The Bible study on 1 Cor 6:1-11 looked at Paul’s advice to the Corinthians about lawsuits, looking at how he applied the spiritual wisdom he had previously taught about (1 Cor 1:18-1 Cor 2) to everyday situations. In these verses, Paul continues to teach about church discipline, relating this now not to believers’ sexual morality, but to their practice of going to court against each other over civil disputes, a practice he condemns, saying the problem was not so much the disputes but that the Corinthians were resolving these through the secular law courts rather than dealing with them within the church, using spiritual wisdom and godly teaching.

Paul is adamant that there must be a radical difference between the way Christians live and the way the world lives. We need to understand who we are in Christ (see Eph 1:18-23, Eph 4:23-24, Col 3:5-10), which involves following the example of Christ (Phil 2:1-11), putting other people’s needs before ours. He reminds the Corinthians that it is God’s people who will even judge angels, therefore exercising spiritual judgment over everyday disputes is well within their capability. The pivotal questions in 1 Cor 6:7 remind us that the old nature does not like to be wronged or cheated, but in putting our needs before other people’s, we show that the old nature has not been crucified with Christ (see Gal 2:20, Rom 6:1-6). Only when we surrender our need to be in control and to always be right can we hope to find spiritual solutions to practical problems. Paul is adamant that the solution to these disputes can be found within the church, but only as people realise their status in Christ (washed, sanctified and justified by God.)

As we think about the importance of God’s word to our own lives, let’s remember that this living word is necessary for the whole world and pray for our witness using that word.

Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God, turn your backs on the world’s “sure thing,” ignore what the world worships; the world’s a huge stockpile of God-wonders and God-thoughts. Nothing and no one comes close to you! I start talking about you, telling what I know, and quickly run out of words. Neither numbers nor words account for you.

(Ps 40:4-5, The Message)

Pray for:

• each one of us to be ambassadors for Christ, spreading His truth through our words and through our lifestyles
• our corporate witness – at Cherry Tree Court, in the coffee mornings, at Parent & Toddlers, at youth group
• ways of reaching out to those attending the car boot/ market on Sunday mornings
• plans to reach out over Christmas (for ideas, creativity and wisdom in sharing the word of life)
• Bible Sunday (25^th October) to be a powerful witness to God’s word throughout the whole world

Mark reminded us on Sunday morning, that God not only gives us salvation; He restores us (see Ps 23:3, Ps 41:3, Ps 53:6). I have been musing on the art of restoration this week, learning vital lessons from this summer’s decorating spree…

1. Things often look worse before they look better

Restoration has an end goal in sight, a goal of something beautiful and whole, restored and in better shape than when we started, but in order to reach that goal, there is often a tearing down that has to be done which looks far from beautiful. I am about to have a leaking radiator fixed, but the problem (the leaking pipe) is hidden from sight, so in order to solve the problem, a wall has to be knocked into and a huge amount of mess created. I’m not looking forward to the mess, but if I want the problem to be solved, I have to put up with a temporary mess in order to have a restored radiator. Sometimes, we feel like our lives are getting worse, not better, but God, in the business of making ‘all things bright and beautiful, wild and colourful’ (Rend Collective, ‘The Artist’), sometimes has to allow this process before we can be fully restored. It’s a mistake to look at a project before it’s completed and judge the final picture from the mid-term mess. Phil 1:6 reminds us that we’re all works in progress which God will bring to completion.

2. You can’t cut corners if you want true restoration

I was amazed at the amount of preparation work and unseen work that are necessary in decorating a room properly. No one ultimately can see the rubbing down, sanding, priming, undercoating and first coats of paint which go into decorating, but they see the finished sheen and even walls. So often, we want the ‘finished sheen’, but we want it now, without any effort or preparation! I would look at the community room and think it was finished; Ray would then point out all the flaws still present and insist on further work. The end product was worth all the effort. Just as you can’t cut corners if you want the final product to look good, the end result simply cannot look that good without the unseen work before it. It’s worth keeping the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of any job to remind us of this!

3. Patience is an absolute essential of restoration

Most of our problems with restoration arise from our impatience. We want to cut corners because we are impatient. We are in a hurry to reach our final destination. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit, however; Eccl 7:8 reminds us ‘the end of a matter is better than its beginning’, but to reach that end, we need perseverance, endurance and patience. God is patient (see Rom 2:4) and is prepared to spend inordinate amounts of time (in our eyes!) working on His projects. He’s in nowhere near as great a hurry as we are…

4. The end view determines the process

God’s goal is to make us like Him, working to make us conformed to the image of His Son (Rom 8:29). The end view of decorating the community room was a beautiful room; in order to achieve that end, a great deal of painstaking, back-breaking effort was put in by a large number of people who were motivated by the end view (at that point, unseen.) Sometimes, we go through painful trials and bewildering circumstances in life, but this kind of testing produces perseverance which is needed for us to reach the end goal of maturity (see James 1:1-3). We may not always enjoy the process of sanctification, but the end view (restoration and salvation) is well worth the process!

5. We need vision and strategy to get to the goal

Someone has to see where we’re headed and have a plan how to get there. One without the other leads to frustration. I had a vision of a beautiful room, but no skill or strategy to get there; on the other hand, all the skill in the world achieves nothing if it’s not harnessed to an end goal. Vision and strategy need to work hand in hand, not competing against each other.

6. We need a ‘project manager’

A project manager is needed to ensure that a project is completed to schedule and to budget; in a work context, this is a skilled role, requiring vision, strategy, the ability to communicate well with people and to bring the best out of people and an understanding of what cannot be changed and when compromise is possible. A project manager keeps the end goal in sight and is not distracted by problems or setbacks. All projects, however small, need leaders who will see beyond the mess to the final restoration, who will persevere when it’s easier to give up and who will not be satisfied with anything less than the vision being fulfilled. Sometimes, it’s easier to feel these leaders are slave-drivers, for they ask from us more than we feel able to give, refusing to be content with mediocrity or imperfection. Yet the best leaders lead by example, giving wholeheartedly to their work even as they ask for wholehearted commitment from others. God is our ultimate leader, never losing His focus, never being distracted from this work of restoration, leading always be example (Phil 2:1-11, Heb 12:1-3, Phil 3:12-14), urging us forward and cheering us on.

The baby shower will now be on Saturday 17th October from 12 noon until 3 p.m. – please note the revised date.

Sunday 25th October is ‘Bible Sunday‘ (see the Bible Society Bible Sunday 2015 video for further details.)

As part of our ‘Bigger Picture’ series, we will be looking at the importance of the Bible to our Christian walk on that date and will be running a Christian bookstall in church, giving people the opportunity to buy books and other Christmas gifts without having to travel!

Before then, people were asked to fill in their favourite Bible verses and reasons why those verses mean so much to them, so that we can use these in the services on 25th October. It can be hard to pick a favourite verse, but hopefully these will give us insight into the diversity and richness of the Bible. I liked the one completed tonight, which chose John 1:5 as a favourite verse ‘because it shows that good always prevails over evil.’ Amen!

We are also looking forward to holding a baptismal service soon; anyone interested in getting baptised should contact Garry or Julie for further details.

Angry Birds is a video game franchise created by Finnish computer game developer Rovio Entertainment which involves shooting birds into pigs’ fortresses because the pigs have stolen the birds’ eggs. Tonight at the family service, we played a game that was similar: each team had to build towers from dominoes which an angry bird then had to destroy…

After this, people had to ‘rant’ about a pet subject for 30 seconds, on topics as diverse as ‘superstition’ and ‘the youth of today’!

Others were quite good at pulling very angry faces!

Fortunately, we had excellent prizes to soothe our anger: stress balls and chocolate (supposedly good for relieving stress because it contains valeric acid!)

Tonight’s family service looked at anger management. Anger is an emotion which can cause us a lot of problems, usually because when we are angry, our tongues work faster than our brains! – we say things we easily regret, lashing out in temper and hurting others. It’s not simply the fact that we get angry which causes problems for us (after all, God gets angry too!), however; it’s how we handle the anger that makes the difference.

Jesus demonstrates for us how we can be angry without sinning (see John 2:13-16, Eph 4:26-27). Even when He cleansed the temple (having taken the time to make the whip of cords), He was in control; His anger was righteous and He did not simply react out of selfish pique or fury. There are indeed issues which should make us angry (injustice, corruption, cruelty and so on), but anger must be balanced by love (see 1 Cor 13:4-8). Love conquers anger; a kiss conquers a slap.

1 Tim 2:8 shows us that prayer is one way we can manage anger, bringing our anger before God and allow Him to control that through His Spirit. We need to avoid holding on to grudges and letting our anger fester; as Eph 4:26-27 reminds us, we need to sort out things that make us angry as soon as possible to avoid giving the devil any foothold in our lives.