Public opinion can change very quickly: people who were once revered can soon become vilified and the opposite can also happen. It’s not often, however, that both processes can happen to the same person, yet this happened to Paul. On his missionary journey to Lystra, he was first worshipped as a god because he healed a man and yet within a short space of time was stoned after Jews from Iconium and Antioch stirred up the crowds against him (Acts 14:11-19), whereas in Malta, he was first called a murderer and then a god! (Acts 28:1-10)

Both these incidents remind us that opinions can change very quickly, often when swayed by other people or by circumstances. People rarely see the bigger picture and judgments are often made on people based on what we can see – which tends to give us at best a glimpse into a person. God reminds the prophet Samuel that he does not look at outward appearances but at the heart (1 Sam 16:7), and it’s important for us always to remember this. We often tend to think that we know what is going on in situations, but just as the islanders on Malta reached the wrong conclusion about Paul initially (assuming that if he survived a shipwreck simply to be bitten by a snake, he must have done something very wrong!) and were equally wrong to believe he was a god because he survived the snake bite, so we must be careful not to jump to conclusions and to be prepared to give people the benefit of the doubt!

In 2016 I visited Malta to celebrate my 50^th birthday. It was the first time I had ever been to that island, and I was surprised to find evidence of Acts 28 all over the island still. Its geography reflects Paul’s arrival (the bay on which he was shipwrecked is known as St Paul’s Bay) and throughout the island, there are churches and memorials which tell us the story of his arrival there. Christianity is alive and flourishing there, centuries after the apostle landed there unexpectedly on his journey to Rome.

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Surprisingly in Acts 28:1-10, we read of no gospel preaching, simply a series of miraculous events, including some healings (of the governor’s father and others on the island.) We are not told of any conversions, yet it is obvious to this day that Paul left a lasting legacy on Malta, to the extent that the tourist board tells us the story of Acts 28 on its website! (https://www.visitmalta.com/en/st-paul-in-malta) The island is proud of its heritage, proud of its Christian roots, and we see how one person can make an enormous difference to the destiny of a whole nation. Three months can make a huge difference, it seems!

In our ‘Little Big Church’ service tonight, J-P talked about filling our lives with important stuff. It’s so easy to fill our time and attention with unimportant things (wealth, TV, computer games, caring about our appearance and so on) and we even let things like bitterness, hatred, anger and the desire for revenge take up so much of our lives. Truly, however, we need to understand that important things must take priority: things like God, love, family and friends, health and wellness, food and water, living with passion, education and so on.

He illustrated this with three jars: the first one, an empty one representing our lives, and then one jar filled with balls to represent important things and one with sand to represent the non-important things.

If we try to fill our empty jar with the non-important things, the balls do not all fit in as well, meaning that important things get left out if we focus on the non-essential. If, however, we prioritise important things, there is room for all the extra ‘stuff’ – this has to be in the right order.

In Matthew 6:31-33, Jesus told us our priority should be to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Rom 12:2 tells us we should not try to live as everyone else does, but should make wise choices in God. This can be hard, but the image of the clock and the compass remind us that we need to use time wisely and be guided and directed by God. If we have things in the right order and don’t get distracted by non-important things, then we can do what God wants us to do and tell everyone about Jesus.

Garry spoke this morning from Gen 39:1-6, continuing his series on Joseph. He started by asking what drew us to God initially – sometimes we come to God through different means and for different reasons, including the benefits we perceive from belonging to God’s family. Ultimately, the best reason we can have is that Christianity is true. We should follow God not for what we can get out of Him; we should not be ‘fairweather followers’ only (see John 6). Many fall away from God when the storms of life come, but Joseph shows us what it means to follow God wholeheartedly, even when things go awry.

There is a cost to following Jesus and He urged His disciples to count the cost (Luke 14:28-35). That might be a material cost (losing a job, for example, as we speak out for Jesus) or a cost in terms of relationships (as many Orthodox Jews, Muslims and people of other faiths have discovered when coming to Jesus). Joseph demonstrates to us that staying with God is possible, no matter what the outward circumstances. He could have prayed to escape from Potiphar’s service; it must have seemed so wrong to him to have gone from being a dearly loved son to being a slave, but He continued to trust God, even when there seemed to be no material benefit to him. Jesus too demonstrated His determination to follow God’s path for His life, no matter what the personal anguish (Matt 26:38-39). We may feel that Jesus was exceptional and we cannot be expected to do the same, but many Biblical characters (Job, David, Paul, to name but three) show us that it is possible to face great trials and still remain faithful to God.

We need to understand from the core of our beings that God is not a random, capricious God. He has reasons for His actions, even if we cannot see or understand those (see Ezra 1:21-23).Joseph had to wait more than twenty years to see the fulfilment of God’s good plans for his life, but he lived faithfully for God in all circumstances. Joseph found favour in Potiphar’s sight (Gen 39:4) because he served him readily, willingly, cheerfully and faithfully. Ultimately, it was Joseph’s faith and confidence in God which enabled him to do this, and we can have that same and faith in God, even when things are going awry.

Tonight at our prayer meeting, we were praying for spiritual breakthrough in our communities. Recently, a church member felt that the Lord reminded her of the ‘dambusters’ in the Second World War. The Dambusters (made famous in the 1955 film of the same name, whose theme tune is very famous) was the nickname of the RAF’s 617 Squadron which led ‘Operation Chastise’ in 1943, an attack on the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe dams in the Ruhr Valley industrial area of Germany. The idea was to destroy the dams so that the source of power for generating electricity was destroyed and massive disruption to German war production would be the result. The raid happened only when Barnes-Wallis created, in effect, a ‘bouncing bomb’, which was capable of destroying the dams at the bottom.

Prayer is a little like those bouncing bombs which destroyed the dams. Prayer is a spiritual weapon. Paul says, ‘For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.’ (2 Cor 10:3-4) Just as those bouncing bombs destroyed the seemingly impregnable dams, so I believe our prayers have the power to destroy the enemy’s strongholds in our area.

We need an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our churches and on the whole area. One way we think about this is the idea of flooding, water pouring forth, gushing forth, an unstoppable stream of God. Is 59:19 says, ‘From the west, people will fear the name of the Lord,and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. For he will come like a pent-up flood that the breath of the Lord drives along.’ We need an outpouring of God’s Spirit so that we see the strongholds breached and the flood of God’s life bringing regeneration, new birth, new life to our own lives, to our churches, to our area.

In addition to our usual Thursday evening meetings (at 7.30 p.m.) and Sunday meetings (at 10.30 a.m. and 6.00 p.m.), we have a couple of additional prayer meetings in May and will also be joining with other churches in distributing Pentecost doves in our local communities.

This Saturday (1st May) at 10 a.m. we will be holding our ‘Take Back the Streets’ prayer meeting. Join us to pray in the building or to walk the streets in Goldthorpe, praying for the revelation of God and the outpouring of His Holy Spirit on our community.

On Wednesday 19th May we will be hosting the ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting at 10.45 a.m. in our building. This will also be on Facebook live/ Zoom.

On Saturday 22nd May at 10 a.m. we will be joining other churches to give out Pentecost doves in our local communities. We will be meeting in our building before going out into Goldthorpe, Thurnscoe and Bolton-on-Dearne to give out the doves/ toiletries.