Last night’s Bible study looked at 1 John 3:4-10, where John tells us how we can know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. A family likeness has to be developed within those who are born of God (v9, a phrase echoed in 1 John 2:29, 4:7, 5:1, 18 and reminiscent of John 1:12-13), for God’s seed remains in us. That family likeness means we must have the same characteristics as Jesus in our attitude and opposition to sin, for Jesus was both righteous and opposed sin, and in our attitude to others, showing love as He did.

This passage often seems confusing in its bold statements that the one born of God will not ‘continue in sin’, or ‘keep on sinning.’ Earlier (1 John 1:8-10), he has reminded us that we will never reach a state of sinless perfection (as some Gnostics claimed), but now he goes on to say that we must not be blind to sin or indifferent to its gravity. Christ’s sacrifice was to take away sin and His purpose was to destroy the devil’s work (see also John 1:29, Heb 9:26, 1 Pet 2:24). He paid the price for our sins, taking away the consequence of those sins (the punishment and guilt we deserved) and breaking the power sin has over us (see Rom 6:1-14, Col 2:13-15), so now we have an obligation, not to the sinful nature, but to the new nature given to us (2 Pet 1:4).

How do we nurture the new nature? Ultimately, we have to train ourselves to be godly (1 Tim 4:7), which involves discipline, prayer, reading the Word and allowing this new nature to have predominance in our lives: ‘Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.’ (Rom 13:14) We have to put off the old nature, be made new in the attitudes of our minds and put on the new nature (Eph 4:22-24, see also Col 3:9-10, Rom 6:11-14). Because of the sacrifice of Christ and the new nature given to us through this, we have been given new standing before God (justification), a new position, set apart for God (sanctification) and are born again of His Spirit (regeneration.) From beginning to end, the power of Christ’s righteousness is given to us so that we can live lives worthy of Him.

One commentary concludes this section by saying we do not continue to sin because:

• First, we are rooted in a future hope, a hope that as the children of God we shall yet become more like God.
• Second, in directing our gaze to our future hope, the statement also assumes that the same power that will remake us at that time is already at work in us.
• Third, that power is now active in the world because it was manifested by Jesus himself in his work of breaking the grip of sin on us
• Fourthly, in his own life, Jesus exemplified the self-giving love and obedience to God that is the responsibility of God’s children as well.

Many of you will have read about the ‘Big Church Day Out’, which is held in Sussex over the May Spring Bank Holiday weekend, an opportunity to worship with other Christians and learn more of God. Following on from this, the organisers have arranged for various Christian artists to tour the UK, giving people chance to have a ‘Big Church Night In’.

In November, two of my favourite Christian artists, Northern Irish group Rend Collective and American songwriter Phil Wickham will be touring together and are performing in Huddersfield on Saturday 15th November at 6.30 p.m. Tickets (costing £15) can be booked here. If you love music and want to worship with other Christians, come along and join us there.

There is no such thing as hypothetical grace. Grace is real, freely given by God to His people, freely available to us, given generously and without fault. His grace is sufficient for us in every situation we may face (see 2 Cor 12:8-9). The reason some of us doubt this is because we spend a lot of time anxiously fretting about hypothetical scenarios, and there is no grace available for the hypothetical.

A hypothesis is ‘a proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth.’ So often, our anxiety is rooted in the ‘what ifs?‘ of life. We worry about what might happen to us if this scenario occurred or what we would say to X in this particular situation. We fret about what we would do if we lost our jobs or if illness struck us. We worry about how to handle this situation or that one, long before we actually face this situation or that one. And when we are floundering in the realm of hypothetical situations, giving ourselves ulcers and worrying about things beyond our control, we do not find grace.

The reason that anxiety is so dangerous and insidious is that it takes us into places where grace is not present. It leads us into hypothetical situations where we imagine conversations and scenarios which seem incredibly real to us but which are not real. As a result, we become fearful and full of dread and there does not seem to be any antidote to us to those fears because they are not grounded in reality. The Bible tells us that ‘perfect love casts out fear’ (1 John 4:18) and says ‘when I am afraid, I will trust in You.’ (Ps 56:3) Anxiety is so dangerous because it causes us to focus on imaginative scenarios which are not grounded in reality; God’s grace is there for us in every situation we have to face, but it is given to us like the manna to the Israelites: when we need it. There is no way of stockpiling grace for future need; we cannot hoard grace in the same way we can buy in extra bread and tinned food in cold weather in case the snow keeps us housebound!

When we face the unimaginable, when we have to go through the fire or the flood, when heartache hits like a hurricane or catastrophe crashes into our lives in real situations, God is there (see Is 43:2-7) and His grace is abundantly given to us to help us to cope. I used to fret so much about things I knew would definitely happen one day (eg my parents dying), justifying this to myself because I argued that this was not a hypothetical situation; I was just ‘preparing myself’ for the inevitable. What I failed to realise was I was trying to imagine grace, treating it like this hypothetical commodity. It didn’t work! When my mother ultimately did become ill and died, though, I found grace in abundance to help; I saw God move in so many ways, not least in bringing my father to a saving knowledge of Himself. Grace is real. It’s not just wishful thinking or escapist fantasy; it is solid, dependable and trustworthy (because God is all of those things!) Let’s leave behind anxiety and hypothetical grace and embrace the real thing.

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’)