At the service at Cherry Tree Court this morning, Stephen spoke about what we as Christians can do to become more like Jesus? Phil 3:7-11 offers us clues. Change in our behaviour always starts with a radical new way of thinking (Rom 12:1-2); transformation of the mind is required if we are to change. If we want to be more like Christ, we have to see Him as He is and spend time with Him.

God has blessed us enormously (Eph 1:3), but we need to learn about the spiritual treasure we have in Him, which includes freedom in Christ, free access to God’s rich spiritual resources and His immeasurable love. We need to draw on all the riches available to us in Christ.

2 Cor 5:17 reminds us that we are new creations in Christ. We need to be a humble, loving, pure and grace-giving people who will admit to mistakes and repent of our sins. When we discover our weaknesses, we can draw on God’s strength and power. We need both a personal relationship with God and to be part of His church if we are to keep growing. Other things that will help us to become more like Christ include prayer, reading the Word, giving, fasting and spending time alone with Christ. We need to continually be growing and changing!

Last night the ‘Churches Together’ meeting was held at Furlong Road Methodist Church and was attended by people from a variety of local churches:

It was good to worship and pray together, as well as to find out all kinds of obscure facts about each other! For example, I discovered that Eileen likes pickled onions, Amy-Jo from the Salvation Army has read all the ‘Harry Potter’ books in English and Dutch, Debbie has been skiing and Andrea is grumpy in the mornings! Not only is it good to get to know each other in this way, Karen (the minister from Furlong Road) used this to remind us of Jesus’s Great Commission (see Matt 28:16-20).

Sometimes we feel daunted by this task and do not feel ourselves to be evangelists. All of us can, however, talk to people and have people we meet on a regular basis in a variety of settings (at school, at work, when we are shopping, when we are at the gym etc.)  These people often need a listening ear and friendship. When we allow people to talk and we listen to them, we create an atmosphere where we can later share the Gospel with them. We have to be intentional, acting as a guest in their environments, consistent, offering pastoral care (which is all about listening and caring.) When we see a need, we can then do something about it, for love in action is evangelism just as much as open-air meetings or large crusades. All of us are called to witness to Christ and this is best done in the context of personal relationships.

The next ‘Churches Together’ meeting will be on Saturday 19th July at 6 p.m.  at the Salvation Army church on Straight Lane.

John was keen that we can distinguish between truth and lies (1 John 2:18-29) and it is clear from 1 John 2:19 that the lies he was talking about (denying the Father and the Son) originated within the church. Heresy (‘belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine’) is not the same as unbelief; it is a ‘form of that faith that is held ultimately to be subversive or destructive, and thus indirectly leads to such unbelief. Unbelief is the outcome, but not the form, of heresy.’ (Alister McGrath, ‘Heresy’ P 33) Heresy is like a Trojan horse, smuggling untruth into the church, and John is keen that we are not led astray. (1 John 2:26)

Over the years, many heresies have been condemned as deviating from orthodoxy (accepted or authorised doctrines or beliefs). These (Gnosticism, Docetism, Arianism, Modalism, Pelagianism etc.) often focussed on trying to explain the nature of God. Heresies often arose because people either accepted Christ’s deity but could not accept His humanity or vice versa; some led to the idea that Christians worship three gods (a view still held by Muslims, for example.) Many of the analogies we use to explain the doctrine of the Trinity are actually heretical in some form or other! We have to be content to accept the limits of our understanding and to remain within the revelation of Scripture. A useful diagram shows us that often we cannot go beyond the obvious:

We may think that heresy is no longer relevant to us, but ‘what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.’ (Eccl 1:11) We need to understand that we have an enemy who tries to outwit us (2 Cor 2:11). We can be led astray when we want to fit our beliefs into our culture rather than being transformed by God (Rom 12:1-2), when we feel marginalised and try to embrace the broad path which leads to destruction (Matt 7:13-14) or when we try to accommodate other beliefs without standing up for truth. We need to understand that God has given us all we need to live by the truth and seek to allow that truth to define us and our behaviour in every way.

Paul wrote ‘To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.‘ (1 Cor 9:21-23) The message of the Gospel never changes, but the methods we use to spread that Gospel may well have to change!

To that end, GPCC has now entered the realm of Facebook! For those of you not familiar with Facebook (which includes me!), this  a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. It can be accessed wherever there is Internet access (eg on computers,tablets,  mobile phones etc.), so is highly popular with people who clearly have a God-given need to be in communication with others! There are obviously advantages and disadvantages to this social networking site, but the aim as far as our church is concerned is simply to keep as wide an audience as possible informed about what is happening here.

So, if you are already connected to Facebook, you can view information from church via Facebook. Look us up (GPCC Facebook should find us.) You can ‘like’ this page and let your friends know about it. It’s up to you. Have fun!

One of the most fascinating (to me) verses in Revelation is Rev 8:1: ‘When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.’ Heaven, that place of constant worship, singing, prayer and praise, is silent.

The world has a proverb ‘Silence is golden’, and it is certainly exceedingly rare these days on earth, let alone in heaven! Noise seems to be everywhere: even in the gym or when shopping, there is noise around as though we are somehow afraid of silence. Lamentations 3:28 recommends sitting alone in silence, however, and there are times when we need to be silent in order to listen to God. Sometimes our hearts are as noisy as our surroundings and we need to still and quieten our hearts (Ps 131:2) in order to be able to hear God’s gentle whisper. (1 Kings 19:11-13)

One of the things I love most about invigilating exams is the silence. No one is allowed to speak during an examination and the hall, normally buzzing with chatter and noise, is silent. I am privileged to invigilate in a room which has a stained glass window bearing the words from John 14:6 and I often sit and look at this text whilst I am also looking at the pupils. In the silence of that room, God often speaks.

Job is a book of questions and complaint. As Job suffers, he and his friends talk incessantly: surmising, wondering, questioning, thinking about God and suffering, large questions which loom frequently in our conversations. At the end of the book, God speaks and Job is silenced: “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you?I put my hand over my mouth. ⁵ I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more.” (Job 40:4-5) Chris Tomlin takes this idea in his song ‘God Almighty’ and says ‘And I hide my eyes with my face to the ground in the presence of Your majesty.‘ Michael Card’s ‘Job Suite’ (a magnificent exposition of the book of Job in song, lasting 9m 44) ends:

‘I am unworthy, how can I reply?
There’s nothing that you cannot do
You are the storm that calmed my soul
I place my hand over my mouth
I place my hand over my mouth.’

Let’s make room for silence in our clamouring, noisy world and remember that when silence falls and God seems strangely absent, He is still the song in our hearts. (‘When The Tears Fall’, Tim Hughes)