Today there was a community event held at the Salvation Army where a number of local groups and council organisations met to show what is happening in the local area:

A lot is said about the lack of community spirit and the difficulties facing local communities, but it was gratifying to see how many local organisations, headed by volunteers from all areas, are involved in the region. The Goldthorpe Development Team and Big Local groups are working with local groups to discover how we can best work together to improve our area and events like this provide an opportunity to get to know people and work in our community. As we often say, we are a community church and we believe we work with God in the community and with God for the community. Let’s continue to be salt and light in that community.

If you have seven minutes to spare, I strongly recommend you watch this video from Rend Collective explaining the heart behind their new album ‘The Art of Celebration.’  It’s summed up in their comment “This record is an attempt to reflect something of the irrepressible laughter in the heart of God. It’s a call to the cynical to once again choose celebration over condemnation and a reminder to the broken that ‘the joy of the Lord is our strength’.”

Jesus said, ‘unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matt 18:3) One of the aspects of little children is their capacity for celebration and joy. They jump and splash in puddles. They throw snowballs with glee. They wade through piles of leaves with uninhibited pleasure. They run everywhere. They skip. They dance. Joy comes naturally to them: they squeal with delight over simple things; they chortle with pleasure over bubbles being blown and towers being knocked over. Their joy is infectious and makes us feel good.

As we grow, alas, we lose that capacity for celebration in the ordinary. We are wounded by others and so we retreat, building forts as defences. We fail and feel shame and condemnation and so we hide away. Our relationships are damaged; our self-esteem is bruised. Sin ruins and destroys. It’s hard to be joyful and to celebrate in those circumstances.

But God remains the source of all joy and offers restoration, forgiveness, healing, freedom. Far from being the miserable killjoy some of us imagine Him to be, He is the author of celebration: of feasting and festivity, of dancing and delight, of unbridled pleasure and unlimited joy. John Piper talks of ‘Christian hedonism’ arguing that ‘the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.’ C. S. Lewis makes a similar point when he writes ‘We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinitive joy is offered us… We are far too easily pleased.’ (‘The Weight of Glory’)

There is joy available in the God who is ‘immeasurably more than we can know, than we can pray.’ (‘Immeasurably More’, Rend Collective) He is more than our sin and our shame, and therefore ‘We will not bow to sin or to shame’ (‘More Than Conquerors’, Rend Collective) – for if we bow to these things, not only do we give them authority over us, we give them the worship which is due to God alone. We can rejoice because of the very character of God: ‘In my failures You won’t walk out… In the silence You won’t let go.’ (‘My Lighthouse’, Rend Collective) We have hope because ‘by grace somehow I stand where even angels fear to tread’ (‘Boldly I Approach,’ Rend Collective) and we can know we’re free from condemnation, having grace as an anchor that will hold us come trouble or high water (‘Finally Free,‘ Rend Collective.) God is the source of joy and commands us to rejoice (Phil 4:4), but He also gives us the power and the reason to do so! ‘You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.’ (Ps 30:11)

One of the most encouraging verses in the Bible is Phil 1:6 which says ‘being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’ In our journey towards spiritual maturity, it behoves us to remember that we are all ‘works in progress’ and that God has not finished with us yet!

‘Create in me a clean, clean heart
Create in me a work of art
Create in me a miracle
Something real and something beautiful

Create a miracle in me

You’re not finished with me yet;
You’re not finished with me yet.
By Your power I can change, I can change,
‘Cause You’re not finished with me yet.

Make all things new.’ (‘Create In Me’, Rend Collective)

The poem ‘Children Learn What They Live’ by Dorothy Law Nolte does not only apply to children!

‘If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.’

By encouraging and affirming people and giving them the freedom to be themselves, we allow them the freedom to grow into the people God wants them to be. All relationships take time and effort and are rather like bank accounts! We need to make sure we invest positive words and caring actions into people, for there will always be times, sadly, when we end up making withdrawals from their lives through our unkindness and lack of love. We need to admit to our faults and ask for forgiveness when this happens, so that we build people up rather than becoming stumbling-blocks on their way to spiritual maturity.

Although we cannot actually be responsible for other people’s spiritual growth and need God to effect growth in us, we are not meant to grow spiritually in isolation, for ‘the life into which we grow to maturity in Christ is a life formed in community.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Practise Resurrection’, P 35) 1 Cor 12 reminds us that we are a body, with each part individual but necessary: ‘God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.’ (1 Cor 12:18) We need to understand that we can be instrumental in helping others to grow, for – difficult though it is to learn to live with others, in that process of learning how to live with others, our selfishness and demandingness are re-shaped into selflessness and sacrifice.

Maturity is all about becoming the person God has designed us to be and in so doing we fit into Christ’s body and find out what our part is there. Eph 4:16 talks about the whole body being joined and held together by every supporting ligament and how the body grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work. We do our part, our work, effectively only really when we understand who we are in God and what He has designed us to be and do. Becoming the person God designed us to be is a spiritual process which God works in us.

We help other people to grow by:

1. accepting them as they are (Rom 15:7), being secure in who we are so that we enable others to be the people God has designed them to be, appreciating diversity without demanding uniformity. We accept that God puts people into the church (it’s not a social club!) and has the right to choose whom He wants (see 1 Cor 1:26-29) and we accept people unconditionally (see Rom 14:13). Accepting people offers them the space and freedom to grow. It’s like giving them good soil in which they can ‘breathe’.
2. listening to people (James 1:19) and in so doing, reinforcing the fact that they matter and have value and worth simply for who they are, rather than merely for what they do. Listening to people takes time and enables us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. (Rom 12:15)
3. loving people (John 13:34-35, 1 John 5:2), demonstrated through positive words and caring actions. Encouragement and affirmation are significant ways to help people flourish. We live in environments that are hostile to faith and need the encouragement of other believers who remind us ‘you can do it!’ and ‘God can do it!’ Loving people creates an environment for growth, including giving people the freedom to fail without that affecting our relationship with them. Paul urges us to ‘encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing’ (1 Thess 5:11) and in so doing, we can help other people to grow.

Stephen continued preaching on the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-15), looking at verse 11: ‘Give us today our daily bread.’ This verse talks about provision and reminds us how God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness (see Ex 16:14-15), but Jesus’s words previously (Matt 4:3-4) remind us that God not only provides for our physical needs; He also provides for our spiritual needs. All God’s riches are available to us; we are like living capacitors, having the potential to receive great things from God.

Matt 5:6 reminds us that we are blessed when we hunger and thirst for righteousness. Our longing and craving should be to receive the bread of life from God – not just provision for our physical needs, but spiritual satisfaction from the One who freely gives to all. This bread is without cost (Is 55:1), for we are able to partake in the Bread of Life (John 6:35) and will never go hungry. Jesus is the answer to all that we require in life; we need Him more than anything else and are asking for great things when we pray this prayer.