It’s easy for us to take people and things for granted and grace can, sadly, become something which fails to thrill our hearts if we do this. ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’, the proverb says. The problem with so much of ‘everyday church’ is that we equate ‘every day’ with commonplace, routine or ordinary and then fail to appreciate all that God is and is doing for us. We need to allow God to develop in us gratitude and thankfulness for the blessings He bestows on us every day.

God’s common grace is available to all, sustaining the universe (Heb 1:3) and giving us all a conscience (see Rom 1:19). Common grace is seen in God’s continuing care for his creation, his restraining human society from becoming altogether intolerable and ungovernable, his making it possible for mankind to live together in a generally orderly and cooperative manner, and maintaining man’s conscious sense of basic right and wrong behaviour.

God’s saving grace makes it possible for us to be forgiven and to come to salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We are saved by grace through face (Eph 2:4-5, 8-10) and by God’s love and mercy (see Rom 3:23-24, Rom 5:8). God’s prevenient grace goes before us, searching for the lost in the same way that the shepherd sought the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-7, Luke 19:10) Grace is how we start the Christian life and is how we continue in it (see Gal 3:2-6). Grace is necessary, therefore, not simply for our salvation, but also for our ordinary, everyday lives because God is there, working in our ordinary, everyday lives and the way that He works does not change.

Everyday church acknowledges that the Christian life is possible only because God is with us, promising us His presence as the constant in our lives, showering grace on us so that goodness and love follow us every day of our lives. (Ps 23:6) Let’s not get bored with everyday church, for every single day of our lives, God’s grace is available to us; He is our healer, our provider, our strong tower, our place of refuge, our best friend, our Lord. He is the reason that we sing; the reason we can get up every morning and live lives which may seem monotonous, routine or dull to others, but lives which actually we know by faith are filled with divine purpose and eternal significance. (2 Pet 1:3-4)

‘Teach me, my God and King,
in all things Thee to see,
and what I do in anything
to do it as for Thee.

A servant with this clause
makes drudgery divine:
who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
makes that and the action fine.’ (‘Teach Me, My God and King’)

In the second sermon in the series ‘Everyday Church’, we looked at the vast topic of God’s grace, there for us every day of our Christian lives, even in ‘the everyday and the mundane.’ (Matt Redman, ‘Your Grace Finds Me’)

‘It’s there in the newborn cry
There in the light of every sunrise
There in the shadows of this life
Your great grace

It’s there on the mountain top
There in the everyday and the mundane
There in the sorrow and the dancing
Your great grace
Oh such grace

It’s there on a wedding day
There in the weeping by the graveside
There in the very breath we breathe
Your great grace

There in the darkest night of the soul
There in the sweetest songs of victory
Your grace finds me
Yes, your grace finds me.’

God’s grace, which gives us the confidence to face the trials and uncertainties of life, because we have the assurance He is working all things together for good (Rom 8:28-39), is available to us at all times. It is real, as real as the manna which fed the Israelites during the wilderness wanderings, but must be appropriated every day (even as the manna had to be collected daily and not hoarded, with double the amount provided by God on the sixth day so as to avoid working on the Sabbath.) It requires faith to live under grace and not under law, even as the widow needed faith to keep baking the bread from her meagre provisions. (1 Kings 17:12-16) Grace, God’s undeserved favour, ‘the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it,’ ‘the condescension or benevolence shown by God toward the human race’ is freely available to us all, but must be grasped by each one of us individually if we are to live every day without fear or condemnation or in the hypothetical realm of anxiety and know God with us every day of our lives.

This morning, Julie started a new series entitled ‘Everyday Church’, looking today at the fundamental fact that ‘God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.‘ (1 Cor 12:18) Many of the New Testament letters were written to churches in named locations (Ephesus, Thessalonica, Corinth, Philippi and Rome, with John also writing to churches in Epehsus, Sardia, Laodicea, Pergamum, Smyrna, Sardis and Philadelphia.) Whilst we need to avoid being parochial or insular in our attitudes, understanding that God is immeasurably more than we can imagine and His church is worldwide, we also need to appreciate that ‘church is an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practise a life of resurrection.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Practise Resurrection’, P 12) We cannot avoid the fact that we are based in Goldthorpe: this is our ‘named location’ and the place where God has put us.

Some of us were born locally and are content with where we are; others have moved here for a variety of reasons; others still may feel restless and resentful of where they are. We can be like Jonah, who was called by God to go to Nineveh but who preferred to flee to Tarshish! The grass can always look greener on the other side and we feel where we are is boring, unexciting or even missing out on God. Part of being everyday church is a conviction that this is the place to which God has called us – even if we don’t understand why or even particularly like that fact! – and that He, through us, can make a difference to the place. Everyday church means having ‘a particularizing love for local things, rising out of local knowledge and local allegiance.’ (Wendell Berry, ‘Home Economics’, P 144). It means being convinced not only that this is the place to which God called us but this is the place in which God is also still at work. He goes before us, preparing the way, preparing hearts, working in situations to bring people to a knowledge of Him.

Barnsley M.B.C is currently running a project called ‘Love Where You Live’, seeking to promote volunteering in our local communities.

We need to embrace that philosophy, loving where we live and where we worship, because God is here. We must develop ‘a reverence for what is actually there instead of a contempt for what is not.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Under the Unpredictable Plant’, P 133) Ps 145 helps us to do this by reflecting on who God is and what He has done. Everyday church will involve everyday worship (Ps 145:1-2) and everyday witness (Ps 145:4) We are eager to invite others to ‘come and see what God has done, his awesome deeds for all mankind!’ (Ps 66:5) We are convinced that God has made us Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church – because we are located in Goldthorpe, because God’s Spirit is working in and through us, because we are reaching out to our community and because we are a called-out people.  We believe God has good plans for us and for our community (Jer 29:11) and that He wants us to be a ‘Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings’, so that this place where we live, this community where we worship, can be transformed into a ‘well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.’  (Is 58:11-12)

As we meditate on all God does for us and on all that He is, as we witness to all He is and all He has done, as we celebrate God’s mighty works on our behalf in time and in this location, then we can be everyday church in our community, in the location where God has placed us, and others can and will come and see what God has done, for ‘there is no ideal place for us to serve God except the place He set us down.’ (Charles Spurgeon)

At yesterday’s Parent & Toddler group, we had a visit from former members of the church who have moved away from the area:

It’s always good to catch up on news, see how children have grown and to realise that members of God’s family belong to each other even when separated by distance.

Most of us have heard of the children’s TV character Bob the Builder:

Garry spoke last night, however, on God the builder:

As we celebrate 50 years of this church having its own building and have looked at how the church has grown, developed and changed over the years, we are reminded of Hebrews 11:8-10, and the fact that there is a constant need for growth in building. Abraham lived in tents and was always journeying on in faith, looking forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder was God.

God builds with individuals, for Jesus said He would build His church (Matt 16:18) and He does this with people: His legacy was the disciples He left behind, not a marvellous architectural construction! We are the living stones who are being built into a spiritual house (1 Pet 2:4-5) and we are all broken stones initially. Sin has marred us all in some way, but God does not simply patch us up; He transforms us into reconstructed stones. However. we also have a corporate responsibility for each other. Rom 15:1-7 reminds us of the need to bear with each other, to accept each other and to endure with each other. We are urged to be eager for spiritual gifts which will build up the church (1 Cor 14:12) and 1 Cor 12:7-11 reminds us that these gifts are for the common good of the church collective, not for personal glorification.

Eph 4:16 (a key verse in our studies this year) reminds us that the whole body grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. All are needed and vital, placed in this church by God to serve His purposes in our generation. God’s desire is for growth and for fruitfulness; there is always more to possess. God uses other people to promote growth, for people are God’s building. (1 Cor 3:9) God has done much with our church already and is still at work with us. As long as Jesus remains the cornerstone (Matt 21:42), we can be sure that the building which is grown by Him will be sound, for in Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple to the Lord. (Eph 2:21) Just as we have seen how God has worked in and through the church over the past fifty years, we can be sure that He will be faithful to help us to continue to grow, with God the Builder at the centre.

We also had two birthdays to celebrate:

Frank from Ward Green Baptist Church, visiting us for the birthday celebrations, got his own birthday celebration!