I Will Be With You - Rev. Jonathan Warren

On September 13th, we'll have worship at Nichols Park.

There's a lot of good food, and then music is by John Love and his amazing friends.

And he he has a whole write-up here.

And I think we should invite all of our friends.

Like, this is the place to be.

He's going to have some amazing music.

And he has very gifted friends.

And he tells a little bit about who he is and what he does at Second City.

It's a lot of fun.

So I think we're going to have maybe we'll just listen to music all the time and not preach or something.

No, there will be a little preaching, and there will be a baptism, and then there will be a picnic.

And so definitely will be a fun time at Nichols Park.

We ask you to please bring a side dish or a dessert to share.

And I'm very excited for a few weeks.

To prepare our hearts for Scripture, let us pray for illumination together.

Loving God, fountain of every blessing, open us to your life-giving word and fill us with your Holy Spirit so that living water can flow through our hearts.

A spring of hope for a thirsty world.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The first scripture reading for today is from Psalm 105.

Let us listen to the Word of God.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord.

Call on His name.

Make known His deeds among the peoples.

Sing to Him.

Sing praises to Him.

Tell all of His wonderful works.

Glory in His holy name.

Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

Seek the Lord and His strength.

Seek His presence continually.

Remember the wonderful works he has done, His miracles, and the judgments he has uttered.

O offspring of His servant servant Abraham, children of Jacob, His chosen ones.

Then Israel came to Egypt.

Jacob lived as an alien in the land of Ham.

And the Lord made his people very fruitful and made them stronger than their foes, whose heart he then turned to hate his people, and to craftily with their serv deal craftily with their servants.

He sent his servant Moses and Aaron, whom he had chosen.

This is the word of the Lord.

Tell me, Lord, what did I ever do that was worth loving you or the kindness you shown, Lord help me Jesus, I've wasted it so help me Jesus I know what I am but now that I know that I've wasted it so help me Jesus My soul's in your hand Tell me Lord if you think there's a way I can try to repay all the pleasures I've known maybe Lord if I show someone else what I've been through myself on my way back to you Lord help me Jesus I've wasted it so help me Jesus I know what I am now that I know that I needed you so help me Jesus my soul's in your hand Lord help me Jesus I've wasted it so help me Jesus I know what I am but now that I know that I needed you so help me Jesus my soul's in your hand Jesus my soul's in your hand our scripture reading comes to us from Exodus chapter three beginning with the first verse let us listen to the word of God Moses was keeping the flock of his father in law Jethro the priest of Midian he led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Horeb the mountain of God there the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush and he looked and the bush was blazing yet it was not consumed then Moses said I must turn aside and look at this great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.

When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see God called to him out of the bush Moses Moses and he said here I am and then he said come no closer remove the sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground and he said further I am the God of your father the God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob and Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God and then the Lord said I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt I have heard their cry on account of it of their taskmasters indeed I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land a land flowing with milk and honey to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perezites, the Hivites and the Jebusites The cry of the Israelites has now come to me.

I've also seen the Egyptians oppress them.

So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.

But Moses said to God Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?

He said I will be with you and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you when you've brought the people out of Egypt you shall worship God on this mountain.

Moses said to God If I come to the Israelites and say to them the God of your ancestors has sent me to you and they ask me what is his name what shall I say to them?

God said to Moses I am who I am He said further thus you shall say to the Israelites I am has sent me to you God also said to Moses thus you shall say to the Israelites the Lord the God of your ancestors the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you this is my name forever and this my title for all generations this is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Hollywood scaled Mount Sinai Mount Hebron thousands of years after Moses did.

And as they were filming the Ten Commandments movie on location Charlton Heston said it sent a chill through him I could not rid myself of the feeling that in some mysterious way that mountain belonged to God and not to men set off on foot for the summit.

And after a few minutes of climbing my breath was coming hard and my heart was thumping the slopes were even steeper and more savage than they had looked from below and sudden chasms dropped away to nowhere ragged volcanic cinders slashed my boots and the hot desert wind filled my lungs and all the while I had the haunting conviction that I was alone it was nonsense of course there were a dozen men toiling up the mountain with me but the mountain was all around us now until I felt that I was alone here with the crumbling rocks.

Charlton Teston's very heart and lungs with each step he took and as he looked around he felt something stirring deep within and he discovered just like Moses on that day long, long ago that this mountain belonged to God and not to man.

I find it quite interesting when the Bible says Moses led his flock beyond the wilderness the word here for beyond in Hebrew is akar, which actually means in the hinder part of the wilderness.

One scholar points out that Moses is no ordinary shepherd leading his flock to a remote part of the desert in search of the mountain of God Moses goes to Horeb to Sinai on a pilgrimage possibly wanting a sign about whether he is still under pursuit for murder and Moses' pilgrimage with his flock presents him simultaneously as a seeker and a leader shepherding his followers while he seeks divine guidance.

So Moses wasn't just shepherding in the desert he didn't just stumble upon the mountain of God in the middle of nowhere it says Moses led his flock a car in the hinder part of the wilderness Moses was intentionally on a spiritual pilgrimage.

Moses was seeking God and guess what?

When Moses gets near God's mountain he sees the divine he sees an angel of the Lord and a flame of fire out of a bush.

This angel is full of light and God's glory and it says a flame of fire out of the bush the bush was blazing yet it was not consumed.

Moses moves in and turns to look at this great sight and the moment he turns to see it God out of the bush called to him Moses Moses and Moses replies here I am today people are still traveling halfway around the world seeking the divine in thin places while Paris isn't the hinder parts of the wilderness Shakespeare and company bookstore owner George Whitman says this people are looking for the light and that's what the books in my store do they shed light on a time of darkness.

That's why a bookstore is the place where heaven and earth meet we all still seek hope we all yearn for the light in the midst of darkness.

When Moses goes on this pilgrimage to the mountain of God not only does he see the divine but he gets more than he ever imagined.

God tells Moses in verse 8 I have come down to deliver my people from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land is doing something impressive here.

God is coming down to be with his people to help them and God's going to bring them up to be free.

Then in verse 10 God does a bit of a switcheroo to Moses when he says so come I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt Moses tells God wait just a second I I thought you were coming down to bring people up but now you're telling me I'm supposed to do it one pastor explains it this way God's words may sound like music to the ears of Moses finally God is going to intervene on behalf of his enslaved kin.

The music though begins to sound a bit shrill when it is revealed how God intends to intervene.

God has come down not to effect change by divine fiat but through an unlikely shepherd who is on the most wanted list in Egypt.

God comes down and calls an orphaned scared running from the law shepherd God comes down and works to regular ordinary people just like us to bring people up late congressman Paul Finley who is a member of our church told me he wasn't ever looking to get involved in Middle East politics.

It all began with a letter from Mrs.

Evans Franklin reading the letter from distraught parents who live near his home in western Illinois were convinced that their son had been wrongfully convicted and appealed to him for help in a letter.

In 1973 their son Ed Franklin was on his way to be a teacher in Kuwait the plane made an emergency landing in Aden at the time the capital of the Marxist People's Democratic Republic of South Yemen while he was in the airport waiting for his plane he took pictures which was illegal and he was sent to five years of solitary confinement sixteen months later there were many risks if Congressman Paul Findley got involved.

Says the U.S.

State Department viewed the government in Aden as the most radical of all the regimes in the Arab world no American official had entered the country since June 1967 Arab-Israeli War and this meant that he would be without protection of the United States government and would have no diplomatic assistance once he arrived while pondering whether or not to make the trip he asked a senior diplomat what if the South Yemen regime put him in jail too and his unsettling answer we would try to find another congressman willing to go there to try to get you out much like Paul Findlay Moses felt the weight of God's calling to go to Pharaoh Moses felt the weight of this impossible task before him I'd imagine he was feeling incredibly reluctant unable unwilling unequipped when Moses says who am I that I should go and God responds in twelve to Moses with love and compassion and understanding I will be with you Moses was never alone on that mountain Moses was never alone anytime he was in Egypt never alone while wandering in the desert comes down and works through us he doesn't send us alone we are never alone for God promises us I will be with you Paul Findley continues still I was probably the only person able to help Franklin's mother told me I doubt Ed can survive five years in a Yemen jail.

My wife Lucille expressed deep concern over the prospects of the trip but agreed that I had little choice but to go.

And then he says to my surprise a delegation of Aidan officials welcomed my arrival and after three days of discussions with cabinet officials sightseeing and anxious waiting I met President Ali on the evening before my scheduled departure he was afraid this whole time that he'd be going home empty handed and waiting and waiting for three days waiting and then my constituent whom Ali referred to as the prisoner would be released into my custody that night and permitted to join me on my departure the next morning much like Moses Findley discovered God is in the hinder parts of the wilderness and while God's calling doesn't work in the ways we might think God actually comes down working in and through ordinary regular unequipped unwilling unable people like you and me in order to bring others up much later Findlay said the rescue mission proved to be a major milestone in my life my first stop on a long exciting and instructive journey of exploration in one of Dolly Parton's songs she sings about butterflies.

Love is like a butterfly as soft and gentle as a sigh the multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings love makes your heart feel strange inside it flutters like soft wings in flight Love is like a butterfly a rare and gentle thing I've been seeing a lot of butterflies this last week in fact on Tuesday a butterfly flew into my car as I entered I I hadn't seen it come in and it just was there.

Caught me by surprise because something like that's never happened before.

And then on Wednesday As I was entering the church for work, a butterfly flew and sat on the outside wall right where I entered.

It just sat there, and after a bit, I put my hand next to it.

Didn't it flinch?

It actually stopped moving its wings.

After a minute of putting my hand next to it, the butterfly let me touch it.

And then it flew away.

Why this was particularly surprising.

Is it Wednesday when this happened was my mom's birthday?

Butterflies are an ancient Christian symbol of resurrection, of new life.

And this butterfly just happened to stop me in my tracks and just the right time on her birthday.

Love is like a butterfly.

A rare and gentle thing.

Now bushes are just bushes most of the time.

Letters are just letters most of the time.

Butterflies are just butterflies most of the time.

But when it happens alongside that unexplainable peace, that time when you're seeking God in the hinder parts of the wilderness, that sudden comfort in your heart, that sense of being held when you're falling apart.

You're anxiously awaiting.

Don't ignore it.

For God is trying to tell you something simple.

I will always be with you.

And while we might all want the spectacular where an angel appears in full glory, it's not usually how God works.

God whispers.

God nudges.

God appears when we are seeking God in the hinder parts of the wilderness.

God has a concerned mother write a letter.

Sends a butterfly on just the right day.

Maybe God has sent you something.

Took your breath away.

For God comes down calling each of us, regular, ordinary people, to go out and to bring others up.

For just as he told Moses, he tells each of us, I will always be with you.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Let us affirm our faith by standing and saying the Apostles' Creed together.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day he rose from the dead, he ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Please be seated.

I invite you to stand right here.

And Julie.

On behalf of the session, I present Phil Anevsky and Deb Wilder, who have been received into the membership of this congregation by transfer from Second Presbyterian Church, St.

Louis, Missouri.

Phil and Deb are both longtime members of the Presbyterian Church USA with nearly four decades of serving as ordained ruling elders in St.

Louis.

They have both served as chairs of Building Grounds, a church that is listed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings.

Deb was a founding denizen of Martha's helpers and was more likely to be found in the church's kitchen creating tasty food.

And Phil has been singing in our choir.

They have been here for a little bit and want to join as members, and we're excited that you are now part of our congregation.

And we want to welcome you.

Welcome.

Please send any contributions to First Presbyterian Church at 870 West College, Jacksonville, Illinois.

Our zip code is 62650.

Our phone is 217-245-4189.

You can contact our secretary there between the hours of 9 a.m.

and 4 p.m.

Monday through Friday.

Our email is office at firstfresjaff.org.

That's office at F-I-R-S-C P-R-E-S J A S.org.

Now our in-person church services start at 10 a.m.

on Sunday.

Access to our online church service starts at 9.55 a.m.

You can listen to these live services on our Facebook page, which is www.facebook.com slash first F-I-R-S-T P-R-E-S-JAX.

We have a choir that meets from 7 to 8 p.m.

every Thursday night, and we welcome all who are willing to sing.

We look forward to hearing from you either by email, mail, or phone.

God bless.

And may you have a peaceful and safe year.