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Sunday, September 20 · Hope Church

Sunday Worship (9:00am Service)

A Sunday morning service of worship and the preaching of God's Word, gathered around the call to come and see what God has done and to tell it to the next generation.

The passages

Come, and see God’s deeds— awesome work on behalf of the children of men. He turned the sea into dry land. They went through the river on foot. There, we rejoiced in him.

Psalms 66:5–6

Come and hear, all you who fear God. I will declare what he has done for my soul. I cried to him with my mouth. He was extolled with my tongue. If I cherished sin in my heart, the Lord wouldn’t have listened. But most certainly, God has listened. He has heard the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor his loving kindness from me.

Psalms 66:16–20

Go deeper

How do I tell someone what God has actually done for me?

The psalmist does not argue a case; he simply says come and listen and he will tell what God has done for his soul. A woman at a well in Samaria did the same thing, and a whole town came out to see for itself.

Come and hear, all you who fear God. I will declare what he has done for my soul. I cried to him with my mouth. He was extolled with my tongue. If I cherished sin in my heart, the Lord wouldn’t have listened. But most certainly, God has listened. He has heard the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor his loving kindness from me.

Psalms 66:16–20

So the woman left her water pot, went away into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything that I have done. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the city, and were coming to him.

John 4:28–30

As he was entering into the boat, he who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. He didn’t allow him, but said to him, “Go to your house, to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and how he had mercy on you.” He went his way, and began to proclaim in Decapolis how Jesus had done great things for him, and everyone marveled.

Mark 5:18–20

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, with humility and fear,…

1 Peter 3:15

What does it mean to keep a promise I made to God when it cost me something?

The psalm moves from praise into vows made in trouble and paid afterwards. Jacob bargained with God at Bethel and then had to go back and keep it. Hannah promised a son and followed through.

I will come into your temple with burnt offerings. I will pay my vows to you, which my lips promised, and my mouth spoke, when I was in distress. I will offer to you burnt offerings of fat animals, with the offering of rams, I will offer bulls with goats. Selah.

Psalms 66:13–15

Jacob vowed a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, and Yahweh will be my God, then this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, will be God’s house. Of all that you will give me I will surely give a tenth to you.”

Genesis 28:20–22

God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and live there. Make there an altar to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother.” Then Jacob said to his household, and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments. Let’s arise, and go up to Bethel. I will make there an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me on the way which I went.”

Genesis 35:1–3

She vowed a vow, and said, “Yahweh of Armies, if you will indeed look at the affliction of your servant and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a boy, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and no razor shall come on his head.”

1 Samuel 1:11

Does God really hear me when I pray, or am I talking to myself?

The psalm ends with the plain claim that God listened and attended to the sound of the prayer. David prays in a cave and waits to see whether anyone is listening. Elijah prays on a mountain and something happens.

I cried to him with my mouth. He was extolled with my tongue. If I cherished sin in my heart, the Lord wouldn’t have listened. But most certainly, God has listened. He has heard the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, who has not turned away my prayer, nor his loving kindness from me.

Psalms 66:17–20

This poor man cried, and Yahweh heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. Yahweh’s angel encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.

Psalms 34:6–7

At the time of the evening offering, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Hear me, Yahweh, hear me, that this people may know that you, Yahweh, are God, and that you have turned their heart back again.” Then Yahweh’s fire fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust; and it licked up the water that was in the trench.

1 Kings 18:36–38

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months. He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

James 5:16–18

How do I hold onto God when I have gone through something that nearly broke me?

The psalm remembers being brought through fire and water and then brought out to a place of abundance. Israel sang about Egypt and the sea. Paul writes about being pressed down and not crushed.

For you, God, have tested us. You have refined us, as silver is refined. You brought us into prison. You laid a burden on our backs. You allowed men to ride over our heads. We went through fire and through water, but you brought us to the place of abundance.

Psalms 66:10–12

I waited patiently for Yahweh. He turned to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand. He has put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in Yahweh.

Psalms 40:1–3

We are pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not to despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed; always carrying in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

2 Corinthians 4:8–10

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38–39