Dave preached from Galatians 4:4 TNIV this morning, a favourite text of his. It was perhaps fitting that he spoke about the ‘right time’ on the day that clocks had been put back one hour in the UK! We do this in order to have lighter mornings as winter approaches, but of course, the actual number of hours of daylight remains the same; altering the clocks is simply for our convenience. Nowadays, we seem always to be looking at the time and often feel we do not have enough time, but of course, the issue is not how much time we actually have, but how we use our time! We often feel like the White Rabbit in ‘Alice in Wonderland’: ‘I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!’

Mark’s recent visit to America shows us how difficult it is for our bodies to adjust to different time zones. In previous times, times within the UK were standardised with the advent of the railways so that people could coordinate meeting trains at destination points. From ancient times, we have been busy working out ways of measuring times (sundials, candles etc.) and often are keenly working to a timetable.

The problem is that God is also working to a timetable, but His timescales are often different to ours! God is never late. We are now eight weeks away from Christmas, which is an annual reminder that Jesus came at just the right time in history. There had been many prophecies about His birth, but God prepared the world for the arrival of His Son in a number of ways. There was religious preparation in the history of the people of Israel. There was cultural preparation in the reign of Alexander the Great (which allowed Greek to be the ‘lingua franca’ of the world) and political preparation in the influence of the Roman empire (with their emphasis on road-building and the ‘pax romana’). Even the good idea of the emperor Caesar Augustus which led to a census being taken had a direct input into God’s story.

At just the right time, God works. We have to trust in His goodness, timing and love. God has promised many things for Goldthorpe. He is preparing His people and the people around us for the work He is going to do. We mustn’t get weary and despondent with the waiting period. One ordinary day in Goldthorpe – just as in one ordinary day in Bethlehem, God’s glory shone around – we will see the glory of God manifested. Already, God is working in our area, in local churches such as the Methodist Church at Furlong Road, the ‘Legacy’ church and ‘Gateway’ church in Barnsley. Nationally, Pentecostal churches in the UK are growing. Even in our own outreaches, we are seeing growth: over 50 children and young people have been regularly attending the youth meeting on Mondays and the Mums ‘n’ Toddler group is growing, as is attendance at the Coffee Mornings on Saturday. We need to remember that there is a time for everything (Eccl 3:1 TNIV) and that God is able to do far beyond anything we can imagine or ask! (Eph 3:20-21 TNIV). Let’s keep waiting for God’s right time!

Psychologists agree that all humans have a need to be loved. When we become a Christian, we discover the greatest love story imaginable.

The Bible is not just about rules and religion; it’s a passionate love story told over 66 books. (I would recommend Larry Crabb’s book ’66 Love Letters’ for a further exploration of that idea.) It reveals who God is to us and shows us what He is like. It teaches us that His love is unlike any other love we will ever know or encounter. We discover that ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8 TNIV) and spend the rest of our lives unpacking that simple statement!

We discover that God’s love is unfailing, never-ending, unconditional, passionate, jealous, fervent, tender, compassionate and kind. We see all kinds of metaphors to describe that love. God describes Himself as our Father, as our mother, as our lover, as our friend. We see every facet of love possible in Him, including the ultimate self-sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross to save us from our sins.

Grasping the heights and depths and lengths and breadth of that love is beyond us and yet it becomes our life focus (see Ephesians 3:17-19 TNIV). We understand (without ever fully understanding!) that love never fails (1 Cor 13:1-8 TNIV). We see love as the measure of all that is holy and true. We spend our lives unlearning all the wrong things we thought about love and seeking to have our thinking reshaped so that we can understand more of His love.

On the day that I became a Christian thirty years ago, I sobbed my heart out as I realised the depth of my sin and the sacrificial love which Jesus had shown to me. I bawled like a baby on the sofa of my home as I understood for the very first time something of God’s tenderness towards me. Yet thirty years later, I feel like I am still only scratching the surface of God’s love. ‘His love is like an ocean, forever overflowing; His love is overtaking; we’ll never be forsaken.’ (‘God of Brilliant Lights’, Aaron Shust)

Just recently I’ve been meditating on how I can learn positive truth from negative statements. (The linguist in me has been enjoying this, especially as there’s a bit of a paradox going on in all of that…!) Or, in other words, I’ve been dwelling not only on the fact that God loves me but that this means I have never been unloved. That was the theme of February’s family service and I’ve been mulling this over for a long time as I have tried to plumb the depths of God’s love.

‘God loves you’ is a profound truth which can, nonetheless, seem trite and bland. So I have been looking at this multi-faceted truth from as many different angles as I can. Why does God love us? What motivates His love? Can anything change His love? What do I have to do to be loved? What influences His love?

I’ve been twisting the words around: God loves me. I am loved by God. God has always loved me. He will always love me. I have never been unloved. You might think this is a pointless exercise, but with every phrase or question, I have learnt something new about God’s love and I am confident that there is so much more to be revealed to all of us in the days and years ahead.

‘Never Been Unloved’, Michael W. Smith
‘One Thing Remains’, Kristian Stanfill

I don’t know how the division between ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ originally came about, but I know that by the Reformation period (16th century), there was a clear demarcation between the two. Priesthood was not just a vocation or calling, it was a job and everyone else (the ‘laity’) was considered inferior. The ‘priesthood of all believers’ (based on verses such as 1 Peter 2:9 TNIV) became one of the characteristics of the Protestant Reformation.

I studied the Reformation for ‘A’ level history, just as I was becoming a Christian. As we explored the religious, economic and political causes of this movement, I couldn’t help wondering how people could have been so blind as to restrict the One who doesn’t dwell in houses (Acts 7:48 TNIV) to religious buildings. Sacredness, I believe, is to be found everywhere (Rom 1:20 TNIV):

“And truly I reiterate…nothing’s small!
…Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.” (‘Aurora Leigh’, Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
(‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire’, Gerard Manley Hopkins)

God does not want to be kept in a ‘Sunday’ box, brought out once a week and polished nicely, only to be put back on a shelf and forgotten about for the rest of the week. Over the past thirty years, some of my most profound encounters with God have taken place outside of the ‘expected’. He is to be found in His creation, by the kitchen sink, whilst swimming in a pool, in the classroom, when stuck in a traffic jam on the M25. God is everywhere and in everything.
‘Everything’, Tim Hughes

The fact that I believe sacredness is to be found everywhere (which I believe because I find God appearing to people in all kinds of strange places in the Bible: in the burning bush, in the winepress, in the lions’ den, in the fiery furnace, in prison, on a remote island and so on, and because I have experienced this for myself!) gives a whole new meaning to the mundane. Mundane, as any reader of this blog will know, means:
1. Lacking interest or excitement; dull.
2. Of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one.

So often, we feel our lives are not exciting or important because they are not ‘spiritual’ (or that they are not ‘spiritual’ because they don’t seem exciting or important!) Our jobs seem repetitive, tedious, unimportant and insignificant. Our lives feel equally worthless at times. But when we realise that God is in everything and that there is no such thing as a sacred/ secular divide, we find purpose and meaning even in the ordinary. One of the most moving sermons I’ve ever heard was from Mark on the subject of monotony. In that sermon, he quoted G. K. Chesterton:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

Maybe this is what Jesus meant when He urged us to become like little children (Matt 18:3 TNIV). A child looks at the whole world with awe and wonder, sure that there are marvellous things out there to discover. Perhaps one of the most important things I’ve learnt over the years is to slough off the jaded weariness of adulthood and rediscover the sacred in the mundane. It’s really there, if you will only seek.

This is a favourite phrase of Dave’s, quoted in many of his sermons. The enthusiasm of the phrase overcomes my irritation at the double negative (allowed in other languages to emphasise a point, but not in standard English!) I understand the sentiment behind the words: eager expectation and anticipation of what is yet to come.

A teenager often finds it hard to get beyond the idea that life will always be full of woe (‘my best friend’s fallen out with me’, ‘I’ve failed this exam so I’m useless and will end up on the scrap heap’, ‘my boyfriend’s left me so I’ll be alone for ever’, ‘this spot on my face means no one will ever talk to me again’…), but we can also often be lulled into a false sense of security that what we currently see is all there is to life. Peter warns that there will always be scoffers who say, ‘“Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” (2 Pet 3:4 TNIV) People mock faith constantly because of the tension between the now and the not yet.

We live in the world but are not of the world (John 17: 6-19 TNIV). We live as ‘foreigners and strangers on earth’ (Hebrews 11: 13 TNIV). We live in the flesh but are born again of the Spirit (Rom 6-8 TNIV). And we live in constant expectation that there is more to come: ‘Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ (1 John 3:2)

The Bible talks about earth and heaven and hell, settings where the drama that is God’s story is played out. We are limited in our vision here on earth (it’s like looking at a reflection in a mirror, 1 Cor 13: 12 TNIV), but people who contemplate God and meditate on His Word see that there is so much more than what we perceive with our natural senses. We long to be in the place where earth and heaven meet, to cross that line and embrace God (‘Heaven and Earth’, Phil Wickham).

‘There is only one desire in the heart of Your redeemed
To step deeper in the place where earth and heaven meet.’ (‘Rushing Waters’, Aaron Shust)
‘Rushing Waters’, Aaron Shust

We see that heaven is ‘an invasion of the perfect future into present reality’ (Charlie Cleverly, ‘Epiphanies of the Ordinary’ P 207)

My understanding of God has definitely grown and matured over the past thirty years. But more than anything, I understand that what I have learned is barely a pin prick in the magnitude that is God. There is ‘so much more to be revealed’ (Scott, King, Dente).

Some people ask me how I can read the Bible every day and still find new truth in it. ‘Doesn’t it get boring, reading the same thing over and over again? Don’t you think it’s time to find something new?’ they ask. All I can say is that the Bible is a living word, just as Jesus is the Living Word, and we never reach the end of all there is to know. Paul prays for us to have wisdom and revelation so we may know God better (Eph 1:17 TNIV) and almost runs out of words himself when he is praying for us to know God’s love (Eph 3:17-20 TNIV, talking about knowing a ‘love that surpasses knowledge’ and a God who exceeds expectations!)

There is more. So much more. We can journey on in God for the rest of our lives and still spend all eternity discovering Him. We ain’t seen nothing yet!

We started looking at the first letter of John tonight, studying 1 John 1:1-4 TNIV. Here, we see John firmly establishing Christian doctrine about God. ‘That which was from the beginning’ refers not to the beginning of the world or the beginning of creation, but echoes Genesis 1:1 TNIV and John 1:1 TNIV, reminding us that there never was a time ‘before’ the existence of God. John takes us back to this time in eternity past to meet the One who has always been and always will be. The eternal nature of God looks back as well as forward (when we think of having eternal or everlasting life, we tend to view it only as something from the present to the future: unlike God, we do have a beginning!)

Gnosticism denied the physical reality of Jesus, but John gives his unashamed testimony that this eternal Word of life was seen, heard, touched. In effect, he is saying “we deliver nothing by hearsay, nothing by tradition, nothing from conjecture; we have had the fullest certainty of all that we write and preach.” (Adam Clarke commentary) This eternal God can be known and has revealed Himself to us.

John identified this eternally existent being as the Word of Life (the same Logos spoken of in John 1:1 TNIV). The idea of the Logos had significance for both Jewish and Greek readers, and John affirms that this life was manifested and he is an eyewitness of the fact. This Being has an eternal relationship with the Father (after all, since God is love, there is a sense in which there is fellowship within the Godhead before even man was created.) John invites us to share relationship (fellowship) with other Christians but also with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ (Jesus in the Incarnation being the physical manifestation of the Logos). Fellowship (koinonia) indicates sharing, communion, a common bond (see Acts 2:44 TNIV). To be invited into fellowship with God is a stupendous thought! Often, people will come into that fellowship with God through the fellowship they can share with other Christians. We need to understand that relationship is at the heart of God and therefore needs to be vitally important to us too; the result of relationship is joy (see John 15:11 TNIV, John 16:24 TNIV, John 17:13 TNIV). We can have fullness of joy even in the midst of difficulties, for joy is not rooted in circumstances but in the reality of the God we worship.

I became a Christian when I was a teenager (and statistically it remains true that the majority of people become Christians before the age of 21, something to bear in mind when we plan our outreaches, perhaps.) Teenagers find it hard to take the ‘long view’ on anything. Their moods and emotions are extreme: elation one minute, despair the next. I’ve seen a teenager devastated over a broken nail; I’ve seen a teenager distraught over a failed exam. In all these cases, there is raw emotion but no sense of counter-balance. Perhaps this is, sadly, one reason that teenage suicide rates are quite high.

Teenagers live in the moment, in the now. What is happening now is all that there is. There is no sense of perspective, no sense of a ‘bigger picture’ or a ‘long-term view.’

Many of us fail to grow out of this teenage phase, and constantly live life without a bigger picture. Our lives, our woes, our troubles, our joys are all that concern us. We are self-centred and selfish and myopic (and I speak as one who is literally about as short-sighted as they come!)

Over the years I have learnt that it won’t always be like this. It won’t always be all good or all bad in the way that it seems to be now. The heartache, the tears, the stinging failure, the ecstatic joys of this world… they are transient, impermanent. I first realised this through a song talking about the different ‘seasons of the soul’ (Michael & Stormie Omartian), which has been a great reassurance to me.
‘Seasons of the Soul’, Michael & Stormie Omartian

The one thing that does remain is God. He is the One who never changes (Mal 3:6 TNIV). He is the One who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (Heb 13:8 TNIV). He is the One who delivers us (Exodus 14:13 TNIV, Ps 31 TNIV, Matt 6:13 TNIV). He is the One who turns situations around, who rescues us, who provides a way out where there is no way out. Because of this, we can view life with a positive outlook, secure in our future with God. It won’t always be like this: sin-stained, full of broken dreams and minor keys. There is a light that is coming for the heart that holds on, a day ahead with no more tears or pain or sorrow or death. The ‘all good’ lies ahead, not in this world of wars and sin. Creation here is groaning for release from bondage (Rom 8:22 TNIV), but we are encouraged to take the long view: ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.’ (Rom 8:18 TNIV) What lies ahead is far greater. It won’t always be like this.

“There will be a day with no more tears
No more pain, and no more fears
There will be a day when the burdens of this place
Will be no more, we’ll see Jesus face to face
But until that day, we’ll hold on to you always

Troubled soul, don’t lose your heart
Cause joy and peace he brings
And the beauty that’s in store
Outweighs the hurt of life’s sting.” (‘There Will Be A Day’, Jeremy Camp)
‘There Will Be A Day’, Jeremy Camp

“Yes, I can see a light that is coming
For the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You.” (‘You Never Let Go’, Matt & Beth Redman)
‘You Never Let Go’, Matt & Beth Redman