Sunday Service - 18 July

Welcome to our online service - 18 July

This service sheet can be used individually or with households.
We would encourage you to say (or even sing) hymns and songs out loud.
Prayers, other liturgy or readings can be said out loud or silently, corporately or individually.

If you are able, we would also like invite you to join us for our main Sunday services, 10am, live on Zoom and in the church and 11:30am in church. Even if you have never been to St Gabriel’s before we would love you to join us. Please get in touch with the vicar Alistair (vicar@saintgs.co.uk) and he will send you the Zoom details.

Please join us for public worship in the church building this Sunday at 10am or 11:30am.

O Lord, open our lips

and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

O God, make speed to save us.

O Lord, make haste to help us.

Glory to the Father and to the Son

and to the Holy Spirit;

as it was in the beginning is now

and shall be for ever. Amen.

Praise the Lord.

The Lord’s name be praised.

HYMN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTKIqmdfHSk

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 for ever wilt be.

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!

2 Summer and winter, and spring-time and harvest,

sun, moon and stars in their courses above,

join with all nature in manifold witness

to Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Great is Thy faithfulness...

3 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!

Great is Thy faithfulness...

Words: Thomas O Chisholm (1866-1960)

Music: William M Runyan (1870-1957)

PRAYER OF PREPARATION

Almighty God,

to whom all hearts are open,

all desires known,

and from whom no secrets are hidden:

cleanse the thoughts of our hearts

by the inspiration of your holy Spirit,

that we may perfectly love you,

and worthily magnify your holy name;

through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

CONFESSION

The gospel calls us to turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.

As we offer ourselves to him in penitence and faith, we renew our confidence and trust in his mercy.

God our Father, we are sorry for the times when we have used your gifts carelessly, and acted ungratefully.

Hear our prayer, and in your mercy:

forgive us and help us.

We enjoy the fruits of the harvest, but sometimes forget that you have given them to us.

Father, in your mercy:

forgive us and help us.

We belong to a people who are full and satisfied, but ignore the cry of the hungry.

Father, in your mercy:

forgive us and help us.

We are thoughtless, and do not care enough for the world you have made.

Father, in your mercy:

forgive us and help us.

We store up goods for ourselves alone, as if there were no God and no heaven.

Father, in your mercy:

forgive us and help us.

ABSOLUTION

The Lord enrich us with his grace,

and nourish us with his blessing;

the Lord defend us in trouble and keep us from all evil;

the Lord accept our prayers,

and absolve us from our offences,

for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen.

COLLECT

Generous God,

you give us gifts and make them grow:

though our faith is small as mustard seed,

make it grow to your glory

and the flourishing of your kingdom;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

SING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rPGn_KTYuU

ABBA FATHER, let me be

Yours and Yours alone.

May my will forever be

Ever more Your own.

Never let my heart grow cold,

Never let me go.

Abba Father, let me be

Yours and Yours alone.

Dave Bilbrough.

READINGS

James 5:13-20 New International Version - UK

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you ill? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Matthew 21:21-22 New International Version - UK

Jesus replied, ‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig-tree, but also you can say to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,” and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.’

This the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

TALK written by Stuart Ibbotson

Faith–Filled Prayer

Somewhat to my annoyance I was told as a young person that I was not born in Sheffield, or anywhere in Yorkshire for that matter. I was told that this meant that I couldn’t play cricket for Yorkshire- shock horror! Not that I was ever any good at any sport, as a typical young lad I loved nothing better than kicking about a ball or hitting one with a bat- in those distant times you could often do this on the street as there were relatively few cars parked or going up and down the side streets around here. I was informed that I was born in the cathedral city of Lichfield in Staffordshire. So where am I going with this introduction this morning?

Apparently, the words on the city crest of Lichfield where “ORA ET LABORA”, which is obviously latin. The words were presumably chosen by the city fathers at some point in the past to bring an air of gravitas to the life of their fellow citizens – and if you write them in Latin they become even more impressive. But the average person on the street would probably have no idea of what these words meant- which includes me most of the time. What those words actually mean is “Pray and work”. The point of that motto is really the message that underlies the whole of James’ letter that we have been looking at in some detail for many weeks now – just praying, adhering to the outward signs of Christian faith isn’t enough on its own: we need to do something as well. Prayer is of course an intrinsic part of the Christian’s experience, it is communicating with God as we seek to deepen our relationship with him by talking with him, listening to him, cultivating a constant awareness of his presence. If we take prayer seriously, it can become a very problematic activity, why? Because God answers prayer – but not always in the way we expect. Sometimes God will answer our prayers in ways that we do not notice, very subtly, so much so that it may be some time later before we realise that a particular prayer has been answered. I have a confession this morning, I am not very good at prayer and need to be better at finding ways and places to pray. I can however very vividly remember when prayer was answered immediately and in an amazing way for me personally- no-one else around me would have heard my heartfelt silent praying or been aware of the prayer being answered- it was just I who experienced the immediate answer to my prayer……. It was, I believe, the 5th November 2014, I was lying in an Intensive Care Unit at the Northern General Hospital, in some pain, despite the morphine and hooked up to lots of tubes and wires following my heart surgery. I just couldn’t get comfortable and worried that if I moved too much, I would set off one of the alarms on the machine to which I was attached and disturb both the nursing staff and other patients. As I prayed for relief, I felt this sudden sense of weightlessness and comfort, as if I was floating on air and this allowed me to drift off into sleep.

When you listen to the prayers that are led from the front here, you will know that we sometimes pray that we will be helped to see where we can be part of the answer to our own prayers. We cannot always simply pray and then sit back waiting for things to happen. For example, if we are facing exams, it’s only right that we ask for God’s help in preparing for and sitting those exams – but it doesn’t mean that we then sit back and refuse to do any revision because God will get us through. If we are unwell, we pray for healing, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go to the doctor, or do something that we are fully aware will aid our recovery as well. Prayer and action are fully interwoven, but there is a sense, too, that prayer is action. That Latin tag, “Ora et labora”, is only slightly different from a Latin phrase that was much used in the early church: “Orare est laborare”, the phrase means “To pray is to work”- prayer works! Look how James puts it: “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective”. Prayer works: it is an exercise of faith. In praying we are doing, we are getting involved in things. And that’s what this last section of James’s letter is all about. It’s not about healing; it’s not about techniques. It’s about prayer, about sticking at it.

James kicks off this section with an exhortation saying, effectively, “Prayer works – why not prove it?” This letter of James has this as its underlying message. He introduces it in 1:5,6. Are you having a hard time? Get on and pray about it – go on, give it a try. Is everything going great at the moment? Tell God and thank him for it. Are you ill, or weary or worn out ask for some prayer. Prayer is there for every circumstance, every situation. That’s the clear message of verses 13 and 14a. Yes, of course there will be problems for us as Christians – there’s plenty to convince us of that in this letter – but God’s there to help. Whatever day to day situations we find ourselves in or face we need to pray about them and for them.

James gives an example: you’re ill, call the church leaders round – or go to see them – and get them to pray. The point is that we should get some people to pray with us and for us. But, what happens when prayer is not answered in the way we hoped with the person being prayed for getting physically better? What does James actually say? “The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; it will raise him up.” That seems a bit black and white, really: there’s not a lot of room for manoeuvre. But I’m sure James must have been as aware as many of us are that when we pray for people they are not always healed. It’s great when they are – and it comes as an answer to prayer in which we can rejoice. But what’s going on when healing doesn’t appear to take place? Is the prayer not working? Is our faith not strong enough? It has been said that “Prayer is a commitment to the will of God, and all true prayer exercises its truest faith in patiently waiting to see what he has determined to do.” You see, there are many of these quite stark pronouncements about prayer in the Bible. Look, for example, at Matthew 18:19 – “If two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” Or in John 14:14 – “You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.” That is Jesus talking. Surely, he’s not trying to hoodwink us or give us false hopes. These promises are intended to bring us to prayer with absolute confidence, they speak of a God who can actually do all things, who is so generous that he will withhold nothing from us that is good, who is listening to every prayer we pray. But one thing these promises do not encourage or allow is that we should pray with the stubborn insistence that we have got it right, that our will must be done. Not all prayers are prayers that God can answer- if you watch enough sport and the result is uncertain, as the camera spans the crowd you will often see people supporting both sides who are apparently in prayer- some prayer can be fickle- there is no doubt (If you’ve ever seen the film Bruce Almighty, you’ll know what that could mean in practice!) If you look back to v13 you’ll see that there the essence of prayer is that demonstrated by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest and execution – “Not my will, but yours, O Lord, be done.” That’s clearly included in the Lord’s Prayer, too. “The prayer offered in faith” is the prayer that rests trustfully in the will of a sovereign, faithful and loving God. Neither the sick person, nor the elders, nor anyone else, is there to insist that his or her will be done. The object of it is to put the person within the total security of the unchangeable and unchangeably gracious will of God.

James follows his exhortation to pray, and his example of prayer, with an encouragement for pray-ers. James has written about elders, about praying in faith, about the prayer of a righteous man. That could seem a bit too awesome for us: we might be tempted to give up on the assumption that we could never really meet the necessary criteria. Then James mentions Elijah. Another giant of the Bible we can never really emulate. But James goes out of his way to add that Elijah was “a man like us”. If you look through his story in the books of Kings, you’ll see that he made the same mistakes as we do, he messed up in all kinds of ways. There was nothing terribly special about him in that sense. We are “righteous” people, too, because of what Jesus has done for us by dying on the cross. And this fellow human being got on and prayed. Now depending on the bible translation we use it says he “prayed earnestly” or it says things like “he prayed fervently”. The actual Greek words used are literally translated as “with prayer he prayed”. Now, just a few words about language to help us see what’s going on here. Different languages and cultures use different ways of emphasising things. English tends to add an adverb, like “earnestly” or “fervently”. In Hebrew, saying the same thing twice adds emphasis or intensity, so “with prayer he prayed” does what an adverb in English might do. “Orare est laborare.” To pray is to work. Prayer works. When we pray, things happen, whether we notice or not, quickly or over a span of time. Elijah prayed: God acted. We can pray: God will act. But, of course, we need to pray expectantly, not because God won’t answer otherwise, but so that we’ll have our eyes open to hopefully be able to recognise the answers when they arrive. So, we need to get on and pray. Get on and communicate with God. To talk to him and listen to him. Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, whether things are going well or we’re in the pits – we need to pray. We pray with other people and build each other up in many ways, in services, in groups, in meetings, on the phone, on Zoom. We pray on our own and draw nearer to God each time we pray. God wants to encourage us as he did James and his readers, as he did Elijah. As Jesus told those listening to him in verse 22 of Matthew 21 that was part of our short Gospel reading today, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer”. We have to believe in what we ask for in prayer and to give thanks for answered prayer.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, the fact that we can talk with you and that you listen is so amazing. Help us to pray more often, in more places and for more reasons, making it central to our daily lives. For as we have heard today, to pray is to work, a crucial part of our Christian lives in serving you and help us to have moments of silence in our times of prayer in order that we may hear anything that you want to say to us. Amen.

THE APOSTLES’ CREED

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth

I believe 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, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven,

he is seated at the right hand

of the Father,

and he will come to judge the living 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

O LORD, HEAR MY PRAYER,

O Lord, hear my prayer:

When I call answer me.

O Lord, hear my prayer,

O Lord, hear my prayer:

Come and listen to me.

Jacques Berthier/Taizé.

PRAYERS - written by Liz Cannell

Ps; 118 v. 24 This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

We give thanks that over the past year we have been able to meet together for services and activities, and we ask for your blessing on all clergy and church leaders who have continued to lead worship and give support to church members and communities. As we reflect on this difficult time with all the changes, may we gain a new understanding and appreciation of our world and relationships with each other. We pray for Hannah as she prepares to start her training in Bristol, may she know your reassurance in her life at all times as she uses her gifts in your service.

Many are grateful for our parks and green spaces in Sheffield which provide pleasure to all ages, and we pray that the picnic will be enjoyed this afternoon. We pray too for the children's holiday club, that through activities and fun the children will learn more of the love of Jesus and want to follow him. We pray for their safety and for the care and stamina of the leaders and helpers.

At the start of the school holidays we lift to you the pressures felt by teachers and all who work in education. May they each know a time of relaxation and refreshment. We bring to you our concerns over the disruption to children and students, and pray especially for those leaving school and considering their future. The easing of restrictions will enable families and friends to meet, but Lord we do pray that it will not lead to a large increase in infections.

We pray for the people of Afghanistan and the anxiety of the population over the withdrawal of troops, and for other parts of the world where people are experiencing conflict and unrest, and an uncertain future, as well as the pandemic. We pray that governments may not only receive vaccines, but will overcome some reluctance and encourage and organise their use. We ask for wisdom for our own leaders and those with responsibilities for both day to day decisions, but also dealing with future plans and emergencies.

Lord of the universe, look in love upon your people. Pour the healing oil of your compassion on our world. Amen.

LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your Kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those

who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation

but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power,

and the glory are yours

now and for ever. Amen

SING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3iB30gCqAc

Lord, the light of your love is shining,

In the midst of the darkness shining,

Jesus Light of the world shine upon us,

Set us free by the truth You now bring us,

Shine on me, shine on me.

Shine, Jesus, shine

Fill this land with the Father's glory,

Blaze, Spirit, blaze

Set our hearts on fire,

Flow, river, flow

Flood the nations with grace and mercy

Send forth Your word Lord

And let there be light.

2 Lord, I come to Your awesome presence

From the shadows into Your radiance,

By the blood I may enter Your brightness,

Search me, try me, consume all my darkness

Shine on me, shine on me.

Shine, Jesus, shine...

3 As we gaze on Your kingly brightness

So our faces display Your likeness,

Ever changing from glory to glory

Mirrored here may our lives tell Your story,

Shine on me, shine on me.

Shine Jesus, shine...

OFFERTORY - Take a moment to consider how you are going to continue to give to the life of the church and support other aid agencies and mission organisations.

SAY:

Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power,

the glory, the splendour, and the majesty;

for everything in heaven and on earth is yours.

All things come from you,

and of your own do we give you.

SING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDeiy9-t2GE

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine:

O 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 burst on my sight;

angels descending, bring from above

echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

This is my story……

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.

This is my story…

Fanny Crosby

CCLI: 22324

BLESSING

Almighty God, who raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to your right hand on high: may we know your resurrection power in our daily lives and look with hope to that day when we shall see you face to face and share in your glory, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: one God, now and for ever. Amen.

And blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen

Welcome to our online service - 18 July

You can read the sermon below

Click here to watch all of our previous sermons

VIDEOS FOR THE HYMNS AND SONGS CAN BE ACCESSED BELOW