, New Day’s Lyric]:

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May this be the day

We come together.

Mourning, we come to mend,

Withered, we come to weather,

Torn, we come to tend,

Battered, we come to better.

Tethered by this year of yearning,

We are learning

That though we weren’t ready for this,

We have been readied by it.

We steadily vow that no matter

How we are weighed down,

We must always pave a way forward.

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This hope is our door, our portal.

Even if we never get back to normal,

Someday we can venture beyond it,

To leave the known and take the first steps.

So let us not return to what was normal,

But reach toward what is next.

What was cursed, we will cure.

What was plagued, we will prove pure.

Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,

Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,

Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;

Those moments we missed

Are now these moments we make,

The moments we meet,

And our hearts, once all together beaten,

Now all together beat.

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Come, look up with kindness yet,

For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.

We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,

But to take on tomorrow.

We heed this old spirit,

In a new day’s lyric,

In our hearts, we hear it:

For auld lang syne, my dear,

For auld lang syne.

Be bold, sang Time this year,

Be bold, sang Time,

For when you honor yesterday,

Tomorrow ye will find.

Know what we’ve fought

Need not be forgot nor for none.

It defines us, binds us as one,

Come over, join this day just begun.

For wherever we come together,

We will forever overcome.

Are we ready and willing to hear God’s Call, and stick together as we obediently respond?    God not only calls us, He also promises us His presence and His power.  Let’s listen carefully, and follow faithfully; let’s Embrace God’s Call Together!  Amen.

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Receive our tithes and offerings as symbols of our very lives and livelihood, given as response to Your life given for us! Bless it, and by it bless the world around us. In Christ’s name, Amen.

– Offering (4449 N Nevada St, Spokane, 99207 ; or click HERE, or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)

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28-30  Expedition Song #523 –  Trust and Obey – just the first , second and the last verses!    

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We continue with this benediction:     May we Grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit.
And give glory to God, today, and forever! Amen.

And as we do that:   “May the Lord bless you and protect you;
may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;  may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”

33   Announcements      

• New Officer Training – next Saturday at 9am.
• Annual Congregational Meeting & Potluck Lunch –January 29, to receive our Annual Report and  to elect all our new officers

Resources: 

Gorman, Amanda; “New Day’s Lyric”; 12/30/2021.

Journey of Discovery Bible Study: The Call of a Witnessing Community; 2005; P. 5-6.

Wheeler, Mark; “Embracing God’s Call Together”; Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church; 01/08/2006.

01/08/2023 = Genesis 12:1-4 = “Embracing God’s Call”

(Click HERE to see the video of this service, starts 5:30, sermon starts at 20:30)

(Click HERE to donate to Lidgerwood Church’s mission and ministries)

1                                                                                                                                        

Mark Wheeler

Genesis 12:1-4                                                                                                       

01/08/2023

“Embracing God’s Call”                                                                                          

Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church

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Welcome to worship friends – let’s start right in with our Prelude of Praise #364 . . .  Jesus in the Morning

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And let’s join in as Pastor Kathy leads us in our Call to Worship – from Genesis 12:1-4

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Good morning Friends!  Welcome to worship at Lidgerwood!! Greetings from Brianna and her family in Alaska!  Shalom Aleichem!

Huge thanks to everybody who helped make last Sunday happen while I was away! Pastor Kathy did her usual masterful job of proclaiming the Gospel and leading our corporate worship.

As we begin a new calendar year, and a new century in this sanctuary, this month we are going back to some deep roots of our faith – to the call of Abraham from Ur to the Land God Promised him and his people.

Come, let us worship our Sovereign God!

Welcome, friends, from around the world, to this worshipping community!

Let’s take a second to welcome each other, those in the room and across the globe, to a moment of Sabbath in God’s presence and peace, and with others whom we love and with whom we grow together. Tell your loved ones, whoever you can see , “The peace of Christ be with you – and also with you!!”

Welcome to this “gathering” in God’s name. We are assembled in NorthEast Spokane, WA, along with people from all over the world. We are very glad you are “here” with us.

Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit presence and power, in your homes, through your phones and computers, in this building here, and in your lives. Pray with us … and hear and be transformed by God’s Word.

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Choir –! Thank you leading us in worship with this Sunday’s Choral Anthem – listen to these words:  Let the Love Shine Through

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The year 2023 is a BIG year for the life of Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church.  It is, in fact, our first full year in our second century of ministry in this building right here on the corner of 17^th and Nevada Streets.  In 115 years we have seen and been a part of many changes – 16 different called-and-installed pastors (not to mention at least that many short-term interim pastors between the called-and-installed pastors; membership explosions in the late 1950s (well over 600 members); financial-and-membership woes when we considered closing our doors and/or combining with other small Presbyterian churches in Spokane; faithful ministries of outreach, education, child-care, home-bound care, spiritual discipline, Bible studies, fellowship, youth ministry, and in the last decade new ministries that stretch across the globe to Kenya in Africa, and into the soil with our Garden o’ Feedin’ on the south end of our lot, and the list just goes on and on.

Part of what makes 2023 a big year, however, is what makes every year a big year – the re-discovery God’s call for our faithful ministry in northeast Spokane for right now and for the next 100 years.

This is never be a microwave oven process for cooking up church growth plans; it is always more like a crock-pot process for preparing faithful ministry plans. 

Let’s prepare to receive a Word from our Majestic God by singing a song of Song of Devotion and Praise  – that also declares God’s eternal sovereignty – God of the Ages – #363!!

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Lord Jesus, on THIS day we are barely a week into another whole year – another chance to make things right with our families, or to hurt them again; another chance to succeed at work, or to sluff off; another chance to discover how we fit into Your glorious plan, or to only come to You when we’re in need, or worse, to not come to You at all.  On THIS day, dear Lord, help us to set our sights on Your purposes for us, and to stay focused on You all the time.  It is by the Word of Jesus Christ that we pray this prayer.  Amen.

This morning as we embark on a new year, a new adventure, a new journey of discovery and of faith, let’s start with a man of faith from the Old Testament – a man who Embraced God’s Call and trusted God to accomplish His purpose.  Let’s turn to Genesis 12:1-4 —

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1. The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
2. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3. “And I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you.”
4. So, Abram left as the Lord had told him ….

These 4 verses telling us about the call of Abram illustrate the primary qualities of faithfulness.  This man is presented in Scripture as a faithful person – not without blemish, but whose life consistently demonstrates that he knows exactly who God is, and therefore he trusts God to accomplish His purpose.

Abram is called … and he goes!  He apparently doesn’t really know God before this encounter, but when he hears God’s Call, he embraces it.  This faithful embracing makes Abram, next to Moses, the most recorded figure in the Old Testament.  Abram makes the genealogy of Jesus cut – in both Matthew and Luke! His faith and obedience are indeed worthy of our attention – not only because he is an example for us to follow, but more importantly he reveals that God is completely trustworthy to accomplish His purpose.

Abram heard the Call of God, an invitation to abandon the false securities and idolatries of life, and enter a relationship with the One who called him.  As an example he shows us that it is important to hear God’s voice calling us. 

I’ve heard people claim to have never had a prayer answered; I say they just aren’t looking in the right places – not that He always answers prayer the way we expect, but that He answers in ways that are best.  I’ve heard people claim that they have never heard God speak to them; I say they’re not listening correctly – not that God always speaks with an audible voice, but that He speaks to us in circumstances, through friends, through events, and in His Word.

From what are we being called to abandon? What “false securities” and “idols” do we need to part ways with?  We cannot follow God if we hang on to the things He calls us to leave behind.  We need to look deep within ourselves and honestly answer those questions.  We may not like the answers we get, but I’m not at all sure Abram was necessarily particularly happy with having to abandon his securities and idols either.

Abram responded to God’s Call with a sweeping trust and obedience.  As an example he shows us what it means to trust in God as both Savior and Lord.  Most of us do a fine job of believing we have salvation through faith in Jesus Christ; but we do a lousy job of allowing Jesus to be Lord of our lives – we still want to be in charge!

I hear people tell me that they trust God with their lives, but then they say that they give anywhere from 1% to 3% of their income to God’s Kingdom work!  If we trust God, won’t we obey His Call for a 10% tithe, even when we can’t see how we’ll pay our bills?

In what ways are we supposed to trust and obey Jesus as Lord and Savior?  We cannot follow God if we won’t allow Him to lead us.  We may not know how God will take care of our needs, but Abram didn’t even know where He was going when God told him to leave his homeland and not stop going until God told him he was at the place God was leading him.

Abram heard and responded to the Word of God … and then he lived his life on the basis of that Word from God – he Embraced God’s Call – which was both command and promise.  As an example Abram shows us how to commit our lives in a faithful relationship with God – and complete service to God.  Most of us here – after all, we’re the ones that are at church on a cold January Sunday! – most of us commit our lives to be at church on Sunday mornings – some of us to be here at 9:00 for choir rehearsal, some on mid-week-days for Bible Studies; but do we really commit our 24/7 lives in a relationship with God and to service to Him?

Either we allow God to guide us, to lead us, to Call us … all the time … or we don’t.  What kind of Christians do we want to be?  What kind of church do we want to have?  I want – now I have to be honest – I want to be good, but like Paul says in Romans 7, I don’t always do what I should and sometimes I do what I shouldn’t do; I want to be good and faithful and follow wherever Jesus might take me … and I want to serve with a church that is willing to allow God to be in charge even when it’s scary and we don’t know what’s around the corner.

So we need to ask, what’s next in God’s Call for us?  We need to listen and to respond, don’t we?

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But this story about Abram is more than just a faithful example … it also tells us who God is.  God is a God who makes promises … and we know from reading the rest of the story, He’s a God who keeps … promises.  And what does Abram do?  He turns his faith toward the future created by God’s promise.

We began a new year last Sunday.  Do we also begin a new journey of faith today?  Are we willing to Embrace God’s Call for us?  The earliest followers of Jesus understood Abram’s journey with God as a guide to their own faithful relationship.

As we begin a new calendar with our Lord, together, let us invite Him to be Lord of our new year.  Together, let’s Embrace God’s Call into the future He promises for us.

Listen in as Pastor Kathy opens our Prayer time in Confession and Thanksgiving

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16    Gloria Patri

17-19  

• what are some praises, thanksgivings, adorations we want to offer?
• Is there a person or a situation you want to lift to our Lord for His answers and grace?

20   We pray this in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray:   [The Lord’s Prayer]

21 

Receive our tithes and offerings as symbols of our very lives and livelihood, given as response to Your life given for us! Bless it, and by it bless the world around us. In Christ’s name, Amen.

– Offering (4449 N Nevada St, Spokane, 99207 ; or click HERE, or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)

22  

23-24  Expedition Song #523 –  Trust and Obey – just the first and the last verses!    

25  

26  

We continue with this benediction:     May we Grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit.
And give glory to God, today, and forever! Amen.

And as we do that:   “May the Lord bless you and protect you;may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;  may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”

27   Announcements      

• Annual Congregational Meeting & Potluck Lunch –January 29, to receive our Annual Report and  to elect all our new officers

Resources: 

Journey of Discovery Bible Study; 2005; P. 3.

Wheeler, Mark; “Embracing God’s Call”; Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church; 01/01/2006.

01/01/2023 = Luke 2:22-40 = “God Is Waiting for Us” = Communion

(Click HERE to view the video on Facebook Live, starts at 10:50, sermon begins at 21:00)

(Click HERE to donate to Lidgerwood Church’s mission and ministries)

Happy New Year, dear friends. There is no “text” of this week’s service because Pastor Mark is away visiting his daughter in rural Alaska. Huge tanks to Pastor Kathy for filling in while he is away.