We had two birthdays to celebrate tonight.

So often, we feel evangelism (defined as ‘the spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness’) is something difficult and best left to the ‘professionals’ like Billy Graham or Luis Palau. God has undoubtedly given some people the gift of evangelism (see Eph 4:11), but at the same time, Jesus gave the ‘Great Commission’ to all His followers (see Matt 28:18-20). Witnessing is not something to be feared, but is simply a sharing of our personal stories: what God has done for us and what He continues to do for us, how He helps us through life’s challenges and difficulties and blesses us in so many ways.

Rend Collective’s latest album is entitled ‘Good News’ (which is what the word ‘gospel’ or ‘evangel’ actually means.) Their video ‘The Good News Story’ summarises the gospel in 4 minutes; their song ‘Rescuer’ does the same job in about the same amount of time!

The gameshow ‘Catchphrase’ used to have the slogan ‘Say what you see!’ as you had to guess which saying was represented in pictorial form. Tonight’s sermon on the ‘A-Z of Christian Faith‘ looked at witness, which ultimately is all about saying what you have seen and testifying to what God has done for you (see Ps 107:1-2, Ps 66:16).

Witnessing is a topic which often intimidates us or makes us feel inadequate. We feel we don’t know enough or can’t answer every question; we may find it difficult to talk to strangers or feel that it’s pointless because we have not seen others come to faith through our witness. However, when we realise that witnessing is simply testifying to what God has done (only He can save and we are not responsible for people’s response to our testimony), we see that this is a crucial part of our faith. In the words of the Ishmael song,

‘I’m gonna say my prayers,

Read my Bible every morning,

Gonna get some fellowship,

Witness every day.’ (‘Glorie Song’)

The siege story in 2 Kings 7 reminds us that good news needs to be shared. In this story, four lepers facing certain death because of the famine caused by war discover God has gone ahead of them, scattered the enemy and left them the recipients of more food, gold, silver and clothing than they could have possibly imagined. At first, they are simply glad to be in this enviable position, but soon they realise ‘What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves.’ )2 Kings 7:9) At first, we might simply be overwhelmed by God’s grace and mercy to us, but salvation is about more than our own personal safety and security. As we begin to grasp the height and depth and length and width of God’s love, we see that this love is for the whole world (Jn 3:16, 2 Pet 3:19) and we, like the lepers, are called to share this good news with others.

Witness is simply testifying to what God has done, sharing our personal stories with a world that needs to hear the message of good news. God has given us the Holy Spirit to enable us to be effective witnesses (Acts 1:8) and we need to pass the good news on!

The Day of Prayer on Friday 16th March was an oasis of calm, with ‘prayer spaces’ created to help us focus on specific things. We had a prayer labyrinth outside to help us focus on the Lord’s Prayer:

Inside, there was a sand area to help us think about the impression we leave on people and how God wants us to influence society with His love:

There was an area to reflect on forgiveness, with forgiveness stones a tangible way of letting go of the hurt and forgiving others:

We could write our hopes and dreams on paper to float in water, symbolic of how hope blossoms in God:

There were local maps available to help us pray specifically for our area and wider world and a quiet space for intercession as well as an area for colouring pictures from Scripture and the opportunity to share Communion. My personal favourite was the ‘tent’ in the middle of the room filled with lights and cushions, a place to just ‘be still and know that I am God’ (Ps 46:10) and to meditate on our relationship with God. For me, that space left me reflecting on David as he hid from Saul’s persecution or later in life as he hid in the Cave of Adullam (1 Sam 22:1-2) and made me realise afresh that in the midst of busyness, adversity and challenge, we need to withdraw regularly as Jesus did and seek strength and refresment from our God.

We had the opportunity to give thanks to God for our world, our family, our friends and so on and could tie ribbons to the thankfulness tree.

Our thanks to all at Furlong Road Methodist Church who did so much to make this a wonderful day of prayer.

The next ‘Churches Together’ prayer meeting will be on Tuesday 17th April at 10.30 a.m. at our church. All are welcome to attend.

You’ve probably all heard the following story, which has a lot of truth in it:

“This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.”

I sometimes think we have the same approach to prayer. We know that prayer, our lifeline to God, is not restricted to specific times or places. We know we can pray at any time and in any place. But I also think that if we do not set aside specific times and places to pray, we will end up not praying. Prayer is hard work at times, and we need the commitment of a regular time (just as we need regular times to eat, sleep, work and so on) and a regular place (Jesus talked of going into a room and closing the door to be alone with God (Matt 6:6).

Just as it is useful to have longer periods of times for things on occasions (think of the weekend, that rest from work, or holidays when we set aside time to relax and take time out from work), it is good to set aside specific times to pray. The Day of Prayer today is one such occasion. Furlong Road Methodist Church will be open from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. today so that we can set aside time and go to that place to pray. I would encourage us all to do just that, not because we have to, not because God will strike us down if we don’t, but because prayer is the most important thing we can do for our own souls and for the world around us. It’s easy to feel helpless and paralysed with discouragement as we look at world events and even at some of the things happening in our communities, but instead of despairing, wringing our hands or launching into impassioned rants against the youth of today, Barnsley Council or any other organisation, let’s pray. Let’s believe that God inclines His ears to the prayers of His people and that He delivers us from the troubles surrounding us (Ps 34:15-22). Let’s believe that as we set aside time to seek God, He will meet with us and do amazing things. (Jer 33:3)

Tonight’s Bible study continued our journey through the Messianic psalms as we looked at Psalm 45. This psalm is entitled ‘for a royal wedding’, and was possibly written to celebrate the marriage of King Solomon. Royal weddings are always grand affairs, as those eagerly anticipating the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on 19th May can testify, but this psalm was also taken to refer to an even greater royal wedding than that. Heb 1:8-9 refers to this psalm and makes it plain that the throne which will last for ever refers to Jesus (see also Jn 1:14).

Marriage is God’s idea, and one of the many descriptions of HIs relationship with His people is marriage: God is the bridegroom (see Is 54:1-5, Is 62:1-5, Song of Songs and Hosea in the Old Testament) and His people are called His bride (in the Old Testament, the people of Israel, but the New Testament makes it plain that the church is included in this relationship – see Romans 11, Eph 5:25-32, 2 Cor 11:1-2, Rev 19:6-9, Rev 21:1-4). Human marriage is meant to be a reflection of God’s passion and love for His people and we do well to define marriage through this lens rather than through society’s casual understanding of the relationship.

Ps 45 describes both the bridegroom and bride in some detail, evoking the magnificence and splendour of a wedding through the language it uses. We see God as all-powerful, reigining and ruling in majesty; we smell His beautiful aroma; we note the scope of His reign (not just in Israel, but in the whole world.) Perhaps more surprising to us is the picture of the bride: glorious, beautiful and virginal. Paul says Christ’s sacrifice for the church is to make her ‘holy and blameless’. We are washed, cleansed and dearly loved.

The royal wedding to come between Christ and the church is one that will surpass even our wildest imaginations, and should fuel us with hope and optimism. One day, we shall reign and rule with Christ; all sorrow, suffering, sin and pain will be gone (just as the bride in Ps 45 was urged to forget her people and her father’s house, we have to understand the devil no longer has any claim on us and we are to cleave to our new husband.) We rejoice at weddings and celebrate a couple’s happiness, but we look forward even more to the wedding that is to come between Christ and His bride…