Diane and Karen were busy during the half-term holidays, painting the newly refurbished kitchen. It looks lovely!

Mark spoke from Romans 8:28 TNIV tonight, using the idea of a Scrabble game to look at how God is working all things together for good to those who love God.

Paul wrote this verse originally to the church in Rome, but we are included in this promise. ‘All things’ includes absolutely everything that happens in our lives, even those things that seem to us to be anything but good!

Our lives are not a series of random accidents, thrown together carelessly, but God is carefully working all things together.

God works things together for good (notice the word ‘God’ is on a triple word score to remind us of the Trinity!). This promise is for those who love God.

We are individually called and chosen by God (see Eph 1:3-4 TNIV) and His purposes for our lives and for the world will prevail. God’s plan is for people to come back to Him and we can be involved in that plan! It may well require faith to believe this verse, for life often looks more confused than clear to us, but by faith we realise that God is working all things together for good to those who are called according to His purpose.

Tonight’s family service was on the theme of ‘All things work together for good’, so we had a game and a quiz about things that work well together.

In the game, we had to answer questions to find out a relevant Bible verse:

The verse was 1 Corinthians 12:18 ESV: ‘But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.’ Things go well when church members work together!

The next activity involved word association, again requiring people to work in groups to think of as many related words connected to the topic of ‘fish’ and ‘church’.

As usual, there were prizes:

Our thanks to Stacey and Stephen for organising these activities!

In the book of Revelation, we read the same phrase in several places (eg Rev 2:7, 11, 17 TNIV): ‘Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ I found it very interesting during this weekend in London to hear essentially the same messages we have been hearing from a range of preachers at home! God is clearly speaking similar messages through a variety of His servants so that many will hear what He has to say to individual churches and to the Church as a whole.

The first sermon we heard (from the newly ordained Tim Hughes!) was from 2 Chronicles 20:1-29 TNIV, a passage Mark preached from in April (‘Dream Cross Code’). Here, the message was that so often, situations come in life where we do not know what to do but need to turn our eyes to God. When we worship, we lift our eyes. We remind ourselves and others that our God reigns and so we find rest for our souls. The deliverance God brings will not depend on our actions and strategies but will come as we focus on God and worship Him. Our part is to ‘stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you.’ (2 Chron 20:17 TNIV)

Alan Scott’s sermon on Psalm 8 reminded us that God’s glory is set high above the heavens and He has established a stronghold against His enemies to silence the foe and the avenger. When we praise God, we actually can change the atmosphere and culture all around us, for we are proclaiming by faith the ultimate reality of God and His kingdom – this may seem invisible to all around us, but as we speak out the truth of God’s word, we can see the invisible become visible (a theme touched on in September’s sermon ‘Agreeing with God.’) He went on to talk about the vision of Jesus given to John in Revelation 1 and reminded us that it is the revelation of God which creates the revolution in us; John knew Jesus as the Suffering Servant, but here was given fresh revelation to see Him also as the Risen King. He also reminded us that the temptation is often to ‘fix’ problems and try to solve mankind’s problems in our own strength, but we must understand that God has called His children to be worshippers and it is in this realm that the reality of the invisible world is made visible.

This theme of encountering God being the major requirement for the church and for each believer was taken up by Pete Greig, who spoke from Isaiah 6. It has been the theme of many a sermon in Goldthorpe too, for it is only when we encounter God that the transformation in us can take place which is necessary if we are to become more like Christ. Sermons on the kind of hero God is looking for (on the Beatitudes) and on the qualities we need to add to our faith (2 Peter 1:3-9 TNIV) have reminded us that there is no substitute for our personal walk with God. Pete Greig made a comment which I think bears repeating: “God appoints for the honour of public service those who honour their private appointments with Him.” There really is no hidden secret to spiritual success; rather, the basics of prayer, commitment to God’s word, fellowship and witnessing are all important. (‘The Basics Never Stop Being Important’)

To summarise, then, what is the Spirit saying to the church in these days?
1) Keep your eyes on God
2) Understand the authority and power He has given to us as believers and use this to speak out God’s decrees and see the invisible become visible as you agree with God rather than with your own feelings or the things you see around you
3) Recognise that personal holiness is a prerequisite for spiritual success. We are to be ‘set apart’ for God.
4) Worship God and allow Him to bring the deliverance that is needed in our own lives and for our communities to be changed.

Back in April, Mark preached on the ‘Dream Cross Code’, a sermon which has come to mean a lot to me as it encouraged me to hold on to the dreams I had of leaving my job and starting new ministries. Today, he gave us the next instalment of this sermon, entitled ‘Holding on to the dream’, using Genesis 37 as his text.

This is the beginning of the story of Joseph, son of Jacob’s beloved wife Rachael and much loved by the patriarch, to the extent that he was shown great favouritism (the coat of many colours) and was greatly resented by his other brothers. In Gen 37:5 TNIV we are told that Joseph had a dream – which he shared with his brothers and later with Jacob.

Other people’s reactions to our God-given dreams are not always positive. Here, Joseph met 4 reactions:
1) he was hated even more by his brothers because of his dream (a strong reaction which does not sit well with Jesus’s commands to love our brothers!)
2) he was rebuked by his father
3) he was envied by his brothers (people may well feel jealous of the dreams God gives us, asking ‘Why is God moving in your life?’ with the implicit hurt ‘and not in mine?‘)
4) his father kept the matter in mind. (People may well tell us to ‘wait and see’ and not give us much feedback at all, preferring to see if God will bring the dream to pass in time.)

Our response to the dreams God gives us must be to hold on to the dream and wait for God’s fulfilment, which will come in God’s time.

1) Don’t let the reactions of other people put you off.
It was not really just a case of Joseph having a dream; more a case of the dream having Joseph! It was firmly bound to his heart. He could not forget it, even if he wanted to. When God gives us a dream, we have to hold on to it through times of testing and trial, but equally we will find that we cannot forget it or lay it down, even if at times we would like to! The dream consumes us and holds on to us as much as we hold onto it!

2) Know that the dreams given by God will endure the times of trial and testing.
The day’s events narrated in Gen 37:1-36 TNIV probably represented the worst day of Joseph’s life! He was beaten up, thrown in a cistern, and sold into slavery, narrowly escaping death at the hands of his own brothers. Violent and brutal acts were done to him. Even so, the selling into slavery was part of the fulfilment of the dream, for God was working to put Joseph into the place he needed to be for the dream to be fulfilled. In all the hurt and pain he experienced, the fulfilment of the dream actually began on this terrible day.

3) The fulfilment of the dream starts in the darkest day.
The end of the chapter shows us Joseph being sold to Potiphar, the chief member of Pharaoh’s personal guard. This must have seemed a dark day to Joseph, but actually this was the unfurling of the dream’s fulfilment. God often has to bring us to the end of ourselves for us to realise that the dreams He gives will only be fulfilled in His way and in His time as a result of His supernatural actions. Hebrews 11:1 TNIV reminds us that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Alan Scott says ‘breakthrough comes when our hearts are breaking.’ In this dark time, God was still very much at work in Joseph’s life, though he may well have felt abandoned and deserted. As Kutless remind us, ‘life is so much more than what our eyes are seeing.’ (‘What Faith Can Do’) We have to be confident that nothing will thwart God’s plans for our lives and sure that even when we cannot trace His hand, He is still working all things together for good (Rom 8:28 TNIV).

4) God revitalises our dreams
This chapter shows us how God spoke more than once to Joseph. The form of the dream may have been different, but essentially, it was the same dream. God adds to the dream and encourages and envisions us. Our part is to keep on believing and to hold on to the dream!

Garry and I spent the last two days in London attending the Worship Central Conference, led by Tim Hughes and others from the Worship Central team. It was held in the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster (location for the first meeting of the United Nations, an interesting little fact that might come into some pub quiz trivia!), a beautiful location in the heart of Westminster:
Westminster Central Hall:

Houses of Parliament:

Westminster Abbey, by day and by night:

Over four sessions and four workshops, we learned more about the importance and centrality of worship in our lives and in our communities and enjoyed the experience of learning amongst so many Christians from a whole range of denominations (the conference was attended by 2000 people from over 30 different countries). Key note sessions were led by Tim Hughes (who spoke from 2 Chronicles 20 on the centrality of worship in the battles we face in life), Alan Scott from Northern Ireland (who spoke from Psalm 8 and Revelation 1) and Pete Greig (from the 24/7 Prayer Movement) who spoke from Isaiah 6. I’ll give more details on these later on!