Mark preached on Ecclesiastes 3:11 this morning, looking at the question of beauty: “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

The beauty industry is thriving at the moment. And whether it’s beauty products:

… or jewellery:

… or fashion or exercise…
we all like to make ourselves more beautiful. But God is not so much interested in outward beauty as in the inner beauty. He works from the inside out, changing our hearts.

God created everything beautiful and will beautify His people with salvation (Ps 149:4 NKJV). He has given us beautiful feet (Is 52:7) – the fact that we have good news to bring makes our feet beautiful. Jesus Himself may have not been physically beautiful (see Is 53:2), but the fact that He brings us salvation makes Him beautiful in our eyes!

1 Pet 3:3-4 talks about the kind of beauty God is looking for: ‘the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.’ Again, using the analogy of a Dairy Milk bar, Mark reminded us that it’s what’s on the inside that counts!

The wrapper may be attractive, but it doesn’t taste nice!

Inside the wrapper is what we’re interested in: chocolate!

Truly tasty and beautiful!

Romans 10:14-21 continues Paul’s discussion of the gospel, particularly in the light of the Israelite’s refusal to believe it. We sometimes use these verses to advocate preaching the gospel to the whole world – and this is undoubtedly something we are called to do (Matt 28:18-20) – but there is a sense in which hearing the good news is simply the first step. Israel had heard the gospel. “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” (Rom 10:18). What was required was not just proclamation, not just hearing, but faith and obedience, and this had been lacking: “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.” (Rom 10:21)

Again, Paul reminds us that “not all the Israelites accepted the good news.” (Rom 10:16). Not everyone to whom we proclaim the good news will accept it, either. That doesn’t remove the responsibility of witness from us. Paul is at pains to show us that there is a logical progression on the journey to faith: people must call on the name of the Lord to be saved and therefore they need to hear of the One who can save before they can call on His name! They will only hear of Him if He is preached to them (and the word here must be understood in its original meaning of proclamation, of being a ‘town crier’, rather than in the narrower ‘church’ sense of giving a sermon in a church building!)and it is our duty, responsibility and privilege to spread the good news (“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Rom 10:15). Nonetheless, despite urging us to do our part in sharing the gospel with others, Paul is well aware that faith is a personal response. It comes from hearing the message, to be sure, which gives us a great job to do in speaking out the word of God so others can hear, but it is not in our power to save people. Their response to God’s word and to God’s revelation is between them and God.

Paul will go on to show that the Gentiles’ response to the gospel is yet another means by which God wants to startle the Israelites into faith. God is able to use even situations that to us make no sense or seem impossible for His glory. He used a heathen nation of Babylonia to discipline His chosen people (Habakkuk 1-3). He used a non-Jewish king to issue a decree to allow Israel to return from exile. (Ezra 1:1-3) He used the apparently selfish and vindictive response of Jewish and Roman leaders in conducting the trial and crucifixion of Jesus as the means by which we would be saved.

Three things, therefore, emerged from the study last night.
1) Our job is to proclaim the good news. God is the One who will save. We don’t know whom He will save and have no right to restrict our preaching because someone doesn’t ‘look’ like they will respond.
2) God is in control of all situations, even those which baffle us and cause us heartache and confusion.
3) Faith is a personal response. It wasn’t that the Israelites didn’t know the good news. Their problem (as ours often is) was not believing it.

Recent sermons have looked at parts of Jesus’s body, including His eyes, hands and heart. Just this week I came across a statement (for a travel company) that made me pause. In the ‘About Us’ section of the company (http://www.fusiontravel.co.uk), it says ‘His vision is Our vision’, talking about the founder member’s vision for the company and how this has shaped company policy.

That mission statement seems to me to be a pretty accurate summary of what a Christian should be saying. God’s vision should be our vision. We need to see things the way He sees them. That will mean looking at ‘hopeless’ situations and people with the eyes of hope and faith rather than despair. It will mean looking at ‘impossible’ situations and people with the eyes of love rather than scorn. It will mean looking at situations that are beyond our control with the eyes of faith. It will mean saying “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen 18:14). It will mean acknowledging the truth of Jesus’s words: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matt 19:26)

Twenty-five years ago today, the place where I work (Barnsley Christian School) was opened, the result of Christians catching a vision for Christian education. His vision became their vision and vision led to action. It always will. May we see with God’s vision until that vision becomes ours.

We’ve recently looked at the face and hands of Jesus; last night, Dave preached on the heart of Jesus, looking at the feeding of the five thousand in Matt 14:13-21.

Jesus, at this point in His ministry, wanted to be alone. He had just learnt of the death of His cousin, John the Baptist. He was sorrowful and grieving and wanted time out to pray. But the crowds followed Him and His response to their need was that His heart was moved with compassion for them.

So often when we are interrupted or our plans are changed, we become bitter or resentful towards those who crowd in on us. But Jesus, even in His own grief, had compassion for others.

The heart of Jesus was:
(1) compassionate
(2) practical
(3) obedient
(4) loving

Being moved with compassion led Jesus to action – He set about inviting His disciples to meet the practical needs of the crowd and organised the feeding of the five thousand with just five loaves and two fish. He was obedient to the Father’s will, always choosing to do what He saw His Father doing. He acted always from love.

The heart of Jesus is always to involve others in meeting needs. He involved His disciples in this great miracle: everyone was involved in distributing the bread and the fish. He supplied the miracle, but He gave others the opportunity to serve. Similarly, today, He gives us the opportunity of serving Him. We don’t do this on our own and we don’t have to meet every need that exists, but for those who would have hearts like Jesus, there will always be the opportunity to serve others, for that kind of services lies at the heart of Jesus.

We also had a birthday to celebrate!

This is What We Believe (Aaron Shust)
You are the Christ (Matt 16:16), Anointed One (Acts 4:27),
Light of the world (John 8:12), God’s only Son (John 3:16),
In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1)
Emmanuel has come to live with us (Matthew 1:23)

Truly this man is the Son, the Son of God (Mark 15:39)
Who takes away the sins of the world
This man is the Lamb, the Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29)
And this is what we believe

You are the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)
You came to change our wrongs to right (Matt 1:21)
In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1)
And we will sing of what we’ve seen and heard (Acts 4:20, 1 John 1:3)

And we believe that You are God (John 6:69)
Born to set Your people free (Matt 1:21, Gal 5:1)
Became the final sacrifice (Heb 9:28)
Conquered death to bring us life (2 Tim 1:9-10)
And we believe that You are God
Born to set Your people free
Became the final sacrifice
You conquered death to bring us life

Truly this man is the Son, the Son of God
Who takes away the sins of the world
This man is the Lamb, the Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the world
Sing praise to the Son, the Son of God
Who takes away the sins of the world
All praise to the Lamb, the Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the world
And this is what we believe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbjzBZy-huE&feature=related

What we believe is crucially important to how we live. To a very large extent, what we believe actually shapes how we live. We are not always conscious of our beliefs: sometimes, they are ingrained in us and are at a subconscious level. But for Christians, it’s especially important not only to believe – for faith is absolutely crucial to becoming a Christian and living the Christian life, as Paul teaches us in the book of Galatians especially – but to know what we believe and who we believe.

2 Timothy 4:1-5 looks at Paul’s instructions to Timothy about what to teach and how to live in an age when ‘itching ears’ will not want to put up with ‘sound doctrine’. ‘Sound doctrine’ means the set of beliefs by which we live; ‘sound’ indicates wholeness, wellness, goodness and purity. Paul is Timothy’s role model, urging him to imitate his lifestyle and continue teaching all he has learnt from him:
“What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” (2 Tim 1:13-14)

In the church, each generation has a responsibility to ‘pass the baton on’ to the next generation. We need to teach others ‘sound doctrine’; we need to pass on what we have seen and heard, as John says:
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” (1 John 1:1)

We also need to ‘correctly handle the word of truth’ (2 Tim 2:15), cutting the word straight and evenly so that we do not take things out of context or misinterpret what the Bible has to teach us. We need to understand that faith and belief go hand in hand. It’s no use simply collecting ‘facts’ or head knowledge; these must be translated into living faith. Sound doctrine must always lead to sound behaviour.

The Bible has many types of language with which to instruct us. There’s the language of command: ‘do this,’ ‘don’t do that’. There is the language of the gospel, the ‘good news’. But there is also the language of encouragement, for the Holy Spirit is the Comforter or Encourager, there to give “comfort or encouragement or discernment in the muddled details of dailiness.” (Gerhard von Rad, quoted by Eugene Peterson, ‘Practise Resurrection’ P 173). We need God’s guidance in everyday living, not just in crisis moments.

What we believe is not something to be relegated to dusty tomes of theology. It’s the heartbeat of everyday life!