The Power of Patience, the Miracle of Timing
Theme
As we wait patiently for God’s presence and power, we are reminded that God’s power is all about timing.
Prelude
Welcome
Call to Worship
One: Comfort, O comfort, my people.
All: We find comfort in the midst of daily struggle.
One: Comfort, O comfort, my people.
All: We find comfort in the promise of daily blessing.
One: Comfort, O comfort, my people.
All: We find comfort in the grace of daily service.
One: Comfort, O comfort, my people.
All: We find comfort in God’s perfect timing.
One: Comfort, O comfort, my people.
All: We find comfort in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
*Hymn of Praise # 49 Surely Goodness and Mercy
Invocation (the Lord’s Prayer)
Gloria Patri
Advent Hymn We Light the Advent Candles insert(175)
Advent Wreath Advent is our time to prepare for the birth of Jesus. We are called to prepare our hearts. (relight first candle) We light the second Advent candle as a reminder that Christ is our hope.
One way we can prepare our hearts is to remember how people throughout time have looked with hope for the coming of the Savior.
Another way we can prepare our hearts is to reflect on the areas of our lives which are still “rough places,” places where we need to repent and seek forgiveness.
Special Music
Our Offering to God
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication Bountiful God, you provide us with all we need to accomplish your will. Thank you for pouring your grace into our lives on a daily basis to sustain us and empower us. Thank you for giving us patience to seek out your blessings with diligence and to await your blessings with anticipation. We come before you today to share of ourselves – our souls, our bodies, our money, and our material things. Consecrate these things for your use in your good time. As we share who we are and what we have, continue to bless us and to release us to encourage others and, through grace, to enable them to share in your goodness. We ask this through Jesus Christ, who gave his all to you and for you, and who gave himself for us. Amen.
Scripture Reading Mark 1:1–8
Mark’s gospel begins in a rush of words and the urgency of John the Baptizer’s preaching. This section is “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and John stresses that a new baptism of the Holy Spirit will release a rush of renewal.
*Hymn of Prayer On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry insert (156)
is one of Charles Coffin’s more than 100 Latin hymns. One needs look no farther to see that traditional church music “rocks” with the best of “contemporary”; Praetorius’ tune makes Coffin’s text dance, bringing to life the Voice in the Wilderness.
Pastoral Prayer
Advent is a season of waiting — a waiting that is anything but passive. As we prepare to make room for Christ to dwell within us, we acknowledge our own sin, which stands in the way of living the fullness of life God promises in Christ. Let us be truthful with God, in the presence of one another. Let us give God the gift of our honest and humble confession. Let us pray:
Loving God, we come before you today with the burden of sin as we fall short of your call and commission in our lives. We confess to you the impatience of our lives: the impulses causing us to do those things we ought not to do, and to fail at those things we ought to do. We confess the impertinence that causes us to think and say those things that hurt others and shatter relationships. We confess the impiousness that causes us to turn away from you and exalt ourselves.
We pray for your forgiveness to fill our lives with peace and renewal. We pray for patience for your will to be done, for perspective to strengthen relationships, and for your holiness to fill every part of our lives. Release your healing grace in our lives every day. Draw us nearer to you, through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Almighty God, we rejoice in your power, which you extend in grace, and your might, which you use to bless and sustain those in need. We thank you for your perfect timing in our lives, and in this world. Increase in us patience and anticipation, as we bring to you our needs and the needs of others.
We pray for our national and international leaders, for patience and forbearance as they handle matters of vital importance to world peace. We pray for this church, for the patience and discernment of perfect timing to accomplish your will and work in ministry. We pray for those in special need, those known to us and those unknown to us, and pray for sustenance for them. We ask these things in the name of our Servant Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
*Hymn of Praise # 128 One Day
Scripture Reading 2 Peter 3:8–15a
The writer of 2 Peter balances two seemingly contradictory topics: the imminent return of the Lord to redeem the faithful, and the patience that the faithful must demonstrate as they wait. The writer stresses that God will come at just the right time.
8But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 10But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.
11Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? 13But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.14Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; 15and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
Message The Power of Patience, the Miracle of Timing In an “instant” world, we struggle with impatience that causes us to say things and to take action at the wrong time. The Lord works things out in perfect timing and calls us to wait patiently for God’s will to be done. We live in an instant world. All of us feel the pressures, but also enjoy the pleasures, of the instant and the immediate. Some of us can remember when the world was not instant. When you ordered something, it came in a couple of weeks, which was pretty good time. Dinner took hours to cook. Restaurants served promptly, but not fast. Time was measured in hours. Many of us can remember the arrival of “instant coffee” in the 1960s and fast food service in the 1970s. We started to expect that answers to our questions would come more quickly, and services would be delivered more promptly. The microwave arrived, and dinner was ready in minutes. Restaurants turned out lunches in two minutes or less. Time was measured in minutes. In the 1990s, with the arrival of personal computers and the explosion of the Internet, we began to measure time in seconds. Through computing and Internet access, we get what we need in the virtual world in seconds. News networks bring information immediately from everywhere on the globe, 24 hours a day. Culturally, we promote “instant gratification.” When we want something, we expect our wants to be fulfilled right now.
While technology has changed our expectations about time, we find that relationships do not work in seconds. Love and compassion are not achieved in an instant. The same thing is true in our walk with God. From our side, building an intimate relationship with God takes time, probably a lifetime. We have to confront our unhappiness when God does not answer our requests or fulfill our needs (at least as we understand them) immediately.
The prayer of the modern American is, “Dear God, grant me patience. And I want it right now!” Perhaps it always has been a part of human nature to be impatient with the passage of time. It was so in the early church. Jesus had died, risen from the dead, and ascended into the presence of God. The persistent promise that people in the early church heard was that Jesus was coming again in power and great triumph to judge the living and the dead, and to claim his people for all eternity.
The letter of 2 Peter addresses the impatience that people expressed when Jesus had not yet come again. Years had passed, the believers still toiled and struggled and faced persecution, and the promise of Christ still had not been fulfilled. To that end, this letter tells readers and hearers, “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day” (3:8).
At the same time, God can intervene faster than we can imagine – and this letter claims “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (v. 10). The coming of the Lord will be sudden and amazing.
While we may work hard and efficiently, and strive for instant results by getting all of the right pieces into place, we cannot control how and when God works. God is in charge of timing. We may pray diligently and want instant answers, but God will provide them in God’s own time and God’s own way. God will come when the time is right, and that likely will not be on the schedule we have created.
In the mid-twentieth century, the great evangelical teacher A. W. Tozer said, “The faith of Christ offers no buttons to push for quick service. The new order must wait the Lord’s own time, and that is too much for the man in a hurry. He just gives up and becomes interested in something else.” That is the temptation we face: when God does not work on our schedule, we may become interested in something else. We may try to take the responsibility for trying to make things happen right now. We have limited power to make anything holy or right happen in our time, or in our way, or to our preferences. This is a hard lesson to learn, and one that we must learn early in life. A child was working with a parent to put up a swing set in the backyard of the house. Since the instructions came in pictures, the child started to put some of the pieces together, and the parent helped. As the child worked with the tools, the pieces did not fit together too well, and the child worked harder and harder and with greater and greater frustration to make things fit. And the child wanted to do the work quickly so that the swingset could be used right away. It was then that the parent uttered words that the child never forgot: “Don’t force it!” This is an ongoing lesson in life. We can help things to move along, we can receive answers to questions, we can obtain the information we need, and we can enjoy all that life has to offer. The parent’s words must ring in our ears, though: Don’t force it. We have to learn patience to wait for God to move in life, and we have to develop spiritual depth to discern God’s perfect timing. In this Advent season, we can learn a lot about God’s timing in our lives. Just as the believers in the early church had to learn new lessons about Christ’s coming, so we also have this same lesson to learn today. We need to trust that God will bring about the best results in the perfect moment. Some of us have Advent calendars – the kind that have little doors and flaps that open for each of the days leading up to Christmas. Most of us find it hard to open one day at a time to see what is behind that specific door or flap. We long to open all the flaps or go to the last window, Christmas Day, to see the end of the season. God’s timing is such that we have to learn the spiritual discipline of opening the doors of our lives one day at a time to discern God’s perfect plan for us. In this season, let us move away from the human “instant” and focus on the divine “eternal,” and find peace and joy as we wait with patience.
– John R. Throop
*Hymn of Response # 48 O God, Our Help in Ages Past
Communion John 13:1Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He now showed the disciples the full extent of his love.John 14: 1 “Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. 2 There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. 3When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.
6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
12 “The truth is, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.
15 “If you love me, obey my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. 18 No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. 20When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them, and I will love them. And I will reveal myself to each one of them.”
26 when the Father sends the Counselor as my representative—and by the Counselor I mean the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I myself have told you.
27 “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn’t like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid. 28 Remember what I told you: I am going away, but I will come back to you again. If you really love me, you will be very happy for me, because now I can go to the Father, who is greater than I am. 29I have told you these things before they happen so that you will believe when they do happen.
Communion Hymn # 124 Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne vs. 1,4,5
*Sending forth
*Postlude
Thought for the Day
The great teacher and disciple Andrew Murray observed, “If we are faithful a day at a time, the long years will take care of themselves.”
Advent Open House – Ferrara’s 3 – 7 pm
Please bring all hat and mittens by next Sunday.
Please bring donations for Christmas baskets by Dec. 18th.
Dec 24 – 7 pm – Christmas Eve service
Dec 25 and Jan 1 – no Sunday School