Mark followed on from Stephen’s sermon last week on rebuilding broken walls by looking at ‘possessing the gates of the enemy’ (Gen 24:60) this morning.

Gates are often found in cities and towns and serve a dual purpose of keeping out enemies and letting people in. Gates separate areas, acting as boundaries. In Biblical times, gates were often the place where business deals were discussed and sorted (see the book of Ruth.) This verse in Genesis forms part of the prayer of blessing on Rebekah’s marriage, for if you possessed the gates of your enemy, then you were the master, in control (and having a large family was also perceived as a great blessing!)

Psalm 24 also looks at the imagery of gates: verses 7 and 9 say “Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.” When a king arrived at a city, the gates would be swung wide open to allow him to enter in all his splendour and majesty. Jesus knocks at the gates of our hearts, wanting us to open up our lives fully to Him. This happens initially at salvation, and that doorway leads to everlasting life. As we progress in the Christian life, though, there is a need to keep on opening the doors of our lives to Christ, for there should be no secret gardens, no hidden rooms. Often it gets progressively harder to allow Christ into every area of our lives, for we like to be guarded and on the defensive. We need to allow Him full access, however, for this is the King of Glory, the Lord of hosts, who wants to come in! He is the captain of all the angel armies, Lord of everything on heaven and on earth. We need to give Him entrance to our lives.

Matthew 16:13-19 looks at the words of Jesus in telling us that He will build His church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Just as citizens are given the ‘key to the city’ as an honour, so too Jesus, the Key Keeper, gives us the keys to unlock the enemy’s territories.

Jesus is the Builder of His church; we are the bricks. The gates of hell will not be able to prevail against the Church (see also 1 John 4:4) As we open the gates of our lives to Christ, then we have the power and access to overcome all the enemy would throw against us; we can also plunder His kingdom so that the Light of the World may be seen and lives transformed and rescued!

On an interesting side-note, Psalm 24 has been the inspiration for a number of songs on this theme. You can listen to some of these by clicking on the links below:
Chris Tomlin, ‘King of Glory’
Godfrey Birtill, ‘Lift Up Your Heads’
Kutless, ‘Give Us Clean Hands’
(And that’s not to mention older ones by Graham Kendrick or Chris Bowater! Clearly this psalm’s imagery resonates with songwriters! How many more songs can you name?!)

Just in case anyone has been having withdrawal symptoms from Igor the iguana… He is still well, not enjoying the English autumn (being a warm-blooded reptile), but sadly has not been on many adventures lately. The closest he has come to an adventure was last night at church:

Mind you, he now has two motorbike tanks to guard, so I suppose his time is well spent in other ways! (and I was assured his timing on the drums was pretty good too!)

Stephen’s recent DIY experiences in completely renovating the bathroom at home led to this sermon on broken walls, with Nehemiah 1:3 as the starting point for the sermon. In this book, Nehemiah is one of the people God uses to encourage and help Israel to rebuild Jerusalem on their return from captivity. God is the God of second chances and Nehemiah’s practical help in inspiring and overseeing the building work were essential to the restoration of Jersualem.

Using paving blocks as illustrations…

… Stephen talked about structure, how structure defines a space and how the simplest structure is to build 4 walls to create a room with inner and outer space. Our ‘spiritual space’ is defined as we build, one brick at a time – a manageable achievement.

He then went on to talk about accessibility, often achieved through a doorway, which can both keep things out and allow things in. There are things in our lives which we must shun in order to walk with God; there are other things which must be embraced.

Walls afford protection (think of any fortified city). A ceiling provides protection from the elements, for example, in a building. God’s Word offers us protection and He is our shield and defender.

Building also involves boundaries. There is a clear line separating one area from another. Boundaries are our guideliness, our limits, our rules. We need to heed the boundaries set in God’s Word if we are to live as He wants us to.

Building also implies ownership.

God has ownership of our lives (we are not our own; He has purchased us with the blood of Christ.) We can stand tall under His leadership.

Is our life behind a firm structure?
Has our spiritual life got divine space, accessibility, protection and boundaries? Does God have ownership of our lives?
Are our defences secure against the invasion of the enemy?

We have to remember that the devil seeks to find strongholds in our lives, but these quickly become strangleholds. We need to be attentive to build our spiritual lives, one brick at a time, building with the kind of vision that sees the end product even in the ruins and rubble. We need also to give God all we have and are.

This morning we held a joint service at Furlong Road Methodist Church in Bolton-on-Dearne and celebrated a harvest festival with our friends there.

Getting the harvest display ready:

Getting ready at the start of the service:

Last year’s children’s slot asked us to think about what fruit or vegetable we would like to be. This year we were asked to imagine what the fruit and vegetables would say about themselves! Jeannette suggested that the spaghetti would tell us ‘I stand tall and straight, but when I’m cooking in water, I’m a big softy.” Other suggestions were from ‘sardines’ (“I swim in the sea and go on toast for tea”) and ‘bread’ (Mark reminded us that bread is good for the body but God’s word is the bread of life to us) and ‘apples’ (“an apple a day keeps the doctor away”!)

Dave preached from Matthew 25, looking at the need for a harvest festival nowadays, when locally grown produce mingles with produce from abroad and seasonal food seems a thing of the past. We are no longer so aware of our dependence on God and can become quite complacent about our food and lifestyles in the West. In the past, some of the practices associated with harvest festivals have not always seemed very Christian (corn dollies, for example), but the concept of thankfulness to God and offering Him our firstfruits goes right back to Genesis. Cain and Abel gave offerings to God in Genesis 4, as did Noah in Genesis 8. The Feast of Weeks (Leviticus 23) shows how the Israelites were commanded to celebrate the firstfruits of the harvest, and whilst the idyllic picture of rural England depicted in Constable’s painting ‘The Haywain’ may no longer seem relevant to us, the principle of sacrificial giving and gratitude to God remain applicable to us today.

A Harvest Festival reminds us, therefore, of all God’s gifts to us and encourages us to cultivate thankfulness and gratitude in return. We are also encouraged to give to those who are less fortunate than ourselves. The righteous who were commended in Matthew 25 did not realise that their service to others had actually been service to God. As we help other charities and churches who serve the poor, we were challenged to make this an ongoing offering and service, not just something to be done once a year at a Harvest Festival. The poor, Jesus said, will always be with us, but we become His hands and His feet when we serve others.

After the service, we enjoyed the hospitality of the Methodist church with a harvest lunch:

“Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he ploughed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!” (Hebrews 12:1-3, The Message)

As part of the French GCSE curriculum (yes, honestly) I have to teach about healthy lifestyles, including, of course, things that contribute to unhealthy lifestyles, such as drugs, alcohol and smoking. (Believe me, that’s interesting compared to the part where I have to teach about environmental issues…!) We look at reasons why people continue to do things that ultimately are harming their bodies and why those things are physically and psychologically damaging. I have absolutely no idea if this influences pupils in any way, but it ticks lots of Government boxes, I’m sure.

This version of Hebrews 12 in the Message made me think of those lessons. ‘Shooting adrenaline into the souls’ is a powerful image. Sometimes those with severe nut allergies carry epipens with them in case of anaphylactic reactions and as a teacher I’ve received training to administer adrenaline through an epipen. It’s fast, uncomplicated and very, very effective.

Hebrews 12 urges us to fix our eyes on Jesus if we want to know how to live effectively and study how He lived. Reviewing this story helps us to persevere. Ironically, adrenaline is a hormone that works in the short-term; it’s not long-lasting, but provides a boost for us in times of need. The Christian life is not a short-term race, but a marathon. Nonetheless, we all need that ‘something extra’ at times to keep on keeping on!

If perhaps you’re flagging at the moment, feeling the pressure or just feeling jaded, understanding our role in the bigger picture of God’s story and studying how Jesus lived is the best way to keep persevering. Focussing on God in worship and consciously dwelling on who He is help a lot too. The link below takes you to a series of videos from the ‘Big Church Day Out’ held in Eastbourne in May of this year, featuring a number of worship leaders such as Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Phil Wickham and Casting Crowns. Maybe they will help to ‘shoot adrenaline into the soul’ and keep our eyes fixed on God!

Big Church Day Out 2012 videos
(The link is to Matt Redman’s live concert; other concerts available by clicking on the right hand side of this page.)

Rich Mullins wrote a song called ‘Screen Door’ on James 2:14-26, the passage we studied this week. It looks at the problem of faith without works and says ‘it’s about as useless as a screen door on a submarine’. You can listen to the song here or view it here (the sound quality on the video is not as good, but it’s pretty special to watch the percussion effects on this otherwise unaccompanied song!)

This part of James has often been seen as an example of the Bible contradicting itself, with James advocating justification through works whereas Paul advocates justification by faith alone. There is no inherent contradiction in these passages, however (looking in particular at James 2:14-26 and Romans 4). As we saw in our last Bible study, just because a person claims to have faith does not mean they necessarily do have faith; faith has to be expressed through works (see also Matt 7:21-23). James is adamant that there can be no dichotomy that says ‘You have faith; I have works’ (James 2:18). These are not separate things at the opposite ends of a spectrum; rather, “Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove” (James 2:18, The Message) and “faith expresses itself in works” (James 2:22).

James looks at two examples from the Old Testament to back up his belief that faith and works need to be meshed together. The first is Abraham (see Genesis 15:6, Romans 4 and Galatians 3). The incident referred to in James is that recorded in Genesis 22 when Abraham ‘proved’ his faith by his willingness to sacrifice his only son. Abraham was justified by God long before Isaac was actually born, but this passage in Genesis shows us the evidence of his faith. Abraham believed God and was willing to act in obedience to him, even though if he really had killed Isaac, he did not know how God could keep His promise to him (though Hebrews 11:17-19 provides a clue, perhaps). Faith, James argues, results in ‘acts of obedience’. It’s worth pondering what this looks like in our lives.

Rahab (see Joshua 2) was a woman, a prostitute, from the lowest social class of the time. Her faith motivated her, too, to action (hiding the spies under the stalks of flax on the roof). She saved their lives and her actions led to the successful capture of Jericho and the saving of her own life. We enjoyed discussing the ethics of lying when considering her actions!

James wants there to be a ‘seamless unity of believing and doing’. If there is not this seamless unity, then there will be barrenness, a lack of fruit, death in our spiritual lieves. Faith without works really is as useless as a screen door on a submarine. But believing and doing together are as powerful as oxen yoked to a plough. “Faith comes from God and every word that He breathes. He lets you take it to your heart so you can give it hands and feet,” Rich Mullins says. The questions we need, therefore, to ask ourselves are:
* How can we put our faith into practice?
* What can we actually do to demonstrate the validity of our faith?
* What are the ‘hands and feet’ of our faith?

People came up with their own similes to express the idea that faith without works is dead. Garry’s contribution was “Faith without works is about as much good as a chocolate fireguard” and Mark’s was “Faith without works is about as much good as a doner kebab without the pitta bread: it’s just a mess.” Should we be worried that both these similes are connected to food?!