Hebrews 3 and 4 talk about a ‘Sabbath rest’ available to God’s people. The principle of the Sabbath is that of rest. God gave the Sabbath to His people as a special day; after six days of work, He commanded rest, leading by example in the creation week (Genesis 2:2 TNIV). In our Western world with its shifting patterns of work, it’s not easy to really understand the specialness of the Sabbath; many of us don’t work for 6 days anymore and we have lost the sense of anything ‘special’ about one day. But the principle of special rest, rest in which we can thank God and meditate on Him, is still vital to our physical and spiritual health.

Hebrews 4:10 TNIV says ‘anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did.’ I don’t think that just applies to our natural work. I think we are always busy striving, and the Sabbath rest Hebrews talks about is also an exhortation to rest from the constant temptation we face to ‘play God’, to do God’s work for Him. Louie Giglio has said, ‘We Are Called Into God’s “Already In Motion” Plans. Sabbath rest is remembering that God calls us into His plans, He doesn’t call us to create the plans and make them happen.’ He goes on to say, ‘God wants us to work with all our might as we participate in His plans. But Sabbath is about remembering that while we are responsible to step into the opportunities God sets before us, He is responsible for the outcomes. In the end, God did come through [for Abrahamn], and He did fulfil His promise for and through Abraham’s life.’

I always want to be involved in what God is doing. But there are many times when I need to rest from striving and allow God to be God. I need to stand back and watch Him in action, rather than always trying to work things out myself. The temptation to do it my way is strong. Sabbath rest allows us to let go of that temptation and to be still and know that He is God. (Ps 46:10 TNIV)

Garry continued his series on the Beatitudues (‘Looking For Heroes’) last night, focussing on Matthew 5:9 TNIV: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’

The word ‘peace’ (‘Shalom’ in Hebrew) has many connotations, including completeness, soundness, safety, tranquillity and serenity. Peacemakers are people who are peaceable, who bring peace and who generate peace. God Himself went to great lengths to achieve peace. He seeks peace and is devoted to it and urges us to live at peace with everyone as far as we are able (Rom 12:18 TNIV). It’s a topic frequently mentioned in the New Testament (eg Col 1:19-20 TNIV, Hebrews 12:14 TNIV) and yet we often want to receive peace without necessarily passing it on!

Peace Achieved
Peace is high on God’s agenda. Luke 2:14 TNIV reminds us that the angels proclaimed peace to those on whom God’s favour rests and Simeon, on seeing the baby Jesus, declared that He would guide our feet into the path of peace (see Luke 1:76-79 TNIV). God is the God of peace (see Rom 15:33 TNIV, Rom 16:20 TNIV) and it is so important to Him that He took the responsibility for doing something about the problems we faced, even though sin was our problem, not His. Col 1:19-20 TNIV reminds us of the price Christ paid, Christ who is our peace (Eph 2:14 TNIV). He is the way we obtain peace with God and thus brings us the gospel of peace (Rom 10:15 MKJV). God has gone out of His way to make peace!

Peace Received
Jesus promised to give His peace to His disciples (John 14:27 TNIV). He who had a perfect relationship with His heavenly Father offers us the chance to have the same unity with God. His peace can be ours. Yet this is not a naive, blind peace, for in talking about peace He also reminded His disciples that in this world they would also experience trouble (John 16:33 TNIV). Some people are naturally serene by temperament, but Jesus knew what it was to be troubled and in distress (see the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark 14:33 TNIV), yet He could also talk about having peace in those situations. Our relationship with God can be undisturbed, even when we are facing tumultuous circumstances.

God wants us not only to have peace with Him, achieved through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, but to have peace with other people too. Peace is a fruit of the Spirit.

Peace with others
We live in a broken world with broken people who break God’s hearts. When we mirror God’s character, our hearts too will become softened and tender. Those who exemplify God’s character will have trouble in this world and we will often feel that our hearts are broken. Other people may not want to live at peace with us, but as far as we are able, we are to live at peace with others. Truth and righteousness must not be compromised, but we have to be willing to go much further than we often are in order to achieve peace. God’s peace then can be the umpire or arbiter in our lives: ‘let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.’ (Col 3:15 TNIV)

Achieving peace with others often requires great effort on our parts (see Rom 14:19 TNIV, Eph 4:3 TNIV, 1 Cor 7:15 TNIV). We are urged to be ‘of one mind’ and to ‘live in peace’ (2 Cor 13:11 TNIV). In order to live at peace with brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to keep on loving and forgiving and we have to make every effort to live at peace not only with Christians but with everybody (see Heb 12:14 TNIV). Peter goes one step further and urges us to ‘seek peace and pursue it’ (1 Pet 3:10-11 TNIV), a word which can also be translated as ‘persecute’ – we have to chase and really seek after peace! James reminds us that true heavenly wisdom is peace-loving (James 3:17-18 TNIV) and that those who sow in peace will reap a harvest of righteousness. Peacemakers really do show the character of God and therefore can truly be called His children.

‘It Is Well’, Kutless

We had three birthdays to celebrate last night:

Happy Birthday to all!

Stephen preached on a little word which can make a big difference this morning – TRUST.

Stephen is a gadgets’ man! – he loves things like multitools (small enough to fit into a pocket but big enough to do a variety of jobs!)

When he first became interested in computers, they took up a whole room!

Today, he preached from an iPad which is much smaller and quite a lot more powerful:

In the same way that everything seems to be getting smaller these days, trust is a small word which has a big impact on our everyday lives. It’s often easier to trust ourselves than God. As we grow up, we become more skilled at doing things and end up saying ‘I can do that!’, but we need to understand that God wants to be involved in every aspect of our lives. When Jesus was in the wilderness, the devil tempted Him to tell the stones to become bread (Matt 4:3 TNIV), something He was definitely capable of doing (His later miracles clearly demonstrate His ability to feed thousands!) He refused to heed the temptation to do this for His own benefit, because He knew that ‘man does not live on bread alone’ (Matt 4:4 TNIV). Just because we can do something doesn’t mean to say we should. Jesus put His trust in God rather than trusting in His own ability – and if the Son of God lived that way, we definitely need to!

Trust needs to be the hallmark of our lives, whether facing situations where we feel we can do what is required or when facing situations where we don’t feel capable. Whenever, wherever and however we find ourselves, we need to trust in God. Prov 3:5 TNIV says ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.’ We have to be willing to trust God; when we do so, our confidence grows (Jer 17:7 TNIV says ‘Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.’) The challenge for us every day is not to go it alone, but to include God in everything we do and to trust Him in every situation.

Mark’s sermon on seeds last weekend touched on the idea of influence and statistics (quite a rare combination, in my experience!) When discussing the parable of the sower, he said that a pessimist (generally speaking, that’s me!) sees the ‘results’ of this parable in terms of failure, since only one of the four seeds planted actually bears fruit and in today’s society, a 25% ‘success rate’ is not considered worthwhile. However, he went on to point out that that one seed that falls on good soil bears fruit ‘a hundred fold’, so we could say that the success rate of the original seed is 101, which seems a much better perspective! He went on to say that we never really know what fruit our seeds will bear; if it’s our testimony that leads to an evangelist coming to know God and that evangelist then speaks the word that brings many others to faith, our influence has been much greater than we might otherwise think from the bare ‘statistics’.

I’ve been meditating on that thought all week. I agree that influence is hard to quantify and that our influence is often far greater than we realise. For example, I write this blog primarily for church members, especially those who are not able to actually get to certain meetings, and as a historical record of all that God is doing in and through Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church (and because I love writing, if I’m honest!) But recently I noticed that one of the blog’s followers is a Brazilian (hello!) and Dave pointed out that if you clicked on the globe on the blog, you discover where in the world people are reading these words. Amazingly, 26% of readers are American! The blog has been viewed from an astounding (!) 89 countries, including Senegal, Qatar, Tunisia, Oman and Yemen. Frankly, I’m completely stunned by that fact. I have absolutely no idea why people from these countries have viewed the blog, how they got to see it, or who they are. For some of the countries, I do know people who may be reading it (Steve & Katuska in Mozambique, for example). But overall, the blog is able to reach people far beyond my own capabilities. On the ‘Statistics’ page of the blog, there is a map of the world with areas shaded green that have viewed the blog and it’s stunning to see so many green areas! I know that 27% of people who’ve viewed the blog use Chrome as their web browser, 25% use Firefox (as I do), 17% use Internet Explorer and 7% use Safari (not to mention some others I’ve never even heard of!) Most people, apparently, find the blog either from the church website or via Google. In the last month, there were over 1000 views of the blog and contrary to my son’s belief, they weren’t all from me!

All in all, I think this backs up Mark’s point. Our influence can be much greater than we think or realise. We often feel insignificant and unimportant and as though our lives for God don’t really amount to much. Most of us won’t get our names in the history books. Most of us won’t be famous evangelists like Billy Graham or Luis Palau or famous worship leaders like Chris Tomlin or Matt Redman. Most of us will serve God faithfully in our locality and will maybe feel that our lives are not really shaping history. I would argue that we only think that way because we are viewing things from a limited perspective and can only see with our natural eyes right now. Jesus urged us to ‘store up for yourselves treasures in heaven’ (Matt 6:20 TNIV) and if we serve God faithfully in this life, we may well be surprised to find how far our influence has spread when we reach heaven.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.” (1 Cor 13:11 TNIV)

Last week we had the privilege of looking after a toddler for the day (an exhausting but enriching and fulfilling occasion!) and once again I pondered on language development. It always fascinates me to hear children learning to speak: from stumbling words, often mispronounced, to short sentences, not always grammatically correct, but understandable to their nearest and dearest, to full sentences, readily understandable by all. Language is such a powerful tool.

This week I have been back in the cut and thrust of school life, dealing again with fresh-faced Year 7s and discussing with them the origins of language (answering the question ‘Why doesn’t everyone speak the same language?’ as found in Genesis 11:1-9 TNIV) and the many reasons for learning other languages, as well as encouraging those pupils about to tackle GCSEs by showing them strategies for improving their fluency in another language. One of the keys to this, in the prosaic terms of the examiners, is to use ‘complex language’ or, less prosaically, ‘words that make you stand out from the crowd’.

When we are children, we use baby words. Our vocabulary is small and repetitive. The toddler we cared for has learnt the phrases ‘I’m tired’ and ‘I’m hungry’, but she hasn’t quite got to the stage of saying what she would like to eat! As we grow, we learn the great glory of new words, especially synonyms which are nuanced to give us a slightly different shade of meaning. Broadening vocabulary is, I believe, something that should continue throughout life. There are always new words out there to discover which can enrich our experience.

Language is all about communication. But, as Eugene Peterson points out, in ministry ‘communicating clearly not what we are after. What we are after is creating new life.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Subversive Spirituality’) He is not advocating confused language, incidentally (the plain English campaign has a lot to commend it!) But he is saying that words can be the doorway to creativity (God, after all, created our whole universe through words, saying ‘Let there be light’ and so on, and Jesus is known as the ‘Word of God’ – see Genesis 1 & John 1).

I’m not a big lover of cats, but one of the things I’ve noticed when visiting my aunt who loves cats is how a cat purrs contentedly when being stroked. A purr can be quite a loud noise, but it indicates contentment to the point of ecstasy. That’s precisely how I feel when I find words used which open my understanding and deepen my knowledge of God. Writers and poets who use words in ways that create ‘light bulb’ moments for me. ‘Ah, so that’s what it means!’ Those moments are to be cherished.

I love music, but it’s usually the lyrics of a song which create that purr of contentment in me, because I’m a person who loves words. It can be just a phrase which moves me from fog to clear understanding: ‘Embracing mundane’, ‘reckless abandon wrapped in common sense’, ‘manna became man’ are just a few examples (from the songs ‘Wondrous Love’ by Aaron Shust, ‘Somewhere in the Middle’ by Casting Crowns and ‘Final Word’ by Michael Card.) On Matt Redman’s album ‘10,000 Reasons’ it was just the one word ‘magnificent’ in the song by that title: a new adjective to describe God that helped me to see Him in a bigger way.

The spark for these musings came from the song ‘No One Higher’ by Aaron Shust. The chorus of that song goes:
“And, Lord, we stand amazed in Your presence,
Astounded by Your mercy and love,
Our hands are lifted high in surrender.
Your grace for me is always enough.
And there is no one higher than our God.
There is no one higher than You.” (‘No One Higher’, Aaron Shust)
‘No One Higher’, Aaron Shust)

‘Amazed’ is a word we often use when talking about our reaction to God. But ‘astounded’ is not one we use all the time. It means to be shocked or greatly surprised. And somehow, that seems exactly the right word to use to talk about my reaction to God’s mercy and love. I’m shocked by it. It’s not what I expected or deserved. It surprises me. It astonishes me. It takes the wind from my sails, bowls me over with gratitude. I’m a mere mortal, a sinner by birth, and yet the Almighty God lavishes His mercy and love on me!

So today, take the time to be astounded by God’s mercy and love. Don’t take them for granted, but let His majesty and greatness take a hold of your life and fill you with awe and wonder!