The song ‘The Lord of the Dance’ was Mark’s inspiration for the family service last night. The song talks about Jesus being the Lord of the Dance: Lord at creation, bringing hope and joy and life to all when on earth and Lord even through death and resurrection. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that it was for the joy set before Christ that He endured the cross, scorning its shame. Jesus is our model for joy.

Dancing is mentioned in many places in the Bible. Mark spoke on 4 texts:

(1) 2 Samuel 6:14
This passage talks about David dancing before the Lord with all his might. Matt Redman has written a song called ‘Undignified’ on this passage. Clearly, David’s joy at all that God was doing spilled over into dancing. The passage speaks of exuberance, joy, and a wildness that is perhaps unsettling for many of us.
Matt Redman, ‘Undignified’

(2) Psalm 30:11
This says “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.” Life is not always easy and although we associate dancing with joy, that is not to say that life is always easy. Nonetheless, this psalm talks about the transformation God can bring into our situations: weeping comes, but is replaced by joy (Ps 30:5); wailing is replaced by dancing. We may have to wait for this transformation, but we can be confident that God will hear our cries and will come to our aid.

Chris Tomlin’s song ‘You Lifted Me Out’ is based on this psalm: Chris Tomlin, ‘You Lifted Me Out’

(3) Psalm 149:1-3
Praising with dancing is encouraged in these verses. So often, we are embarrassed by the exuberance of dancing and feel that that is not very British! But God is worthy of all our praise and we should not be held back by embarrassment, fear of what others will think of us or be half-hearted in our expressions of praise.

(4) Ecclesiastes 3:4-5
There is a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance. Joy is available from God for us at all times, but again, there are times and seasons in our lives. We should not be afraid of the difficult times, but can be sure that God will bring us through and will fill us with joy.

Songs on the subject of dancing & joy!
Matt Redman, ‘For Your Glory’
Matt Redman, ‘Dancing Generation’
Phil Wickham, ‘Joy’

Last night’s family service looked at the theme of ‘Lord of the Dance’ and the quiz instead took on the form of a dancing competition! First of all the men, and then the women, had to dance to an assortment of videos.

Four finalists were selected (two men, two women), who then had to dance for prizes! (They were moving so quickly, the photo is blurred!)

We also had a birthday to celebrate:

The family service is on Sunday 7th October in the evening, starting at 6 p.m.

Next Sunday morning we will be at Furlong Road Methodist Church in Bolton-on-Dearne, sharing in their harvest festival. Come along at 10.30 a.m. to that service and be part of the local community’s expression of gratitude to God. Please bring harvest gifts to give to the needy if you are able to.

The evening service on 14th October will be at GPCC as usual, starting at 6 p.m.

Bible studies (continuing our studies of James) will be on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month (11th & 25th October), starting at 7.30 p.m.

Please note also that the outreach to help the poor and needy in Goldthorpe continues and we are looking especially for coats, hats, scarves, gloves, socks, blankets and hot water bottles as the winter months approach. We are working with the Salvation Army and other local churches in this initiative and all donations are gratefully received.

One of my favourite films is ‘Three Amigos’. This spoof western shows three actors playing the part of heroes and then being thrust into what they assume is another film, only to find the villagers of Santo Poco expect them to rescue them from a real band of ruffians, led by El Guapo. Needless to say, the three heroes (played by Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short) turn out to be just as amazing as their alter egos on screen and save the day… thanks to some help from the feisty villagers.

This morning, Garry talked about knowing our weaknesses and strengths. If you’re like me, knowing your weaknesses is relatively easy. They stare you in the face all day long. Knowing your strengths is another thing altogether. What is perhaps even harder is wondering how God can use your strengths, since they seem so utterly ordinary and even banal to us!

I was reminded of a scene in ‘Three Amigos’ where the villagers finally have to stop running and come up with a plan of action against El Guapo. They are challenged by the Three Amigos to use the skills and the talents of the people. ‘What is it that this town does really well?’ they are asked. There is musing and bewilderment amongst the people, who clearly don’t think they have any skills or talents, until one woman tentatively says ‘We can sew.’

Clearly, this was not the answer that our heroes were looking for! But, true to form, they remember a scene from a previous film they have made and enlist the help of all the villagers in sewing costumes like their own sparkling black and silver outfits for everyone, so that when El Guapo and his band of marauders arrive, they will be utterly confused and defeated. This cunning ploy saves the day and El Guapo is defeated!

‘Three Amigos’, ‘We can sew!’ scene

Our strengths may seem equally unremarkable. How can God use my talents? How can a talent for making the tea or washing up really count in God’s kingdom? How can an administrative skill be really useful? How can physical strength be used in a day when we’re no longer knocking down the walls of cities? We tend to denigrate our talents and see them as ordinary, mundane, not special. Someone else’s skills seem so much more impressive.

But God has a habit of using whatever we give Him and can turn our ordinariness into something quite extraordinary when He is introduced into the equation. The little boy’s packed lunch fed a huge amount of people when surrendered to Jesus. God does not ask us to be anything other than who we are when we come to Him. All He wants is for us to give Him what we have. As the Christmas carol goes:

“What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part.
Yet what can I give Him?
Give my heart.” (Christina Rossetti, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’)

Let’s not downplay (or over-inflate) our strengths. Let’s simply give them to God, however ordinary they seem, and watch Him do amazing things with ordinary talents (even those like sewing.) You will be surprised at the results!

Garry spoke this morning from 2 Pet 1:3-7, looking at how we are to add to our faith and goodness knowledge. Making God’s character our character is His aim for us and knowledge is needful. Sincerity in and of itself is not enough. There is a progression in our understanding; we do not yet have ‘full knowledge’. God is above and beyond our understanding, but we should be growing in grace and in a knowledge of Him.

Comparing ourselves to others is a mistake; we need to develop our own understanding and knowledge. Similarly, experience cannot simply be measured in years; we have to be growing in knowledge.

The kind of knowledge that needs to grow includes:

(1) our knowledge of God
Ex 5:1-2 shows us Pharaoh asking the question ‘Who is the Lord?’ We need to have a knowledge of who God is and be able to explain this to us. Knowing God is closely linked to salvation and God wants us to know Him personally (see Jer 31:34). We need to know what God’s ways are like and how He works.

(3) knowing what we believe
What we believe determines how we live; we must not live a life where we believe one thing but act in ways that are contrary to thatbelief. We are hypocrites if we don’t live what we believe and we need to know what we believe so that we can live out our faith.

(3) knowing why we believe
The word of God is our authority and we need to be of more noble character like the Bereans, who searched the Scriptures to make sure that what Paul was teaching them had basis in the Word. If our lives cannot withstand crises, then we are just playing at faith. The Word of God is the arbiter in our lives, not emotion. We cannot rely on emotions alone, but need direction from the Word to show us why we believe what we believe.

(4) knowledge about others
Jesus said that we could know people by their fruit. He sent out His disciples to be ‘as sheep among wolves’ and urged them to be ‘shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves’ (Matt 10:16). We need to know what motivates people and to see beyond the surface actions, where sometimes smooth talkers can be deceitful and those who appear unfriendly or brittle may be hurting individuals in need of love and compassion.

(5) knowledge about the times and the seasons
God wants us to be spiritually aware and to know what is happening around us (see 1 Thess 5:1-6). We need to be salt and light accordingly in our environment, not being fooled by every wind of doctrine.

(6) knowing the truth
Jesus said that the truth sets us free (John 8:32). However difficult it may be for us to acquire knowledge of the truth, we should not avoid it but understand that the truth is the path to freedom.

(7) knowledge about ourselves
The heart is deceitful and wicked. We need to know our weaknesses (and refuse to put ourselves in situations where we are vulnerable) and our strengths (understanding that God has given gifts to each one of us.)

There are, however, areas where we should not pursue knowledge. Jesus clearly taught that we will never know the precise time of His second coming. It’s not wise to want to pry too much into how God will work in someone else’s life (see John 21:20-22). Our own futures may not be made clear to us. God wants us to walk by faith and not by sight. Pursuing some knowledge (eg through mediums and clairvoyants) is clearly prohibited in Scripture (Lev 19:26,31). Moreover, we must acknowledge that however great our knowledge of God becomes, we will never totally fathom Him! Nonetheless, we should make every effort to add knowledge to the goodness and faith He has given us.

Guest speaker Yan Handley was at church last night, speaking on how to keep calm in a crisis. Crises come to us all at different times in life: they may be financial, connected with work or health or family or even with church and we need to learn how to keep calm in such situations. Jesus was calm enough in a storm to go to sleep and even when faced with the agony of the Crucifixion remained calm and without need to vindicate Himself. In the Bible, we read of many others whose faith enabled them to cope with tragedy and crises: Job, who worshipped God despite sickness and family bereavement; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who faced the fiery furnace with calm; Paul who faced shipwrecks, beatings and imprisonment with a song in his heart and John who, even when exiled on the island of Patmos, was ‘in the Spirit on the Lord’s day’.

Yan looked at the life of Stephen as narrated in Acts 6 and 7 and gave us four principles by which we can become the victor even in a crisis.

(1) Stephen was full of faith.
We can be full of all kinds of things such as fear, doubt and self-pity, but we need to be known, as Stephen was, as ‘full of faith’. Faith has be there long before the crises come! It needs to be developed in the ordinary. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world (1 Jn 5:4). Each one of us has been given faith by God (Rom 12:3), but that faith can be dormant, divided, diverted or developing. We need to ensure that our faith is not simply sleeping and that we are not torn by spiritual schizophrenia. Instead, we need to grow in faith as Abraham did, not wavering but believing God has power to do all He has promised (see Romans 4).

(2) Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit.
We can have the Holy Spirit in us but not necessarily be filled with the Holy Spirit (see how Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on His disciples but still told them to wait in the upper room for Pentecost.) We know Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit because of the evidence of his life, how he spoke with boldness and witnessed to the gospel. Speaking in tongues is not the only evidence of the Holy Spirit! Acts 7:54 tells us that people recognised that the strength Stephen received came only from the Holy Spirit. God’s strength is available to us too (Eph 3:6).

(3) Stephen was focussed on Christ
Acts 7:55 tells us that Stephen gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He gazed and didn’t just glimpse. Our minds need to be fixed on God (Is 26:3) for us to know His perfect peace in a crisis. When we gave into heaven, we see the glory of God. Jesus is here depicted as standing at God’s right hand (rather than sitting.) Stephen was not overwhelmed by fear. He was not focussing on the size of the problem but on the size of His God. He was not looking for a way out of the trouble (John 16:33 reminds us that we will always face trouble!), but for a way through. Grace and strength are available from God, but we are not always given a miracle way out of every crisis. Instead, we find strength and grace as we may not know what to do but we turn our eyes to God (see 2 Chron 20:12).

Faith focussed on Christ creates a fascination in other people too. Acts 6:15 tells us that those who sat on the Council saw that Stephen had ‘the face of an angel’. Saul’s conversion had seeds in the martyrdom of Stephen, for he saw his reaction and God worked in his heart. Our faith can create fascination in others and God works on their hearts.

(4) Stephen freely forgave
We cannot keep calm in a crisis if we are angry or resentful or agitated. We have to freely forgive or our focus becomes blurred and we quench the Holy Spirit. Forgiveness is not a feeling, but a choice and an act of the will. Stephen prayed for his persecutors, even as Jesus had done on the Cross. We forgive because we recognise how much we have been forgiven. Eph 4:32 reminds us that our forgiveness is inextricably bound to Christ’s forgiveness of us. He forgave us unilaterally, sacrificially and unreservedly and that becomes the model for our forgiveness. Unforgiveness is a divisive pollutant that spreads and contaminates. Mark 11:22-24 reminds us that if we have anything against anyone we need to let it go and forgive if we are to know God’s peace and forgiveness in our own lives.