As the Olympics draw to a close, Garry looked at the lessons we can learn from these Games! Preaching from 2 Timothy 2:1-7, he looked at three lessons we can learn:

(1) Suffering is inevitable in this life, but can teach us many things. Many Olympians testified to the pain and trials they had had to go through to get to that place of winning a gold medal. Rowers who trained in the rain on dark, wet mornings in Britain were perhaps, not surprisingly, not put off to be rowing in the rain during the finals! We may at times feel that God is giving us more than we can bear, but He never gives us more than we can take. If we are to overcome the suffering and trials of life, we have to keep the end view in sight. That requires visualisation, a triumph of the battle for the mind (Bradley Wiggins and other medallists have been using the help of psychiatrists to harness their minds’ power as much as training their bodies.) The vision God has given us is achievable. We have to confront the problems we face (rather like long jumper Greg Rutherford had to change his run-up in order to avoid a recurrence of the hamstring injuries which were threatening his career) in order to achieve what God has for us. Luke 22:41-42 and Hebrews 12:3-4 remind us that this is done by the choices we make. We have to count everything else a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ (Phil 3:7-8).

(2) Support is necessary in this life. All the Olympians needed support and encouragement – from friends, from family, from fellow sportsmen and from the crowd. We are surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses and Hebrews 3 reminds us to encourage each other daily. The Holy Spirit comes alongside us to encourage, counsel, comfort and support us and we too are required to be like Him in coming alongside our fellow believers and urging them to continue with their walk of faith.

(3) God promises rewards for all who finish. Rowers Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase narrowly missed gold in the double sculls and were completely exhausted and devastated not to have won. They felt that they had let the whole nation down and were tearfully apologetic after the race. But even those who did win and who have such marvellous memories to sustain them will find that the memories will fade…

On the Isle of Man, the winning cyclist Peter Kennaugh was honoured by having a postbox in Onchan painted gold. That will remain gold for a limited period of time, however.

Jessica Ennis, the Sheffield athlete who won the heptathlon, was interviewed last Sunday and was desperate to ‘soak in the atmosphere… to remember the culmination of a dream’. At some point, though, the memories will fade.

God has promised for all of us who finish the race a crown that will never perish, fade or spoil. We have an eternal reward ahead that is far greater than any Olympic medal. He promises to give great rewards to all who overcome. We may never win a race in this life, but if we finish well in life, faithfully serving God with all we have, then we will hear His ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’ and receive rewards that are eternal and will never perish.

Back to Goldthorpe now, and Dave preached on Sunday night on ‘the pleasure of God’.

The Westminster Catechism was compiled by an Assembly of Church Fathers from England and Scotland in 1648. It was intended to teach the basic beliefs of the Christian faith and it has stood the passage of time and become one of the authoritative Creeds of the Christian church. It starts by asking the question ‘What is the chief and highest end of man?’ and answers this with ‘Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy Him forever.’

Job is one Bible character who really understood that it’s not all about us, but is all about God. Job was a God-fearing man who really did want to give his all for God’s service. In Job 1, we are given a glimpse into a conversation between God and Satan in which God asks Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant, Job?’ God took pleasure in Job’s life.

There are some things in which God takes no pleasure at all. Is 1:11 reminds us that God does not need our burnt offerings and sacrifices. We can be zealous in doing stuff for God, but outward obedience with no inner change of heart brings Him no pleasure at all. Ezek 33:11 also reminds us that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He wants everyone to come to repentance (2 Pet 3:9).

God delights, rather, in those who fear Him (Ps 147:10-11). God delights when the prodigal returns home, when the lost is found (Luke 15). Eph 1:4-6 also shows us that God chose us to be His before the creation of the world ‘in accordance with His pleasure.’ We have been set completely free from the power of Satan; we are no longer slaves to sin and to the attractiveness of the world. We have chosen to turn from trying to live on our own resources and have decided to serve God and to live to please Him. Because we have done that, God has welcomed us into His presence. He has clothed us with the finest robe – the robe of righteousness.
He has prepared the most incredible banquet for us – the wedding Feast of His Son Jesus Christ. He has restored us into His family as His sons and daughters. We are, incredibly, through His mercy and grace, pleasing in His sight.

One thing I love about God is how He says the same things to us in different ways and it doesn’t matter where we go, we can never outrun His messages! Last week we had the pleasure of being away on holiday on the Isle of Man, a truly wonderful place. As is our custom, we looked around for a church to attend on Sunday and found an Elim church in Onchan, a few miles from where we were staying, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, which directed us to the front doors with no problems! We had a wonderful time there, savouring God’s presence and enjoying meeting new family we didn’t even know we had!

The pastor there (John Powell) preached from Luke 5, the story where Peter and James and John are mending their nets after a hard night’s fruitless labour, and Jesus comes into Peter’s boat to preach and ends up commanding them to fish again. This time, the catch is so huge that the boat begins to sink and the nets begin to break and Peter and the disciples begin to understand something of their new destiny as fishers of men.

It’s a familiar story and one that seemed even more relevant on an island where fishing is still an important part of everyday life. Everywhere we went, we saw boats and nets! (We even saw the oldest yacht in the world, the Peggy, at Castletown’s Nautical Musuem.)

But what struck us most of all was the reminder, as so many sermons here have done recently, that God is with us in all circumstances. He actually gets into our boat, into the messy, stinky circumstances of our everyday lives, and helps us. He is the one who can direct our lives anew and give us fresh purpose and hope. After the death and resurrection of Christ, Peter and his friends went back to fishing. Then they were met by Jesus on the shore, cooking a fish breakfast for them. They may have thought that their lives would just carry on as before, but Jesus had other ideas for them! And He has plenty of ideas for our lives too…

Last Sunday, Dave preached from Matt 14:22-33 about having faith even in the midst of the storms of life. He started with the joke about a man who gets too close to the edge of the Grand Canyon, loses his balance, and slips over the edge. Just before falling 1000 feet, he grabs on to a root sticking out from the edge.
“Help me!” he cries out. “Is there anyone up there? Help me! Save me! Is there anyone up there?”
A voice answers, “I am the Lord. I can save you. Do you believe in me? Do you really want me to help you? ”
“Oh, yes, Lord, I believe in you, more than you’ll ever know. Please help me.”
“OK,” the Lord says. “I’ll save you. Now, let go.”
“What?”
“Just let go of that root you’re holding on to, and I’ll save you. You have to trust me.”
The man pauses a moment, and then shouts out, “Is there anyone else up there?”

Faith often seems a risky business. The disciples had just witnessed one of the most amazing miracles, the feeding of the five thousand, and they had been told by Jesus to go to the other side of the lake. They were doing exactly what they had been commanded to, yet they found themselves in the middle of a storm. Sometimes when we are following Jesus, we find ourselves in a storm. But then, the disciples saw Jesus walking on water – not calm, mill-pond-like water, but stormy water – to reach them. Peter, impulsive as ever, asks to walk on this water to Jesus and he does so. But then, like so many of us, he takes his eyes off Jesus and looks at the waves all around and begins to sink. His only hope is to cry, ‘Lord, save me!’ And Jesus did. Peter found the strength and help that he needed.

There are times when we all look at what is going on in the world around and wonder where Jesus is in all that. We look and we wonder whether we actually heard God right. At such times we again face the temptation to doubt and falter, to focus on the storms that rage around us, instead of focusing upon Jesus, the Lord of life, the Master of the winds and the waves. Our prayer is “Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the endings, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us, and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Some time ago, Mark and Dave preached a series of sermons about the body of Christ, looking at His eyes, ears, heart, hands and feet. They looked at how Jesus used these parts of His body and what we can learn about how we should live through His example.

I was reminded of this sermon series when I was listening to a song this week. It’s called ‘Safe’ by Phil Wickham and talks about the refuge we find in God’s arms. Sometimes we do indeed feel that ‘everything is falling apart’; sometimes we feel that we are in the middle of a raging storm and don’t know where to turn. It’s at times like this when we need to know that God is holding onto us.

These are the hands that built the mountains
the hands that calm the seas
These are the arms that hold the heavens
They are holding you and me

You will be safe in His arms
You will be safe in His arms
‘Cause the hands that hold the world are holding your heart
This is the promise He made
He will be with You always
When everything is falling apart
You will be safe in His arms (‘Safe’, Phil Wickham)
‘Safe’, Phil Wickham

A similar song is ‘Rest In the Arms’ by Aaron Shust:
When you’re broken, when you’re weak
When you turn the other cheek
When you cannot speak of the bitter sweet, the bitter sweetness
When the floor gives out beneath
And everything that you believe cannot bring you peace
You’re broken inside, broken in pieces

You can rest in the arms of the One who holds you
Rest in the arms of the One who knows you
Rest in the arms of the One who won’t let go
You can rest in the arms of the One who holds you
Rest in the arms of the One who loves you
Rest in the arms of the One who won’t let go (‘Rest In The Arms’, Aaron Shust)
‘Rest In The Arms’, Aaron Shust

Does God have a sense of humour? I believe so. We are, after all, made in God’s image and we certainly have a sense of humour!

Jesus may well have been known as the ‘Man of Sorrows’, but he was also the one who told His disciples “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11) I can’t imagine that someone who was always woeful and gloomy (Eeyore-like in personality) could have made that statement and not been ridiculed for it! The one who nicknamed James and John ‘sons of Thunder’ clearly had a twinkle in His eyes at times!

Proverbs 17:22 says that “a cheerful heart is good medicine” and for years, Reader’s Digest produced a jokes’ section entitled ‘Laughter The Best Medicine’ which endeavoured to lighten the atmosphere through jokes.

Good friends tend to be those who know us best and accept us as we are; they also tend to be those with whom we can laugh most easily. Sometimes there is a fair amount of teasing in the jokes. Matt Redman and Chris Tomlin, both worship leaders who are not especially tall, endlessly tease each other about their height. Their amicable rivalry often takes the form of hilarious presents on this theme: when Passion City Church moved to its new building, Chris Tomlin showed a picture of a doll’s house seat named in honour of Matt Redman; Matt Redman has just presented Chris Tomlin with a small child’s T-shirt in honour of the 2012 Olympics!

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post entitled ‘Musings on Fish’ Sadly, our fish died shortly after that and we were left, for the first time in years, with no fish and no real idea what had caused their deaths. The tank, as a result, stands empty. Mark has been teasing us about this for weeks, threatening to buy us a variety of pets to fill it. Then, last week, it was Garry’s birthday and the threat turned into reality.

Meet Igor the Iguana:

I have a feeling you will be seeing more of Igor in weeks to come. Rather than residing in the fish tank (as Mark had anticipated), he spent last week on the tank of Garry’s motor bike. He has been to church and joined in the music practice. I suspect he will be travelling much further afield too!

There is great joy in silliness at times. We can take ourselves far too seriously and often need to learn to laugh at ourselves and with others. Such jokes may not count as the kind of joy Jesus promised us, but I am sure that smiling and laughter are good for us!