Sermons

Ian led our service today with Roy, Mark, Amanda and Jonny assisting with worship. Matty shared some thoughts with us in relation to managing money. The phrase that best captures what he was sharing was to not buy things you don’t need with money you don’t have. He reminded people of the need to give back to Lord a percentage of what you earn, drawing principle that you reap what you sow. If you sow plenty you will have a rich harvest.

It was our privilege today to be joined by Timmy and Kassidy who shared an insight into the work of Youth With A Mission. He highlighted their work across the world and the ways in which both the founder of YWAM and the founder of WYAM Perth heard God’s voice on the way forward. Be warned, God will even speak to you in the shower.

 

 

Timmy shared with us his thoughts on the 3 keys to following Jesus

• Hearing God’s Voice
• Obedience
• Fear of the Lord

 

In thinking about Hearing God’s Voice it is important to recognise and remember that God speaks in many ways. The Bible shows God using a burning bush to talk to Moses, talking through prophets like Isaiah and Jerimiah, through the still small voice speaking to David in the cave or through his angels like Gabriel speaking to Mary and Joseph. Timmy posed us the question as to how we can hear His voice. Reading the Bible and setting aside time dedicated to Him that allows Him to speak. Timmy stated that God’s voice should be familiar to us, as familiar as our own parents, our family or friends who, when calling us, don’t need to introduce themselves.

Timmy moved on to speak about Obedience, he asked us all if we were aligning ourselves with God and with the things we should be obeying. He highlighted that Jesus was obedient to his father and he only spoke of the the things the Father commanded him to. This is highlighted in John 12 v49.

Obedience builds trust. It involves obeying the law, obeying parents and obeying the Lord. Failure to do all of these brings consequences. Disobeying parents brings a grounding or a loss of trust and already earned freedoms. Disobeying the law brings fines and other penalties. How much worse will the penalty be for disobeying the Lord.Finally Timmy also talked about Fearing the Lord. In proverbs the Fear of the Lord is well spelt out.

• 1:7 set out the beginning of knowledge,
• 2:1-6 we understand the fear of the Lord when we seek knowledge
• 8:13 sees the hatred of evil,
• 9:10 the beginning of wisdom,
• 14:27 the fountain of life and
• 16:6 the turning away from evil.

Timmy also explained what this should mean about Fearing of the Lord. It means we should revere and honour God, trust in Him, seek Him out, see in Him the very beginning of wisdom and knowledge and hate evil and sin.

Day to day it is hard to follow Jesus, not because he is difficult to understand but because the world we live in doesn’t want us following Him. The world follows social media, money, each other and whoever is the hero of the day or hour.

Sadly people don’t seem to realise Jesus was a revolutionary, a reactionary, he went against the grain against the established norms of the society he lived in. We’re going to need to do the same.

To follow Jesus we need to:

• Listen to God.
• Spend time with God,
• Be obedient to God and
• Fear the Lord.

This is not about attending church on a Sunday. This is about living like Jesus. It’s a relationship. It is not about what Jesus can do for use but following his example and how he lived.

Kassidy took us on a tour of the work of YWAM around the world sharing an insight into the peope she met and worked with alongside Timmy in Kolkata, Uganda Manila and other places around the world, often having to improvise and change plans when God had other ideas for what they would face and do.

She talked about the plans they have for future missions and teaching experiences and the hopes for raising funds to take these forward.

It was also our pleasure to have our newest “family” members in church, Jasper James from our Sunday church family and Lilly Mae from our Friday Filling Station family visiting the church in their first week of life. What is brilliant is that the border between our two families is getting more and more indistinct as time goes on.

Our church was filled with children this Sunday which made it all the more significant to pray for those children and adults struggling with pressing and serious physical and mental health concerns.

Today’s worship team were Tim, Jonny, Amanda and Roy. Throughout today’s service we prayed for our friends around the world, for Ian and Andrea and their families and colleagues struggling with illness, and the need for them to rebuild the team. We prayed for people of our church serving overseas, for the work of Elspeth and Interplast in Kumi.

Tim brought today’s message. He reminded us that a couple of weeks ago we started at the beginning,  right at the first words of the Bible in Genesis 1. We’re slowly picking out some of the key Old Testament events. Today we’re looking at Genesis 3,

In Genesis 2 we read about the total freedom that man and women were given. They only had one single restriction. ” Don’t eat of” So what happens now. Eve is enticed by the serpent and Adam eats with her. The idea of sin is introduced here. The whole of the Bible if you think about is about getting back to then, that time of closeness and innocence, It’s about our rescue. Sin is a difficult thing to preach on. What we think of as naughty and often reprimand children for is not necessarily a sin. Tim continued his adverts theme by asking us to remember the naughty but nice advert. Enjoying cream or chocolate cake is not a sin but greed is. Remember the incredible world that is spoilt by sin. Tim explained that he sees this as picture language demonstrating who we are. The question of Adam and Eve existing doesn’t matter. What it is showing is the nature of our humanity and of our sin. Does the serpent get bad press here? Sin colours our world and affects the brokenness of the world. Did God really say that? This was the serpent’s question.,. He focuses on the one single thing that they they have not been given (yet). The serpent  makes no mention of anything that has already been given. Tim drew our attention to the fact that Eve adds to God’s word, temptations begin to assert themselves, “It’s only a piece of paper, the boss will not mind”, “I know it say don’t deceive , but it is only a white lie”. “I know it is wrong to commit adultery but I love her!”
Second thing is that the serpent misrepresents God here! Is God really jealously guarding that tree? Some ask why put the tree in the garden in the first place . Tim asks us to consider the view that the tree is not allowed simply because it’s not time yet. Adam and Eve may not have been denied it permanently. Adam and Eve couldn’t handle that yet. We all know that is not alright for a five year old to drive a car. We don’t really know if this was the case but we could think about the tree as a “not yet” gift from God. Remember the tempting of Jesus in the wilderness. Satan offers him the world. There is nothing wrong with the offer, after all Satan is only offering what Jesus will have anyway  but the offer involved not taking the time needed to do what had to be done.

Adam and Eve were tempted. They took it too soon. They were not ready for it. This temptation affects us all, is independence such a good thing or do independence  and freedom become confused. Romans 8 reminds us that our freedom stems from God. The world likes to label God as a bully and encourages us to rely on ourselves and make bad choices.

Eve and Adam go from happy to guilt ridden shame and the loss of the close relationship with God. They’re now filled with stress, blame and anxiety . Where was Adam anyway? We’re often reluctant to see Adam here . Classic paintings often put him down in a corner out of the way. This is a misrepresentation. Verse 6 says he was right there with Eve. The plural is used from Verse 1 . They are both there . The woman speaks because the serpent addressed her. They are both tarnished by this bad decision. Pictured here is the whole state of humanity in our world. One belief is that death enters the world here. The loss of access to the garden means they lose access to eternal life. God isn’t laying down gender roles, this is God showing the inevitable consequence of not following his instructions. Not just about child birth , but the pressures of conception.

They’re on their own now , they are blocked from the garden yet they will become dependent on God. Other dependencies are revealed. The story ends with the eviction from the garden. There seems no way back. Biggest problem with the fall is the loss of access to God. God was walking in the garden with them and they lost that. The road back to Eden is a long one and  the cost paid by God is an inconceivable cost. His Son is the cost to smashing open the gate to Eden. No sin is too great, for the cost has been paid. Jesus paid. Only in Jesus can we grow up. When you find Jesus do you not also find equality, are not those human barriers overcome? Choose wisely choose freedom, through Jesus your sin is forgiven and Eden is restored.

We also heard the fantastic news of two births to families from the church and filling station.  Welcome to Jasper James and Lilly Mae.  Apologies if I’ve spelt the names wrong.

 

Today we were fortunate enough to be able to witness and offer support to our brother Paul as he was baptised. Ian led our service ably assisted by Amanda, Roy and Jonny.

 

We also welcomed some visitors,  Duncan and Sandra from Canada and Timmy and Kassidy from Australia. A rare opportunity for the extended family of David and Esther to get together. Tim preached today not about water as we might all have been expecting but about bread.

We played a classic old advert,  the 1973 Hovis advert directed by Sir Ridley Scott. (He attended art college here in Hartlepool!). Anyone of a certain age will know the advert in question, It features a young boy pushing his delivery bike up  a very steep hill to the tune of Dvorak’s Symphony number 9.  Tim led us in thinking about bread today rather than water. He read John 6 35 to 51. He asked us to imagine what it must have felt like, that long slog up the hill pushing the big heavy bike. He admitted that he had considered playing us the great Two Ronnies spoof version filmed 5 years later. That went on even longer emphasising the difficulty of the climb.  Many of us try to live like that . We go through life feeling like it is a long trudge up the hill in search of things. Imagine if the bread was delivered to door with ease, with no effort at all from us. In 1973 at the time of the advert,  there was no concept of online shopping.  (Subsequent to Tim’s preaching I found out the name Hovis  was the result of a competition won in 1890 by Herbet Grimes. He used the phrase “HOminus VIS” which means the strength of man. Apt really for the subject of today’s sermon. )

We need to all remember Jesus is the bread of heaven. No one can come to faith unless the father draws him. He is the one who draws us to himself. Many of us here are here for that reason.

The author C S Lewis, of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and Narnia fame was writing about when famous people met Jesus. An interviewer tried to get C S Lewis to outline the moment of his conversion, of the exact time when he, CS Lewis, met Jesus.

“ I was decided upon” was C S Lewis’s eventual reply.  In his book “Surprised by Joy” he goes on to expand on that saying that “The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation”. God’s obsession with us is our freedom. Throughout the Old Testament God’s people had to learn that God was not at their beck and call. Full of grumbles in the wilderness , God could have just let them get on with it. God takes the initiative out of his loving action. Often even when we resist or ignore Him, he stills draws us to him. It takes place in the hearts of men, women, and children In quoting Isaiah 55 it is made clear that only people able to recognise God’s incredible revelation can taste the bread of God. It’s there for anyone, no one will be turned away. Eternal life mentioned here is the eternal life of heaven is here in the present, human beings filled with his spirit. Eternal life is a quality of life. His bread is on offer to all who turn to Jesus. Every barrier to that life is broken at the cross.

God’s indescribable love defeats all the pain and struggle in life. All of us who look upon the cross may taste of that life. Jesus has brought this bread right to your door, no hills to struggle up. What are you going to do when it is at your door. Are you going to take it? We may think baptism is something we do, but it’s about what God does for us, it’s a physical tangible sign of cleansing, example that you are a child of god. Here is a place where God draws us to himself, Note the physical words for eating in this passage. When we pray about our daily bread we open our life to him. Nothing in our life should remain untouched by the new life we find in Jesus. It’s a beginning a place where

we say yes to Jesus in a visual and impressive way. Our call to Paul on his baptismal day and to each one of us to accept this gift in our life.

 

We then moved on to the baptism of Paul. Paul joined our congregation after he moved to the town from the Midlands. He made friends with Matty “one dismal morning” after calling into the garage, then he started coming to church, then to our Men’s Bible study and got more and more involved with the church’s activity.  Paul gave a passionate description of the struggle he had in first getting to grips with the Bible and the satisfaction and enjoyment he has now found in reading and studying the Bible and the reasons he decided to get baptised. We welcomed with joy his decision to get baptised today.

 

Today’s service continued on in the theme set by Tim last week.

Jonny led our worship, assisted by Amanda, Roy and Tim.

Judith brought the word today using the message from John 1 43-51. she used this to bring forward a message of new beginnings. She opened with a prayer for the Holy Spirit to point us to Jesus and let us have a new walk with him. Verses 50 and 51 in New Living Translation offer us a vision of a stairway to heaven. Tim last week explained God was the author of creation. He made everything for us his children. God’s plan was for a new beginning. Unlike the other gospels, John doesn’t start with a helpless babe. Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is that word the light in the darkness. Verse 14 sets the scene clearly. A new beginning with God connecting with man, full of love and faithfulness. Jesus came offer a way for everyone, Jesus identified himself and begins to call his disciples. He is identified as the Lord and the Son of God. Nathanael uses these messianic titles. Joseph in Genesis had the dream of angels ascending and descending . Jesus builds on this, he says he is the way, a new covenant for everyone. Jesus says he is going to be the sacrifice. The people he calls are just like us, regular people. We’re happy to have a saviour but not necessarily happy to have a leader. Do we change our ways, what’s our heart condition like?

This new beginning is Jesus saying come and see! This is the Word of God not our own thinking. These disciples were getting excited. The first disciples were from Bethsaida. Despite Jesus saying it was unbelieving and unrepentant he chose his first from there. Jesus finds his people in the most unexpected places, he uses people who are not likely material as well. We mustn’t be afraid , we may not be skilled theologians , yet we believe. The woman at the well ran back and asked people to come and see. Nathanael jumped to a judgement, he was religious and initially he was stereotyping. This Jesus was a builder, and he therefore was working with,  mixing and meeting a lot of unbelievers rubbing shoulders with him in the workplace. Jesus was a working man and had a regional accent from a place like Nazareth that did not have a good reputation. Nazarenes were unclean. God looks at the heart condition. It doesn’t matter where you come from. He offers a new beginning. Thankfully Nathanael was curious and he went to see. Jesus, when he saw him, knew his heart condition . He admired his honesty and integrity. Jesus welcomes the questioner. Jesus knew Nathanael wanted to know more. Jesus tells Nathanael he saw him under the fig tree. What does this mean? As soon as Jesus said it, Nathanael was captured. Under the fig tree was a common phrase to illustrate that you took yourself away to pray. When Jesus said this he was really saying “ I saw you in your time of prayer”. Nathanial knew only god knew this. Immediately Nathanial recognised Jesus. What’s our fig tree? We need to come to that place recognising Jesus as our leader.

Lamentations 3:23 shows every morning we have a fresh start . If we blew it today, we still get a fresh start. It is never too late. When we reflect on  Jacobs ladder, we know that despite everything, God promised he would not leave him in the wildness, Jacob awoke and realised God was in the hard place. Jesus identified himself to Nathanael as the gate and stairway to heaven. Jesus was inviting people with strange backgrounds and complex histories to follow him and to serve to carry his message. We can demonstrate Jesus we can invite people. If we’re in hard places, dry places, He’s promised to be living water, a light in the dark. Jesus says come and offers the new beginning for everyone. Jesus offers the new beginning, regardless of our mistakes. Come and see, is what he offers. Nathanael could have stuck to what he knew. But he didn’t. The glory cloud might be moving on for us offering us a new change, a new beginning. The challenge is not to limit God and to see the new beginning.