Living In The Light of God’s Promises

Aug 6, 2023

Garry spoke this morning from Genesis 47:28-31 on ‘living in the light of God’s promise.’ Jacob, Joseph’s father, shows us that the promise of God determined how he thought and lived; he lived his life in the expectation that God would fulfil His promises to him. If we live without God’s promises, our lives are full of dread and darkness, but with God, we are given discernment and the ability to judge situations (as the men of Issachar demonstrate, they understood the times and knew what Israel should do (1 Chron 12:32).
God gives us spiritual insight through His Spirit (see 1 Cor 2:16); we have ears that need to hear what the Spirit is saying (as Revelation 2 and 3 make plain.) We must, as Karl Barth said, read our newspapers in one hand with the Bible in the other, for it is God who interprets what is happening in our world.
It can be hard to know how to live in a world that ignores God or is even hostile to His ways (see Romans 13:1-8, Ex 1:15-17, Dan 6:6-10). The apostles made it plain that ‘we must obey God rather than human beings’ (Acts 5:29). Nowadays, so much of what governments approve is against God’s law; we must learn to live in the light of God’s promises, be they conditional or uncondtional. Where God’s promises rest on our obedience, we must strive to obey, but so many of His promises are unconditional and rely on His faithfulness alone. We should not fear what the world fears, but should rest in God’s sovereignty and let His promises direct our living and our hope, no matter what.

God’s Great Party

Aug 6, 2023

Every morning I read through a passage in the Old Testament, one in the New Testament and one from either Psalms or Proverbs. I use the Bible In One Year reading plan (https://bibleinoneyear.org/en/) and find it extremely helpful to get this broad overview of Scripture rather than just reading favourite passages over and over again. All Scripture is God-breathed, we are told (2 Tim 3:16-17), and so it is useful for us, equipping us for every good work.
Today’s Psalm was Psalm 91, a very well-known and much-loved psalm. I read it today in The Message version, and was struck by the ending in this version as I prepare for our special party service at church this afternoon:
“If you’ll hold on to me for dear life,” says God,
“I’ll get you out of any trouble.
I’ll give you the best of care
if you’ll only get to know and trust me.
Call me and I’ll answer, be at your side in bad times;
I’ll rescue you, then throw you a party.
I’ll give you a long life,
give you a long drink of salvation!” (Ps 91:14-16, The Message)
Why are we having a party service today, complete with traditional party games, party food, bouncy castle and inflatables? How can this possibly be called ‘church’?
All throughout Scripture, we see a God whose love for us is lavish, generous, abundant. Luke 15 shows us Jesus telling three stories about lost things – a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son – and each time the lost item is found, there is celebration and a party in heaven.
So often, we think of God as a killjoy, someone ‘out to get us’, someone who positively smirks when we fail. That is so far from the truth. God is a God of celebration, of lavish love, of welcome. Parties are God’s idea; He speaks of the ultimate celebration when we are reunited with Him as a wedding banquet. (Matt 22:1-14) Everything we love about parties – food, singing, dancing, games – is a reflection of the joy in God’s own heart when we live in right relationship with Him.
So today I am grateful for the party-heart of God!

GPCC Family Fun Day

Aug 2, 2023

Today we had the second of our summer fun days, this time at GPCC. On a thoroughly wet and miserable August day (where is summer/?!), it was lovely to welcome 110 people into the building (45 adults and 65 children) and to celebrate ‘God’s Great Party‘, looking at Luke 15 (how heaven rejoices when a lost soul returns to God) and Matthew 22 (at the wedding banquet to come).

Because it was a party theme, we had to decorate party food!

We also had yummy food to eat, thanks to the Salvation Army and Gregg’s.

We made party invitations and bunting and decorated party bags.

We painted people and dressed up paper people to go to a party!

We played Pass The Parcel.

We heard stories.

We danced and enjoyed bubbles.

We all had a grea time!

God At The Centre

Jul 31, 2023

The kaleidoscope is a toy, an optical device consisting of angled mirrors that reflect images of bits of coloured glass in a symmetrical geometric design through a viewer. As the section containing the loose fragments is rotated, the image changes, allowing us to view a seemingly endless variety of patterns. Invented in 1816, the kaleidoscope can provide hours of entertainment and is a visual reminder that beauty can come from brokenness and that variety is a vital aspect of life.

 

Life can feel rather like a kaleidoscope, shaking us more than we would prefer. After each shaking, life looks different to before. The view changes; we see things differently.

We all start life believing we are the centre of the world. The baby’s plaintive cries are designed to ensure its needs are met. The toddler tantrums because it must learn consideration for others and how to deal with that awful word, ‘No’. It takes time and training to be shifted from this egocentric view of life.

At some point (if we are fortunate), life shakes us so that we see God as the centre of the universe, not ourselves. Our lives are realigned to meet reality rather than going along with the devilish fiction that we are at the centre of evverything.

Eugene Peterson writes, “Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God.” (“Leap Over A Wall”) This is why personal and corporate worship of God are so important. Left to ourselves, we easily slip back into childish thinking (“our self-importancec is so insidiously relentless.“) We have to learn to “deliberately interrupt ourseles regularly”, which is why a daily quiet time with God and regular attendance at church services can be vital ingredients to living well. We have to learn to re-focus, to give God our undivided attention.

This is where gathering together as believers is so useful. It gives us the time and space to focus on God, to declare who God is, to listen to what God says, to put God at the centre. Only when He has His rightful place will the kaleidoscopic picture of life fall into place and make sense. There is a meaning, a purpose, a picture to life, but this cannot be seen or understood apart from God.

Follow Your Heart?

Jul 30, 2023

Garry spoke tonight on the theme ‘Follow Your Heart.’ This is definitely the world’s mantra, urging people to do whatever makes them happy and following wherever the heart takes them. The problem is that our hearts can mislead us; as Jeremiah reminded us, ‘the heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out.’ (Jer 17:9) Solomon, one of the richest men in the world who could presumably have anything he wanted, discovered that such things did not ultimately satisfy him (Eccl 2:10-11).
It can be difficult to know our own hearts, but God weighs the heart; He knows us through and through (see Prov 21:2). He is the ultimate arbiter of what is right and wrong. Deut 4:9 urges us to guard our hearts and remember what God has done; if we do not, it’s amazing how quickly God’s many wondrous acts fade from our memories.
Matt 6:21 reminds us that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If we have wrong values, we will end up going in the wrong direction and harming ourselves and others. Our hearts become calloused, desensitised and then it’s dangerous to follow our heart.
What we need is a new heart, a pure heart (see Ps 51:10). God has promised to do this (Ezek 36:26) He is able to restore and renew us, illuminating our hearts, giving us new values and new desires. He gives light to the eyes of our heart (Eph 1:18), enabling us to follow God who has then promised to give us the desires of our hearts. (Ps 37:4)

An Inconvenient Miracle

Jul 30, 2023

This morning we looked at an inconvenient miracle found in Matthew 12:9-14, Mark 3:1-6 and Luke 6:6-11, where Jesus heals a man with a shrivelled hand in the synagogue on the Sabbath. It’s difficult for us to understand the outrage that this miracle caused, but the Pharisees and religious leaders were furious with Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. As far as they were concerned, this was an unnecessary miracle and it led to accusations and further plots to kill Jesus.
Keeping the Sabbath was an important part of the Jewish life. Its origins lie in the creation story, when God rested from His work on the seventh day (Gen 2:2). The Sabbath was made for man (not man for the Sabbath), an opportunity to rest from work, worship God and find our spiritual energy in Him, but by this time, people had added a whole raft of man-made rules to the original commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy (Ex 20:8, Ex 31:15). Jesus made it plain that He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it (Matt 5:17), but He lived by the spirit of the law, whereas the religious leaders lived by the letter of the law.
Jesus knew God’s heart because of His close relationship with the Father (see John 5:17, 39-40). Religion is useful in giving us organisation and form, but relationship is at the heart of our faith; we cannot simply hide behind rules and regulations, even though this means having to deal with the mess of relationships! – learning to forgive, love and live with imperfect people and walk by faith and not by sight.. The healing of this man was an inconvenient miracle to the Pharisees because it smashed their rules; it broke their taboos. It offended them because it seemed to them unnecessary. Their response ultimately showed the hardness of their hearts.
The fact that Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath shows the worth He placed on one individual (see also Matt 12:12, Matt 10:29-30, Luke 15:3-7, 8-10, 11-32). We can feel overwhelmed at times by the needs around us, but Jesus shows us that sometimes miracles happen one person at a time. Even a cup of cold water can count! (Matt 10:42)
In this story, Jesus challenged the hypocrisy of the leaders, exposed the folly of their position and showed ordinary people something more of God’s heart for each one of them. His pointed question remains: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4) May we learn from His example and follow God’s heart in all things.