Morning Worship for Sunday 28 June 2020

by Peter Blount 28 June 2020

Greetings in the name of Jesus – Joy and peace to you all.

NOTICE - TIME TO REJOICE

Rejoice because this morning’s service is the 100^th morning post on the Newmount website under the title ‘Sharing Our Faith Together’. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has found time and inspiration to share their faith in this way.

Rejoice also because the number of hits (folk who have opened and hopefully read the posts) has reached an average of almost 50 per day! Fantastic!!

For writers and readers alike – may the blessings continue!

Now to our Call to Worship

This is the day that the Lord has made – Let us, rejoice, and be glad in it.

For our reading this morning we turn to the Old Testament and the familiar story of Abraham being tested to the point of sacrificing his only son.

Reading – Genesis 22 v 1 -14

Second Hymn ‘God is Love let heaven adore Him’

As stated a moment ago this passage of scripture records God’s testing of Abraham, and for all you who are parents – some test! Especially when you hear, or say, things like ‘I’d do anything to keep my children safe’, or when they do have to face difficult challenges we say ‘I wish I could take their place’.

Today I’d like us to think about this story from a slightly different point of view, I often say imagine you are the main character in a story, in this case Abraham. But today, imagine you are not Abraham but Issac.

Issac has grown up as an only child and due to his much waited for arrival, I guess pampered and spoiled rotten. But still he would have played, made friends, explored and become ‘street wise’ like any other child of his day.

So here he is, on an expedition with his father, greatly excited and away from home. However, as the journey continues Issac, who is a bright child and has learnt all about the rituals of sacrifice, because it is a common practice of his day, realises early on and indeed, asks the question ‘where is the sacrifice’?

At this point when the answers from his father to Issac's questions become strange or are just silence, he must have worried – he must have feared – he must have worked out his own fate in this journey, one that started out so exciting and has now turned distinctly sinister. But, and it’s a big ‘but’, Issac does not make a fuss, does not shout for help, does not run away but trusts his father!

Let’s move forward a few hundred years to take a brief look at the life of Jesus and the relationship with His father. Very similar to that of Abraham and Issac or any father and son relationship for that matter, with one very significant difference – Jesus knew from the outset that when it came to the point of sacrifice, a common wooden cross, His father would go through with it!! The sacrifice had to be made complete. Why? To pave the way for every believer from that point onwards to overcome the power of death and be raised again to glory. In other words God allowed Jesus to be sacrificed for you and me.

Issac trusted his father, Jesus trusted His father, so I challenge you, with everything that we know, read in the scripture and experience in our daily life why should we make a fuss, shout for help or run away? Why not trust our father to the same extent as Issac trusted his father or even as Jesus trusted his father!

Conclusion

Our final music sung for us in the form of a Vesper (evening worship) and is in fact from a piece by Rachmaninoff called ‘All night Vigil’. Despite all that it is a beautiful setting of Psalm 103 Bless the Lord Oh my soul.

AMEN