Let us begin our time of worship: How deep the Fathers love
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Heavenly Father,
Thank you for revealing to me that I am imprisoning myself by not seeing the value and worth in your creation of me. Forgive me, Lord, for living in such a way that caused me to place more importance on the opinion of others and myself. I have doubted my ability and held myself back from being the person you desire me to be. I am under the bondage of this doubt and pray that you would release me and give me victory over it. It has robbed me of peace and joy in my life and has prevented me from living life to the fullest as a child of yours.
Help me to have compassion towards myself and to see that what I perceive as weaknesses, are, in fact, blessings. May I use those blessings to help others who may also be held down by the same untruth that I have been under. Lord, help me to see myself through your eyes and to see the beauty and person as a whole that you have created.
You don't make mistakes, Lord. Please help me to value myself over anything of this world, whether it be what others think, or earthly possessions. I don't want to live up to what I think people expect of me; I want to live up to what you desire me to be. Give me the strength to overcome and to see that I am valued. Help me to accept who I am and to have confidence in my identity through you.
I pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.
Please share with me 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,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
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Staff Songsters: All For Thee
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God can use you
It’s easy to look at some people and even at ourselves and think, if God were going to use anyone for good it wouldn’t be that one. We’re all too quick to judge, who God could and would use, and who He wouldn’t.
Most of us would agree that war is a horrible, ugly thing. So, what motivates people to join the armed forces? For some it’s an opportunity to see the world. For some it’s an adventure. But what about a Roman Centurion in the first century AD? What motivated him? It would have been a different thing all together.
The Roman Empire of course ruled the known world at that time. And in all honesty, it was ruthless and pagan to say the least. And when God sent his son Jesus the last person you would ever expect God to use would be a Roman soldier. Well, think again, because God has this habit of doing things through people that you and I probably wouldn’t have dreamed of
So let’s ask the question, would God use a Roman Centurion. Well not if you’re a first century Jew. God is the God of the Jews. God was the God who chose Israel to be His chosen people. And Roman Centurions, Roman soldiers were a brutal occupying force. If I were a Jew in the first century, I would definitely not be happy with God using a Roman Centurion to do something. But the scary thing is God did exactly that.
He was a man called Cornelius, and he lived in Caesarea, a port city on the Mediterranean. And it says that an angel appeared to him and this is what happened.
The angel says Cornelius! And Cornelius stares at the angel in absolute terror. This is what the angel says:
Your prayers and your giving to the poor have ascended as a memorial before God.
Isn’t that an interesting thing for an angel to say to a Roman Centurion? Your prayers and your giving to the poor have risen up and ascended and they’re like a memorial before God. And then the angel gives him some instructions. He says:
Look send some people over to a place called Joppa, to where this man Peter the Apostle is, and get him to come over here and tell you about this Jesus.
Recognise up until now the Jews thought that God was only for the Jews and Jesus had only come for them. Jesus was a Jew and they figured well, if Jesus was the Messiah, not all of them believed it, but they said if Jesus is the Messiah surely He came for the chosen people for the Jews. Well, God had a different plan.
God came for you and me as well as the Jews. Because God loves us all. Now you have to understand this is a radical, notion. And God picks Cornelius and sends an angel to this Roman Centurion and his family. God picks Cornelius to be the first of the Gentiles, to receive the good news about Jesus.
Now Peter is a Jew and it was a radical idea to him as well. But just at the same time as this angel was appearing in Caesarea to Cornelius, Peter was having a radical dream. You can read about it in the book of Acts Chapter 9. A dream that was opening him to the possibility of sending the good new to the Gentiles.
And so, the men came to Joppa and they knocked on Peter’s door and Peter was ready to go and he went back to Caesarea with them. And he sat everyone in Cornelius’s household down and he told them all about Jesus. And it says in the book of Acts, while Peter was still speaking the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word – Cornelius, his family, his servants, his whole household.
The Jews, who were there, were astounded, that God had poured his spirit out on the Gentiles as well. And subsequently the Apostle Peter goes back to the other Apostles and says, “Look this is what happened guys … what do you reckon, is this legit?”
They had to talk about it; they had to think through their theology and say do you think we should let God go to the Gentiles as well?
And yet God had this plan. God had this plan to pour his love out to you and me as well as to all of the Jews. And you know what? You and I are a bit like those Jews that were there in Cornelius’ house, they were surprised that God would use Cornelius in such a powerful way.
We all have preconceived ideas about what God should do and how He should do it and whom He should use, don’t we? We look at some people and think, “Well God could never possibly use that person for any good.”
If you had asked Peter and the other Jewish followers of Jesus a few weeks before, would God do this, would God go to the Gentiles, would he use a Roman Centurion to do it? I bet you their answer would have been a resounding, “No, surely God could never use one of these brutal, Romans, to pour his love out.”
If someone asked you, “would God do something powerful through you?” What would you say? God is a big God, God uses little people, God makes some surprising choices.
That is an exciting message. God doesn’t care about our external packaging. God cares about our hearts, and he got the angel to say to Cornelius, your prayers and you’re giving to the poor, the things that you do in secret they have ascended as a memorial before God.
What’s a memorial?
You know when you see a memorial to fallen soldiers for instance, it has all their names on it. And it stands above other things and it’s something you notice, it commemorates them and you notice it. So, what the angel said to Cornelius was this, Gods noticed the way you pray in secret. Gods noticed the way help others in secret, that’s like a memorial in front of his eyes.
When God was looking around for someone that He could use to be the first Gentile, this memorial with Cornelius’s name was in front of God. It was there because Cornelius had a relationship with God. A Roman Centurion a pagan, had a relationship with God. Wow. And God used him.
And when God was looking around for someone little, like you and me, God said, ‘I know who I’ll pick, I’ll pick Cornelius, because Cornelius has a heart for me, Cornelius has love for me, even though he’s in an impossible job as a Centurion, Cornelius has bowed down before me’.
And so, when we take that step and say, “God, I want a relationship with you like what Cornelius had.” And just quietly follow God, pray, adore Him, worship Him, do the things He asks us to do. That is like a memorial before God’s eyes.
And one day when God needs a little person just like you, to do something amazing that God has planned in His heart, he will choose you. Amen.
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I will offer up my life
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The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
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