Be Not Afraid

Yesterday at church, Pastor Phil continued with his sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount. He specifically looked at Matthew 6:19-24, the "Treasures in Heaven" and "Do Not Worry" sections of the Sermon. Jesus asks us to run fast away from false gods, which can of course be ordinarily good things simple over-emphasized by us. When we give anything other than God too much importance and too much worth, we worry all of the time because we know those things are fleeting -- they could disappear in an instant, along with the self-worth we place in them.

At the end of the sermon, during the response time, we could sing, and we could also write our false gods on pieces of paper that we threw into a trash can, signifying what these things were to us: rubbish. (At this point, I felt deja vu -- I did something similar at Young Life Campaigners last year where we burned our troubles/worries.) So I gave some things up to God, told him I want Him to come before these things: my job, the idea of being a missionary (something easy to get caught up in), determination of worth based on how much I can check off my to-do lists, my hope for a spouse, etc. I have placed too much value on these things. I need to relearn seeking first His kingdom; I need to remember that God lavishes love on me (on all of us!) and that He's done so much for us already, so why should I worry about these little things now?

The Call to Worship at the beginning of the service was so fitting to this part of Jesus's Sermon: We read from Isaiah 43. This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible, no doubt, and now always reminds me of the Jubilate Reunion Concert 2008, when the choir sang a song adapted from this passage. Every time I sang it and every time I listen to it, I cry.

You can listen to it here:



After our time of worship, we also had a responsive reading, St. Francis of Assisi's Prayer for Peace, which I would like to share with you now:

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
not so much to be understood as to understand,
not so much to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life."

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