As a child, the word ‘Philadelphia’ meant a creamy cheese spread which I greatly enjoyed. As a teenager, I learned that ‘Philadelphia’ was a city in Pennsylvania. As an adult, I learned that the original city thus named was found in Asia and that the word itself meant ‘brotherly love.’ It’s no surprise, perhaps, to discover that the church in Philadelphia receives much praise from Jesus and no admonition. Despite having little strength, the church there had held fast to Christ, kept His word and had not denied Him. They had learnt the secret of enduring patiently even when facing opposition and were doing well.

Philadelphia in Asia was strategically located, a border town with the purpose of spreading Greek culture far and wide. Perhaps it is because of this that Jesus spoke to them about open doors: ‘I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.’ (Rev 3:8) He reminds them (and us) that ‘what He opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.’ (Rev 3:7) God is the God of opportunity. Sometimes, He opens a door; on other occasions (as in Acts 16:6-7), He shuts it. We can be sure that God is able to keep us through all trouble and that there are great rewards for those who are victorious. In the meantime, what is required is the faithful tenacity shown by this church. Daily obedience, ongoing love in the face of adversity and devotion to Christ are required from every one of us. We can leave the door opening to God Himself!

Time signatures order rhythm for us; they help us to follow the beat. Four crotchet beats in a bar (common time or ⁴₄) represent a march; three crotchet beats (³₄) is most readily identified with the waltz. Time signatures tell a musician how many beats per bar (the first number) and what kind of beat they are (the second number, with 4 representing crotchets, 2 representing minims and 8 representing quavers.) Time signatures are rhythmical shorthand.

The world dances to a certain beat, the beat of independence. It is an attractive beat, easy to keep in step with. But Christians listen to a different drummer and dance to a different beat.

God’s beat is counter-cultural. It’s why Paul talks about keeping in step with the Spirit. (Gal 5:25) We have to listen for God’s voice, to learn ‘the unforced rhythms of grace’, as Eugene Peterson puts it. His beat will initially seem clumsy to us, perhaps like those unusual time signatures of ⁵₄ or ⁶₄, or playing music with a syncopated beat. His beat includes forgiving others no matter what, loving even our enemies, laying down our desires to be first. His beat includes examining our motives, looking beyond the obvious melodies to the more complex behaviours in our lives. His beat will gradually become familiar to us so that love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, goodness, patience and self-control become the virtues we march to, so that we put to death the desires of the flesh and keep in step with the Spirit of God.

Yesterday we were thrilled to hold a baptismal service, when Jade made that public commitment of her faith in Jesus Christ. Baptism does not make anyone a Christian; it is a sacrament which speaks of the commitment a person has made to follow Jesus and symbolises death to the old life and being raised to new life in Christ (see Romans 6, 2 Cor 5:17). It’s an opportunity to share publicly what Christ means to a person and is a mark of obedience to Jesus (see Matt 28:18-20). We also talked about growing in Christ (see 2 Pet 3:18) and how we are to live new lives reflecting Christ’s life in us. (Col 3:12-14)

It was lovely to see so many friends and family attend the service.

Our thanks to all who provided food for our meal after the service.

It was also fun to see the children dressing up afterwards in our new role-play costumes.

Coincidences are defined as ‘a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.’ William Temple was once told that there was no such thing as answers to prayer; any apparent answer was just a coincidence. His answer was ‘When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.’

Christians do not really believe in coincidences; they speak instead of ‘God-incidences’, how God intervenes in our lives, especially as we pray. The book of Esther tells the story of God’s intervention to save His people from extinction; the Jewish festival of Purim (celebrated to this day) commemorates this divinely orchestrated salvation of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian empire from Haman’s plot to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day. This miracle came about through a series of apparently chance happenings (Esther being chosen to be the king’s wife after his first wife fell out of favour, Mordecai happening to overhear a plot against the king and reporting it so the king was saved, the king being sleepless one night and therefore being reminded of this event, Esther being willing to alert the king to Haman’s plan to kill all Jews.) In reality, God’s hand can be seen throughout the book, and we are made aware, once again, that God works in miraculous ways to protect and deliver His people. We may not always be aware of what God is doing behind the scenes in our lives, but we can trust Him to lead, guide, protect and provide, as He did for Esther.

The book of Esther does not mention the name of God at all and yet is one of the most important Old Testament books for teaching us about the providence and protection of God, forming the basis of the Jewish festival Purim, when the Jews’ rescue from annihilation at the hand of Haman is celebrated to this day. Often, such miracles are thought of as a series of coincidences or are ascribed to serendipity, which means ‘the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.’ In truth, chance or fate or luck or serendipity have nothing to do with the miracles recounted in this book; rather, we see God’s hand in the mundane events recounted which amount to one of the greatest miracles we find in the Bible.

There are four main characters in this story: the king (Xerxes), his wife (Esther), her cousin (Mordecai) and the villain (Haman). We might expect the king to be the main character, but in fact, the God of the exiled Jews proves Himself to be greater than any human king (see also Ps 2:4-6).

Mordecai proves himself to be God’s man for the hour who encourages Esther to take a stand when Haman threatens the very existence of God’s people. His actions seem very ordinary, but they remind Esther that she has a divine duty to intervene, even if this means risking her own life. Esther, understanding that prayer and fasting underpin all our human activity, reveals the plot to the king, whose ‘chance’ wakefulness in the night coincides with his reading the royal records showing how Mordecai has intervened to save his life before. Before we know it, the crisis is past; Haman is hoist on his own petard and Mordecai and the Jewish people are saved.

This story reminds us that God works miracles on our behalf, but these come often in ordinary ways that we can easily overlook because they seem so mundane. God may not be mentioned by name, but His presence and His actions permeate the whole book; this is a story of providence and protection and miraculous help. God is always at work in our individual stories; we have a mighty God who is worth celebrating and praising each day because of His marvellous deeds on our behalf.