October 11

Psalm 104:27-34

 

Transcript

(Transcribed by TurboScribe)

Congratulations, George and Gwen, 40 years. Congratulations. And then the guy who married off his daughter.

Congratulations, Kevin and Sue. The daughter got married on October the 3rd, on my wife's birthday.

So I can always remember that. I can remind the young man of his anniversaries. Congratulations.

You look very dapper walking her down the aisle I'm telling you. You should see the tie he's wearing today. You should ask him.

When he flips it up, his daughter gave that to him on the wedding. There's a picture of the two of them on there. That's pretty cool.

That is pretty cool. Happy Thanksgiving. Father, thank you for the gift of your word.

Holy Spirit, thank you for your holy presence. Jesus, all we want to see is you, Lord Jesus. Did you find that slide, Ted? No? Oh, Oleana, I made you a slide for today, but that is perfectly fine.

I will keep my day job. I'm better at that, but I want to start with a little story. So this man throughout his life was greedy and selfish and horrid and didn't care about others.

It was just all about himself. He died. His twin brother came to the minister.

He said, I will make a substantial donation to the church. If at my brother's funeral, you say that he was a really good man. Minister said, fine, make the donation.

Guy makes the donation. At the funeral, minister gets up. He says, folks, I have to be honest.

This man who died was selfish and greedy. He was a terrible person, but compared to his brother, he was a saint. So I'll keep my day job.

The reason I start like this is because on this day of Thanksgiving, I want to talk about how we live our lives. Do we live them with open hands that give, that love, that serve, that are open to others? Or do we live with clenched fists that hold and are selfish and don't care? How do we live our lives? That's the question for this whole morning. Because the good news on this is the God that we serve is a God with open hands.

God who created this beautiful place in which we live. The God who in his grace and with his open hands looked at us and said, you need more than you can do right now. And he gave the most precious gift when he gave his son Jesus into this world.

The God who knows that we can't do this. Our hands are like this. They need to be unclenched.

And the one who does that is called his Holy Spirit. And he poured out that gift into our lives so that we may learn all about open hands and hands that love and hands that give and hands that can bless. We see that right from the beginning, right in that first story.

God creates this beautiful earth. And when God looks at this beautiful earth, he says, well, I got these little earth people. And with his grace, those hands open, and he says to earth people, it's yours.

It's all yours. Go and enjoy that. I made it for you.

But as I made it for you, will you please open your hands and bless this place? And will you open your hands and will you bless one another? Listen to how the psalmist says this. It's such a beautiful psalm. Psalm 104.

I'm going to read from verse 27 to verse 34. All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. And when you give it to them, they gather it up.

And underline this one. When you open your hands, they are satisfied with good things. However, when you hide your face, they are terrified.

When you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. But when you send your spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the ground. Oh, may the glory of the Lord endure forever.

May the Lord rejoice in his works. He who looks at the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord all my life.

I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him as I rejoice in the Lord. And then the last verse, and I want to say that to you in the Hebrew because it is so beautiful.

Can you say it in Hebrew? Hallelujah. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Hallelujah.

Praise the God of open hands. Thanks, Ted. Remember the Hebrew you read from the right to the left, right? I hope you didn't try and read it the other way.

You can read Hebrew, all of you. After 24 years, I've taught you that. Come on.

Your Greek is a little better, but bless the Lord, oh my soul. Praise him for he's a God with open hands. And in that open hand moment, God sends his son Jesus into this world.

And can we walk with Jesus for a moment and in his life for a moment through the gospels? Think about how Jesus lived. Did his hands look like this? Or did his hands look like this? There's one day, even the disciples are walking. Mothers come, they bring their little kids and they ask him, you bless them.

The disciples do this immediately. Leave him alone. He's busy.

He doesn't have time for these little kids. He's got other work to do. What does Jesus do? Bring those little ones.

Come on, bring them. I would love to bless them. May we be like those little ones because he said in that moment, you should be like them because little ones don't live like this.

Our little ones always live like this. Hey mom, hey dad, you've got a little something to give me. I need a little something because open hands are not just hands that give.

Sometimes they're also hands that need to go out like this, like Oliver Twist. Please, sir, I need a little more to stand before the God that gives with open hands the good things. And when they stand, those hands just open wider and wider.

They sit on a mountain and they listen and they're tired and it's been a long day and Jesus says to the disciples, give them something to eat. They say, we don't have money. We don't have food.

Send them away so they can do it themselves. A little boy says, I have a few loaves and a couple of fish. And those open hands feed thousands and thousands because as he placed those little gifts in the hands of the God with open hands, those gifts multiply and bless and give more than he could ever.

A blind man sits next to the road and he shouts, Son of David, can you just kind of think of me? And the Son of David stops. He has a moment to touch eyes that are closed and they open. This is the God of open hands.

The sick and the needy and the hopeless and the helpless. And when they stand, all he does, he opens his hands. When he ascends into heaven, he doesn't stop.

It's in that moment that he blesses us and he pours out his spirit as the greatest gift that we could ever have. Because that spirit is the one that takes my hands from this and changes it from me to one who lives for him. From creation, sending his Son.

And in that moment, when Jesus lies on that cross being those hands are open, and those open hands there on that cross have a moment to bless again when he says, Father, forgive me. He doesn't say, Father, let's put them up because look what they've done to me. But he doesn't just give.

Open hands are also hands that need to receive. You cannot receive like this. They just fall out.

They go nowhere. To be able to receive the gifts that God gives and that other people give in my life, they have to open up. This is the only way in which I can receive the gifts that come to me.

And I know and I pray for you, for each one of us that our hands can open. And when I speak of open hands, can I just speak of our lives too? Because sometimes it's so hard for so many of us to do this because of hurt, because of pain, because of people, because of things that have happened in our lives. And we kind of want to protect and keep.

May I pray with you. May I beg with you this morning. Will you allow the God of open hands to open your hands so you may receive, the psalm says it so beautifully, all of the good things that God gives graciously and freely.

The moment I learn to receive, my life changes. Because when I receive that Spirit, my life is never the same again. When I receive Him as my Saviour, my life is never the same again.

But if I close it up, there is no way to come in. That door needs to... Will you receive? Open your hands with confidence. Here I am.

Let it go. Let it go. Let go of every burden.

Let go of the things that scare you. Let go of the loss or even the victory, the brokenness, the hurt. Will you let them go? Because as we let them go, God can fill our lives and our hands with all of His goodness.

When we hoard those other things, we can't. There's no place for them. Give it to God.

And then we wait in expectation. He gives freely. Let me end.

Open hands are also hands that learn how to love others freely. Let me try and explain this. And this is the worst, best example that I have.

Let me take my own life. When Elsie and I got married 44 years ago. So I give you four years, George.

I know her 48 and she still married me. How does that happen? 44 years ago when Elsie and I got married, the first couple of years were really, really difficult. Not because of Elsie, because of me.

I'm an only child. Kind of a different world. You kind of live a little bit like this.

Because it's always you. There's no one else. And this is how I lived.

And I tried to make Elsie into what I wanted Elsie to be. I tried to create her in the little image of Aubrey so that she could be a little Aubrey and do a little Aubrey thing. And that just didn't work.

And it was hard. And it was difficult. Thank God that she resisted me.

And listen to the Lord. The Lord had to teach me how to let go. How to open my hands and allow this amazing woman to be who God wanted her.

To let God make her into the image that God wanted her in this world. Wow. And in the moment that happened, I changed and she changed and everything changed.

To live with open hands means to love freely and to give freely so that that love may grow in its own way. Because isn't that how God loves? With open hands. Maybe we live like that toward each other.

Because sometimes this is what we do, right? So I've learned to pray differently. Every day when I pray, I pray for all of you. But when I pray for my loved ones, I go sit there and Elsie's always first on my list.

Thank you, Lord, for Elsie. May I place her in your hands. For what you will do for her today.

Here's that crazy boy Jacques that I love so much. Can I put him in your hands? Here's my Stephen Jones. Take care of him, Lord.

He's all yours. And Elrie. Thank you for her.

There she is. Thank you for your open hands. Can I give her those three little grandkids that you blessed me? Thank you for Grayson and Duke and for Aiden.

Help us to live with open hands for them, Lord. Can we place them in your open hands? Because they are safe. They will be taken care of.

So let's go back to the beginning. How do you live? With hands that bless and worship. I looked at you, Dave, this morning.

We can't worship like this. Dave was standing in the back there and we were singing and his hand was all way up like that. And he was worshipping because that's how we worship, with open hands.

Can I place you in God's hand today? May I pray to the God of open hands that he will open your hands to bless and to love. Thank you. God of open hands, thank you that we may place ourselves in your hand and receive all of those amazing gifts that run after us every day.

God of open hands, thank you that we could open our hands and start praying for the new minister that you are going to bring into this church. And you, the Lord of open hands, have provided because that is what you do, Lord. Again, we pray for Carl and for the congregation that he will leave if this is where you are bringing him.

We pray that as he stands and brings your message on the 25th, that your hands will be the hands that we will see as he brings you. Thank you for this place where we may open our hands for others and give freely. Not just of the gifts that we have, but of our lives and of our love and of our care and of our compassion.

Thank you, Lord, that you give good things to your children even when they sleep, says the psalmist. We give thanks with a grateful heart. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.