West View Baptist Church, Hartlepool

A family friendly church in the town of Hartlepool

Sermons

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Matty’s message: Are you using 3 in 1? (Not the oil or the shampoo.)

Matty’s message on 23 April was about being focussed and not getting distracted. Often in our life we meet people with strong opinions and they can distract us from what we should be listening to. If you watch a flock of sheep they will graduate towards whatever holds their interest or appetite in that moment in time rather than their shepherd. Are we guilty of doing the same?

The Holy Spirit will take us much further if we let it. If we listen and hear His voice, we will be kept safe and given shelter to lie down in., Psalm 23:2 gives us that assurance.

Maybe we ponder on his lead and worry He won’t speak to us. The answer of course is yes He will. He knows all of His sheep, all of us by name. Let God lead you today.

Stacy has decided to follow His lead. She has chosen to go through the waters of baptism. A marvellous act of witness. What happens when you are baptised? Well aside from getting wet, you can choose to accept the Holy Spirit in your life. A gift so great, yet free to anyone who requests it. It rarely happens instantly but it’s the link between God and Jesus.

Listen and obey. You’ll know when the Spirit is prompting you. Think about this church, look around. Many people come here for company, for advice and a social event. Yet they find themselves going further. Listening and learning and being drawn to what God wants them to hear and do.

Ask the Heavenly Father to come into your life. When you leave this building today, talk to your family and friends. Tell them about the 3 in 1 (Matty’s a mechanic but he’s not talking about the oil here!)

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Even if people might not appear to be open and listening, you really don’t know what seed you plant, and what fruit will appear as a result.

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Stinky Lazarus

Ian was a one man band and led the service and brought the word. He spoke on John 11 1-45.

He reminded us that God is never too late, God’s timing is alwayds perfect. He is always on time.

Hopefully we see who we should be in God with the things we do done for God’s glory and not for our glory or personal power,

“Lord, the One you love is sick.” We’re all hopefully aware of and remember the Mary and Martha story. They and their brother Lazarus were friends of Jesus, They were a family that He stayed with, who made Him welcome. They lived in Bethany, about two miles away from Jerusalem in an area known for alms houses, This is the only Gospel where Lazarus makes an appearance. Lazarus means one who God has helped.

The disciples are puzzled that Jesus isn’t rushing to see his good friend, then they are puzzled that Jesus says Lazurus is sleeping, Only when He tells them plainly that Lazarus is dead do they get some idea as to what He refers to, But they still don’t get what Jesus is doing.

“Let us all go along with the Teacher so that we may die with him”. Thomas doesn’t know it but he is being prophetic here. Martha and Mary both come out to meet Jesus. Martha tells Him that if He had been there, Lazarus would not have died, Martha is practical but also more of a theologian that we might have realised. She knows that her brother will rise again in God’s kingdom but didn’t get who Jesus was . Jesus need to remind her that He has power over death, Mary also says something similar…”If You had been here….”

But we already know that Jesus did not have to be there to heal. Remember the story of the centurion. Jesus healed without being in the same place. Do we think about what Jesus can do for us? Do we make the same mistake? I want Jesus to do what I want Jesus to do!!! Rather than “Here I am Lord, I am your servant, What do you want me to do.”

This is the last miracle in John’s gospel before the death and resurrection. The place where we see Jesus both fully human and fully divine, Jewish mourning for the first few days is very emotional, crying, wailing, tearing clothes and pouring ashes over their heads, Talmudic beliefs seemto suggest the spirit would not leave the body for three days.

Jesus was only a day away. Jesus waited deliberately. He wanted people to expect decay, death smells and corruption of Lazarus’s body. He needed his disciples to witness his power over death, Returning to Judea was not safe, the Jews wanted to kill Jesus, The disciples wanted to be safe. They still did not get the power that Jesus had, He had to say plainly he was the resurrection and the life. When Thomas said what he had, he was fully expecting that they were all going to die there and then. He did not know that Jesus knew most of them would die eventually for believing in him.

Jesus time is perfect, Martha warned there would be a bad odour after 72 hours in the tomb.

Do you realise that Jesus was that powerful he had to name Lazarus specifically. “Lazarus come out!” If he’d simply said come out, Lazarus would not have been the only one obeying! .When Mary came will all the Jewish people they had their questions answered, He healed the blind man for the glory of God, the same applied to the raising of Lazarus. Not everyone sees and believes though. Some only saw that if Jesus continued they would all be in danger, Caiaphas utters prophetic words here “You do not realise that it is better for one man to die than the whole nation perish.

So much is going on in this passage it is difficult to do it justice in one Sunday message, We see God glorified, we see the compassion of Jesus , fully human ” Jesus wept” . He knows Lazarus will be coming out of the grave. Jesus not only conquers death, He is in control of it. His Name is Power!

He creates new life for those who trust in Him. We forget sometimes what He has done for us. He is there in the lows and the highs. He is the Cornerstone, life over death, bringing life to the poor. Do you believe? Are you who you should be in Christ this morning?

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Matty’s Message: Raise Children to follow Jesus and they will be like well aimed arrows.

Matty shared his reflections from earlier in the week. Children are like arrows and need to be aimed in the right direction. Wrongly aimed, they are broken arrows engaging in all sorts of harmful behaviours.

Matty stressed the message that Church is not a club for the well heeled, more a hospital for those who need to be healed. Compassion is the mother of miracles, and only when you are moved by someone’s pain can you bring healing to them.

He highlighted that the disciples when they thought they would die in the storm, they didn’t challenge Jesus’s power, they challenged his compassion. “Don’t you care that we might die?” (Mark 4:38) .

Matty shared that we have witnessed today being helped and led by good leaders. He said that we need to ensure that we help and parent and grandparent those young people in our familes. We should not duck or avoid that responsibility or delegate to others, like schools, teachers or even our church.

Matty shared that his mentor had also helped provide perspective on this. Children are a gift from God, they are not an inconvenience or a liability. There’s an opportunity to learn from their questions and teach them to follow the right path and share the Lord’s example.

Take a chance to show compassion, think on the storms we all face in life. Raise children to follow Jesus and they will be well aimed arrows.

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Take the Land He has given you.

Abi, Yvette and Amanda led today’s service and the word today was brought by Viv Neville.

Our songs today were Be Still, How Great is Our God, O Jesus I have promised, If You Climb to the top of a mountain, Take Me To the Holy of Holies, Cornerstone, Blessed Be Your Name, I speak Jesus and Open the eyes of my heart Lord.

Deuteronomy 5 31:33 played a key part in today’s service. Viv had ended up  changing what she was bring to the church today and it is powerful that two people were given exactly the same passage. Viv reflecting on the fact that Pastor Cliff Henderson from New Life had also been reflecting on the fact that over the years we all invite countless people to church for different types of community events. Do we then see those folks come to church? Not always but we continue to hope and pray that these events touch people in some way. Viv reflected that at times she had been very emotional in the hours leading up to this service. The core message today was very much around “ “Take the land he has given you”. Viv drew our attention to Daniel 12 , Go your own way, live life simply, Put distractions aside and work, pray and read your Bible. Viv talked about the fact that this is very important and she often has to turn her phone off to cut out distractions. In terms of going your own way, do you know what it is? If you do write it down, commit to it. Think about the parting of the Red Sea. God had to push the mighty waters aside so his people could continue on their path.

Viv recapped on her previous visit and message to West View Baptist Church. She highlighted the way in which John the Baptist was preparing the way of the Lord. Viv encouraged us to think about taking the Lord outside the walls of the church. Praying into every area of our lives.Viv had been helping someone battling with addiction and that person was now entering rehab. She had walked outside their home praying and covering them. She brought the situation to the Lord in praise and worship.

Viv also reflected on the fact that there are places in the community where we still cannot share the Word. Do we share our evangelistic ideas with others? Remember God often only gives us the first step, not the full map. Big and small ideas are equally important. 

Do we know when God is prompting us? When something is from God the idea will come and keep coming. Every day for 6 weeks an idea that Viv had early in ministry kept coming and coming, like the roaring of a lion. It would not go away. Viv’s idea eventually came to fruition and ran for 11 years. 40 people helped to make it so. Remember though that there is a season for everything. Nehemiah had lots of obstacles to overcome in achieving his goal. He was opposed all the way but fulfilled what was needed. You will find people to help.

Viv shared her new initiative to prayer walk the whole of Hartlepool. Her and her fellow prayer walkers have divided the town into smaller areas. Through Facebook and Whatapp etc they are reaching out to supporters. There is a place for everyone who wants to help prayer walker or prayer warrior. 

Viv also shared the events happening in the revival at Asbury University where students stayed in chapel after a service was supposed to conclude on 8 February 2023. 11 days later the service still continued. Mini revivals are springing up elsewhere. 

Viv and her fellow prayer walkers ended up  covering the Fens in cars. Like the shadow of the cloak of Jesus and the apostles,  praying for the homes they pass and pause outside brings hope and healing. Pray especially for the spiritually sick. Viv then encouraged a small group to leave the church for 10 minutes to pray for the homes around us. Write down the issues and encouragement we want from and for the estate.

Messy Church

We were joined by friends from the other Baptist churches in Hartlepool and the families and children of West View for a Messy church afternoon exploring things we love and doing arts, crafts games and cake and sandwiches.

We have introduced a Prayer and Song request box inspired by James 5:13. Young Church have also produced some heart pictures using stones

James 5-13 Prayer and Praise box and Young Church hearts

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Be prepared to be the answer to your own prayer

Ian and Abbey led today and the songs included God be in my Head, Light of the World, Open The Eyes of My Heart, and Love Love, Love One Another.

Yvette brought us the word from Ephesians 4 1-16.

Paul wrote this, like a lot of his letters, from prison in Rome. Yvette shared that each of us have been called and chosen by God. We should be able to see Him in the way that we treat each other, being humble , able to admit we are sometimes wrong, and giving God the glory rather than focussing on our achievements. We need to appreciate and understand where people are coming from and that they may be different to us. Relationships at work in business in marriages are not easy and take effort to make them work. . After all people are not easy to get along with. We need to pray for them, pray for their families, pray they get to know God.

But a warning , be prepared for you to be the answer to your prayers. We are all part of the Body of Christ and prayer changes us. You need to study your Bible alongside praying to make sure you are not misled. Reading a Bible without praying is also not much use. Doing both means that your prayers have power and authority

Spiritual gifts are there to help the Body of Christ. We don’t always know what our gifts are . God doesn’t always show us what our gifts are. In fact God often doesn’t tell us the full journey and the destination, He simply tells us our next step. He won’t take us further until we do what he wants now.

Yvette then showed us Psalm 68:18. And explained that a conquering king would distribute looted wealth amongst his troops. When Jesus conquered death, he shared his gift, his new wealth with us.
In Acts 2 16-19 Yvette showed that we are living in the last days between Jesus resurrection and return. Each of us has the Holy Spirit living in us. We have gifts because of this, all different and all equal to help us grow. Paul says we need to use our gifts to step out in faith.

We need to be conscious of the fact that we don’t get to be good at something until we first are given the freedom to be bad at it.

If you want God to speak to you, you need to open your Bible. When we use our gifts to encourage each other, we will be ready to take God to West View. Unity and loving and working with all the other churches will change the spiritual landscape around us. This is what the spiritual gifts are for. It’s an ongoing process to aim for unity in faith. Thankfully it’s not about what we deserve, it’s about God’s love for us and using the gifts he gave us.

Amanda thanked Yvette for her words and reminded the church that in the induction service for Fiona and our new community ministers, Linda Donaldson had also been given a message if changing landscapes.

Promoted by James 5-13, we have introduced a prayer and praise box at church . This will allow people to share items for prayer and to request their favourite songs. They can also use it to provide feedback on their experiences at church….Of course you can also do this via our website by filling in the contact us form.