Mark preached from John 15 this morning, verses which are both encouraging and mind-blowing!

“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.” (John 15:12-17)

The fact that God not only chooses us but chooses to call us friends is amazing. Moreover, we demonstrate the fact that we are His friends by obeying His commands, the most important of which are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love others as ourselves.

Proverbs 17:17 tells us that ‘a friend loves at all times’. Let us learn to be true friends by loving God and by loving other people.

Stephen spoke on Isaiah 26:3 at the family service. This must be one of my all-time favourite Bible verses and one I constantly need reminding of!

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.” (Is 26:3-4)

We also looked at the same verses from the Amplified version:
“You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You. So trust in the Lord (commit yourself to Him, lean on Him, hope confidently in Him) forever; for the Lord God is an everlasting Rock [the Rock of Ages].”

In Deuteronomy 6, we are exhorted to love God with all we have – which includes our minds! Inner tranquillity is available to those who will trust in God. The peace God offers is perfect and is so much more than simply a cessation of war: ‘Shalom’ means wholeness, health, preservation and completeness. In Philippians 4, Paul talks about the ‘peace of God which transcends all understanding’, a peace which can guard our hearts and our minds. We need to have stability of thought – rather like Tootles whose joy was returned when he got his marbles (his ‘happy thoughts’) back.

We can have joy and peace in God by fixing our minds on Him. We maintain our joy by giving Him our minds as well as everything we are and have. Trials and tribulations will still come, but God’s presence and peace are available for those who trust in Him.

The theme of the family service was ‘marbles’. Now, you may not necessarily think of this as a biblical theme and admittedly the connection is not immediately obvious. But we had a lot of fun as we explored the theme of right thinking and the peace God promises to those whose minds are fixed on Him.

First of all, the quiz. Mark took this, looking at some ‘crazy’ TV/film characters. How many of these can you name?

Maybe you are all better than I am at this, since I only named 2 of the many people! But, to put you out of your misery, the ones shown here are:
1) the Mad Hatter
2) Willy Wonka
3) Stacey Slater
4) Krusty the Clown

Then, the custom-written children’s song: Garry’s own composition, called ‘The Marble Song’. I reproduce the lyrics here (with full permission) as I have to say I think it’s pretty good to be able to get a Bible verse in a song about marbles! Can you work out the reference?

Found the reference? Yes, Isaiah 26:3 was the theme for the evening:
“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.”

There was indeed a serious point to all this, but for now I will leave you with a photo of some people actually playing with the marbles they had won!

Garry continued his series on the Holy Spirit this morning, looking at the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Initially, we looked at how the Holy Spirit was involved in creation (‘hovering over the earth’ in Genesis 1:2, or, as the Message version renders this verse, ‘brooded like a bird above the watery abyss’), especially in breathing life into man (Genesis 2:7 & Job 33:4).

God’s involvement in each human life is what sets us apart from animals. Life begins at conception, with God breathing spiritual life into each person, who is made in the image of God. God gives us life and He also ends life. Psalm 31:15 reminds us that ‘my times are in Your hands’. The difficult topics of abortion and euthanasia arouse much controversy these days, but the Christian view is that all life comes from God and belongs to God, so that life is given dignity and purpose, even when we cannot see His purposes. We cannot presume to stand in the place of God, either by claiming we know which lives should not be born or by claiming we have the right to end life.

God the Holy Spirit is the creator and sustainer of life. May we have confidence in His providence and learn to trust in His unfailing love.

On Thursday we looked at the mystery unveiled in Ephesians 3, “the mystery made known to me by revelation”, as Paul writes. This mystery was previously hidden, but God’s Spirit has revealed it now, namely that “the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” All the divisions have been swept away; God has revealed His great plan of salvation, “his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The fact that God’s eternal purposes were so misunderstood (even in the heavenly realms) and yet prevailed gives us great encouragement in this walk of faith. “I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory,” Paul wrote and we too need not be discouraged whenever we face sufferings, since God is working all things together for good to those who are called (Romans 8:28)

Finally, we looked at Paul’s prayer that we might know how long and wide and high and deep is the love of Christ and might know this love that surpasses knowledge — “that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” If that seems beyond words, Paul reminds us that God is able to “do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” and, amazingly, that is “according to his power that is at work within us“. We have an awesome God!

Stephen looked at two passages from the New Testament on Sunday evening, both demonstrating God’s presence with people.

The first passage (Luke 23:40-43) looked at the thief on the cross and how he came to know Jesus, being given the promise of being with Him in paradise. The second (Acts 7:54-56) looked at the martyrdom of the deacon Stephen, who saw ‘heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’ immediately before he was stoned to death. In both cases, the presence of Jesus made all the difference: the two men were not alone.

Jesus is near to us, to comfort, direct and guide us. As Ezekiel wrote, ‘The Lord is There’ (Ezek 48:35). His presence makes all the difference.

We ended by listening to the Casting Crowns’ song ‘Who Am I?’ This is a question which seems to have been recurring in various guises lately – Dave preached recently on a similar theme and I used this song last week in a PSHE lesson on the same theme as well! If you’d like to know the answer, watch the powerful mime and listen to the song at:

youtube.com/watch?v=CT7x3VnrqbA

Many thanks, also, to those who supported the Macmillan Coffee morning on Saturday. This raised £124. THANK YOU!