Stephen spoke on Sunday evening about pies, likening our lives to a pie. Some of us prefer savoury pies (steak pie, mince and onion pies etc.) and others prefer sweet pies (apple pies being perhaps the most popular.) Whatever our preference, one of the things about pies is that they can be divided up and shared between different people.

We often use the idea of a ‘pie chart’ to think about the different aspects of our lives (how much time we spend sleeping, working, with friends, going to church and so on.) Such an idea can be a good checklist for our priorities, and Stephen challenged us not to think of God as simply a part, portion or segment of our lives but to give Him all that we are and have – in effect, to give Him the whole pie! Gen 12:1-3 gives us a glimpse of what this looks like in a person’s life as we see God calling Abram and Abram obeying whole-heartedly, going wherever God called, giving Him full control of his life.

We might wonder how we will survive life if we give God everything: won’t we lose out on our pie?! In fact, the opposite is true. Gen 22:18 reminds us that God promised to bless all nations on earth because of Abram’s willingness to give Him control. What Abram received back was blessing – blessings far more than he could have ever anticipated, blessings that were more numerous than the grains of sand on the beach. (Gen 32:2) If we let God have the full pie of our life, we too will know blessings greater than we could ever expect by holding on to the pie. It’s God’s law that when we let go and yield or surrender to Him, we actually find we receive more than we could get by holding on to life. Jer 29:11-13 reminds us both of God’s good plans and intentions for our lives and the need to seek Him with all our hearts.

So often, we are selfish and greedy when it comes to literal pies, wanting more than others, wanting to satisfy our hunger and appetite. We can act in similar ways with God, trying to look after ourselves and being reluctant to give to Him. The truth is we don’t need the safety net of our solutions and actions; we don’t need to ‘sort life’ ourselves. It’s not really about sharing our pie with God, giving him a tiny portion of our lives, but about giving Him the whole pie and finding that we are then blessed beyond all measure.

This morning we looked at Phil 3:10-21, seeing the need to continue to grow in Christ throughout our lives. This can be done by fixing our eyes on Jesus and also by following the example of those who follow Christ (see also 1 Cor 11:1, Phil 3:17, Eph 5:1, 1 Thess 1:5-6). We all need role models, people who are not perfect (since no one is sinless, as 1 John 1:8-10 reminds us) but who are authentic, whose lives match their beliefs. Eugene Peterson calls this ‘congruence’, saying “The Christian life is the lifelong practice of attending to the details of congruence—congruence between ends and means, congruence between what we do and the way we do it, congruence between what is written in Scripture and our living out what is written, congruence between a ship and its prow, congruence between preaching and living, congruence between the sermon and what is lived in both preacher and congregation, the congruence of the Word made flesh in Jesus with what is lived in our flesh.” – Eugene H. Peterson, ‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire: A Conversation on the Ways of God Formed by the Words of God’ (New York: Waterbrook, 2017), xviii. The Message version’s translation of Rom 14:23 captures what this means: ‘If the way you live isn’t consistent with what you believe, then it’s wrong.’

Many of us are quite good at living wildly divided lives, without really thinking about how odd this is! We say we believe God, but the minute an impossible situation crops up in our lives, we collapse internally and start to look for ways we can manage without Him. We say we trust God, but when we face redundancy or unemployment, we panic about how the bills are going to get paid without thinking about His promises to provide for us. We say God is our healer, but when the first ache or pain hits us, we reach out for the painkillers or doctors to help us. Our lives can survive such inconsistencies for many years, but they make life much more stressful than it needs to be and they diminish our witness, because people are ultimately drawn to authenticity and integrity. We need to learn how to move from ‘holey‘ (with holes, sins or imperfections) to ‘wholly’ (entirely given over to God) to ‘holy’ (set apart for God.)

Paul reminds us that we make this progress by realising our citizenship is in heaven, not earth. (Phil 3:20) We have an eternal hope to look forward to, the transformation of our lowly bodies into immortal ones (see also 1 Cor 15:37-40). God is in control and is able to bring everything under His control (Phil 3:21), and therefore we have an eternal hope that will never perish or fade.

Apart from our usual Sunday services at 10.30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. and midweek meeting on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., we have a couple of extra meetings coming up this week.

On Wednesday 16th September we’ll be hosting a ‘Dearne Churches Together’ prayer meeting at GPCC at 10.45 a.m. This will also be livestreamed on Facebook from the ‘Dearne Churches Together’ Facebook page. Join us to pray together for our community, especially for local businesses, schools and families this coming Wednesday.

On Saturday 19th September we’ll be having our ‘Take Back The Streets’ prayer meeting at 10 a.m., leaving the building to walk and pray on the streets of Goldthorpe in small socially-distanced groups and will be holding a cleaning session at the church building after this at 11.30 a.m. There is quite a bit of cleaning, sorting and weeding to do, so if you can come along to help, we’d be really grateful!

We’ll also be holding our annual update (for 2018-2019) at the end of the services in the morning and evening on Sunday 20th September to fulfil Charity Commission guidelines.

Dave spoke from Matt 14:13-21 last Sunday morning, looking at the heart of Jesus. Jesus, being fully man, experienced emotions just as we do (weeping at the death of his friend, Lazarus, and experiencing anger at the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees, for example.) In this passage, we often focus on the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, but Dave looked at the emotions experienced by Jesus at this time and how he wants to involve us in meeting the needs of other people, regardless of how we may be feeling at any particular time.

Jesus had just learned of his cousin’s death and wanted to be alone, but when followed by crowds, he had compassion on them. He put their needs before his own needs for privacy and time to grieve. He did not act in a selfish way, but involved his disciples in this great miracle of feeding which is recorded in all four gospels. Jesus always wants to involve us in his works, but sometimes we don’t want to get involved. If we respond, however, to his invitations, we can find ourselves in a life of ministry and service which far exceeds anything we can do on our own. Every one of us, without exception, does come across situations in which we can help. In such situations, we should have the heart of Jesus, the heart that puts aside our hurts and our needs and meets the needs of others. Are we willing to be used by Jesus to help others?

I love reading detective novels and crime thrillers and often am drawn to books which have pithy or intriguing titles. The author Scott Moriani (whose hero, Ben Hope, combines all the strength and determination of a former SAS officer with the moral scruples of one who originally studied theology at Oxford) often chooses titles which draw me in: ‘The Alchemist’s Secret’, ‘The Doomsday Conspiracy’, ‘The Martyr’s Curse’ and so on. Perhaps it’s in homage to this series that I’ve entitled this post ‘The Gallio Incident.’

Titles are intended to draw us in, and once hooked, the reality may well be far more mundane than the title implies. Here, the ‘Gallio’ of the title was the Roman proconsul mentioned in Acts 18. Gallio was the younger brother of Seneca, the Stoic philosopher and tutor of the youthful Nero, and we know that he was the proconsul in the province of Achaia between 51 and 52 A.D. This gives us a definite time-frame for Paul’s missionary journeys. We know that he was in Corinth for 18 months (Acts 18:11), and therefore we have a rough starting-date for this visit of late 49 A.D. or early 50 A.D. As with so much of Luke’s narrative, we have a fixed historical point for the events he narrates; we have definite locations that can be investigated. Christianity is not an imaginary faith; it’s a faith which is rooted in history and geography because it deals with real life (and a real God!) Eugene Peterson comments that we may resent this very practical combination of faith with everyday life, but in truth, ‘the only place you have to be human is where you are right now. The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at this moment.’ (‘Run With The Horses’, Eugene Peterson) God is always there, always present, always working in our world, whether we recognise this or not.

Gallio is important in this story because he effectively rules decisively that the disputes Paul was having with the Jews in the synagogue did not come under Roman jurisdiction. (Acts 18:14-16) In Achaia, Christianity could now presume to share such permitted status as the Jews enjoyed, and therefore, for a while at least, his ruling ‘provided a very welcome breathing-space for the church, at least in southern Greece.’ (Tom Wright) More than once in Scripture, we read how pagan rulers and officials end up doing God’s will, whether they realise it or not. God is able to use whomever He wishes to fulfil His plans and the Gallio incident, therefore, underlines for us that God is sovereign and will do whatever it takes to see His kingdom come on earth. (Which is immensely reassuring for us!)

One of the wonderful things about the book of Acts is how we are introduced to characters who clearly played an important role in the life of the early church. We may not know much about these people, but it’s fundamental to God’s story that people matter and that everyone has a role to play.

One such couple was Aquila and Priscilla, first introduced to us in Acts 18. Aquila (whose name means ‘eagle’) was born in Pontus on the southern shore of the Black Sea, but moved to Italy and from there came to Corinth because of the imperial edict banishing Christians because of the disturbances they were causing. He and his wife, Priscilla, later moved on to Ephesus with Paul, and some of the church there met in their home. (Acts 18:18, 19, 26). At some point later, they returned to Rome and are referred to fondly by Paul in that letter (Rom 16:3-4).

In Corinth, Paul stayed with this couple who shared his profession (tent-making) and we see them later teaching Apollos the ways of God (Acts 18:26) Both of them were involved in church ministry (and the fact that Priscilla is often named before her husband implies she had great influence in this work), and we see each time they are mentioned in the Bible the effect a united couple can have in Christian service.

They were clearly hospitable people, inviting people into their homes to teach and help them, and were people Paul grew to trust and love dearly. A church is blessed when it has such couples as members. The stability, faithfulness, kindness, hospitality and teaching skills of such couples helps every one of the church’s members. I have fond memories of couples like this whose warmth, acceptance, prayers and teaching have shaped my life and I pray we will be able to mentor others in the same way that Aquila and Priscilla did, to the strengthening and help of many people.