Dates for the diary
This Sunday sees the beginning of May: the year is already flying by! There are some extra meetings coming up in May:
Saturday 7th May at 6 p.m. is the church’s Annual General Meeting. Come along to find out what has been happening over the past year and discuss some of the plans for the future. We’ll have coffee and cake after the meeting!
Saturday 14th May at 6 p.m. is the next ‘Churches Together’ meeting at Furlong Road Methodist Church in Bolton-on-Dearne. Come along to share with other Christians and enjoy a time of fellowship, prayer, worship and learning from God’s word. It’s always good to keep an outward focus and these meetings remind us that God is working in different ways throughout different churches in the area. Come along prepared to be blessed!
Looking further ahead, we are hoping to hold a community open day on Saturday 9th July from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. It’s six years in July since our official opening in Market Street and we want to invite the community into the building for crafts, activities and refreshments. More details to follow soon, but please book this date in your diaries now! In the evening, we are hoping to have another one of our successful ‘family film nights’.
Looking even further ahead, we are also hoping to go to the pantomime as a church in December. (Oh, yes, we are!) Dearne Playhouse in Goldthorpe will be hosting ‘Cinderella’ and we’re hoping to go along to that on Saturday 17th December for the matinee performance at 2 p.m. Let Julie know if you’re interested in attending and we’ll organise a block booking nearer the time.
And even further ahead into 2017, we are hoping to take a missions trip to India to visit the work Fredrick and Reeba are doing in Bangalore. See Garry for more details. Such trips take a lot of planning and fund-raising, but we are excited about the possibility of being involved practically in the different ministries they support.
Here You come running…
Martin Smith’s ‘Song of Solomon’ gives us insight also into God as our lover. This looks at the different seasons of love and how God comes running to hold us ’til it’s light.’ It also reflects on how we run into the safety of God’s arms, arms which are our refuge and hiding place. As we sang in the children’s song last night, ‘The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.’ (Prov 18:10)
Children of God
Phil Wickham’s new album ‘Children of God’ was released on Friday and arrived at our house today, much to my joy. The title track revels in our identity in Christ: ‘we are believers – all our hope in the Risen One; we are soldiers – fighting with faith and love; we are pilgrims – on the journey to reach our home. We are standing together; we are the children of God.’
The album arose out of a period of personal difficulty: “A year and a half ago I lost my voice and was forced to have surgery on my vocal chords with the risk of not being able to sing professionally again,” said Wickham, who worked on this new album for more than a year.
“During the difficulty of that season, God spoke the simple, yet massive, truth into my heart that He loves me. That He loves us. That we are first and foremost His children. That whatever may come our way, we are His children. That whatever we may be faced with, we are His. Many of these songs were written out of this newfound sense of identity.” (see here for more details.)
Our identity as children of God is indeed a ‘simple, yet massive, truth.’ It’s so simple that the youngest child can grasp this truth; it’s so profound that we spend the rest of our lives exploring that identity. Phil 2:14-16 says ‘Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.’ There is so much more of our identity in God to explore.
Nourishing and Cherishing
Mike Bickle, in his comprehensive commentary on the book of Song of Songs, says ‘Jesus cherishes the church in order to take the stain of sin out of her soul’ and goes on to say ‘nourishing and cherishing is God’s method to change people… All of the Lord’s discipline occurs as He nourishes and cherishes us.’ (‘The Ravished Heart of God’, Vol 1, Session 11)
It’s very easy for us to use other methods of disciplining: naming and shaming, humiliation, fear, manipulation and dread, for example. But if we are honest, we know that we respond best to discipline and challenge when we are secure that we are loved. People who truly love us earn the right to speak words which challenge and discipline us in ways that others whom we only fear can never have.
In the NKJV of Song of Songs 4:9-10, we read ‘you have ravished my heart.’ These are strong words. Moreover, this isn’t the only chapter when the Bridegroom sings the Bride’s praises; it may come as a surprise to us to realise that the Bride’s eulogy of the Bridegroom is a relatively small part of the book in comparison to how many times the Bridegroom reassures the Bride of his desire and her beauty. In Song of Songs 6:9, he says ‘my dove, my perfect one, is unique.’ He says ‘Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me.’ (Song of Songs 6:4) Nine times in this book, the Bridegroom affirms the beauty of his bride (Song of Songs 1:15a; 1:15b, 2:10, 13; 4:1a; 4:7, 6:4, 7:7) He’s in love and he’s not afraid to express that love through words. He uses words to build up, not to tear down.
That’s an object lesson for us in the power of encouragement (see Rom 15:4-5). It’s often said that in a relationship, we need to hear ten positive things to combat the impact of one negative thing. Only when we are secure in love can be lavish in love towards others. John 13:3 says ‘Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God.’ Because of the security of his relationship with his heavenly Father, Jesus was able to minister to the disciples in humility and love them to the end and show them the full extent of his love. (Jn 13:1). As we revel in the love God has for us, we are given access to his love to lavish on others, the ability to nourish and cherish others, and in so doing, faith and hope are built into people’s souls. Let’s learn to be like Barnabas, the ‘son of encouragement’, and allow God’s love to fill our hearts to overflowing.
D is for Desire
Tonight’s sermon continued the alphabet series (The A-Z of Christian Faith) and looked at the subject ‘D is for Desire.’ We can rightly talk about the need for us to hunger and thirst for God and develop a spiritual desire, but ultimately, we love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). Our love and desire for God are the direct result of God’s love and desire for us. God’s desire is for us to be His people, a desire that is manifested in the love of God the Father (see Luke 15:11-32, 1 John 3:1-3) and in the love of Jesus the Bridegroom (see Eph 5:25-27, Song of Songs 7:10).
The Father-heart of God
The fact that God loves us is so familiar to many of us that this profound truth can seem like water off a duck’s back to us. Ducks’ feathers are waterproof; they have a gland at the base of their tails which produces an oil that spreads and covers the birds’ outer coat so that water forms droplets on the feathers, but doesn’t permeate them. Water doesn’t wet them in the way that it wets other things!
And this life-changing truth that God’s desire is for us, that God loves us, can seem so familiar to us that we fail to let it transform us and change us and shape us in the way that God wants it to. God’s Father-heart of love means He will never turn us away; He is always ready to lavish love on us (see Eph 3:17-19), wanting us to live in the identity we have as children of God. He is a ‘good, good Father’ to us; we are not defined by the lies of the enemy but by our identity as God’s children: ‘my name is child of the one true King,’ as Matthew West puts it. Human fathers may not have always demonstrated love to us, but God’s Father-heart can melt our hearts of stone and give us the security and self-worth which all need.
The Bridegroom’s Heart of God
God desires our fellowship and company as a bridegroom longs for his bride (see Is 62:3-5, Song of Songs 4:7, 9). The image of the church as bride of Christ with Christ as bridegroom is given in many parts of Scripture (see Matt 25, Luke 5:34-36, John 3:27-29, Rev 21:2-3), but we often feel uncomfortable with the notion of talking of God desiring us. We need to acknowledge, however, that human romance and love is actually a reflection of divine romance and divine love, not the other way around. When we are secure in the love and desire God has for us, we can love our neighbours as ourselves, for we understand the depth of God’s love for us. Ezek 16 and the book of Hosea give us glimpses into the passionate love God has for His people: the ‘reckless raging fury that they call the love of God.’ (‘The Love of God’, Rich Mullins) We all have this deep yearning to be fully known and fully loved (see 1 Cor 13:12), unconditionally accepted and cherished; this deep longing can only be satisfied in God.
D is for Desire: God’s desire for us, God’s love for us, igniting desire and love within us. How can it be that God loves us so? We’ll never fathom it; we’ll never be able to explain it. But we can experience it; we can revel in His love; we can delight in the fact ‘I belong to my beloved, and his desire is for me.’ (Song of Songs 7:10)
The Goodness of God
Dave spoke this morning on the goodness of God as he looked at goodness as a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23). Most of us like to think of ourselves as fundamentally good people, but God’s word reminds us that only God is good and that the fruit of the Spirit are grown within us as God’s Spirit dwells within us. A good God (Ps 119:68) made a good creation (Gen 1), but in our sinful nature, nothing good dwells (Rom 7) and we need God to grow goodness within us, so that it glows from within, rather like a glow worm’s luminescence glows all the time:
Jesus was baptised in water and anointed to do good things by the Holy Spirit. Goodness is more than undeserved generosity; it describe a disposition to do good (doing good because it’s in your nature.) The Holy Spirit changes our nature so that we reflect God’s nature.
The Bible gives us examples of those whose goodness is only seen on the surface and those whose goodness emanates from the changes God is bringing about from within. Ananias and Sapphira are examples of the former. They sold property and brought only some of the proceeds to the church; they did not give wholeheartedly and in effect lied to the church leaders and to God. God wants us to worship in spirit and in truth (Jn 4:24); there must be goodness coming forth from our inner beings.
Barnabas, on the other hand, demonstrates goodness in all he did: in his support of the poor, in his encouragement of individuals and in his prayer life (see Acts 19:24). He was generous to the church, generous in his encouragement to both Paul and later to John Mark at times when others were wary and doubtful of them and was not jealous or envious of the talents of the other leaders.
The Holy Spirit produces goodness in us for everyone to see; what is required from us is a willingness to let God’s character be manifested in us and in a humility of lifestyle that doesn’t care who gets the credit: