As Valentine’s Day approaches this week, Stephen spoke this morning at Cherry Tree Court about the love we have for our God. Earthly love is celebrated on Valentine’s Day, and we all have different ways of expressing our love, but God calls us to love Him with all our heart, soul and strength (Deut 6:5).

The heart is our life source, beating all the time and enabling us to exist. This reminds us that our love for God needs to be shown all the time; it is not something for special occasions only. Our soul is the ‘real’ person inside our physical bodies. We may only be able to see the outside, but God sees all of us and we are called to love Him with all that we are. Often, we may feel that our physical shortcomings and lack of strength prevent us from loving God fully, but God wants us to love Him with all our strength. Our love for God needs to be committed and whole-hearted; we need to love Him to the max!

We love ultimately because God loves us. His love is constant, faithful, unchanging. We are called to love Him in the same way, not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day!

Thinking about these many characters in the book of Acts makes me realise that there are so many ‘Goldthorpe Giants’ who may never be recorded elsewhere but who matter enormously to the people of God in Goldthorpe.

Thanks to all who volunteer so faithfully at GPCC each week: to Mark and Diane, Stephen and Karen, Ray and Pat who help each week with the youth club (and to Jamie and Emily who help out there as well.) Thanks to our faithful coffee morning volunteers: to Alan and Janet, Stephen and Karen, James and Jade, Pat, Karen and Gill who serve drinks faithfully and to Dave, Joan and Eileen for attending each week and chatting with so many people. Thanks to Ray and Pat, Dave and Joan and Diane for their help with the Parent & Toddler group, to J-P and Herlen for their faithfulness in helping teach our children each Sunday at church, to Herlen for her sterling behind-the-scenes work with accounts, keeping our income and expenditure all accounted for! Thanks to Garry and Stephen, Tony and Gary for all their help with musical things at church (not forgetting Stephen, Gill, James and Roger who help to work the not-so-Easy Worship program and keep us on track with the right lyrics!) Thanks to all who help out at Fun Days and who help with cleaning and maintaining the building on a regular basis. Thanks to Dave, Stephen, Garry, John, Pat and Roger who help with leading meetings and preaching. Without your faithfulness and service, so much would not get done!

We can’t thank church members enough for their input into so much of what the church does: whether that’s translating Julie’s wacky craft ideas into manageable projects (Gemma, Janet, Sue and Pat do so much here!) or taking photographs (Stacey and Alan!) or simply being there to wash up (Brenda and Jeanette always turn out in force here, amongst many others!) We are always grateful to people for their financial support of Bedline, Amshika and Innocent and for their commitment to the local food bank as well as to the church’s general funds. None of the projects we support would be successful without the support of individual members, who give faithfully, regularly and joyfully.

A very big THANK YOU to you all. God sees your hearts and knows all the unseen things which perhaps haven’t got mentioned here because only He knows about them. May you be encouraged in faith, hope and love and know that your labour for the Lord is not in vain. Many apologies if I’ve forgotten anyone – God never forgets your acts of service and devotion to Him and values each one of His people more than we can ever begin to comprehend.

One of the longings of the hearts of believers is that their family members come to know and share in their faith. The journey to faith is an individual one; as the children’s song reminds us ‘you need to find Him just for you’: ‘A mum or a dad or a sister who loves Jesus won’t get you there, it’s true.’ (Doug Horley, ‘One Way’) Jesus knew what it was like to live among a family who did not believe in Him (John 7:5), and this is never easy, for we know that eternal life is not just for now, but stretches beyond the grave. When we come to taste and see that God is good, it’s only natural that we want others to share in this life.

We are called to live holy lives before all, and Peter gives advice to wives whose husbands are not believers in 1 Pet 3:1-6 (see also 1 Cor 7:12-16). Most of all, we are called to pray for our families and to seek God for their salvation.

The book of Acts lifts the curtain a little on what happened to Jesus’s earthly family after His death and resurrection. James, the brother of Jesus (also known as ‘James the Just’), may not have been a believer during Jesus’s lifetime, but we are told that Jesus appeared to him after the resurrection (1 Cor 15:7) and Jesus’s brothers are seen with the other disciples in prayer after Jesus’s ascension to heaven (Acts 1:14) By Acts 12, James appears to have been one of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem (see Acts 12:17) and he features again prominently in Acts 15:13-21, when the Council of Jerusalem meets to give their comments on Gentile conversions. Paul refers to him in Gal 2:9 as a ‘pillar’ of the church and he clearly was considered an apostle by Paul (Gal 1:19).

In the middle of all that went on in historical terms with the explosion of the gospel, it is reassuring to know that God cares about individual family members and that we see in the midst of the global impact of the church the story of God at work in these family members. We can trust God with those we love. Our part is to pray and to witness, to live integrated lives of holiness and grace before everyone. God is the One who saves, and we can trust Him to work all things together for good. If you’re still waiting to see a beloved family member come to faith, don’t give up. James is proof that God cares for parents, siblings and children. He cares for families.

Stephen is another character in the book of Acts who does not feature in the gospels. We read of him first in Acts 6, a man ‘full of faith and of the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 6:5) who was chosen to help serve the widows of the Greek-speaking Christians. Later in that chapter he is described as ‘a man full of God’s grace and power’ who ‘performed great wonders and signs among the people’ (Acts 6:8); unsurprisingly, this led to opposition and persecution, with the members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen accusing him of blasphemy. (Acts 6:11)

Acts 7 is devoted to Stephen’s response to this charge of blasphemy and is another example of the speeches in Acts. It is perhaps the most detailed and concise history of Israel and their relationship to God of any in Scripture, ‘an indictment against Israel and their failure as the chosen people of God who had been given the law, the holy things, and the promise of the Messiah.’[1]

Stephen shows us that a holy and godly life does not necessarily lead to earthly prosperity and blessing, for the Jews were angered by his speech even further and decided to carry out the death sentence reserved for blasphemy, stoning to death. Stephen was the first Christian martyr, a man who died with as much faith as he had lived: “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’” (Acts 7:55-56) He may only feature in two chapters in the whole book of Acts, but his example remains a shining one to all of us: he had knowledge of the Scriptures, wisdom from the Holy Spirit, lived a life of grace and was totally committed to God’s plans and purposes for his life. He was faithful to preach the gospel boldly at all times and was committed to the Lord even in the face of death, praying for the Lord not to hold their sin against them as he died. (Acts 7:60) His life and death are testimony to what the Spirit of God can do with a fully surrendered heart and mind. One person truly can make a tremendous difference!

[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/life-Stephen.html

It’s interesting to note that those first twelve disciples of Jesus are all mentioned in the book of Acts, but the emphasis is very definitely initially on Peter and John (as it often is in the gospels.) Peter features in many of the gospel stories:

• walking on water to Jesus (Matthew 14:22-32)
• confessing that Jesus is the Messiah (Matthew 16:16-20)
• being a witness to Christ’s glory on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-17)
• denying Christ (Matt 26:31-35; Mark 14:27-31; Luke 22:31-38; John 13:31-38)
• being lovingly restored to a relationship with Jesus after the resurrection (John 21:15-23)

In the book of Acts, we see him taking the lead in choosing another apostle after Judas’s betrayal (Acts 1:15-22) and he is the first to speak publicly after the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14-40). He is involved with the first miraculous healing recorded in Acts (Acts 3:1-10), is used by God to raise the dead (Acts 9:36-41) and is instrumental in the gospel being brought to the Gentiles (Acts 10). The first part of the book definitely has Peter as one of the main characters!

Yet interestingly enough, the key character in much of the book was not one of Jesus’s first disciples and was definitely the least likely person to be a key instrument in bringing people to faith! Saul of Tarsus was a persecutor of Christians (Acts 8:1-3, Acts 9:2, Acts 22:2-5), a Pharisee who believed that Christians should be killed. His miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19) reminds us that God is able to intervene in the direst of situations and can use the most unlikely of people to spread the gospel! Paul was God’s ‘chosen instrument’ to proclaim His name to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15); ‘In little more than ten years St Paul established the Church in four provinces of the [Roman] Empire, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia and Asia. Before A.D. 47 there were no churches in these provinces; in A.D. 57 St Paul could speak as if his work there were done, and could plan extensive tours into the far West without anxiety lest the Churches which he had founded might perish in his absence for want of his guidance and support.’ (Roland Allen, quoted in F.F. Bruce. ‘Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit’, P 18)

Whether we’re a ‘big name’ person or a more insignificant figure in God’s story, the book of Acts reminds us that people are still a part of God’s plans to proclaim His name to others. What’s your role today?

God is able to work powerfully in our world without the need for human intervention. The Psalms have made it abundantly clear that God alone created the heavens and the earth (e.g. Ps 33:4,6; Ps 104:5) and He sustains the earth by His great power (Heb 1:2-3). Despite this affirmation of God’s sovereign control and power, however, the Bible also makes it plain that God’s plans for the world involve people (see Matt 28:18-20, Eph 2:10, Eph 3:6). People play a key role in the outworking of God’s plans and He has entrusted the message of reconciliation to ordinary, flawed people  (2 Cor 5:18-21)– to those who are not great by worldly standards (1 Cor 1:26-30), to those who carry the treasure of God’s presence in ordinary human bodies (2 Cor 4:7). This amazing truth is seen throughout the book of Acts, where the power of the Holy Spirit is seen working in ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things.

At our Bible study, we looked at some of the major characters in this book: the apostles John, Peter and Paul, for example, along with many others (Philip, Stephen, Timothy, Silas, Priscilla and Aquila and Apollos, to name just a few.) We know a lot about some of these people (Peter is probably the disciple about whom we know the most, both from the gospels and from this book and his two letters), and virtually nothing about many others. Some of the characters in Acts are mentioned in one verse only (Theophilus, to whom the book is written, is only mentioned at the beginning of the book!) Nonetheless, this wide array of characters reminds us of the importance, value and worth of every individual to God.

Do you often feel insignificant and unimportant? Our world now has an estimated total population of 7.7 billion people and it can be difficult for us to comprehend how God not only knows us (down to numbering the hairs on our head, as Matt 10:30 affirms) but also loves us unconditionally. The Bible – with its many lists of people and genealogies – affirms wholeheartedly the value of every individual in God’s plan. You may know nothing of Sopater and Sosthenes, Trophimus and Theudas, Demetrius and Damaris (and care even less!), but the Bible reminds us that all of these people played a role in God’s story. We too have a role to play, jobs to perform, tasks to undertake. We too matter. Our names are written in God’s book of life and we too feature in the outworking of His plans on earth.