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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 2nd 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 1st 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 1st 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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- 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 peoples on the earth will be blessed through you.”
- 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.
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