The Evangelical Alliance has just published the results of its latest survey, this one about work. You can view the overview below on the Power Point. The survey was completed in May 2013 by 1,511 people who were asked a number of questions about work, faith and other related issues.

Since we spend so much time at work, it’s obviously a very important part of most people’s adult life and one of the questions asked was how well the Church prepares people for the world of work and supports them in this world. This is something that is directly connected to the ‘whole life discipleship’ course run by LICC and is of interest to many Christians.

The full report can be read here.

Since I was a child, I have loved the piano. I love listening to the piano and like a whole range of piano music. But I never learned to play the instrument. Because of that, there was always a mystique about it, a sense of mystery. How did someone learn to play Beethoven’s piano sonatas or Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue?

We discovered my son had perfect pitch when he was very young, and so it seemed natural to give him the opportunity to harness that God-given gift and learn to play instruments. Because he was very young when he started lessons (about four or five), I had to sit in on the lessons and secretly I was pleased about that, because I thought that would mean I would finally get to uncover the mystery!

What I discovered over the next few years was there really was no mystery. There was just a lot of hard work and persistent practice. Progress was slow and there were many, many times over the next few years when both he and I would honestly have preferred him to give up. He didn’t always want to practise: there were other things he’d rather do than sit and play scales and play the same pieces over and over again until he’d mastered them. There were other things I’d rather do than listen to the same things over and over again.

But when I listen to him today, able to play just about any piece you ask him to, often by ear, without any sheet music whatsoever, changing the key so it fits our voices, adapting what he’s heard, adding little variations and chord progressions which bring a smile to my face, I’d say it was worth the work. Practice pays off. Perseverance brings its own rewards.

Whatever the task – sport, magic tricks, doing puzzles, sewing, gardening, cooking – we are often awed by those who have practised more than we have at those particular things and feel there’s got to be some magic secret to their success. There isn’t. There is talent, yes, which perhaps means they can do something we can’t. But wherever there is talent, there is also perseverance and hard work if that talent is to mature into achievement. We call it ‘fulfilling potential.’ Talent on its own isn’t enough. As the saying goes, ‘genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.’

Similarly, we can look at other Christians and feel they have some magic formula that enables them to seem so serene, so prayerful, so happy, so powerful. We can envy them their ‘success’. But if you get to know these people, you will find that there really is no magic formula. They have to persevere in faith and experience the same doubts and temptations that are common to mankind, just like we do. They have to persevere in prayer, worship no matter what their feelings say, forgive when they’re hurt, believe when they’re afraid, trust in God’s grace just like we do. There is no secret about it all. God has plainly revealed everything we need to know to live how He wants us to live! Romans 12:12 TNIV sums it up rather neatly: ‘Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.’ That’s it. You don’t have to keep buying the latest ‘how to be a successful Christian’ book to find a magic formula. There is none!

We have to be utterly disciplined about this Christian life. It’s not something we undertake light-heartedly or aimlessly. Paul says, ‘No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.’ (1 Cor 9:27 TNIV) He tells Timothy ‘Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.’ (1 Tim 4:15 TNIV) Jesus was equally unequivocal about the cost involved (Luke 14:25-33 TNIV). The question is not ‘how do find a magic formula for a successful Christian life?’, but ‘are we willing to count the cost and put in the effort required?’

Jack Gibbons plays ‘Rhapsody In Blue’
(I had the privilege of seeing Jack Gibbons play this live in Oxford in 2011 and then play a variety of Beethoven piano sonatas in 2012. I will never forget these occasions. Talent coupled with hard work is a formidable pairing!)

Last night we had two birthdays to celebrate for the week ahead, both in the same family!

When I was 40, I was diagnosed as diabetic. The maxim ‘Life begins at forty’ didn’t seem particularly true to me at that point: this was a painful wake-up call. One of the things I was forced to evaluate was my own lack of self-discipline and I had to make pretty radical changes to the way I was living, particularly in regard to diet and exercise.

As a child I had disliked participating in the majority of sports, mostly because I felt I was not very good at them and because I was very self-conscious about how I looked when I was doing them! The only thing I had enjoyed doing was swimming, because I loved the feel of the water. Reluctantly, therefore, I decided that if I had to do exercise to improve the state of my health, swimming was where I’d better start.

The first time I went swimming was on a Wednesday evening in December, not the most exciting time of year to be starting a new way of life. I managed 22 lengths in one go (550 metres), which was considerably more than I’d done in the past twenty years put together, so I was quite encouraged by that. I reckoned that if I could do a few more each time, in a few weeks I’d be doing quite well.

Maths was never my strong point, so I was quite surprised when, on announcing that I hoped to manage 30 lengths next time, my son casually said, “If you do 32, that’s half a mile.”

That was a carrot dangled in front of me. Half a mile sounded much more virtuous than 550 metres. And once I’d achieved that, he reminded me that 40 lengths was a kilometre, and that sounded even better. And then 50 lengths didn’t seem that much more. And then, just as casually, “Did you know 64 lengths is a mile?”

Within a few months I’d managed a mile and by then I’d discovered that there was a great deal of satisfaction in perseverance and that I could do much more than I’d ever imagined. These days I swim 80 lengths most mornings and can manage 2 miles in under 2 hours. I’ve done a sponsored swim of 5 km (200 lengths) and did a Channel Swim of 22 miles in 12 sessions. There’s a lot to be said for perseverance!

Perseverance is required if we are to finish the race God has marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1 TNIV says ‘let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.’ What I discovered with swimming was that if we just keep doing what is required, however boring it seems or however painful, the end result is virtue. Some days, swimming feels great. Other days, it feels like agony. But again, it doesn’t really matter what it feels like. Perseverance tells me I need to do this because it’s good for me and so I do it. Seeing the results – lower blood pressure and lower blood sugars – is reward for the effort.

Often, we give up because we don’t see results instantly or get rewards straightaway and because it’s hard work to persevere. ‘Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.’ (Gal 6:7-9 TNIV)

Rick Bass uses the analogy of a glacier to emphasise that perseverance pays off. He writes “A glacier is the most powerful force the world has ever seen. Nothing, literally nothing, can stop a glacier. A glacier is formed by the falling of snow that accumulates over a period of time. As the snow deepens, the weight compresses. Ice is formed, and then more snow, which becomes more ice, year after year after year. Nothing happens for a long time, but when the glacier is sixty-four feet thick, it starts to move, and once it starts nothing can stop it…I believe that even if your heart leans just a few degrees to the left or the right of center [sic], that with enough resolve, which can substitute for mass, and enough time, a wobble will one day begin, and the ice will begin to form, where for a long time previous there might have been none.” (quoted in Eugene Peterson’s ‘Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places’ P 338) Eugene Peterson and others talk about ‘a long obedience in the same direction’ as being one of the hallmarks of being a Christian. Perseverance takes time but is necessary for finishing the race of life, so that we can say, like Paul, ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.’ (2 Tim 4:7 TNIV)

If we don’t give up, we will be amazed at what God can achieve through even our own ordinary efforts.

Mark McKeown shared with us tonight an innovative way of raising money for the poor and needy in the run-up to Christmas. In addition to the usual tins and food items we are bringing to church, we can sponsor him from now until 14th December to raise money which will be used to buy even more items to help with the Salvation Army’s Christmas food project. He will be growing a beard and then shaving one half of this off… an unusual sponsored event, but one which is bound to attract comment and attention, which can then be used to explain his motivation for doing this! Hopefully, we can raise a substantial amount of money to buy food and items of clothing for the poor and needy of Goldthorpe. If you would like to sponsor Mark and pledge money for this cause, please email dave@gpcchurch.co.uk or sign up to the sponsor form at church!

We will be holding a celebration service on Saturday 4th January 2014 at 6 p.m. to thank Mark and Diane for their work leading the church over the past eight-and-a-half years and to welcome Garry and Julie to their new roles within the church. Further details will be available nearer the time, but since we know Christmas and the New Year are always busy times for people, we wanted to make sure the date goes in the diary now!

Last week we looked at the theme ‘Passing on the Baton’ in the family service, and this Sunday evening, we continued the theme by looking at the question ‘What are we passing on?’ In Psalm 78, Asaph writes about hearing truths from his ancestors and goes on to say, ’We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done.’ (Ps 78:4 TNIV) We have a duty to pass on all we know of God to the next generation ‘so that they would put their trust in God and would not forget His deeds but would keep His commands.’ (Ps 78:7 TNIV) Faith is not just about knowing interesting facts about God which have no relevance to how we live. Faith comes alive when we take the facts and apply them to our own individual lives and when we actually decide to live by these facts.

We looked at three things that we need to be passing on to others:
1. Truth
2. Passion
3. Experience

1. Truth
Absolute truth is not fashionable these days. Marcus Aurelius, a Roman philosopher, said ‘Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.’ But as Gandhi pointed out, ‘An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.’ The Bible teaches revelation about God that it claims is absolute truth. Jesus Himself said ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6 TNIV) and ‘Your Word is truth’ (John 17:17 TNIV) If we are to pass on truth, therefore, we need to study the Bible and find out what it teaches about God, about people, about the devil, about salvation, about how to live. It’s the lamp to our feet and the light to our path (Ps 119: 105 TNIV). We need to develop a love and respect for this Word that reflects the psalmist’s: ‘Oh, how I love Your law! I meditate on it all day long.’ (Ps 119:97 TNIV), ‘How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!’ (Ps 119:103 TNIV), ‘How I long for your precepts!’ (Ps 119:40 TNIV)

Sometimes we may find the Bible difficult to understand or dry or boring. It’s good to develop a reading plan (using Bible study notes can be helpful here) and to seek to understand the Bible fully. God’s truth is flexible enough to be relevant to every age and has principles for every time, yet it is also rigid enough to remain true to itself when everything else is changing. God’s Word is eternal (Ps 119:89 TNIV). His truths are eternal, but we have to be careful as we study God’s word to do so with integrity and to be careful not to strain at gnats and swallow camels (Matt 23:24 TNIV).

2. Passion
We can be orthodox in our beliefs and still fail to pass on truth to other people because our lives don’t seem to match up to our words. We can be hypocrites, like the Pharisees. Their beliefs were perfectly orthodox and yet they were condemned in the strongest possible terms by Jesus. Orthodoxy without passion quickly becomes pharisaical. The Pharisees allowed outward rules to replace relationship. They followed the letter of the law without understanding the spirit of the law. If we are going to pass on truth properly, we have to be people who are full of love and passion for God. There has to be a holy fire within us which burns. People can very easily spot a fake. British people don’t find it easy to talk about passion, especially passion for God, but God’s Word clearly talks about this (see Song of Songs and Hosea). Truth without love can be cold and forbidding; passion without truth can be mere emotion. We need both truth and passion.

3. Experience
Truth and passion combine to give us a personal experience of God. We need too to experience His miraculous power. The Israelites constantly sang of their miraculous deliverance from Egypt (see Ex 15:1, Deut 11:1-7 TNIV). We need to know the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives (see Acts 1:8 TNIV, Acts 2:43 TNIV, Acts 14:3 TNIV). We need to experience the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives because it is that power which will enable us to be witnesses (Acts 1:8 TNIV) and because we need God to confirm His word and His presence to validate what we say about Him.

So… what are we passing on?!
We pass on the truth of God’s Word which shows us all we need for life and which definitely shapes our understanding of who God is and what He is like. We do so with passion, not with sterile orthodoxy, but with love and fire in our hearts. And we do so in the power of the Holy Spirit, experiencing God not only in history but in our everyday lives. We have a testimony to share: ’Come and see what God has done, his awesome deeds for mankind!’ (Ps 66:5 TNIV) “LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago.” (Is 25:1 TNIV)