This morning’s sermon looked at three principles for spiritual growth. Matt 7:24-27 reminds us that there are only two kinds of people in life: those who hear and obey God’s words and those who don’t. If the foundations of our lives are solid, we will flourish and grow, so it is important to look at how we can do this and be wise. The three principles outlined are found in Psalm 1:1-3 and Joshua 1:7-8:

1. Meditate on what God says
2. Obey what God says
3. Blessing comes from God

Meditate on the Law

It is vital for our spiritual health that first of all we learn to hear what God says is true and that we then go on to build our lives on that solid foundation. Phil 4:8 needs to be the criteria by which we judge truth. We need to have a secure understanding of what is true, based on what God says rather than on our own thoughts, other people’s ideas or the enemy’s lies. Some of the truths we looked at are given in the David Crowder song ‘Here’s My Heart’:

‘Cause I am found, I am Yours.
I am loved, I’m made pure.
I have life, I can breathe,
I am healed, I am free.’

These are truths found in God’s Word. We are found. Once we were lost, but we are like the lost sheep rescued by the Shepherd. (Luke 15:1-7). We belong to God. (John 8:47, Acts 27:23) He gives us life and breath. (Is 42:5, Rom 4:17, 1 Tim 6:13) He brings healing to us. (Ps 103:3, Is 53:5, 1 Pet 2:24) He sets us free. (Gal 5:1) We need to make sure that our understanding of who we are is rooted in who God says we are.

We then need to focus on who God is – strong and sure (Ps 9:9, Ps 24:8, Ps 61:3); life itself (Jn 6:33); the God who endures (Dan 6:26) and who is light (John 1:5, 1 John 1:5); God with us (Matt 1:23, Matt 28:20, Heb 13:5, Ezek 48:35); the God of love and grace (John 3:16, 1 John 4:8, John 1:16-17); the God of hope (Rom 15:13, Ps 71:5, Col 1:27); the One who is more than enough for us (Phil 4:19).

Obedience

Doing what God says is next. So often, we can ignore what God is saying to us or rationalise it (as Abraham must have done when he agreed to Sarah’s suggestion to sleep with Hagar, settling in his own mind for second best rather than waiting for God to move.) The best response is, however, to surrender to God and to obey. There is no such thing as hypothetical grace or hypothetical freedom: we only actually experience freedom once we obey!

Be Blessed

God has promised that blessing and prosperity will follow obedience, but there are no shortcuts to blessing. We have to go the way of the cross (Luke 9:23-25), accepting that Jesus’s teachings are hard. (John 6:53-60) We have to be prepared to lose everything for the sake of the gospel (see Phil 3:7-11) in order to know Christ. Missionaries such as Hudson-Taylor saw God move in miraculous ways, but they were prepared to sacrifice everything for His sake. We cannot cahse the blessing, but must chase after God’s heart, and cannot choose the order to suit ourselves: blessing first, then obedience and meditation as a final optional extra. Instead, we have to do things God’s way: feeding ourselves on God’s Word so that it becomes our source of strength, life, wisdom and power, obeying it so that we train ourselves in godliness and receiving God’s blessing as He bestows it.

A lighthouse is a tower or other kind of building which guides ships to safety so that they can negotiate dangerous coastlines and avoid hazards. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals or reefs and safe entries to harbours, and can also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and replacement by modern electronic navigational systems, but these can often be found in a number of coastal towns.

This lighthouse is off the Northumbrian coast:

Rend Collective’s song ‘My Lighthouse’  (the video is worth watching for the scenery as well as the song!) takes this theme and sings of God being like a lighthouse who will never leave us and who is ‘the peace in my troubled sea’ who will ‘carry me safe to shore.’

‘In my wrestling and in my doubts
In my failures You won’t walk out
Your great love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea
You are the peace in my troubled sea

In the silence, You won’t let go
In my questions, Your truth will hold
Your great love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea
You are the peace in my troubled sea

My Lighthouse, my lighthouse
Shining in the darkness, I will follow You
My Lighthouse, my Lighthouse
I will trust the promise,
You will carry me safe to shore

I won’t fear what tomorrow brings
With each morning I’ll rise and sing
My God’s love will lead me through
You are the peace in my troubled sea
You are the peace in my troubled sea

Fire before us, You’re the brightest
You will lead us through the storms.’ (‘My Lighthouse’, Rend Collective)

Phil 2:1-11 describes the great plan of salvation, how Jesus – in very nature God, fully God, wholly divine – took on human flesh – being made in human likeness, taking the nature of a servant, being wholly human – in order to be able to save mankind from their sins. This is a mystery which we will spend all our lives pondering, and as we approach Easter, we pause once again to contemplate the means by which He purchased that salvation, His obedience to death, even death on a cross.

The death and resurrection of Christ, those foundational truths on which the whole of Christianity builds, are not, however, the whole story, for there is even more! In 2 Cor 8:9, Paul says ‘you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.’ The first part of that verse corresponds to the Incarnation of Christ, but the end of that verse outlines a divine exchange which is beyond our wildest dreams. We get to exchange our poverty for Christ’s wealth, our filthiness for His righteousness (Is 1:18, 1 Cor 1:30, 2 Cor 5:21), our guilt and shame and condemnation for freedom and the rights of sons and heirs! (Rom 8:1-17)

The logical conclusion of this amazing exchange, freely offered to us (but which cost Christ everything), is surrender, an offering back of ourselves to God. As Rend Collective sing in ‘All That I Am’, ‘in view of Your matchless sacrifice, take every treasure, take this life.’ When we realise all that God has done for us and all He offers us in Christ, we let go of everything that used to mean so much to us (Phil 3:7-11) and find ‘In these empty hands I have it all, have it all: The pure joy of knowing You, my Lord.’

‘Take every treasure, take this life

Everything’s on the altar now:
No holding back, no holding out.
In view of Your matchless sacrifice
Take every treasure, take this life

All that I am for all that You are, my Lord
All that I have for all that You are, You’re the
Pearl beyond price, greater than life
All that I am for all that You are

Selfish ambition and my pride
I’m giving up, I’m letting die
In these empty hands I have it all, have it all
The pure joy of knowing You, my Lord

All that I am for all that You are, my Lord
All that I have for all that You are, You’re the
Pearl beyond price, greater than life
All that I am for all that You are

It’s only in surrender that I’m free
It’s only in surrender that I’m truly free
It’s only in surrender that I’m free
(All I have is Yours, my Lord)
It’s only in surrender that I’m truly free
I am free, I am free indeed
I am free, I am free indeed

All that I am for all that You are, my Lord
All that I have for all that You are, You’re the
Pearl beyond price, greater than life
All that I am for all that You are.’ (‘All That I Am’, Rend Collective)

The question of identity is one I often refer to. The simple question ‘Who am I?’ is one of the most profound things we ever ask. Over the years, I have come to believe that who I am is inextricably bound up in who God is and in my relationship to Him. I cannot really identify myself separately without damaging the person God created me to be.

Michael Card’s latest album ‘The Penultimate Question’ looks at the Gospel of Matthew. He says ‘Matthew wrote his Gospel to a group of Christians who do not yet know they are Christians. They are faithful followers of Jesus who are still members of the synagogue community in Galilee. But the time is rapidly approaching when they will be expelled from the synagogue and from Jewish life. They are about to lose their identities. Then they will be consumed with the penultimate question, ‘Who am I?’ “

The song ‘This Is Who You Are’ attempts to answer that question.

‘Misunderstood and undefined, a stranger to myself,

Incarnate contradiction, I am poverty and wealth.

I can believe and disbelieve,

I can bless and damn,

I’m dying in the darkness of not knowing who I am.

Then rising like a morning sun, the light begins to speak,

In a voice that’s vastly strong yet still so infinitely weak.

It’s roaring like a lion;

It whispers like a lamb;

It’s thundering that who you are

Is wrapped in who I am.

To everyone that’s lost He gives a new identity

That’s grounded in the kingdom and a new reality.

It’s found in loving kindness

And a mercy that is free

You can become the child

That you were always meant to be.’ (‘This Is Who You Are’, Michael Card)

There is a vast difference between theory and practice. These days if you want to drive in the UK, you have to pass both a theory test (demonstrating that you understand the Highway Code and the theory of driving and hazard perception) and a practical test (demonstrating that you can actually drive a car safely.) It makes sense to emphasise that both are necessary and important in driving.

Similarly, the Christian life has much to teach us which is often viewed as ‘theoretical knowledge’: theology and doctrine are often viewed in this light. But this is never intended to be merely theory; rather, it is intended to shape how we live our daily lives in very practical ways. Eugene Peterson says of church life ‘it is never an abstraction, never anonymous, never a problem to be fixed, never a romantic ideal to be fantasised.’ (‘Practise Resurrection’, P 170) All the doctrines we learn about the nature of God and man, about Christ’s redemptive work on the cross, about the defeat of the devil are not meant to be merely interesting debates; they are meant to shape our understanding of life and inform how we actually ‘do life.’  ‘There is more to the church than sermons and sacraments, theology and liturgy, Bible studies and prayer meetings, committee minutes and mission statements. There are names, meals, small talk, births, deaths. There is us.’ (ibid. P 170-1)

Jesus was clear that the wise person is the one who not only hears His words but puts them into practice. (see Matt 7:24-27). James was similarly blunt: ‘Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.’ (James 1:22) The challenge before each one of us is to marry theory to practice and to live out what we believe, in simple faith and trust.

Have you noticed that you can now listen to the sermons from church?

We have now managed to record sermons and upload them to the website, so if you are not satisfied with reading a summary of the sermon, you can listen for yourself online. Click on the ‘Resources’ tab at the top of the page to choose the sermon; both sermons from Sunday 30th March are available to listen again.