We are having some building work done at church, bricking up the old windows in the main hall from the outside (the inside work being done quite a while ago.) The builder left some stuff outside which was transformed into artwork! (All you need is love?!)

A number of people are away on holiday at the moment and others are about to go, so we did some advance birthday slots this Sunday for those who won’t actually be in church on their birthdays.

Dave preached this morning on Mark 2:1-12, a familiar passage dealing with the healing of a paralytic and also showing us that Jesus, having authority to heal the man’s physical infirmities, also had authority to forgive his sins.

The story involves four main sets of people:
(1) the paralysed man
This man couldn’t walk and couldn’t take care of himself; he was dependent on other people to help him. There is no suggestion in the story that the man’s suffering came as a punishment for a specific sin, but without outside help, he was hopeless. He needed healing which had to come from outside.

We may not feel as helpless as this man, but the truth remains that we are helpless to save ourselves and we need God’s help if we are ever to be drawn into a relationship with Him. We need God!

(2) the faithful friends
These were the ones who struggled to bring the man to Jesus, not put off by the problems they faced (given that Jesus was so popular, crowds had gathered to hear him preach; there was no way they could get the man to Jesus, but this did not stop them!) They were flexible, willing to be unconventional in their approach. All that mattered to them was getting their friend to Jesus: they were confident that when Jesus saw him, He would heal him. Their faith was rewarded, but they demonstrated a tenacity and single-mindedness that we too need to possess.

(3) the crowd of people
These were religious people – why else were they there to hear Jesus? But they were too busy with their own plans to care much for the plight of the paralysed man. They may have pitied him, but they would not change their plans to accommodate him. The religious of this world – and this can, frighteningly, include many in churches – can be so caught up in their religious attitudes that they are prevented from seeing the needs of people around them. The church was not put on this earth just to worship or to listen to good preaching; it is here for the purpose of ministering Jesus to a lost and dying world.

(4) the Scribes
These were the protectors of the law, the ‘super religious’ people of the day. All they heard was that Jesus blasphemed God with His declaration of forgiveness. They didn’t care about the man’s suffering or if he was forgiven or not. Instead of praising God for this healing, they condemned Jesus’s actions.

What kind of person are we as we read this story? Are we helpless, like the paralytic? Are we a faithful friend to those around us? Or are we so caught up in all we are doing that we are content with where we are, uncaring about the needs of others? Or are we adamant that the status quo must be maintained and don’t want anything to spoil our ‘comfortable little club’?

People need friends like this man hand, friends who will think about them, care about them, pray for them and who will bypass the religiosity and ritual and will go to any lengths to get them to Jesus. The call for each disciple of Christ is to be one of the faithful friends ministering to the lost around us.

I’ve failed as a blogger.
I like to get birthday photos up as soon as I can… I like to celebrate birthdays.
In fact, despite the congregation’s secret belief that this is because I enjoy humiliating people publicly by posting their photos here, that’s not true at all. I simply do like birthdays. They’re celebrations of who we are, the fact that we’re here at all, and I don’t believe any one of us should go unnoticed.

But in true sisterly affection, Karen pointed out to me recently that Debbie’s birthday photo was not on the blog. April had come and gone… now her photo was up in May, but where was Debbie’s? If one suffers, she reasoned, all should suffer!

And she’s right! I searched the archives, found that Debbie’s moment of glory coincided with a family service and a dedication, and she had got forgotten in all the photos that were taken that day.

But fear no more. Debbie is here, resplendent in birthday hat glory!

More birthday photos to come, for several people are escaping on holiday to celebrate their birthdays soon. Never fear: you’ll still be on here…!

Gary tried an alternative method of drumming this weekend in practice, which involved attaching the drum sticks to his feet.

Not sure it worked!

One day, we will leave time behind.
One day, we will leave this body and get a new one.
One day, we will walk with Jesus… maybe He’ll explain to us the mysteries of life.
One day, death will be abolished and sin will have no mastery any longer.
One day, there’ll be no more death, no more sorrow, no more suffering, no more tears.
One day, we’ll get a new name, known to God alone.

That day wasn’t 21st May 2011 as some had predicted. No one knows when that day will be, except God. But just because that day wasn’t when some people falsely predicted doesn’t mean that that day won’t come.

But when that day does come, time as we know it will be no more. Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 talks about there being a time for all things – the word ‘time’ mentioned 30 times in 8 verses in the NKJV – and it’s hard for us to imagine a world without time. In other words, it’s very hard for us to grasp the concept of eternity. Yet God inhabits eternity; He lives forever (Is 57:15). He had no beginning; He will have no end.

We live in a world governed by time: we have to get up at certain times, eat at certain times, do certain jobs by certain times. Yet in eternity there will not be the same time constraints we face here on earth. There will be no day and night in heaven: the Lord will be the light we need (Rev 22:5). Incredibly, God has set eternity in the hearts of men (Eccl 3:11): He has given us the choice also as to where we spend eternity.

How we spend our earthly lives determines how we spend eternity and whether we spend eternity with God or not. Paul urges us to redeem the time and tells us not to waste the time we have here on earth (Eph 5:15-17). After all, our soul and the things we do on earth are the only things we can take with us as a testimony to heaven. We need to understand that the question of where we will spend eternity matters more than all the other things we spend all our time on and give our attention to eternal matters.

Aaron Shust’s song ‘One Day’ talks also about this walk with Jesus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5GcZC46VX4

Continuing the series on the ‘Celebration of Discipline’, we looked today at the corporate disciplines of confession and guidance.

Confession means admitting to something and is usually understood to be an acknowledging of wrongdoing or sin. Society today is very averse to admitting to wrongdoing; all the current rows on court injunctions and super-injunctions show how we don’t like to admit to our mistakes! Moreover, many in Protestant churches dislike the idea of confessing sins to other people because they feel somehow this diminishes the role of Jesus in forgiving our sins.

Whilst we acknowledge that only God can forgive sins and that we need to confess primarily to Him (see 1 John 1:9), we also have to deal with James’s command:“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16) As the Book of Common Prayer reminds us, confession can be a part of our corporate services. as we acknowledge our sin and need of God:

“Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against thee
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved thee with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we earnestly repent.
For the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in thy will,
and walk in thy ways,
to the glory of thy Name. Amen.”

Confession in a corporate setting strips pride from us and stops us from pretending. So often we like to pretend that we’re superhuman, hiding our real selves from others for fear that they will reject us if they see us as we really are. Church needs to be a place where there is real authenticity and real acceptance, accepting each other as Christ accepts us, acknowledging our utter dependence on and need of God.

Guidance is also needed in life because so often we don’t know the paths we should take! Just as the Israelites were guided in their wilderness wanderings (Ex 15:13; Neh 9:15-17), so too Jesus showed us how to live a life that was guided by God, doing only what He saw His Father doing (John 5:19-20). The God who is our shepherd and guide (Ps 23) and who has promised to be our guide forever (Ps 48:14) has promised us the help of the Holy Spirit (John 16:33),and, as our studies in Romans have shown, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Rom 8:14).

Believing that God is not only capable of, but also willing to, guide us is one thing. Working out what this looks like in everyday life, where we don’t have the pillar of cloud or pillar of fire to guide us, can be difficult! There is no formulaic ABC of guidance that can ultimately help us; this is because God is interested in developing our relationship with Himself rather than simply giving us rules to follow. When we were children, our parents told us what to do and often did things for us; as we grow up, this changes, and rightly so. God is interested in us becoming “fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ” (Eph 4:13). This means that we have to spend time seeking God, as individuals and as a church, in order to know His will and to know His guidance.

As we grow, therefore, we accept that this narrow way involves our vigorous attention and we determine to be people who have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church so that we may live as God wants us to live and grow up into the people He wants us to be.

And we commit ourselves to each other, to the church, that we may journey together as God has intended, for we are a body with Christ our Head. I need you. You need me. We need each other and we all need God. And God isn’t finished with us yet!