Hymn 1: Great is Thy faithfulness
Transcript of Hymn 1: Great is Thy faithfulness
Nottingham North East Circuit - Sunday 4th July 2021
This short act of worship has been prepared for you by Rev Yanyan Case to use at home. If you
are well enough, why not spend a few moments with God, knowing that other people are sharing
this act of worship with you
Call to worship
It is good to praise the Lord and make music to
your name, O Most High, proclaiming your love in the morning and your
faithfulness at night,
For you make us glad by your deeds, Lord; We sing
for joy at what your hands have done.
How great are your works, Lord, how profound
your thoughts!
The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they
will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish
in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay
fresh and green, proclaiming,
“The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no
wickedness in him.”
Opening prayer
Heavenly Father, as I (we) read this home worship
sheet, may you find delight in my (our)
wholehearted worship to you. Thanks for your
amazing grace.
Lord Jesus, our saviour and redeemer. It is your
kindness and mercy that draws us to the foot of
the cross in repentance. Lord forgive us for the
times we are ignorant to your instructions and
turned a blind eye to those who are in need.
Forgive us when we cared too much or too little
about ourselves that we failed to be your salt and
light in the world. Forgive us the times that we
relied on our own strength and forgot that you are
our God.
In your mercy, we come to the foot of the cross. By
your stripes, we are healed and forgiven.
Holy Spirit, speak to our heart and feed us with the
finest bread from heaven. Draw us into the inner
chamber of God so that we may know your
intimate love to us today.
All glory be unto the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
Hymn 1: Great is Thy faithfulness
Singing the Faith:51
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k1WhFtVp0o
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father
There is no shadow of turning with Thee
Thou changest not, Thy compassions,
they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be
Refrain:
Great is Thy faithfulness, great is Thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me
Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside
Bible reading - Genesis 32:22-32
Jacob Wrestles With God
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[b] saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.
Hymn 2: How deep the Father’s love for us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKDujmtyAVk
How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the man upon a cross
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart His wounds have paid my ransom
Songwriters: Stuart Townend © Thank You Music Ltd.
Reflection- “Don’t go until you bless me!”
Have you wrestled with angels before? I have,
actually all the time. You know, my little girl, she is
just like an angel! She is always up for a wrestle.
But when I wrestle with my little angel, I have to
let her win. Because if she doesn’t, it could just go
on forever. So, I have to let her win to say “you
won, you won. Mummy needs to make dinner
now.” So, this reminds me of Jacob’s wrestling with
God, because this kind of wrestling is not a serious
competition of strength to see who knocks whom
out of the game in the end, but an intimate activity
you do with your loved one, like a father and a son,
a mother and a daughter. It is an intimate one-on-
one time with our loved one. For Jacob, at this
time in life, it is a much-needed one-on-one time
with God because he is about to face his biggest
fear. He is about to meet his brother Esau. He
needs to know the intimacy of God for that.
We know the story that Jacob stole his brother
Esau’s blessing, which made Esau so angry that he
wanted to kill him. Then, he fled from home and
lived with his uncle Laban for 20 years. Now God
told him to go back to his home country. He. Is.
Scared! Because although he lived away from
home for 20 years, he still remembers vividly how
angry Esau was when he cheated on him. That
angry face of Esau, that angry voice of Esau
wanting to kill him, that fear of Esau’s vengeance
has always been like a dark cloud surrounding him.
He has been trying to escape physically, but he can
never get rid of it in his mind. But now, God told
him to go back and face it, to face his biggest fear. I
think God knows, if he doesn’t, if he continued to
hide, he would live in that fear for the rest of his
life. But God loves him too much to leave him in
that fear. He wants Jacob to have a new start, to
have a bright future and live in total freedom and
inherit all the goodness that He has in store for
him. So God orchestrated this move for Jacob, and
he was with him every step along the way, until he
gets it sorted in the end. We know Jacob and Esau
are reconciled as a result.
I am sure we can all relate to the feeling of fear.
We all made mistakes before and cannot avoid
making more in the future. The fear of the
consequences of our wrong decisions, the fear
from the past, the fear of upsetting people, the
fear of unforgiveness, the fear of walking on the
wrong path, the fear of losing something or
someone. We will always have some sort of fear in
life. Sometimes we try to escape and hide from it,
but if we don’t face it, it follows us like a dark
cloud.
Jacob this name means heel-grabber because he
and Esau are twins and he was grabbing onto
Esau’s heel when he was born. And it is always
associated with deceiver. But if we look into his
childhood a little closer, perhaps we can
understand him a little bit better. Even from birth,
Jacob seems to be the unlucky one. Even though
he is the younger one, he is not much younger,
only a minute or two. It just seems unlucky that
Esau came out first and got the birth-right as the
first-born. At that time, the first born son gets
double portion of their father’s inheritance. Also,
unfortunately his father shows favouritism towards
his brother Esau. Gen 25:28 says Isaac loved Esau.
So we can imagine the subtle tension in their
household. Jacob may have felt unloved,
unimportant, or even rejected. It’s not difficult for
us to understand that there is an underlying
insecurity, bias and some hurt in the upbringing of
Jacob.
This all sounds very familiar with our modern
families, doesn’t it? Maybe you have been hurt by
your own families, or in a situation where you felt
being discriminated for any reason, or wrongly
labelled, or feeling unloved, unimportant, or even
rejected. Often out of a low self-esteem, some
people try all sorts of things to fight their own way
in to gain approval and acceptance. But life has
taught us that our own cleverness doesn’t always
work out well, and sometimes create more harm
than benefit to ourselves and we have to bear the
consequences, like Jacob did. Possessions, material
gains or other people’s approval cannot really
solve the problems of a broken human soul. We
need a real encounter with God- the creator of our
body and soul, who is the healer of our soul.
During the wrestling, Jacob sees a man at the start,
but later he sees God. Many commentators think
that this is a prefigure of Jesus as it is “a man who
is God”, and Jesus is “the man who is God”.
Perhaps we need to understand that a real
encounter with God does not mean that we will
see God in an angelic form, or through spectacular
miracles, or in any supernatural way, but very
often, God comes to us in human form, in ordinary
and natural ways. What are you wrestling with at
the moment? God is right in the midst.
In the wrestling with God, Jacob was given a new
name. But before God gave him a new name, he
had to confess his old one. In the Bible, name
change is always coupled with identity change.
Name represents identity. So Jacob needs to know
who he was first. God asked him: “What is your
name?” This time, Jacob did not lie. He did not
pretend to be his brother Esau anymore. This time,
he was honest with himself. He said this is me, the
deceiver, the heel grabber, the cheater, the
unloved one, the unimportant one, the unfavoured
one, the rejected one, the forgotten one…This
time, he did not grab on his brother’s heel, but
grabbed tightly onto the shoulders of the Almighty
God. He will not leave God go until he can face his
fear. This time, he is not asking for a material
blessing, but a blessing of strength, a blessing of
peace, and a blessing to be who God wants him to
be.
Don’t we all need a blessing like this? Sometimes
Christians shy away from asking for blessings. But
don’t we all need peace and strength to face our
fear, our challenges in life? Don’t we all need
comfort and help for the things that is out of our
hands? Don’t we all need a blessing to be who we
really are?
So, God said to Jacob- You are no longer the heel
grabber, but Israel, the one who wrestled with God
and won, the one who had an intimate encounter
with God and a conqueror. You are the loved one,
the treasured one by the Almighty God in heaven.
Maybe our wrestling is a process of getting to
know who we are. Like Jacob, we need to have
some one-on-one time with God. In solitude, be
honest with God, bring all our fears and feelings
before God, have an intimate wrestling with God.
That’s the safe place for us to be truly who we are.
God cares for us too much to leave us living in fear.
In fact, he knows that the whole humanity has
been living in the shadow of death which is our
biggest fear. So, 2000 years ago, he gave his one
and only beloved Son Jesus to us. He took the
punishment of all our sins and guilt on the cross
and destroyed the sting of death so that we may
have eternal life in heaven and abundant life on
earth. Through him, we have been given a new
name, a new beginning, a new identity- we are
called the children of God, his treasured
possession. I like how the apostle John puts it in 1
John 3:1 “See what great love the Father has
lavished on us, that we should be called children of
God! And that is what we are!” this is a new and
eternal reality for us all. Your life is created and
redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus. You are
not the unlucky one, unfavoured one, or the
rejected one, but the treasured possession by the
heavenly Father. We are not perfect in any sense,
but we are perfectly loved by the Creator God.
When the night wrestling is over, the sun rises and
shines upon Jacob. When we are wrestling with
some difficult issues in life, our days could seem
like an endless long dark night. But our hope in
Jesus is as sure as the sun will rise in the morning.
In Christ, we have a bright future. Jacob, with his
new identity comes with a dislocated hip. But he
never complained about that! I think he knew that
he could no longer walk in his old way, but lean on
God for the rest of his life. He needs to lean on God
for wisdom and guidance to face his problems and
fear. Just like what Proverbs 3:5-6 teaches: “Trust
in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your
own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him, and he will make
your paths straight.”
In fact, faith is a life-long wrestling with God; it’s a
wrestling between our desire and his desire, our
will and his will, our way and his way. Faith is not
the absence of fear, but to choose to trust in the
face of fear. And remember that the apostle Paul
says in Romans 8:37 “We are more than
conquerors through him who loved us”, and also
knowing that Jesus is with us always until the end
of this age. Like Jacob, let’s grab unto the
shoulders of the Almighty God and don’t let him go
until he blesses us, until we can face our fears and
challenges in our lives. And in whatever wrestling
we may have today, don’t forget that God is in the
midst in disguise. Amen.
Hymn 3: The Blessing Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNk_xCa7zaQ
The Lord bless you
And keep you
Make His face shine upon you
And be gracious to you
The Lord turn His
Face toward you
And give you peace
Amen, amen, amen
Amen, amen, amen
May His favour be upon you
And a thousand generations
Your family and your children
And their children, and their children
May His presence go before you
And behind you, and beside you
All around you, and within you
He is with you, He is with you
In the morning, in the evening
In your coming, and your going
In your weeping, and rejoicing
He is for you, He is for you
He is for you, He is for you
He is for you, He is for you
He is for you, He is for you
Amen, amen, amen
Amen, amen, amen
Songwriters: Christopher Joel Brown / Cody Carnes / Kari Brooke
Jobe / Steven Furtick
The Blessing lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal
Music Publishing Group
Intercession
Response: Merciful Father, bless us; Don’t go until you bless us. Loving Father in heaven, for a love that lies beyond our understanding, we want to thank you we praise you. Thank you for sending us your Son Jesus Christ so that we can come back to your holy presence and inherit your blessings. Father, make us a channel of your love to the world around us. We pray for the world where suffering, conflict, poverty, crime and disease is a normal part of people’s lives. May you send your help and decree new order so that the world may experience your peace, your provision, your reality and give thanks and praise to your glorious name. (Say your own prayer in silence…) Merciful Father, bless us; don’t go until you bless us. We pray for those who are terribly affected by this pandemic, who are suffering from isolation, loneliness and fear. Open our eyes, that we might see your face behind masks; and give us words of wisdom so that we may know how to respond with compassion. (Say your own prayer in silence…) Merciful Father, bless us; don’t go until you bless us. We think of those whose agony lies beyond our perception – to those who suffer in silence, or simply because they have no voice and no smart phones to bring them to our attention. Open our ears, that we might hear your voice in the voices of others. (Say your own prayer in silence…) Merciful Father, bless us; don’t go until you bless us. We now pray for ourselves. Father, come and meet us where we are. Help us to find time and space to have that one-on-one time with you. Reveal yourself in our wrestling and bless us with wisdom, guidance, peace, strength and comfort so that we can grow our faith in you to face today and gain new hope for tomorrow.
(Say your own prayer in silence…) Merciful Father, bless us; don’t go until you bless us.
Let’s finish together with the Lord’s prayer:
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come; thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Hymn 4: Blessed assurance
Singing the Faith 548
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDeiy9-t2GE
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine; Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour all the day long.
Perfect submission, perfect delight, Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending, bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
Perfect submission, all is at rest, I in my Saviour am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
Blessing
May the peace of God, which transcends all
understanding guard our hearts and our minds in
Christ Jesus. Amen. Philippians 4:7