Healing Service, 15/9/2021 - St Andrew's Cathedral Sydney

the psalmist cried out to the lord words that you might feel yourself tonight he said i am a stranger on earth my soul's consumed with longing i'm laid low in the dust my soul is weary with sorrow the arrogant have smeared me with lies one of the wonderful acts aspects of christianity is that our pain and our fears are given voice in the scriptures unlike other philosophies or worldviews or religions as christians we don't need to hide our feelings our anxiety our disappointments and our fears and the lord promises to us unfailing love and salvation is verse 41 of psalm 119 the psalm we read those verses earlier from goes on to say may your unfailing love come to me lord your salvation according to your promise good evening friends as we gather in this way at san andreas cathedral for this service of prayer wherever you are it's wonderful that you can be with us in this way and we hope praying with us i do hope you'll pray with me this evening and when i mean with me i literally mean me for reasons i am the only person here leading the service tonight and i hope that you'll be encouraged as we open up the scriptures and we respond to god's promise in prayer tonight we're looking at psalm 103 and our first hymn that we're going to have played is based on that psalm quite literally on the very words of the psalm and interestingly it's a hymn that was chosen by queen elizabeth for her own marriage service because i think it speaks to the wonderful character of god i do hope you'll be singing along wherever you might be watching and praying along with us now [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] see is [Music] is [Music] [Music] bless us [Music] [Music] [Music] time is [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] psalm 103 praise my soul the king of heaven it was wonderful to hear the choir sing for us wasn't it those wonderful words good evening again chris allen is my name i'm one of the ministers here at san andreas cathedral and it is tremendous to have you with us watching on youtube i do hope that you'll be praying along with me uh the purpose of why we are gathering uh tonight and we are filming this service is to equip you and to encourage you to remind you of god's good promises and importantly for us to gather together in this way around god's word but also to bring to god our needs and to pray as i mentioned just a moment ago because of a couple of external events you have the privilege of having just me tonight in the cathedral and to that end i want to remind you that if you have up if you would like to send us any prayer requests we would be delighted to be able to receive those and then to disperse those to our prayer team and you can do that by going to our website at sydneyheal.com sydneyhill.com i'm continuing on my theme from psalm 119 with two more parts of scripture from the earlier two that i read to you psalm 119 this one from verse 105 your word is a lamp for my feet a light on my path i have suffered much preserve my life lord according to your word and this verse you might like to reflect on in the week ahead where the psalmist called out i call with all my heart answer me lord and i will obey your decrees i call out to you save me and i'll keep your statutes hear my voice in accordance with your love preserve my life lord according to your laws let us pray together now keep your church lord god with your continual mercy and because of the frailty of all of us without you cannot but fall keep us always under your protection and lead us to everything that makes for your salvation through jesus christ our lord amen keep us good lord under the shadow of your mercy in this time of uncertainty and distress sustain and support those who are anxious and fearful and lift up all who are brought low that we may rejoice in your comfort knowing that nothing can separate us from your love in christ jesus our lord amen oh god the protector of all who trust in you without whom nothing is strong nothing is holy increase and multiply upon us your mercy that with you as our ruler and guide we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not our hold on things eternal through jesus christ our lord amen now friends through the wonders of technology we are going to have the bible reading psalm 103 psalm 103 brought to us by ross cobb the cathedral organist and i do hope you'll have your bibles out psalm 103 assam that i know that you will want to use this week for your own quiet time our reading this evening is psalm 103. praise the lord my soul all my inmost being praise his holy name praise the lord my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgives all of your sins and heals all your diseases who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles the lord works righteousness and justice for all of the oppressed he made known his ways to moses his deeds to the people of israel the lord is compassionate and gracious slow to anger abounding in love he will not always accuse nor will he harbor his anger forever he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities for as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is his love for those who fear him as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us as a father has compassion on his children so the lord has compassion on those who fear him for he knows how we are formed he remembers that we are dust the life of mortals is like grass they flourish like the flower of the field blows over it and it is gone and its place remembers it no more but from everlasting to everlasting the lord's love is with those who fear him and his righteousness with their children's children and with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts the lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all praise the lord you his angels you mighty ones who do his bidding who obey his word praise the lord all his heavenly hosts you his servants who do his will praise the lord all his works everywhere in his dominion praise the lord my soul this is the word of the lord thanks be to god no doubt if you know me and i'm aware that because of youtube many of you don't know me very well but those who do will know that i have a great love for sport and that i follow a number of teams across a number of different sporting codes the year 2021 has not been kind to me i must say that 2020 hasn't been very good either for some reason all of my teams have chosen the exact same time to all have generational depth lows across the board every single one of my teams my footy team my baseball team my soccer team they've all been disastrous in fact it feels as though i can't remember what it's like to win it's gotten so bad this year that i've spent a little bit of time on youtube looking back to previous years just to see what it's like to have my team win to watch those old tapes so to speak and it was actually during one of those videos i was thinking to myself i'm so thankful that god is not like my sporting teams now i know that's a bit of a stretch with the illustration but i'm trying to make a point while my sporting teams and wildlife my relationships different things that are going on for me might go up and they might go down god is always constantly good god is always constantly good we might have good years and bad years and this is pretty much a bad year maybe as bad as it gets some of us have up days and sad days but god is dependable and consistent unfailing and reliable someone whom we may always rely upon and i think that's one of the very main points of this psalm psalm 103 notice the number of times the word praise is in the sentence certainly the beginning and the end of the psalm it's filled with the psalmist we think david calling out praise the lord because god is good all of the time look with me at the first two verses of psalm 103 begins praise the lord my soul all my inmost being praise his holy name praise the lord my soul and forget not all his benefits forget not all his benefits it says they're in verse two another translation says it this way don't forget how kind god is we've been in lockdown now for some time here in sydney not as long as other parts of the world not as long as melbourne and victoria but we've been in lockdown for a while and some of us haven't seen family in a long time some of us haven't seen friends haven't been to the office haven't been to school or university haven't been to church in bible study haven't been to the cathedral here a friend said to me you know what chris i just can't remember good times i know i'm being a bit silly but it just seems so long ago and while yours and mine our lives are filled with inconsistency our own behavior can be erratic our world and our lives living in flux our health unpredictable and uncertain our relationships fickle god is unchanging dependable reliable and importantly for us knowable through his word notice we're called not to forget in verse two another translation has never forget like a pilot holding onto a bearing where to remember always who god is and central to who god is and this is good news friends god forgives god forgives us and before we read the verse verses two and three let me tell you why this is important it's important for us to remember because it because god forgives we ought to be confident and have assurance that when we come to god in our moment of need our day of trial when we fear tomorrow when we're anxious about our health and our bodies and our future there is always one whom we can turn to where our relationship is perfect and that is god because he forgives and has forgiven us through jesus but friends don't just take my word for it have a look at the word here the scriptures verse 2 praise the lord my soul forget not all his benefits who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases forgives all your sins those words that verse it just rolls off the tongue doesn't it it's so easy so easy to say yet so hard to do forgive all sins just for a moment and be honest here think yourself think about those who've hurt you think about that family member or that friend that you're upset with that person that you resent what they said that person who has stolen from you gossiped about you betrayed you taken advantage of you let you down time and time again now imagine with that person who has done those things those injustices imagine letting them all go releasing them from their guilt absolving them completely that's what god does for you and i that's what god has done for me absolved everything completely he forgives us completely that's what we're told over and over again through the scriptures and what that and from that forgiveness we're told comes importantly in verse 3 healing healing of our diseases you know when david wrote this when david wrote this and that's who we think wrote this psalm he knew what it was like to be physically healed and spiritually healed physically healed and spiritually healed in fact if you go back in the psalms there's a great psalm psalm 32 we've looked at it here at the healing service a couple of times david actually spoke about how being forgiven by god resulted in physical healing that one resulted in the other he spoke about how his spiritual guilt his own sins his own behavior in his past had led him to groaning his bones wasting away his strength being sapped but god brought forgiveness and healing and david's account to you and i hear through the word through this psalm is that god's forgiveness brings healing a little further into this psalm david will go on to say in verses 8 9. this is a great verse you want to look this up the lord is compassionate and gracious slow to anger abounding in love he will not accuse nor will he harbour his anger forever isn't that a great verse verse 9 the writer of the hymn that was sung right at the very start praise my soul the king of heaven he based that hymn of this psalm and he paraphrased verses 8 9 2 my favorite been in the hymn slow to chide and swift to bless with me it's the other way around quick to chide slow to bless but with god he is slow to rebuke slow to pull us up the point in the psalm is god actively isn't looking to trip you and i up he's not looking to pin something on us not looking to point out your errors and your mistakes unlike everybody else it seems in our lives he's not constantly bringing up the bad things you've done you know christianity gets a bad rap everyone's always told it's always about sin well now christianity is not about sin it's about removing sin to deny that sin exists that evil is in the world well that's just crazy that would just be lying but what we have in scripture what god has done is to get rid of sin all that evil and all that wickedness notice though as well it's important to recognize this god doesn't just sweep things under the carpet he doesn't pretend that sin is not out there sometimes we will need to be rebuked but you know some of us know what it's like to be on the receiving end of someone with a long memory don't we someone who remembers what we did last week remember when you said this remember when you did that five years ago 20 years ago 30 years ago sometimes it's not even another person sometimes it's us reminded and boy oh boy sometimes we let ourselves know over and over again we hold on to those resentments from our children our parents from our friends people at work but notice god lets go god forgives he will not always accuse nor will he harbor keep hold of possess remind us daily verse 9 goes on to say he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities for as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is his love for those who fear him perhaps there aren't any more beautiful words in all of scripture in verses 9 10 and 11. for those of us who need forgiveness who know we need forgiveness and here's what's so beautiful god lets go of our sin he releases us from it and you might ask the question how how is that possible really sin and betrayal hurts there has to be justice we can't just sweep things under the carpet and if you're wondering that if that's your question then you're exactly right because it just doesn't hang out there in the ether but rather god deals with it there is a solution and it's something that only god could do and it's in the cross of christ where injustice and evil they aren't swept under the carpet but they are brought out into the full exposure of light and they are dealt with and paid for in full as jesus pays the penalty of sin for everyone for you and i and all who would trust in him you know when david wrote these words a full thousand years before christ david could only speak of god's forgiveness based on god's promises and that was enough for him to hold on to god's promises and his own experience so my question for you wherever you're watching wherever you're reading this word today how much more than david can you own this scripture this word and this truth and this promise those of us who've seen god's love displayed in jesus ought we not hold onto god and who he's promised and like the psalmist here praise the lord my soul my inmost being and most importantly tonight those of us who are weary and tired and worried and anxious and fearful how much more would we call out to god and ask him for healing oh [Music] lord i come to you let my heart be changed renewed flowing from the grace that i found in you [Music] lord i've come to know the weaknesses i see [Music] let your love surround [Music] throw me to your side [Music] with you your spirit leads me on [Music] let me see your face to face the knowledge of your love as you live in me [Music] lord renew my will mind in my life in leaving every day [Music] [Music] me [Music] throw me to your side and [Music] your spirit leads is [Music] throw me to your side [Music] i'll rise up is [Music] leaves [Music] [Music] i have a strong and perfectly a great high priest whose love is [Music] my name is [Music] so when satan attempts me to despair [Music] is [Music] [Applause] righteousness [Music] [Music] is [Music] christ my savior [Music] [Music] is [Music] my god [Music] it's so wonderful to be able to have had uh ross and richard and dorothy to be able to record that for us we're going to pray now for those who are on the healing ministry's prayer list and um again i want to remind you that if you would like to be on this list to be prayed for then you do that via our website which is the easiest way sydneyhill.com and on the front page there is a tab there which you click on that is entitled pray for me and it will send a message to a couple of people on our prayer team and we update this list fairly regularly every couple of days so that um it's always up to date friends i'm going to ask that you might like to bow your head and pray with me you won't know these people by name but the lord knows them and we bring them before the lord asking him to do for them what they are unable to do for themselves we begin we group the names in different sections on this list and we always begin in praise by giving thanks for the way in which god has responded uh to many people and almost always the list of praise points is the longest list in this prayer list let's bow our heads and bring these names to the lord we pray in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit we praise you our heavenly father along with the heavenly angels and hosts who are continually praising your name and we thank you for the good news we've received from helen that our health has stabilized we thank you for the good news we've received from daniel's mother that she has recovered from covert we pray lord that it was an encouraging day for daniel's family as they had a funeral today and the day went well and they were able to celebrate the life of daniel's father father we give you thanks for zilla that she has noticed a decrease in pain for stephen that he's had excellent results from his cancer surgery for hazel that she has found a helper to be around the house and to do some housework and to visit regularly we also praise you for graham's good news that he's recovered slowly from the stroke we give you thanks for jennifer and giving you thanks and praise lord that um there has been an opportunity to study and write and we also pray that she would be able to receive a visit from john soon we give you thanks for peter and that he has recovered from covert for karen and ian who've successfully moved we praise you for good news from gordon really tremendous news there and belinda but we pray lord that you continue to bring healing to um belinda and but we do give you thanks that there's no treatment required at the moment we pray for hannah also giving thanks lord that there has been good news there we praise you for the good news from our former music director and student minister zach that he and jessica have had a baby girl little zoe and we're just so thankful for that news we give you thanks for the news from michelle and matthew chanteln gabb's mum also from wence and martin he was able to see a neurologist and there's some good news there give you thanks for little zachary uh born to jen and sam and we pray your blessing upon will and toby and alex and of course zachary lord that you would grow that family father console them while they're here in sydney and so far away from their family in england and that their family aren't able to see little zachary but um we do pray your blessing upon that family father we ask that you would extend your accustomed goodness and heal those known to us who are suffering with cancer we bring before you xavier who's 14 years of age and really a very difficult situation we pray for his parents glenn and catherine praying your blessing upon them in um as they have very difficult decisions to make please give wisdom to doctors and nurses who are treating them we also give you um praise lord that they have a good church who are working around them and supporting them we pray for robin and for the removal of cancer in her leg we pray for peter where test results are still coming in and we pray for the therapy the radiation therapy he's going to receive very soon and we pray that there wouldn't be pain and that the procedure would be successful pray for robert lord who is in treatment for leukemia and responding well we pray for complete healing for him father we pray for arthur who has had a tough diagnosis recently we pray for his family who haven't been able to visit him we pray lord that you would open the way for ben and for molly to be able to visit him we pray for shani and her diagnosis we pray for healing and we pray lord that you would take away the headaches that she has pray for little baby imagine lord that she recovers from cancer and for faith we also pray for tony lord for recovery and healing for him and god's blessing on his wife we pray for healing for paul as he recovers from lung cancer and we pray for george and matthew and we continue to uphold juliet praying for the treatment to be successful with leukemia we also bring before you the many uh who are asking for healing please look graciously and bless jan and basil and the granddaughter brooke we pray for barbara and for peter for healing for them we pray for carrie asking lord for healing of the infection in her bone we also pray for jonathan and paul pray for healing for jonathan and we pray for steady work for paul asking that you would bless them we pray your blessing upon sue and dean for their needs and sues mother i pray for elisha asking for blessing for her for ken and ursula for roland for healing from his back pain also pray for libby recovering from a stroke for tanya and for carl pray for susan and for james diagnosed with cancer pray for healing for alistair we pray for elizabeth battling headaches we ask for blessing and for healing for felicity's mother it was in icu and we pray for a complete recovery for her we ask your blessing and healing for harvey for jay for jamelle and for jonathan for wendy we pray for relief for ian particularly lord uh healing in his shoulder we pray for a miraculous healing for elizabeth and for john for iris for oleg and rima father we pray for our dear friend graham and mina as they lead the uh the hospital in nepal at the the lal god leprosy hospital father we pray for all at that hospital for healing for them for protection from uh covered father we pray for graham and femina that you would give to them wisdom in knowing how they best deal with the issues that are related to really what is quite a chronic situation there we pray for violet and for anusha and for malaya for healing for all these people father please bring spiritual counsel strength and particular blessing and help to george and who is his partner is pregnant father we pray for protection for that child we also pray for anna and for james as anna is pregnant as well and for sarah and for emily all these people lord at this time of covert uh are carrying a child we pray that uh you would bless them lord um with peace um father as they worry about covert and the effects that any treatment might have and any of our covert might have on their unborn child father we pray that not only would the child be protected but all of these children would grow to be healthy and strong and that you would bless all of these parents father we pray for eleanor and for john and for yolanda for katie and jack and trevor all lord who have asked for very specific things we bring all these to you lord trusting in your goodness for them finally lord we pray for matthew we thank you that he has recovered from the burns that he suffered and we pray that you'll continue to bring complete healing for him also for christian for katie's neighbor and for holly that she would receive the help that she needs we pray for daniel and for just some of the things he's struggling with and for mark father we pray uh your blessing on all who are grieving at this time and there are a number of people who are known to us we ask you would ask for your strength and for your wonderful love lord to just envelop and uh remind these people of your goodness we commend your mercy everybody who is in this service who is praying along now for people who are really sitting on some serious issues and feel there is nowhere else to turn we pray lord please that you would bring healing to them we commend your mercy tonight all who are awake particularly in the city of sydney we pray for doctors and nurses who are attending the sick we thank you for those who work and serve in our hospitals our police and ambulance and fire services who guard us often with complaints and people who don't understand the immense pressures they're under we pray for those who toss and turn tonight in anxiousness restlessness and pain those this evening who only watch and wait let them know and welcome your sustaining love and use them in your great design for all our good and so we pray together in the words that jesus taught us we are confident to pray our father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us today our daily bread and 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 forever amen friends um before we finish and i have a couple of additional prayers to pray tonight i want to remind you that live in sydney time from six o'clock so beginning at about seven o'clock we have a live prayer time on zoom it's a time that i lead and it's really quite a simple time people just sort of log on and i'll ask people how can i pray for you it's not a long time of chatting it's nothing like that it's simply you can jump on there and ask to be prayed for and either myself or somebody else will pray for you very briefly but we can pray for your needs in that way the location for the address is on our web page and if there is ever any confusion i think a couple of weeks ago the email that i sent out may have had a different address to what was on the web page i sincerely apologize i've got so many uh zoom addresses floating around i've obviously copied the wrong one onto the webpage but the the most up-to-date one is always on our web page sydneyhill.com friends um it would be remiss of me uh not to mention the encouragement of our treasurer which is that um we still have uh financial obligations and if you're able to support this ministry financially as a partner there is a link on the youtube page that takes you to paypal and on our webpage there are lots of ways in which you can give most obviously through our bank account and if you're able to support us and partner us that would be uh appreciated and valued friends um before i go i have been praying myself in my own private time through this prayer book called the valley of vision which is a collection of prayers from a long time ago they are prayers of the puritans and tonight to end our service i'm going to pray one of those prayers you can get this online there are lots of little books like this but this is one that i have found to be uh really helpful i know that some of you actually own this and so if you have it you might like it's the prayer i'm about to pray is on page 388 it is a prayerful before sleep so i hope you find this encouraging i believe the words are going to be on the screen of this prayer so let us pray together now god of all sovereignty your greatness is unsearchable your name most excellent your glory above the heavens ten thousand minister to you ten thousand times ten thousand stand before you in your awful presence we are less than nothing we do not approach you because we deserve your notice for we're sinners our necessities compel us your promises encourage us our broken hearts incite us the mediator draws us your acceptance of others moves us look upon us and be merciful to us convince us of the penalty and pollution of sin give us faith to believe and believing to have life in jesus may we enter into his sufferings let us see your hand in the instruments of our grief rejoicing that they are from your ever your overruling providence let not our weeping hinder sowing nor sorrow duty while living in a world of change let us seek the abiding city be with us to our journey's end that we may glorify in you in death as in life we bless you for preservation supplies mercies and to you keeper of souls we commit all we are and have may no evil befall us no sickness come near us no horror disturb us may our conscience be clear our hearts pure our sleep sweet and with the innumerable company who neither sleep nor rest we join in ascribing honor and blessing glory and power to the lamb upon the throne forever and ever amen the lord bless us and watch over us the lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious to us and the lord look kindly upon us and give each of us peace tonight amen you

Channel: St Andrew's Cathedral Sydney

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Length: 51min 38sec (3098 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021