Last Thursday was Ascension Day and Dave preached this morning on the Ascension, which is mentioned in Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51 and Acts 1:1-11. Luke essentially takes us on a journey through the life and ministry of Jesus. The ‘first leg’ of the journey leads to the Transfiguration, where Jesus’s appearance is changed and heavenly glory is glimpsed on earth. The ‘second leg’ of the journey ends with the Ascension, completing Jesus’s ministry on earth. (the ‘third leg’ is told in the rest of the book of Acts, namely ‘the acts of the apostles through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.’)

The Ascension narrative clearly shows us that Jesus’s ministry on earth will not continue in the manner to which the disciples had become accustomed. The death and resurrection of Jesus signified a perfect sacrifice that was accepted by God. The Resurrection was God’s ‘vindication’ or ‘confirmation’ that the sacrifice Jesus offered on behalf of mankind was acceptable. If Jesus had not ascended, however, what would have happened? Would He have become the ‘wandering Jew’ of fables? The Ascension shows us that Jesus is now enthroned on high (see Eph 1:21-22) and has assumed the place of ultimate authority, being seated at the right hand of God. The fact that He ascended in bodily form shows us that He not only came to bring God to us but to bring us to God; our humanity now has a place in the heavenly realms. ‘A cloud him him from their sight’ – not just a meteorological cloud, but a cloud symbolising the presence of God Himself (remember the cloud that led the Israelites in the wilderness, or the cloud which fell in the temple as the priests led worship.) God’s presence is nearer, perhaps, than we think at times!

In being left behind, recognising Jesus’s temporary absence on earth, His followers face two dangers. One is to put our hope in political power (see Acts 1:6). We need always to remember Jesus’s words to Pilate: ‘my kingdom is not of this world'(John 18:36) and to understand that we cannot mix God’s power with the world’s power. Our job is to be witnesses (martyrs) to Jesus, serving Him with self-giving love, not arrogant power. The second danger is to be caught looking upwards all the time, and thereby failing to fulfil the tasks to which He has called us. We cannot escape this world and go to be with Jesus yet – our times are in His hands and in the intervening time between His departure from earth and His coming again in glorious power, there is work to be done. We have to recgonise that this work can only be done in the power of the Holy Spirit, and must therefore wait and pray (see Acts 1:8), but we also need to be fuelled by the hope of Christ’s return.

Jesus will come back to earth. The book of Revelation testifies to that. We don’t know when or how He will return, but the assurance given to the disciples by the angel at the Ascension is that He will indeed return. He rules over all powers and principalities and His absence is indeed only temporary. Our cry, therefore, is the cry of the church through the ages, ‘Maranatha! – O Lord, come quickly!’

Many of you will have attended some of the special meetings at Furlong Road Methodist Church this weekend, as they celebrate moving into a different building. Our thoughts and prayers are with this church as they leave the old behind and look ahead to the new. God is faithful and walks with us in every chapter of our lives!

We have some dates coming up that need to be in the diary too! Sunday 3rd June is the Family Service, starting at 6 p.m., so if you can get along to that, please come along and celebrate not only the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee but a different kind of jubilee altogether…

We are holding an anniversary weekend on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th July, to celebrate two years since our official opening on Market Street. On the Saturday, we will be holding a community/ craft day from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. and there will be a film night in the evening (further details to follow shortly.) Our meetings on the Sunday will be at the usual times of 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m., but we will be continuing the celebrations and hope as many people from the local community and local churches as possible will be able to attend. We are so grateful for all that God has done for us in providing us with such a wonderful building and in meeting all our practical and spiritual needs while here!

If you’d like to walk down memory lane or wonder why we are holding an anniversary weekend, check out the St Mark’s blog and read all about the Open Day in 2010 here: St Mark’s Blog

Last night we looked at James 1:6-8, following on from our study on wisdom:“But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”

Doubt is not the same thing as unbelief. We will often have doubts in life: doubts about whether we’ve heard God correctly, doubts about our own abilities, doubts about God’s abilities! Jesus was gracious to Thomas when he doubted (John 20:24-29) and Gideon’s doubts were again graciously dealt with (Judges 6:36-40). We needn’t be afraid to bring our honest questions and doubts to God. We have to be careful, however, because doubt can easily act as the gateway to unbelief, and this prevents us from receiving from God. Instead, we need to bring our doubts to God, accept His evaluation of the situation (basically, acknowledging that what He says about things is true, whereas what we think about them very often is not!) and accept that we do not always have to pass through the state of undertanding in order to obey.

The imagery James uses to talk about the one who doubts is that of being tossed about on waves in a storm, reminiscent of the disciples in the boat with Jesus.

Jesus slept peacefully because He trusted in God. When we doubt, we often hesitate and waver, paralysed by indecision and fear.We are like children, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” (Eph 4:14). The key to knowing stability in our lives and to receiving the wisdom we are asking for is to live an integrated, congruent life, not a dissonant one. Dissonance occurs when two or more disharmonious elements clash. Faith and doubt are two dissonant elements. They don’t belong together.

James talks about a ‘double-minded’ person who is ‘unstable’ (that word means ‘near anarchy’, without recognition of authority in one’s life.) Jesus warned against the impossibility of trying to serve two masters in Matthew 6:23-24. The key to successful living is to live with singleness of purpose, loving God with all that we are (Deut 6:5) and serving Him wholeheartedly (see Numbers 32:12, 2 Chronicles 19:9, Eph 6:6-8). When we live with our minds (our frames, our ‘skeletons’) fixed on God, being steadfast, then we will find God’s perfect peace sustaining us (Is 26:3) and then we will live in faith and not in doubt.

‘The best things in life take time’ Wes King sings in the intriguingly named song ‘Slow Miracles’.

We are often impatient creatures, wanting answers to our prayers instantly, ever mindful of Isaiah 65:24: ‘before they call, I will answer; while they are still speaking, I will hear.’ We expect God to do things according to our timescales, and our timescales rarely involve waiting.

God’s timescales, however, do. There is no getting around that fact. He urges patience, talks about it as a fruit of the Spirit, something that has to be cultivated in our lives if we are to grow in character and participate in the divine nature. Patience and perseverance only come about through waiting. God does not inhabit time the way that we do (with Him, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day, Peter reminds us), but there is a purpose in His patience:

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Pet 3:8-9)

Slowness does not equal lateness. God operates on the right timescales. He is neither early nor late. When the right time had come, He sent His Son to earth (Gal 4:4). Jesus lived for thirty years in relative obscurity, ‘doing life’, learning to be human, learning obedience through what he suffered, learning a trade, living an ordinary life. His ministry, often perceived in a blaze of glory and amazing miracles, took three years of faithful preaching and service. C. S. Lewis argued that the miracles Jesus did were simply reflections of what happens in nature on a faster timescale (water turned into wine instantly, for example, without all the fermentation process!)

Sometimes we need to look for the ‘slow miracles’ in our lives and be prepared to wait. As with the Psalmist, we need to “wait for the Lord;be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Ps 27:14) A slow miracle is nontheless still, by definition, a miracle.

We also had a birthday to celebrate on Sunday!

Guest speaker Yan Handley spoke on the dangers of drifting on Sunday evening, from Hebrews 2:1-4. This passage is addressed to God’s people and we need to heed the solemn question ‘How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?’

The dangers of drifting apply to all of us (‘we’ is used 5 times in these verses.) No one is immune from the danger. This warning is not given to frighten us, but to encourage us to be faithful to God. Our great salvation means we are saved from sin, sickness and from Satan’s power, giving us a sure and certain hope in the new life God gives. Jesus’s sacrifice was worth so much (see 1 Pet 1:18-19) and therefore we respond not simply out of obligation or duty but out of love: as C. T. Studd said, “no sacrifice is too great for me to make for Him, because His sacrifice was so great for us.”

The verses in Hebrews go on to tell us that God’s witness was declared by Jesus, confirmed by those who heard it and was testified to by God Himself through signs, wonders and various miracles. Jesus declared that we needed to repent, for the Kingdom of God was near (Mark 1:15). Repentance involves complete submission, acknowledging God’s Word as having the ultimate authority in our lives. The kingdom is the ‘pearl of great price’, worth everything. Those who heard that life-giving gospel gave a total commitment to Jesus. The radical nature of the gospel means that we forsake everything for God and deny ourselves, for with the measure that we give, it will be given to us (Luke 6:38). We also need God’s own witness to the gospel in the shape of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to enable us to enter into the fullness of the life God has for us. This requires our absolute dependence on the Holy Spirit, not on our own methodology or ideas.

Yan also looked at:

(1) the causes of drifting.
It’s a human tendency to blame others or circumstances for whatever happens to us, but we have to admit that the weakness of our own human natures leads us astray. We neglect, or ignore, God’s salvation at our peril. Carelessness, compromise and complacency can cause us to drift from God. We need to choose to draw near to God (James 4:7-8), disciplining ourselves in prayer, Bible study, evangelism and fellowship. As anyone who has ever been on an inflatable water bed can testify, it requires no effort to drift, whereas a godly life requires effort and commitment. Samson pleased himself, rather than God, and drifted badly. Solomon, the wisest man on the earth, drifted because he wanted to please other people rather than God. Drifting occurs little by little but can easily happen if we are not attentive and vigilant.

(2) the consequences of drifting
We have an enemy who prowls around like a roaring lion (1 Pet 5:8) and if we drift, we ruin our potential, lose joy and peace and power and make ourselves more vulnerable to demonic powers. We are urged not to give the devil any foothold in our lives (Eph 4:21) and need to find the place of righteousness in God where the enemy has no authority over us (see John 14:30). Drifting leads to a hardening of the heart, to possessing a ‘sinful, unbelieving heart’ (Heb 3:12-14), whereas the fear of the Lord will keep us from drifting. We don’t want to be like the foolish virgins (who were unprepared for the arrival of the Bridegroom, despite having once had oil), or the foolish steward (who was unwilling to use what the Master had given him to the best of his abilities) or the foolish builder (who was unconcerned about the foundations of his building.)

(3) the cure for drifting.
The cure for drifting is a firm anchor (Heb 6:19) which depends on the steadfast love and faithfulness of God (Lam 3:22-23, Rom 8: 35-39). As with any relationship, however, we need to respond to God’s love and build ourselves up, praying in the Holy Spirit and keeping ourselves in God’s love (Jude v 20-21). We also need our love to be manifested in practical obedience.

When we pay more careful attention to what we have heard, there is a sense of urgency in our lives. We don’t pretend, but honestly confess our own sins, taking responsibility for them (as did the Prodigal Son), repenting from the heart (Revelation 3:19) and diligently committing ourselves to God (2 Pet 1:5), making every effort to add to our faith the characteristics God requires of maturity. That way, we can stand firm and not let ourselves be burdened again with a yoke of slavery (Gal 5:1).