Every day we talk to ourselves. We have an internal dialogue perfectly captured by J. R. R. Tolkin in his depiction of the character Gollum in ‘The Lord Of The Rings’. Originally known as Smeagol, he is a hobbie corrupted by the ring who is later known as Gollum, and he essentially chose a wrong, murderous path because of his desire for the ring. We are told he both loved and hated the ring as he loved and hated himself, and the author gives us insight into this dilemma by sharing his internal conversations which reflect this tension, a tension Paul describes as being the way of the flesh versus the way of the Spirit.

Talking to ourselves is something we do out loud as children, but the older we get, the more these conversations are internalised, rarely discussed and often even unnoticed consciously. Nonetheless, these conversations are powerful and often the source of internal conflict, creating dissonance within us as we wrestle with disquiet, anxiety, fear, envy and dread. We often try to suppress the internal voices that wage war on our minds, but the only real solution to these struggles is truth.

This is why the BIble tells us to speak words of truth out loud. It’s not enough to know truth; we have to declare it. Heb 13:6 says, So we say with confidence,“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”; Joel 3:10 says, ‘Let the weakling say,“I am strong!”’ Jesus, when faced with the devil’s temptations, quoted the word of God back to him. If we are to silence the voices of doubt, anxiety, fear and dread, we must do so with the truth of God’s word. Only by speaking truth can we hope to have victory over other conversations!

This evening in our series ‘The Miraculous & The Mundane’, we looked at Acts 10, where Cornelius and Peter both receive miraculous visions and dreams which lead to Cornelius and his household coming to a living faith in Jesus Christ. Not only does this show us how God works to bring people to faith, we see how Peter’s understanding of the gospel message is enlarged to include Gentiles as well as Jews.

It seems that God is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to bring people to know Him – and this is tremendously reassuring to know. Cornelius, a devout and God-fearing man, directly sees an angel who tells him to send servants to find Peter. Peter, praying whilst waiting for food, sees a vision of a sheet from heaven filled with four-footed animals, reptiles and birds and is told to ‘kill and eat’ – a command which baffles him since, as a devout Jew, he has always followed God’s dietary laws. Peter does not really understand what this vision (which he sees three times) means, but whilst he is pondering this, Cornelius’s servants arrive. He realises that ‘I should not call anyone impure or unclean’ (Acts 10:28) and that ‘God does not show favouritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.’ (Acts 10:34-35) Thus, a new chapter in evangelism begins as Peter realises the scope of the gospel is for all people, not just for Jews.

God is able to use ‘divine coincidences’ to grab our attention and to focus us on God. Often, the means of these coincidences may seem quite mundane or on the other hand might be difficult to understand, but if we are listening to the Spirit of God, He is more than able to nudge us in the right direction, bring the right people across our paths and use us to preach the gospel message of salvation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “We must be prepared to have God interrupt us.” God interrupting us could be the very definition of a miracle! Cornelius and Peter were both going about their ordinary lives when God interrupted them. The interruption was unusual, but resulted in a meeting which led to salvation. May God interrupt us and use us to bring the gospel message of salvation to a hungry and seeking world.

Tonight, we looked at the fascinating subject of bees in our Little Big Church service and discovered that bees have a lot to teach us about the kingdom of God.

There are different kinds of bees (queen bee, worker bees, drone bees) and each bee has a different role to play. The queen bee has a longer life expectancy than the other bees and is responsible for laying eggs and maintaining the overall health of the hive. She is the only bee in the colony that can lay fertilised eggs which will develop into worker bees or new queen bees. The worker bees, on the other hand, are responsible for hive maintenance, pollination, and honey production. The drone bees have no reproductive role and are only present to mate with the queen.

In the same way, we are all individually important to God and all have different roles to play. We belong to a community, just as bees work together in a hive, and in the church, diversity and variety are important: unity is not uniformity! Paul likens the church to a body, where each part has a different function, but every part is necessary (1 Cor 12, Romans 12). We should never feel useless or unimportant, but should seek to find out what pleases the Lord and what our particular role in the church should be.

Just as bees work together to serve the queen bee, we need to remember that we must work together to serve the King of Kings. Greatness in the kingdom of God comes as we serve God, and we serve God as we serve other people (see Matt 25:31-46, Matt 26:25-28). The church may seem to be a poor reflection of God at times, but the church is God’s idea and He wants us to let His light shine through us so that others may come to know Him. (Matt 5:14-16)