Rom 12:15 tells us to ‘rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.’ One of the joys of being part of Christ’s worldwide family is that we can pray for people wherever they are in the world and can share in both their joys and their sorrows.

As a church, we support two missionary families: Fredrick and Reeba in India and Steve & Katuska in Mozambique. We have heard from both families recently. Fredrick and Reeba tell us of many people coming to know the Lord in India as well as many personal difficulties with health for both Fredrick and his family. Today, we heard that Steve’s father, Charles Davies (pictured below), went to be with the Lord on Monday 7th April.

Those of us who have lost a parent know that this is a very difficult time, even if the parent was old and the death is not unexpected. A few years ago, when Steve and his family were visiting us, Steve was telling us of the birthday party he and his family had given his father for his 80th birthday. His eldest son, who was about six at the time, could not believe his ears. “80 years old?” he asked in amazement. “He must be dead!” To a child, such an age seemed an impossibility, but we thank God for a life well lived and surrendered to the Lord for so very many years. Please pray for Steve’s Mum (Mary) and for the rest of his family, but especially for Steve and Katuska and their three sons as they are so far away from home, serving the Lord as directors of the OMS Bible seminary in Maputo Bay, Mozambique. It is at such times that we need to pray for God’s comfort, strength and peace to guard hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

In preparing for the Bible study on 1 John 2:18-27, I am inevitably spending a good deal of time meditating on truth and lies. John tells us ‘all of you know the truth’ (1 John 2:20) and ‘no lie comes from the truth.’ (1 John 2:21) Quite often, I think of Pilate’s question (‘What is truth?’ John 18:38) and try to fathom how we can discern and know truth in a society which scorns the idea of absolute truth.

God’s Word reveals truth to us. It defines truth and offers a framework of truth. We need an objective standard which will not change or we will be ‘tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.’ (Eph 4:14) Truth once revealed corrects our thinking and challenges us. There is always, at some point, a battle between truths and lies, for we cannot (if we are to remain sane) hold truth and lies simultaneously: one has to have supremacy.

Truth is insistent and unchanging. Lies are like shapeshifters, assuming any shape possible to deceive (the devil can appear as a roaring lion or as an angel of light…) Truth remains obdurate and obstinate. It pierces us like a sword (Heb 4:12), cutting through defences, leaving us gasping for breath. (The Message version of this verse likens it to a surgeon’s scalpel, which cuts through layers of flesh to expose what must be removed or healed.) It is rather like a wonder cleaning agent, which can be left to work on the grimiest of surfaces and then we simply wipe them clean without all the elbow grease of scrubbing (which could be likened to our own self-righteousness.)

Truth has power of its own which is not always remarkable in form but which works quietly and unobtrusively in people’s lives. It is rather like the dissolving agents in detergents which have to be left for a period of time to do their work before any transformation becomes visible. We need to trust in the transforming power of truth to set us free and to do the work which God intends it to do. For ‘as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’ (Is 55:10-11)

Last night’s family service took the theme ‘The World Is Not Enough’, which reminded us of the James Bond film title and therefore led us to take a ‘James Bond’ approach to the evening. The quiz, prepared by Alan and Janet, tested our knowledge of James Bond films and resulted in a variety of ‘gadget prizes’ being distributed:

We also had a birthday to celebrate & Garry entered into the spirit of the evening:

He spoke about how James Bond is always in control and can save the world: in the film ‘The World Is Not Enough’, the opening sequence seems him falling onto the Millennium Dome and dislocating a shoulder, but still he saves the day. Life rarely seems so easy for us to solve and we struggle to make sense of situations or have any way we can solve them. James Bond is a fictional hero, but we have a Saviour who is worth more to us than all the world’s prizes and who values us so highly that He gave His life for us.

Matt 16:26 reminds us that it is no good if we gain the whole world but lose our own souls. God’s market value on humanity is that we were worth the price of Jesus’s death and therefore we are given a worth, a ‘market value’, that is inestimable. If Jesus has paid such an enormous price for us, such a sacrifice demands a response from us. The world is, therefore, no longer enough for us; in exchange, He gives us His life and we share in His glory! ‘Take the world… give me You.’ (‘Take the World’, Tim Hughes)

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)