Worship

Sing or speak out the words of this wonderful modern hymn by Stuart Townend, as an expression of your praise & worship to God.

Come, people of the risen King,
Who delight to bring Him praise.
Come all, & tune your hearts to sing
To the morning star of grace.
From the shifting shadows of the earth
We will lift our eyes to Him,
Where steady arms of mercy reach
To gather children in.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Let every heart rejoice!
One heart, one voice,
O Church of Christ, rejoice!

Come, those whose joy is morning sun
And those weeping through the night.
Come, those who tell of battles won
And those struggling in the fight.
For His perfect love will never change
And His mercies never cease
But follow us through all our days
With the certain hope of peace.
Rejoice ………

Come, young & old from every land,
Men & women of the faith.
Come, those with full or empty hands,
Find the riches of His grace.
Over all the world His people sing –
Shore to shore we hear them call
The truth that cries through every age:
‘Our God is all in all!’
Rejoice …….

Sermon on the Mat: When all we have is God

Reading: Matthew 21:1-9 (NLT)

As Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the town of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. “Go into the village over there,” He said. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey tied there, with it’s colt beside it. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will immediately let you take them.”

This took place to fulfill the prophecy that said, “Tell the people of Jerusalem, look, your King is coming to you. He is humble, riding on a donkey – riding on a donkey’s colt.’” The two disciples did as Jesus commanded. They brought the donkey and the colt to Him and threw their garments over the colt, and He sat on it. Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of Him and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Jesus was in the centre of the procession, and the people all around Him were shouting, “Praise God for the Son of David. Blessings on the One who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise God in highest heaven!”

When all we have is God, we have all we need! A people’s champion who will fight our corner, at every turn. Not with weapons of military might, as perhaps one might expect but rather with weapons of far greater subtlety & power. Weapons capable of bringing the strongest of armies to their knees. Weapons that have to do with the obedience of Christ & His meekness to perform! In respect of the former, as it pertains to all aspects of spiritual warfare, Priscilla Shirer unequivocally states – ‘Obedience will always produce benefits that far outweigh the consequences of disobedience!

But what if Jesus hadn’t obeyed the will of His Heavenly Father? What if He’d refused to go the cross? To save Himself instead of us? Something He could so easily have done? Nb. With or without the intervention of angels! Putting it mildly, we’d be in big trouble wouldn’t we? The worst kind of trouble of all. Life without God & therefore without hope, for ever! What greater living hell, I ask, could there be than that? As Thomas Watson sombrely notes – ‘If all the earth & sea & sand & every thousandth year a bird should come & take away one grain of this sand, it would be a long time ere that vast heap of sand were emptied; yet, if after all that time the damned may come out of hell, there were some hope; but this word EVER breaks the heart.’

In this & every other regard then, the fact that Jesus did obey His Father’s will, setting His face like a flint towards Jerusalem, (Isaiah 50:7), is good news for us all. As St Theodore the Studite so eloquently puts it – ‘How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good & evil, as in the tree of paradise; it is wholly beautiful to behold & good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise but opens the way for our return.’

Nb. Just as unwavering obedience to God serves to effect His will & purpose for our lives, His church & His world, so too does a genuine attitude of ‘Christ like’ humility. A state of being which C.S. Lewis defines as – ‘not thinking less of yourself; but thinking of yourself less.’ A truth nowhere better illustrated than in Philippians 2:6-8, where, regarding Jesus’ mindset towards the terrible hours of torment & suffering that lay ahead of Him, Paul movingly writes – ‘Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up His Divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave & was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, He humbled Himself in obedience to God & died a criminal’s death on a cross.’ NLT.

Nb. ‘Five days before the feast of Passover, in humble obedience to His heavenly calling, Jesus sat upon the colt of a donkey & entered the city of Jerusalem to declare war upon the enemy of our souls & the rest, as they say, much to our eternal consolation, if we will but choose to believe it, is history …………’

A Prayer for Palm Sunday

Lord, the resurrection of Your Son has given us new life & renewed hope.
Help us to live as new people in pursuit of the Christian ideal.
Grant us wisdom to know what we must do,
The will to want to do it, the courage to undertake it,
The perseverance to continue to do it & the strength to complete it. Amen

Please pray for –

• Josie Martin, recovering from a nasty bout of shingles.

• For God’s miraculous healing for three year old Aubrey Rose, following her twelve hour open heart surgery at the Brompton Hospital on Monday, March 8th.

• For a nation in mourning & for whom God is the only answer