This is my turn. Good morning.
Good to see all of you out there take these glasses off.
They don't do any good out there.
Anyway, we got a few things to make sure that you remember
coming up next week, next Sunday, the board meeting.
Well, the 9th of next week then. Senior outing, youth activities
and choir practice are listed here on the bulletin.
Do anybody have any other announcements?
We do I. Oh, here in the church.
Lunch. Prayer lunch tomorrow?
Yes, that's here in the bulletin.
Saying you're outing, we're we're checking on that.
It's a possibility of a a new place in Crystal.
Springs, but we got to. Verify that they're open.
And that. It's going to be, but you'll
you'll know before. Next Sunday you'll be here when
the bus leaves out and you'll be on it and you'll find out where
you're going. Any other announcements from out
there in the audience? But there is a meal plan for
tomorrow, is that right? That's let for the bread know at
6:00 today. Chuck.
Well, how do we catch up with
Chuck? I don't know who his number.
I can get to check just text, just make sure I I the numbers
in there Lee. Just check with Regina, she can
inform you on all these. Things enough fun.
There's any announcements from the congregation I would
mention? Please remember the courage Dan
and Patricia Curry and your prayers they that Patricia is
not doing well and I think Dan is having to deal with that fact
and other things that go along with it.
Any other announcements ladies? Good morning.
We're going to do something that I know that.
We don't do every Sunday. But as the ladies.
Begin to play. I want you to stand with me.
Turn. Around to those that are.
Around you. Just tell them how glad you are
that they are here and that you're here and that we have the
opportunity to worship the Lord together.
Then we'll be singing. The family of God, please stand
May not Are you glad you're a part of
the family of God? I think we all should be.
As always, we come and worship and know that He is still God,
has been and will continue to be.
Let us pray. Loving and merciful God, we do
come before you this morning as we come together here to worship
and honor and glorify you. We come seeking Your presence
from the Holy Spirit. Is it come that indwells us so
that we may be nurtured through the word of the morning and may
be built up and prepared to glow forth, to be a light in the
world? We do come before you,
acknowledging that Jesus is our Savior, that you sent him to be
that, and we accept Him as that. But it's in his name we pray.
Father, who is 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
deaths, as we as we forgive our deaths, and believe it not to
temptation, but deliver us from evil, when thine is the Kingdom
and power and the glory forever. Amen.
And the shoes are this is my little herd of cats here.
You guys heard them. OK, All right.
Y'all ready? All right, Listen.
OK. All right.
So when people get married, most of the time, like 99% of the
time, the guy will get the girl a ring.
So when pawpaw to you, Mr. Chris to y'all asked me to marry him,
He got me this ring. So I got 1.
Hopefully you'll be a boy one day, but he'll it's going to
take a special man. I know you got yours.
Can I tell you? No, not right now.
Maybe. Maybe like Yeah, maybe like.
Anyway, So what this ring means is it's a promise that couple or
Mr. Chris promises to love me forever and ever.
And I gave him a ring too saying the same thing that I promised
to love him forever and ever, right?
Do y'all make promises? Have you made a promise?
What's the promise you made? You promised to help a teacher.
OK. And give her a card?
I promised to give her a card. You will give her a card.
OK, we're not going to tell the joke right now.
Wait, have you made a promise before?
Have you promised to like clean your room or help with the farm
chores? Have you helped?
Have you promised that boy? You promised you would help her
and, and that. Well, Thomas, what about you?
Have you promised to like, clean your room or do your homework or
well, my room has a good room. Well, what's your secret?
What's your? Secret Tell us, tell us.
All right, let's So let me tell you about a promise that God
made so many, many, many years ago.
There was a man named Noah, and during his time there was really
bad people and God got really upset and he told Noah, he said
build an ark. I want you to build it big
enough that'll hold two of every animal.
So, oh, no one got to work. Everybody thought no one was
crazy 'cause filled this big boat.
But he built it. Well, after he got it built and
got all the animals on there that God told him to put on
there, God let it rain for 40 days and 40 nights and it will
get flooded. That's what you paint and your
legs down. OK, I probably wear shorts on
murder. OK, yes, the boat did flush and
so, but it washed away everything else, anything else
that was on earth, people, animals, everything, it got
washed away. So for 150 days the boat stayed
in the water until God said let the waters recede.
So the waters went away. And so it's Noah and his wife,
his two sons and their wives, and they started making more
people. So but God's promise to Noah
says that he put a rainbow in the sky and told Noah, I have
set my rainbow in the clouds and it will be a sign of the promise
between me and all life on the earth.
So anytime you see a rainbow in the sky after it rains, have
y'all seen a rainbow before? No, you anyway, if you see a
rainbow in the sky, that means God's promise to us, but he will
never flood the earth again. So we can always count on God's
promises, especially the rainbow, right?
Yeah, it says what has this? Just what in Mississippi.
All it does have lot. No, we don't have lives.
All right, let us pray. Bow your head.
All right, Dear God, we're thankful that you keep your
promises and remain faithful through every season.
Help us trust in your word and remember that you will never
fail us. Give us strength to keep the
promises we make to others too. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. All right, we have our kids.
Please stand, turn in your hand. Listen, number 601, I'll fly
away. We will do all three verses.
As we go. To the Lord in prayer this
morning, I do want to once again just remember Mr. Dan and Miss
Patricia also want to remember Miss Pam Morrison.
She had taken a. Fall and is in the hospital so.
Just continue to be in. Prayer for her.
And not this coming Wednesday, but the next.
We start back, choir. We start back.
Children's activities. So if you have children,
grandchildren, great grandchildren, friends of
children with children. Get them up.
Here we we were looking forward to get started back and I know
school's coming back in so summer is almost over, even
though it doesn't feel like it, but it school is coming and
we're looking forward to get started back with our Wednesday
night activities. Let's go the Lord in prayer.
Heavenly Father, we are so. Thankful Lord for this day, Lord
for an opportunity to come together and to worship you.
Lord, to acknowledge you as the one true and living God, to
understand that you created this universe.
Lord that. You sustain this universe and
Lord that everything is under your control, we thank you that
you are a sovereign God. Lord, we also pray this.
Morning for those that we have mentioned within our church
family who are sick Lord, who were in the.
Hospital, just pray. That you be with them.
Lord and that we minister to them as their as their family,
Lord to let them know that we care for them.
Lord than in anything that we can do to help them, to bring
them peace, to bring them comfort, to make things a little
easier for them. We certainly want to do that.
Lord, we thank you for our, our our family of believers.
We thank you for our church and Lord.
We just asked today. That as we come together to
worship Lord, that we worship in spirit and truth, Lord, that we
look to Your Word for guidance on how we should live our lives,
and Lord with the understanding. That as we do that.
Lord, we grow in our relationship with you and we
become more like your Son Jesus Christ and how thankful we are
for that. It's in Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Our Communion hymn is #399 Let us break bread together, of
course, first and second verse. Christ's advice to.
This table all who professed. The Christian faith.
And who seek the mercy of God? Jesus said I.
Am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never
be hungry. And whoever believes.
In me will never be thirsty, no one who comes.
To me, will I drive? Away because there's one bread.
We who are many or one body. For we all partake of.
The one bread. So whether you eat or.
Drink or whatever you do. Do everything to the.
Glory of God. Father, we've come to that table
today, thanking you for, I mean it lessens, and thanking you,
Lord, for the sacrifice that you made on the cross for each and
every one of us. Now, if we take this low or let
us do so in a way, it will be pleasing in the end.
Loving Father, we do come in remembrance of Your gift to us,
remembering that. Lord.
Jesus Christ, it gave his all for our sins.
We come acknowledging that we are sinful people.
We do not follow what we should be doing all every day, but we
accept the fact that you have paid parts for our sins and we
come acknowledging you as our Lord and Savior around this
table because it was His blood, it was shed for our sins.
Bless us as we partake. Remind us that as we go forward
we have an example to follow. In Jesus name I pray.
Amen. The Lord Jesus, on the night he
was betrayed, took bread. And we didn't give him thanks,
he broke. It and said this is my body
given. For you do this in remembrance
of me in the same way. After supper he took the cup,
saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this whenever. You drink it in remembrance of
me. For whenever you eat this.
Bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lords death until
he comes. This morning I want to ask you a
question as we get started. How many of you enjoy waiting?
Anybody enjoy waiting? Anybody like to go to the
doctor's office? Your appointment's at 9:00, you
get there at 8:50, and at 940 you're still sitting in the
doctor's office waiting. Anybody enjoy that?
No. How about your waiting for your
food to come? You are hungry, you've ordered.
You only have a certain amount of time to eat.
You keep looking at your watch thinking it's going to come at
any moment. You can't wait for it to come.
But you're waiting and you're waiting and you're waiting and
your food doesn't come and your food doesn't come.
Anybody enjoy that? You know, how about this, how
about you are going to a concert of some someone that you really
like and you got to get there early because it's open seating.
You don't have a sign seating. It's open seating.
And they tell you, look, if you want a good seat, you got to get
here early and you get there. Some people get there two and
three and four hours before it even begins because they want to
hear that person so badly and be so close to the front.
And they wait and they wait and they wait.
But do they enjoy it? I I doubt it, but they're
willing to do it. You're driving along the road.
You're looking so forward to getting to your destination.
Traffic's been sailing along just as smooth as it can be.
You're making great time. And you come over the top of the
hill and all of a sudden there is traffic backed up as far as
you can see. And you don't know if it's a
wreck, You don't know what has happened, but you do know this.
You're waiting. You're at a standstill.
You're not going forward to the place that you desire to go.
Do you enjoy it? No, waiting is something that
does not come natural to us. We live in a world today that
you can order something on Amazon and within 24 hours,
sometimes it will be at your doorstep when you get home.
Now here's the interesting thing about I've noticed about Amazon.
For me, if it's something that my children won't or my wife
wants or we're getting something for the dog, that stuff is there
in an instant. I order something and I am
waiting. I'm so excited about it coming
and I go out the next days. They tell me it's going to be
there by 4:00 and guess what? My package is not there.
You're going to have to wait longer.
And I tell Katie Grace, get on there and look and see what's
going on. What's the problem?
I don't know. It's back ordered or they say
that it's here, but it's not here.
We, we don't know what's wrong and I have to wait.
I hate waiting. Most of us hate waiting.
But listen to this passage of Scripture.
I want to read the very last verse first and then I'm going
to go back and give you the rest of it.
But this is what it says. Psalm 27 and verse 14.
Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and
wait for the Lord. I'm going to be honest with you,
and that's not one of my favorite passages of Scripture.
I've told you all before, I have a lot of favorite passages of
Scripture, but Psalm 27 and verse 14 does not make it on the
list because I got to wait. And actually I'm getting a
command from the Lord to wait. But let me back up to the
beginning of Psalm 27 and read you these first 13 verses, and
they will come back in to verse 14.
This is a Psalm of David that he is writing.
The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my
life. Of whom shall I be afraid when
the wicked advance against me to devour me?
It is my enemies and my foes. Foes who will stumble.
And fall. Though an army besiege me, my
heart will not fear the war break out against me.
Even then I will be confident. One thing I asked from the Lord
This only do I seek, that I may dwell in the House of the Lord
all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord, and
to seek Him in His temple. For in the day of trouble He
will keep me safe in His dwelling.
He will hide me in the shelter of His sacred tent and set me up
high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted
above the enemies who surround me at His sacred 10 I will
sacrifice with shouts of joy. I will sing and make music to
the Lord. Hear my voice when I call Lord,
be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says, If you seek his
face, your face, Lord, I will seek.
Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in
anger. You have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me. God, my Savior, though my father
and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
Teach me your way, Lord. Lead me in a straight path
because of my oppressors. Do not turn me over to the
desires of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me
spouting malicious accusations. I remain confident of this.
I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living
in verse 14. Wait for the Lord.
Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
When David is writing this Psalm, he's writing this to his,
to his heavenly Father, who has shown him time after time after
time, that he will come through, that he will deliver him, that
he will bring him through to the other side.
God offers us hope for the future.
He gives us confidence in Him that He never fails, that He
never falls short. Amazon promises next day
delivery. I expect next day delivery but
do I always get it? No, I saw a new ad by Burger
King the other day and it's was talking about getting the
whopper your way. Y'all know that I like a burger
too? And it's said that if you get,
if you order your Whopper and it does not come the way that you
desire for it to, they're going to remake it for you right then
and right there. And not only that, they're going
to give you another Whopper on your next visit for free.
Now that sounds good to me. How often do you go into a fast
food restaurant however, and your food is how you ordered it?
Very rare these days. Even Chick-fil-A is starting to
fall short of of my expectations.
When and I, you know, I, I, I expect great things out of
Chick-fil-A, but every now and then even Chick-fil-A falls
short. We are waiting.
It comes and it is not what we have expected.
How often do we wait for things? How often do we look forward to
things? Maybe it's a vacation.
Maybe it's a new job that you've been waiting to get.
You get into that position and all of a sudden you realize this
is not what I was expecting. You buy a new car.
You've been want it for so long, you've been saving up.
You finally have the down payment.
There's finally one on the lot. It's the color you want.
It's the interior that you want. It's the rims that you like.
It's got the good stereo. The price is right.
And you buy that car and you drive it home and for about a
week you're thinking, wow, this is the greatest thing ever.
And all of a sudden a week passes and then two weeks and
three weeks. And on that 4th week you realize
it's time to start paying for that new vehicle.
And you think, was this a good idea?
I waited all this time for this and now I got to pay for it for
the next. Used to be 4 years, then it was
five years. Now they go six and seven years
because cars cost so much to spread out your payments.
And for all of those years you will be paying month after month
after month. But when you see it on the TV,
you can't wait for it. It's going to be great.
It's going to make me happy. It's going to give me exactly
what I desire. The world tells us if you will
wait and you will work hard for what we want you to get, what we
desire, for you to have all your wants and all your desires are
going to be fulfilled. We wait for movies to come out.
We see the clips on the on the television, the little previews
and we think wow, that's going to be an awesome movie.
We go pay $3035 and then we get popcorn and Cokes and whatever
else it is. You end up spending 50, sixty,
$70.00 to go to the movie and you go and see the movie and
you're like, we waited all this time for this.
Some people get married. They have been waiting all their
lives to get married. And I know we talked about
getting a ring. Carolina, I'm not going to rain
on your parade. But sometimes we wait and wait.
And boy, we pursue those ladies and we can't wait for them to
say yes. And they finally say yes.
And we get married and all of a sudden we realize, wow, this is
different than I expected it to be, Chris.
It's. Better.
Oh, Chris has gotten better. Yeah, for him.
Oh, for Chris. It's gotten better.
Not for you, Chris. I'm sorry about that fella.
We have these expectations and we wait for it and, and the and
the time comes and all of a sudden we realize that she is
not going to pick up our clothes every single day and wash them
and. Fold them and have them.
Ready and also go to work and make half of the money and give
me what I want and cook me the food that I want and the meals
that I want and have everything ready.
And then she's going to realize he's not going to put gas in my
car every single time like he did when we were dating.
He's not going to pay for every single meal when we go out.
Once we get married, he'll be saying, hey, mine was only
$17.00, yours is 22. Give me your half.
He kept the yard Immaculate before you moved in.
You move in and now you have to say, are you going to cut the
grass this week? I don't know, I'm kind of tired.
Garbage cans full? Yep, it sure is.
We won't take it out. No, I don't either.
We are waiting and we are have these expectations for things
and they don't deliver because real life happens.
We realized that this person that we married is not perfect.
I know that's shocking for us. Sometimes we wait.
We wait expectantly. We are hoping, we are desiring
and then we get what we've been waiting for and we realized that
it does not deliver on the promises that were made.
I want to give you 2 more scriptures.
One is from Psalm 130 and verse 5.
It says this I'll wait for the Lord.
My whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope.
I'll wait for the Lord more than Watchmen wait for the morning.
Israel, put your hope in the Lord for the For with the Lord
is unfailing love, and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.
Next one is from Isaiah chapter 40.
I'm going to begin in verse 28. Do you not know?
Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,
the creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can
fathom. He gives strength to the weary,
and it increases the power of the weak.
Even used grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall.
But those who hope in the Lord, those who wait for the Lord,
will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like
eagles. They will run and not grow
weary. They will walk and not be faint.
This morning I want to ask you a question.
Told you I was going to ask you a question.
Do you like to wait? Most of us I would agree would
say no. Next question I want to ask you,
is this where is your hope? Is your hope in the things of
this world or your is your hope in the expectation of another
person? Is the hope and your expectation
of the job that you were going to get?
Is your hope and the expectation of when you graduate from school
and you get out and on your own and you think everything's just
going to be perfect? I don't have to answer to
parents anymore. I don't have to be in at a
certain time. I don't have to clean my room
and on and on and on it goes. I don't have to do homework.
I don't have to do anything that I don't want to do.
But then we also realized when we get out on our own that we do
have to pay our rent. We do have to pay our bills.
We do have to put gas in our own cars.
We do have to buy our own food. We do have to pay our own
insurance, insurance and on and on and on it goes.
It doesn't deliver on the promises.
All that we had put our hope in. They fall short.
I want to give you something this morning to hopefully that
when you leave here that your hope is in the one who never
fails, that your hope is in the one who delivers on all of his
promises. That your hope is in the one who
will be with you no matter what the circumstances are.
The one thing that we can wait for and might not be
disappointed in is our Heavenly Father.
Some of us are up in age and we're getting to the point of
where we're. I've heard people say I'm I'm
ready when the Lord calls me home.
We were on the way home from softball tournament yesterday
and we it was so hot out there and we were in the car and Jim
was sitting over here and in the front beside me.
We had the air just blowing is is all it could do.
Girls were sitting in the back and just said, I, I am so tired,
I am so hot. She said, I just want to tell
y'all if the Lord calls me home, don't be sad for me.
And she's, she's a young younger lady.
Some of us are getting to the age of where we think, Lord, I'm
just waiting for you to call me home.
Some of us are still really young.
My daughter just graduated from MC and she's a a nurse and she's
at UMC and she's going through her training and in the very
near future, she's going to be put out on her own without a
preceptor, without someone to kind of fall back on.
And not only is she going to be on her own, but she'll be
working nights and it's going to be hard.
And she went to school. I I know thinking this is going
to be great, it's going to be great.
And so far I will agree with her that it's been pretty good.
I hope that when she starts the night shift, she'll feel the
same way. If our hope is in the things of
this world, we're going to be disappointed.
If our hope is in what's going to happen next, that we are
going to change something or change someone or change
ourselves into what we hope to be and that everything's going
to be great from then on. I got bad news for you.
Not going to happen. But when our hope is in the
Lord, all of those things that I described that fall short, He
can make them where they need to be.
Let me give you a four example. Marriage is hard if our hope and
our trust is in the Lord. If our goal is to meet the needs
of our mate as God intends for us to.
Marriage can be a beautiful thing.
But when we focus on self and what I want and what I deserve
and what I need, marriage is not going to be what you expect it
to be. God tells us and gives us in His
word, how are we? How we are to live with our
mates. We are to sacrifice for one
another. We are to give of ourselves for
their betterment. He also says for us to do that
for our fellow man. We love the Lord our God with
all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
And the second greatest commandments to love our
neighbor as ourself. There's always something to be
said for us. Looking past my wants, my needs,
my desires. Sometimes things happen within
our lives and we think I'm never going to recover from this.
Things are never going to be good again.
If your hope is in this world, you're right.
If your hope is in the Lord, that heart can be healed.
That worry, that constant buzzing in your ears.
So we were at a ball game the other night and they had these
little flying ants and they were just buzzing non-stop, non-stop.
And I was like, I can't take it anymore.
Sometimes the world has things just buzzing around us and
saying you're not good enough, you're not right, you've messed
up, you're no good. You are not what you're supposed
to be. And we got to block out all that
noise. And we go to God's word and God
says to us, I love you. I gave my one and only son for
you. I desire a relationship with you
one-on-one, even though I am the Creator of the world.
God says I want to know you, I want to commune with you, and He
wants us to put our hope in Him first Peter chapter 5 and verse
6, chapter 5 and verse 6. This says this.
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He
may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him,
because He cares for you. There are times in our lives
when it seems to get to the point that nobody cares,
nobody's concerned, nobody wants to help, nobody wants to do
anything to help me. And God says to you and me, when
that time comes, and every time that it comes, he says, cast all
your cares, all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you
always. Not part of the time, not some
of the time, all the time. He offers us forgiveness from
anything and everything because we have all sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. There is not a one of us who
doesn't need Christ as Savior. God provided the way.
God also provides the way each and every day for us to make it
through this life here on this earth.
If we put our faith and our hope and our trust in Him and we wait
on the Lord. Psalm 27, verse 14, man, if we
could come in and we could say, you know what one of my favorite
verses in all of God's word is, is Psalm 2714.
Wait on the Lord. We'd be an amazing group of
people. We would be the most loving,
compassionate congregation that this world has ever known if we
put our hope and our trust in the Lord.
And we're willing to wait on Him.
Not on what I want, not on what you want, but on what He wants
for us. Our hymn of invitation this
morning is going to be in His time.
And as we sing this hymn, I simply want to ask, I want you
to ask yourself this question, Lord, am I, am I waiting?
Am I, am I waiting for you? Am I listening to you?
Have I put my faith and my hope and my trust in you?
Or I have I put it in things of this world?
And Jesus answers us through this hymn.
In his time, God will make everything the way it should be.
Let's stand 5/22 5. Heavenly Father, we do give.
Thanks Lord, that you are the perfect God.
And Lord, I don't know what's going on in anyone's life this
morning, but I simply pray that each of us.
Will call upon your. Name and Lord that we will wait
for you to answer us and we can cast all our cares and all our
anxiety upon you and you desire for us to do that and you will
answer because You love us and you care for us.
But we begin this week today, reminded of your love and your
grace and your mercy and that you never fail.
It's in Jesus name I pray, Amen.