Dave preached from 1 John 3:1-3 this morning (‘probably the favourite of all my favourite scriptures.’) We are, John reminds his readers, ‘born of God’ and thus we are ‘children of God’. This fact of our identity – not a label, but a description of who we really are in God – is needed if we are to focus on the concept of the majesty of God, as A. W. Tozer put it (something he said the church nowadays had lost). The basic foundations that we have, that understanding of what our lives are all about at present, must be big enough to support the structure of Kingdom life to which God calls us.

Both John and Paul (in Eph 1:17-19) wanted God’s people to get a better understanding of God: of His holines, His might, His power and His glory. John talks about the nature of true conversion and spiritual life in these verses (and again in John 3:3-6 and in 1 John 3:9). When we are born again into God’s family and become children of God, this is something which will never change. There are many changes that will happen to us, but we will never be any more God’s child than we are right now. However, the world cannot see this (because it did not know Jesus) and does not recognise this fact. We don’t see Jesus completely right now, but we have glimpsed His beauty and wonder and so we are being transformed into His likeness. Our likeness is as yet partial, not complete, but John assures us that when we finally see Him fully, we will be fully like Him.

That transformation, which we eagerly await, has begun now (2 Cor 3:18). This vision of Christ, fixing our eyes on Jesus (as the writer to the Hebrews commands us in Hebrews 12:2), is crucial for holiness. Imagine your life, with none of the tainted affections you now possess and none of the cash you now have in the bank and understand that you will look back on these trinkets as though they were nothing but sand and sawdust, for when we see Jesus, there will be no more ‘greener pastures’. It is simply hypocrisy to say you want to be like Jesus at some indeterminate point in the future but have no interest in being like Jesus now (‘Lord, make me holy, but not yet!’) Instead, we need to set our lives in the direction of Christlikeness now with growing anticipation, learning from the limited vision of Jesus we have now so that our hearts are weaned from the downward pull of the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of possessions. The fountain of His life is fresher than the drain of this world, so let’s fix our eyes not only on a better world, but on how the Master will make us better, because we truly are His children.

We are in the midst of serious DIY at home, something (in my opinion) to be avoided at all costs! Some of this chaos was planned (to cut a long story short, the gas people are doing things with pipes and moving our meter as part of this work, which involves upheaval in our lounge, so we have decided to have that room re-plastered and do things with shelving etc. to create more space); some of it was decidedly unplanned (new kitchen cupboards because our main wall cupboard decided to ‘come away’ from the wall and after twenty-plus years was decidedly in need of replacement!)

I have to confess that DIY and decorating are up there on my ‘hated’ list. This is just not ‘me’! For someone who can work through text with a fine toothcomb, noticing every misplaced comma, wrong spelling or faulty punctuation, I have a decided antipathy to the precision needed for successful DIY. I have watched Garry labour over making kitchen cupboards fit into a space that is not the beautifully flat, square space they were designed for (apparently no wall in our house is straight and no angle at corners that you would expect!) with a doggedness and determination that I simply do not possess. I watched a friend sand doors in the kitchen with bewilderment: is all that effort really needed before you even start painting? It all seems too much like work to me!

The other thing I dislike so vehemently about DIY is the chaos it brings, as you can see from the pictures above. Things have to get bad before they get better. You can’t re-plaster a wall over existing fittings and furnishings, so everything has to be removed. I dislike the upheaval needed before progress can be seen. I know that the finished product will be better than the original (I now have 4 kitchen cupboards instead of 2, for example), but in the meantime, the disorder, untidiness, dust and general ‘where did I put…?’ of it all grinds me down.

Imagine my relief this morning then, when, having relocated my Bible and books, I read the following in Eugene Peterson’s commentary on Ephesians, ‘Practise Resurrection’:
“The practice of resurrection is not a do-it-yourself self-help project. It is God’s project and He is engaged full-time in carrying it out.”

Hurray! This resurrection life I live isn’t a DIY project! I don’t have to spend hours stripping sin from my life like the wallpaper off the wall: God has dealt with it in Christ at the cross and now He has removed my sin as far as the east is from the west! (Ps 103:12). I don’t have to work out how to please God: He looks at me and sees Christ’s righteousness! The verbs in Ephesians 1 are all verbs where God is doing the action. We are in on the action, to be sure, but we are no longer in the driver’s seat. This project, our great salvation and redemption, is God’s project. And He is more than capable of finishing what He has started! (Phil 1:6)

Keeping to the theme of famous weddings and famous couples, we had a quiz where we had to identify one disguised half of a famous couple. Sad to say, I only managed 9/20 on this quiz, which says a lot for my celebrity antennae…

Maybe you’ll do better? (Answers at the end of the post).





The main prizes were won by Debbie & Shane:

Answers:
1. Andre Agassi
2. Wilma Flintstone
4. Popeye
7. Ben Affleck
17. Catherine Zeta Jones

Few of us in Britain, and probably few in the entire world, can have failed to realise that a significant event happened in London on 29th April – namely the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Following on from this global event, the family service theme was that of ‘a Royal Wedding’, but the wedding in question was not the one celebrated at Westminster Abbey!

Mark preached from Matthew 22:1-14 on the parable of the Wedding Banquet, which talks about the wedding God Himself is planning. Recently, Look North (a local news programme) has featured interviews with relatives of Catherine Middleton who had been invited (unexpectedly, from their point of view, given that they were not close relatives) to the wedding in London. This parable talks about how those invited to the wedding did not want to attend, with the result that the guests who did attend were not necessarily those you would expect.

God has issued an open invitation to the world, not only to attend a wedding, but to be participants in it, for we are waiting for the great wedding feast between Christ and His bride, the Church. Many people don’t want to know about God, shunning this invitation in the way that the guests did in the parable; the Jews, to whom Jesus came initially, did not recognise Him as God’s Messiah. But for all who will accept the invitation, there is a wedding celebration ahead which will make the royal nuptials in London pale into insignificance. All the lavishness and grandeur seen on Friday will be as nothing compared to the celebration that is ahead (Revelation 21). May we accept this invitation and be privileged to share in that wedding.

Stephen preached from John 20:24-31 this morning, asking the question ‘how close are we to Jesus?’

Whilst on earth, the twelve disciples were the people closest to Jesus, but here in this post-resurrection scene, we see how Thomas is struggling to make sense of all that has happened. He did not believe the other disciples’ testimony of having seen the resurrected Lord, but wanted to see for himself the wounds – the hands, feet and side which had been pierced. We can be like Thomas, seeking physical proofs rather than walking by faith.

Jesus tells Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) May we have the faith to hear God, listen to His voice and obey what He commands, even without the reassurance that physical proofs can give us. May we be among those who have not necessarily seen but who still believe.

Dave preached from 1 Corinthians 15 on Sunday evening, an apt text for Easter Sunday, the day when we especially celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ! Nowadays there are so many people who would dispute and denigrate that resurrection, but as Paul says, it is important that we hold firmly to the word preached to us (1 Cor 15:2), to the gospel of salvation.

The gospel tells us that God Himself, because of His great love, sent His Son Jesus Christ to die in the place of each of us, so that the wages of sin (which is death) could be paid on our behalf, and we know that the sacrifice was acceptable to God because Christ was raised again to life on the third day.

Jesus was crucified by the Romans, who were experienced in that form of capital punishment and who would not have been mistaken in allowing a living body down from the cross. The fact that they did not break His legs in the way that they did the other criminals’ is proof that He was already dead. His family would have known the difference between a dead body and a living body. Moreover, He was then placed in a tomb which was sealed with a large stone and guarded by Roman soldiers. When the women went to complete the burial rituals on the third day, however, the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.

The burial cloths remained, but the body was gone. Moreover, Paul lists people who actually saw the resurrected Jesus, who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection – over 500 people in total – and who saw Him on a number of different occasions.

Our hope for future resurrection rests on the single fact of Christ’s resurrection. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”

The idea of eternal life is deeply embedded in humanity, in most religions, in our hearts. Ecclesiastes tells us that God has set eternity in our hearts (Eccl 3:11). Paul in this chapter loudly proclaims the truth of Christ’s resurrection and therefore we have hope! Moreover, the fact that Jesus Crhist is alive today has many proofs, not least of which is the testimony of individual Christians today that ‘He lives within my heart’.

Let’s rejoice in the fact that He’s alive and hold fast to the gospel we believe!