Whilst the holiday season is upon some of us, there are still things happening in Goldthorpe in July! Apart from the usual meetings at church, there are special meetings at other local churches coming up. On Saturday 4th July between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., the Salvation Army will be hosting a special celebration to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Salvation Army. There will be activities for all the family and a chance to see the newly decorated prayer room as well as the opportunity to find out more about how the local corps is helping the poor and needy in our locality.

Please note that next Sunday morning (5th July), there will be no meeting at Market Street, but we will be joining with the Methodist Church at Furlong Road in Bolton-on-Dearne at 10.30 a.m. The evening meeting at 6 p.m. will be at Market Street as usual.

On Friday 10th July between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., Furlong Road Methodist Church in Bolton-on-Dearne will be hosting ‘Prayer Spaces’, an opportunity to spend some time in quiet prayer, reflecting on God’s goodness and praying for His kingdom to come in the Dearne Valley and beyond. You can spend as long as you want there, so even if you only have a short time to spare, it is good to be able to join with other Christians in prayer.

As the school holidays start, we hope to start decorating the community room and other areas, so if you have a day to spare from 20th July onwards, let us know and we can join together on this practical and necessary job!

Ps 96:1 tells us ‘ Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth’ (a command repeated in Ps 98:1 and Ps 149:1.) This promises to be a great summer of new songs for the Lord. Matt Redman’s album ‘Unbroken Praise’ was released in June and on 17 July the new album from Tim Hughes (‘Pocketful of Faith’) is released (listen here for a previews of the tracks.) Later on in August, Rend Collective’s new album (‘As Family We Go‘) is also released, with promise of a new Aaron Shust album later this year…

We are grateful for every songwriter blessed of God to bring us new songs to sing to God, songs which express our gratitude, awe and wonder at the nature of God and which remind us of the awesome things He has done on man’s behalf.  We are grateful for the new songs Garry and others are bringing to our church, echoing the prayers of our heart (‘Holy Spirit, Come‘) and teaching us the truth that ‘we’ll boast/ in the King of Kings we’ll boast.’ But the challenge to ‘sing to the Lord a new song’ remains for each one of us, whether we feel particularly gifted in this area or not! We can all sing a song of praise to God, letting the overflow of our hearts speak out the thankfulness and praise within. Our songs may never make it onto a CD or reach a wide audience, but God delights to hear the songs of each one of us as we worship and adore our mighty Saviour.

And if you’re not sure about your ability to sing a new song, you can always make a joyful noise to the Lord! (Ps 100:1, Ps 66:1)

June is a busy month for birthdays at our church! On Sunday, we celebrated another birthday:

I learnt a new word at the weekend, and as always was very excited about this fact! That word was ‘bokeh‘, and relates in particular to photography, apparently meaning ‘the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens.‘ Bokeh has been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light” and is often used for effect by photographers, rendering parts of a photograph blurry while keeping other parts sharply in focus:

Photographers often use this effect with lights:

It struck me on having this crash course in photography that life is rather like this effect: much of it seems blurry from our limited perspective, but is crystal clear to God. Often, our confusion in life stems from our inability to see the ‘whole picture’ at once. Fortunately, God has no such problem!

‘From where I’m standing,
Lord, it’s so hard for me to see
Where this is going
And where You’re leading me.
I wish I knew how
All my fears and all my questions
Are gonna play out
In a world I can’t control.

When I’m lost in the mystery,
To You my future is a memory,
Cause You’re already there,
You’re already there;
Standing at the end of my life
Waiting on the other side
And You’re already there
You’re already there.’ (‘Already There’, Casting Crowns)

Dave spoke last night from 1 Cor 14, continuing our focus on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Often, there are two extremes we feel concerning spiritual gifts, either believing we are deficient because we do not speak in tongues, for example, or believing that such gifts are unnecessary because we have seen them misused. Paul urged the Corinthians to ‘eagerly desire’ these gifts (with passion and fervour), but stressed that they must be used in love.

Jesus reminded His disciples that the supernatural and miraculous are not of themselves proof of God’s favour (see Matt 7:21-23) and clearly God gives these gifts as He determines (1 Cor 12:11), even to those we may not consider mature (see Acts 10:44-48.) Nonetheless, the fruit of the Spirit in our lives demonstrates the work He carries out and our reasons for desiring spiritual gifts is important. Their purpose is to build up the church. They are not something we earn, but are freely given by God to empower the church to do His will.

The gifts mentioned by Paul include:

• words of wisdom (specific words or empowerment when needed)
• words of knowledge (when we know something that normally we would not know and cannot necessarily explain ‘how’ we know)
• gifts of faith (something considered impossible that we can believe for and receive)
• working of miracles (when God intervenes in ways beyond the ‘normal’)
• prophecy (God’s direction and correction, sometimes involving ‘foretelling’ as well as ‘forthtelling’, though it should be noted that prophecy will never add or subtract from God’s word and needs to be tested)
• discerning of spirits (releasing of understanding which spirit is at work)
• speaking in tongues (a gift which has caused much controversy but which builds up an individual, and, when interpreted, builds up the whole church)

We are called to continue the work Jesus did on earth. He worked through the power of the Holy Spirit and we must too. God wants to give us good gifts and we need to be continually filled with the Spirit so that we can do the works of God.

Our series on the Songs of Ascent looked at Ps 124 this morning, a psalm which looks hazards squarely in the face and declares ‘our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.’ (Ps 124:8) It’s unequivocal in listing some of the hostilities faced by pilgrims on their lifelong journey to God, but it is also unequivocal in stating that God is on our side and provides the help we need. God is the invisible source of help who is available to all who will call on His name. Ps 46:1 begins confidently ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble’; Ps 124 ends with the same kind of confidence.

One of the key themes of the Bible is that God is for us. He’s on our side. He loves us and wants to help us. These are basic, fundamental, foundational truths about God which are under attack from the enemy every single day. In the Garden of Eden, Satan tempted Eve by sowing doubt into her mind about the nature of God’s word, the authority of God’s word and the motivation behind God’s word and he continues to want to sow doubt about these things into our minds. It takes courage to believe that God is on our side, when all seems to be going against us. It takes great faith to declare that God is working all things together for the good of those who have been called according to His purposes (Rom 8:28) when we are facing illness or adversity or death. It is not easy to believe that what the enemy means for evil, God can turn to good (Gen 50:20), as Joseph had to learn. But just as Ps 124 focuses on people attacking, floods engulfing, raging waters that swept away, it also reminds us that God is a God who delivers: ‘the snare has been broken and we have escaped.’ (Ps 124:7)

Countless times in history, God’s people have had their backs against the wall and faced certain doom (think of the Israelites facing the Red Sea in front and Pharaoh’s armies behind or David facing Goliath, for example.) Countless times, God has stepped in and rescued where no rescue seemed possible. Our help comes from the mighty, awesome God of creation whose ‘majestic greatness becomes revealed in the minuteness of a personal history.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘The Journey’, P 64)

The person of faith is someone who leans on the promises of God and who trusts in a God who brings dead things to life (‘Dead Things to Life’, Worship Central) and who calls into being things that didn’t previously exist. (Rom 4:17) The person of faith is someone who holds onto the breaking of the dawn for God’s light to shine through, who refuses to live by sight alone. This requires tenacity and courage, persistence and determination. But our confidence is not in ourselves, or in our own ability to solve things; it’s in God. Only God can help us. Only God can deliver us. But He can do these things and He will. As we journey through life, we acquire songs of joy from all the things God has already done for us and these songs sustain us in the night as we wait again for His deliverance. Nothing can separate us from His love and nothing can change the fact that He is good and what He does is good (see Rom 8:31-39, Ps 119:68.)

‘If God is on our side
Who can be against us?
If God is on our side
We won’t be afraid
Though the mountains may fall
And the sky will crumble
There ain’t nothin’ gonna stand in our way.’ (‘On Our Side’, Chris Tomlin)