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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 2nd 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 2nd 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
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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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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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- 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.
- “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.
- “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.”
- 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 1st 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 1st 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.
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