Praise God with the Lyre and the Trumpet

Praise God with the Lyre and the Trumpet 

Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-5 and Psalm 98:1-9 

On Sunday September 18, we celebrated our Sunday School. We helped the congregation understand that today we are not using a classroom model, but instead making their time a form of worship, being with God and attentive to God. The kids did their worship upstairs, and we blended our worship experience with the experience the kids have each week. 

On Sundays when the kids go downstairs for Sunday School, we have already started the worship time upstairs. After the kids leave, we read the scriptures, just like we did now. The kids have a time where a Bible story is told in story form, but it is the same Bible that we are talking about. 

Upstairs, I talk to the church, like I am doing now. I try to point out some interesting things about the scriptures, and suggest how we might live in ways that make that message come alive in the places we go. 

Downstairs, the kids have a chance to wonder about the story, and wonder about God. Their work time, with crafts or pictures, is a time to think about the God that the story reveals. Their work is a meditation on the story - a form of worship.

The first passage said that there is a time for everything. We know that planting corn happens in the Spring, and harvesting corn takes place in the Fall. There are different seasons for these things to happen. It is just like we wear sandals and shorts in the summer, and hats and winter coats in the winter. 

Our whole lives are like that. We are blessed to have a time when we are kids. Then it seems like we suddenly get to be parents. Then before you know it, we are grandparents. As a matter of fact, I have a brand new grandson son. He was born on Tuesday and his name is Felix. 

That scripture also said there is a time to dance. We do not often dance in worship in this church, but we could. We might do some dance moves today as we do our sing along. 

God loves us all of the time. It makes God happy when we do good things for others, and it makes God happy when we sing and dance for God. 

In the Psalm it said to sing praises to God with the lyre. The lyre is an ancient instrument that was a kind of guitar. The psalm also said to praise God with the trumpet and sounds of the horn. Mr. Dell brought his trumpet this morning and he will play along with one of our songs. 

We are going to make a joyful noise, telling God and each other how good it is to love God, and to have God love us. 

Sometimes in our prayers, we are asking God to make something better, take away a sickness, help someone we love find a good job, bring an end to war. 

I have a special cross that a man made for me. It is strong and smooth. He made it for people who do not feel like they can pray to God with words, especially when they are sad or worried. So he made this so they can just handle it and think about God and their troubles. 

So we can pray in lots of ways. God loves when we think about God. The Bible stories give us lots of different ways to think about God. All of our songs are different ways to think about God. When we spend time together, with God on our minds, the spirit of God is here among us and makes it possible for great things to happen. 

Now we are going to sing. I hope you will look around the room as we are singing. You will see that most of these people know most of these songs. They may not have sung them for a long time, but they stick with you. I think we will all be humming some of these tunes all through the week. What a great way to add to our prayers, humming little songs, all week long.