John spoke this morning at Cherry Tree Court about the greatest picnic ever, the feeding of the five thousand (recorded in all four gospels.) We know from John’s Gospel that a young boy offered his own food to Jesus when the disciples were debating where they could possibly get enough food (or money!) to feed the crowd (which numbered five thousand men, not counting women or children.) Jesus knew what He was going to do before He even spoke to the disciples about it and could obviously have used any means whatsoever to feed the crowd (after all, God had fed a nation for forty years by providing miraculous manna from heaven), but He chose to use someone who was prepared to give something to Him.

God can do so much with whatever we give Him. He is looking for people willing to give Him what they have got and then He can make our little into something amazing.

The picnic was unexpected to the rest of the people (who possibly had had no intention of staying all day listening to Jesus but who found that no one had ever spoken like Him and were fascinated by Him.) It was unusual, in that the five loaves and two fishes went far beyond normal picnic fare: everyone ate and was satisfied and there were twelve baskets of leftovers! It was unbelievable: a miracle being enacted in front of people’s very eyes!

It doesn’t matter what we have, how small or insignificant it seems to us. When we give it to God, He can do something unexpected, unusual and unbelievable with all we give Him too!

I’m reading a book called ‘He Loves Me’ by Wayne Jacobsen, kindly loaned to me by another Christian, and in the book, the author comments that many Christians seem to have a view of God like that of a child pulling petals off a daisy: ‘He loves me, he loves me not.’ We recognise that this age-old method of deciding if someone loves us or not is actually ridiculous, but for all that, we can go through life being unsure of God’s love for us as a constant. It’s easy enough to believe He loves us on the days when the sun is shining and all is going well in our lives, but when sorrow and confusion come into our lives, we can often wonder if God loves us then. Our view of God can be almost wholly dictated to by circumstances if we are not careful, and since circumstances change and fluctuate, our lives can be very volatile and decidedly mercurial, resulting in bitterness, unhappiness, unrealistic expectations and misery.

The Bible reassures us that God loves us all the time, even during those dark periods, and tells us that nothing will be able to separate us from His love. (Rom 8:31-39) The daisy-petal method of ascertaining God’s love may be flawed; the answer to the question is a resounding ‘He loves me!’

Knowing we are loved all the time is immensely liberating. It means we no longer serve God in order to win His favour and approval, fearful that if we don’t do X or Y, He will cast us away. It means we no longer manipulate people, desperate for their approval and love, because we operate from the security of being loved rather than needing their love to survive. It means we can walk through trials and sorrows, confident that even the most difficult circumstances will result in something positive and constructive (Rom 8:28). Being loved is the most important factor in a person’s life, and even if we have not known that love from parents, spouse, children or friends, we have never been unloved. God loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us so that we can be restored to that relationship with Him for which we were created. That’s good news indeed!

The Psalms are full of calls to worship God:

• ‘Worship the Lord in the splendour of his holiness.’ (Ps 29:2)

• ‘Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.’ (Ps 99:5)

• ‘Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.’ (Ps 100:2)

• ‘With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord; in the great throng of worshippers I will praise him.’ (Ps 109:30)

Often, praise and worship are associated with songs, singing and music, and it’s always good to have that ‘new song’ to sing to the Lord (see Ps 33:3, Ps 40:3, Ps 96:1). I’m profoundly grateful to the many talented songwriters and performers who bring us new songs to cheer our spirits and to focus our attention on God… This week has been a bit like waiting for a bus (you wait ages and then two turn up at once!), since I’ve received two new CDs from favourite artists.

Rend Collective are well known for their anthemic songs and lively music and they have just brought out a children’s album called ‘Sparkle. Pop. Rampage.’ It’s trailed as a children’s album, but to be honest, there are their ordinary songs on there (‘My Lighthouse’, ‘True North’) and many of the songs just sound like Rend Collective to me, not necessarily exclusively for children! Certainly, the truths contained on the album apply as much to adults as to children. If you’re interested, you can listen to the songs on YouTube (click on the title to listen): ‘Jericho Song‘ is a typical anthem reminding us ‘strongholds crumble like castles of sand’ as we trust in our mighty God; ‘Feels Good’ reminds us of the importance of fellowship, how standing in harmony makes us stronger; ‘King of Me’ is a more typical children’s song, but who doesn’t still need reminding that my God is the king of the giants, the lions and the creatures of the deep? As Rend Collective remark, there is no ‘junior Holy Spirit’; we all need the same truths and we all need the same Holy Spirit, no matter what our age!

Aaron Shust is a songwriter whose songs have walked me through some of the most challenging periods of my life, so I have eagerly awaited his new album, ‘Nothing To Fear’. I’ve even seen the positive power of Facebook (rather than its destructive faces) in persuading the artist to make it possible to order the album directly and have it posted to the UK (most US artists mailing out to the US and Canada only.) There are some wonderful worship songs on this album, including the very lively ‘None Like You’ with its strong Messianic tones, and ‘More Than Welcome’ with its reminder of the deep, deep love of Jesus and the fact that ‘we are accepted; we are more than welcome here.’ ‘Your Word’ reminds us of the centrality of that word in leading and guiding us (based on Ps 119:105), ‘Savior of the World’ focuses our attention wholly on Jesus.

In the end, however, songs are simply a vehicle for worship and what matters is our heart attitude towards God, our willingness to acknowledge Him as Lord in every circumstance and to bow the knee before Him. Let’s worship God today as we join together and lift His name high.

September has arrived and as the new school year starts, so the shops start filling up with Christmas things already. Whilst I don’t want to think about that just yet, this provides a good opportunity to give you notice of things that will be happening in the area for the rest of the year… Diaries to the ready!

September

In September, we have our ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting on 17th September at 10.30 a.m. at the Salvation Army and then the Macmillan Coffee Morning will be on Saturday 28th September at 10.30 a.m. at our church.

Saturday 28th September is also the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival, which will be at Astrea Academy Dearne on Goldthorpe Road in Goldthorpe from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. This free arts’ festival gives the opportunity for local residents to showcase their talents and there’s a great range of exhibitions, performances, workshops and demonstrations happening all day.

October

On Wednesday 30th October, Dearne Churches Together will be hosting The Message Bus as part of our Family Fun Day. We will effectively be holding 3 sessions throughout the day in Thurnscoe, Goldthorpe and Bolton-on-Dearne. More details to follow, but this should be a great day as the bus is packed with activities for children and young people. We will also be hosting craft activities at different locations and will be serving free refreshments as usual.

November

We’ll be hosting another Advent trail, not with knitted sheep this time, but with knitted Nativity figures. Watch this space for more details.

On Monday 25th November, 4FrontTheatre will be back in Goldthorpe, visiting primary schools and giving an evening performance of ‘Back In Time For Christmas’, a show where Justin Time has finally completed his time machine and wants to go back 2000 years to the first Christmas so he can see it for himself and give baby Jesus a Christmas present of his own too…

December

Dearne Churches Together will be hosting a Christmas service on Saturday 14th December at 2 p.m. at Furlong Road Methodist Church in Bolton-on-Dearne and we’ll be holding our carol service on Sunday 22nd December at 6 p.m.

G. K. Chesterton once said that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, but has been found difficult and not tried.

Many of us like an idealised, unreal version of Christianity where God is our friend and does everything we want. This ignores the balanced reality that God is the centre of the universe, not mankind (and definitely not me!), and is our judge as well as our friend. We forget at our peril that God is holy and demands holiness from His people.

2 Cor 7:1 has vital, life-giving advice for us about how we should live. Paul urges the Corinthians (and us) to ‘purify’ themselves ‘from everything that contaminats body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.’ The Message version urges us to ‘make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us.’

That inclues anything which would defile us physically – meaning we need to look at all that goes into our bodies (including alcohol, tobacco, drugs and food) and all we do with our bodies (including the need for exercise.) It includes everything that affects us spiritually (including fear, anxiety, bitterness, unforgiveness, envy, jealousy, resentment, pride, greed and hatred.) It means having a view of our bodies as temples of God’s Spirit and working on a daily detox that removes all that is not healthy for us so that we can be holy and whole for God.

If you don’t find this difficult, you’ve not understood what God requires as far as I can see! This alternative lifesttyle is impossible in our own strength. It can only be achieved when God’s Spirit lives within us and changes us from the inside out. Change is indeed possible (everything is possible with God!), but change requires our devoted attention and whole-hearted commitment. Are we willing to do this?

Most of us think of the church building where we gather with other Christians as the house of God. We talk about ‘going to church’ and often spend a good deal of time, effort and money on the bricks, stones and mortar which allow us to gather at specific times and places.

Some of us recognise that the house of God is not confined to a building and that people make up the church. We are the house of God (Heb 3:6); we are the temple in which the Holy Spirit dwells. (1 Cor 6:19-20)

In the Old Testament we read about Jacob sleeping out in the open on his journey to Harran (Gen 28:11). It doesn’t sound a very comfortable experience: he used a stone as a pillow for his head. (Gen 28:11) But this turned out to be a hugely significant night for the wayward son of Isaac and Rebekah, for it was a night when he dreamt of a stairway between heaven and earth, when he saw angels ascending and descending and when he heard God speaking to him personally. (Gen 28:12-15) The result of this dream was that Jacob realised ‘surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it.’ (Gen 28:16) He understood, ‘this is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’ (Gen 29:17)

There are many places where we may sense God’s presence more keenly (often referred to as ‘thin places’, where the boundaries between heaven and earth seem negligible.) But in truth, God’s house can be found anywhere and everywhere, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt 3:2, Mark 1:15). God’s kingdom is near. God’s house, ultimately, is anywhere God is, and since God is everywhere, we can be in His house wherever we are.

This has tremendous implications for us, bringing sacredness to the ordinary and the divine presence into every aspect of our lives, no matter how boring, painful, exciting, tedious, joyful, sorrowful or mundane they may seem to us. The house of God for you today may be the kitchen sink, the workplace, the bus journeys you take; it may be the inside of a bathroom as illness keeps you pinned to the toilet or the noisy playgroup full of clamouring toddlers where it’s hard to hear yourself think, let alone God speak. It may be the boring meeting at work where people drone on or the anxious wait in a doctor’s surgery for news which may turn your life upside down. My prayer for each of us today is that we may wake up as Jacob did and realise ‘surely God is in this place and I was not aware of it.’ For as we realise God’s presence is with us everywhere, our lives are transformed.

I often wonder if the stone Jacob used as a pillow was one of the stones he used to build an altar in that place he named Bethel (‘house of God’). I often wonder how we, living stones, can actually be built together by God to become a spiritual house (1 Pet 2:5). I think this happens as we learn to see God everywhere and in everyone. We’re all made in the image of God. Maybe we can also find God not only in those special places but in ordinary places too and also in the ordinary faces of our brothers and sisters in Christ.