Praise our creator and sustainer
Sermon date: 14^th June
Reading: Psalm 65
 
Ice Breaker
What positive things have you completed/achieved/learned during lock-down?
What have you lost/missed during lock-down?
 
Study
Please read Psalm 65 
I always think of harvest when I hear v9, as it is often sung by choirs at harvest services.
This psalm gives us two different images of God.
 
Image 1
Verses1-4 seems to me to be about the imminence of God, his closeness, his intimacy. It's about relationship and communication. He answers prayer; he receives us even as sinners, and forgives our sins. He is the God we know and worship as best we understand. And vows are made to him, vows associated with those prayers.  Perhaps these are vows/promises made to God as a sort of bargain in the context of prayer for something very important.
 
Q.1 what, in recent weeks, has been your experience of: Prayer; vows/promises made to God; answers to prayer? In your experience, have both sides, the prayer and the vow, been honoured?
 
In verse 4 ‘Happy are those you choose and bring near’.
Q.2 are you aware of being 'chosen' by God?  Or is this some form of elitism?
How does this idea make you feel?
Do you feel God is currently 'choosing', or maybe inviting, you to do something specific for him?
 
Image 2
From verse 5 onwards, the image is of a powerful, almighty, transcendent God. It describes the awe and majesty in creation, and of the Creator: mountains girded with might; roaring seas which only God can silence; the beauty of sunrise and sunset etc. And from verse 9 onwards the psalm describes God's sustaining of that magnificent creation. [Hence this is used at harvest times]. Nature's annual renewal and the response in praise and gratitude.
 
Q.3 how has the beauty of creation struck you afresh in recent weeks? 
Q.4 perhaps you have appreciated it more since being unable to access much of it. Have you wondered whether the Corona virus, Coved-19, is part of that creation? If so, are such viruses like 'rogues', out of control and with evil results? How do we understand the destructive elements in nature? Are we trying to destroy them or control them?
Q.5 take a moment to reflect on whether we humans are in that 'rogue' category, too.  How does God deal with us?
Action
Q.6 how are we going to work with God to bring about restoration, so that we, and creation, will be able to 'shout and sing together for joy' [v13]?
 
Suggestions
Environmental issues.
Getting involved with local projects to protect woodland etc.
Encouraging people, [maybe especially elderly people], that it's safe to come out into the sunshine and fresh air again, AFTER we've been given the go-ahead.
Taking a renewed interest in wildlife and the countryside.
Renewing and reinvigorating our relationships within the Body of Christ, so that we meet together with joy, not apprehension, when we are finally freed from isolation.
Asking for God-given confidence to relate to him and learn what he might have chosen us for.
 
Prayer
Please close your time together praying about some of the issues raised in your group and when you are ready to end the group, share The Grace.
E. Christine Bailey