Rom 1:18-19 tells us ‘what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.‘ Common grace, we said yesterday, is the grace available to all, even before people are saved. God’s creation provides testimony to His might, as Psalm 19:1-4 declares (‘The heavens declare the glory of God;the skies proclaim the work of his hands.Day after day they pour forth speech;night after night they reveal knowledge.They have no speech, they use no words;no sound is heard from them.Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,their words to the ends of the world.’)

This psalm formed the basis for Aaron Shust’s song ‘Create Again’ and is a powerful reminder of the majesty and mercy of God:

‘Separated from night
You spoke and then there was light:
They point to You;
Divided water from land
Bowing to Your command:
They point to You.
The sun that’s blazing at noon
And every phase of the moon:
They point to You.
A baby’s cry and the way
A sunset closes the day:
They point to You.
For You’re the only One worth praising
More radiant than earth and sky
And everyday that I survey Your creation
I see why, I see why.
God of everything I see,
Come create again in me.
You were yesterday
and You will always be,
So take each breath that I breathe
And be the life that I bleed.
Create again in me
The storm that’s raging at sea
The little child on her knees:
They point to You
Your grace that’s poured out on me,
The sacrifice on a tree:
They point to You.
Your Word vaults across the sky
From sunrise to sunset
Melting the ice, scorching the desert
Warm our hearts to faith.’ (‘Create Again’, Aaron Shust)

It was Mark’s birthday today!

We also listened to an update as to what is required for the food bank (tinned meats, tinned vegetables, cereals and jams, marmalade and lemon curd) and were asked to come up with fund-raising ideas to help with this.

We had an extra musician tonight as well!

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.