Theme - Where do we put Jesus in our lives?
Scripture:
Mark 5:21-43 (GOD’s WORD Translation)
Psalm 130 (Common English Bible)
2 Corinthians 8:7-15 (NIV)
Sermon - What Jesus Means to Me!
Let us pray –
Lord, Speak to us a message
Lord we love you
we want to be with you
we need to feel your presence
your call for our lives
to be your witness,
your voice here on this earth
speak to us a message
for our hearts and for the world
Amen.
Now I don’t know about you, but I have been thinking a lot about Pastor Ruth’s sermon last week, and her question, her prayer-work assignment for all of us, “Who is Jesus to me?”
She said,
So. . . who is this Jesus? He is the Son of God and Savior of the world. He is the Head of the Church. He is our strength in times of trouble. He is our Rock and our Redeemer. He is our Mighty Tower and Refuge. He is my Lord and My Savior. The question is this. . . who is Jesus to you? Is He Lord and King or just the “first mate” on your voyage of life? Let us cruise on the sacred waters of our faith resting assured that we have a captain that can even calm a storm with His voice, our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ. How awesome is that?”
Wow! Can I have an Amen?
When I started thinking about all of that, and to read the scripture for this week, especially the Mark piece, I thought about trying to answer her question, to be forthright and honest.
I know too well my own feelings of being lost, of having an uncured disease for a long time, almost feeling dead at times; but I also thought about wanting to complete what I started, to be faithful in using ALL the gifts God has blessed me with.
The short answer is, HE IS MY STRENGTH, that’s who Jesus is to me.
He is my strength
He is my strength,
because I am weak.
He is the treasure
all that I seek.
He is with me,
in the storms of life
with me in times of strife.
He gave me life,
new life in him,
falling to my knees,
new life to begin.
All of my pain,
my sin, at his feet.
Left at the cross,
my soul to keep.
Lifted up, from the dead
New life in him,
my brother and my friend
Hope in him, in him alone
calling me as his own
He lifted me from the pit
he raised me from the dust
giving me words to share
standing with them
in their time of need
with me ever, if I believe
You see, I am new to this faith thing, in many ways. I left my faith when I was 18 and I didn’t come back until I was 43. I was of the world, not merely in the world and I was broken. Nine years ago I was crying, hurting, sitting in a pew at Wesley United Methodist Church. I was the Prodigal Son and I was coming home.
I was broken, unclean, an open wound bleeding, even dead to the church, to my true self, to the hope I had pledged to Christ when I was a child, to the small voice within me trying to get me to stay on the right path.
Christ lifted me from that pit and He has held me in his arms ever since then. He is there in the dark moments, reminding me of his constant presence. He is there when I am a mad man, anxious about the storms around me, He is there reminding me that there are loved ones all around me, in this community, in his body, the church.
The 2 Corinthians 8 scripture reminds us, as it reminded them, of Christ’s call to faithfulness, to trusting in God, to following through on our love for him and our commitment to be his servants in this troubled world.
The Psalm 130 passage is so beautiful. It reminds us of God’s faithfulness and our need to be patient, to wait, to wait more than the watchmen on the city walls waited for the morning.
And the Mark 5 stories, weave these two passages together. The long-suffering woman and this frantic father had to wait for God’s time. They had to believe God would provide their healing. They had to trust and they were cured, for this synagogue leader went to Jesus for healing as much as this woman did.
We are family, we are broken sometimes, we disagree but we come together in Christ. We share our prayer concerns and our celebrations. We come together for service and we grow in our spirits together.
Who is Jesus to me? He is my strength, because you are with me, we are together on this journey. We know the struggles of this life. God promises to be with us. And when we are faithful, as when we serve at Our Family’s Table, or when we don’t price things at the yard sale, He will provide more than we could ask for. If we believe
God wants us to be faithful, to come to him, to believe as the woman did, reaching out merely to touch his robe. To know that he can heal us if we come to him, no matter what the world would say about us. He is our strength when we trust and follow him.
Christ calls us like Jairus to believe, to know in his soul that Jesus can heal his little girl, just as I had to trust and believe and give Ruth over to God not once but for two operations. I guess he wanted me to believe with my heart not just my head that she would be held in his care, that she would be okay, no matter what.
And Christ cries out for us to be faithful, to use our gifts, our talents, all that
he has given us, to believe as much as we did when we first believed, to become poor so we could be rich, to submit to God, to give our lives to the One who makes us whole, healed, redeemed, our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ!
Amen!
June 30, 2012
second
of a worship series on:
“Cruising
the Sacred Waters of Our Faith”
Theme
- Where do we put Jesus in our lives?
Mark
5:21-43 (GOD’s WORD Translation)
Psalm
130 (Common English Bible)
2
Corinthians 8:7-15 (NIV)
Call
to Worship (Abington Worship 2012)(Psalm 130, Mark 5)
Unison
Prayer
Prayer
of the People
Prayer
of Dedication (Mark 5:21-43) (2 Corinthians 8, Mark 5)
(adapted
from GBOD 2012 and Abington Worship 2012)
Communion,
UMH, page 9
Message
for children, “There is Power in a Touch”
(Mark
5:27-29)
Sermon
- What Jesus Means to Me!
by
Raymond A. Foss
Poetry
Where You Live
Suncook
United Methodist Church
Suncook,
NH
July
1, 2012
Fifth
Sunday of Kingdomtide
&Mark 4:35-41 (Common English Bible)
Jesus stops a storm
Psalm 9:9-11 (NRSV Bible)
Psalm 9:9-20 (NRSV Bible)
2 Corinthians 6:1-10 (NRSV Bible)
2 Corinthians 6:1-13 (NRSV Bible)
Worship Theme: “What’s in a name?”
Call to Worship (Abington Worship 2012)
Unison Prayer (Abington Worship 2012)
Hymn: “It Is Well With My Soul”, UMH #377
Prayer of Dedication (GBOD 2012 (2 Corinthians 6: 1-13))
Message for Children, “A story about some rocks”
David and Goliath
and sermon, ““Who Is Jesus?”
first of a worship series on:
“Cruising the Sacred Waters of Our Faith”
by Pastor Ruth Foss
sermon blog
meditation
blog
“God’s
Whisper” blog
Suncook United Methodist ChurchSuncook, NH
June 24, 2012
Fourth Sunday of Kingdomtide
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2015, 2016, and 2017. All rights are reserved. Contact me at Ray Foss (raymondafoss@gmail.com) for usage. See
all 42,950 of my poems at www.raymondafoss.blogspot.com
Poetry Where You Live.
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