We will be running two special events this coming Saturday, in preparation for Easter.

The first event will run from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday 31st March. This will include the usual Saturday morning coffee morning with a whole host of children’s craft acitivities. There will be face painting, balloon modelling, Easter craft activities and competitions and much more. Admission is free and it would be great to see loads of children involved with this!

In the evening at 6 p.m., we will be running a ‘Family Film Night’. Come along to watch a great film with an Easter theme, suitable for all the family, and then enjoy free chip butties afterwards!

Over the Easter weekend itself, there will also be a Communion Service on Easter Sunday (8th April), starting at 10.30 a.m. and a Family Service, starting at 6.00 p.m.

Mark McKeown spoke last night about a vision the Lord gave him just before the Women’s World Day of Prayer in March, on a theme he has been pondering for two years. The question he has been pondering has been ‘Who are the poor and needy?’ and from there he has wanted to know what he can do to help them.

The vision he received involved twelve boxes on the stage of the community hall, full of tinned food, cakes, crisps and biscuits, along with fleece blankets and hot water bottles. When the church got involved with the local Salvation Army church for the Women’s World Day of Prayer and part of this involved providing tinned food for the local community, he realised that this could be part of the vision he had seen.

Since then, he has been involved in talks with our church leadership and with the leaders of the Goldthorpe Salvation Army and the result will be a collection point at church each month where we can bring these items in and which will then be taken to the Salvation Army for distribution among the poor and needy in the local area on the 1st of each month, starting on 1st May.

The box is already in church:

The Salvation Army are involved in a Government scheme to ‘keep warm and well’ in winter. Imagine Mark’s surprise when he saw these fleece blankets and hot water bottles… just like in the vision!

Our response to help those in need is simply a reflection of the Father-heart of God. God is the greatest giver of all. He gave His only Son (John 3:16) and we are urged not to become weary in doing good to all in need (Gal 6:9-10). Similarly, John reminds us that love has to be seen in practical ways if it is to be real (1 John 3:16-18). Let’s mirror God’s heart and reach out to the poor and needy in practical ways, starting now! After all, our generosity is simply a result of God’s generosity to us:
“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this?
Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.”
(1 Chronicles 29:14)

There are very few incidents from Jesus’s life before His ministry started when He was about thirty years old which are recorded in Scripture and it is easy to read those that are simply as a historical narrative account. Stephen spoke from Luke 2:41-52 this morning, looking at the incident when Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem to learn more of His Father.

The Jewish custom, we read, was to go to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. Traditions may easily tie us up, but it is good, nonetheless, to make special time to meet with God, to listen, to hear, to give Him our undivided attention. We don’t read much about what happened in Jerusalem, but the focus on the journey home soon turns to wondering where Jesus is. It’s every parent’s nightmare. To lose a child, even for a few minutes, can be terrifying.

We can journey on in life and not notice that Jesus is missing. We can be easily distracted and lose our vision and the focus of our lives. If that happens, we need to retrace our steps, just as Mary and Joseph did, and go back to find Jesus.

They found Him in the temple. He was learning more about God, listening, asking questions, wanting even at that young age to be about His Father’s business. He was in the right place at the right time. Everyone was astonished at His understanding and learning. He knew what it was to put His relationship with His Father first. We too need to learn that.

It has taken a long time to work through the book of Romans! We started the Bible studies in October 2010 and finished them in March 2012. Admittedly we haven’t done this every week, for often we have held prayer meetings or had holiday weeks with no studies, but even so, it has taken a long time to work our way through one of Paul’s most comprehensive New Testament letters.

It’s perhaps good, therefore, to have a summary at the end of our studies of all we have learned.

Chapters 1-4 look at the seriousness of sin: the pollution of sin, the penalty it carries and the provision God has made for sin. In these chapters, we have seen the pervasive nature of sin and how ultimately all mankind is in the same boat. We are all sinners and all need a Saviour!

Chapters 5 and 6 look at grace – its benefits and our responsibility as a result of grace.

Chapter 7 talks about law and freedom and reminds us that we are now free to choose the right way. Freedom is not a licence to do as we please, but we no longer have to submit to sin’s tyranny. We have a new Master!

Chapter 8, probably the most famous (and most quoted!) chapter in Romans, talks about the ‘goodness’ of the law and about our present suffering and God’s choosing/predestination. Here we see God’s ultimate purpose for mankind: that we should become like His Son.

Chapters 9 – 11 look at Israel and about the nature of faith and God’s purposes.

Chapters 12 – 15 look at worship and its outworking in our ordinary, everyday lives. As Kutless sing, ‘It’s all Yours anyway!’ God has done so much for us that to offer our lives as a living sacrifice to Him is the only right and proper way to live.

Chapter 16 looks at the worshipping church, naming individuals and showing us the importance and value of each person to God (and to each other) and exhorts us to keep to the true faith.

Now all we have to do is live it out!

Paul concludes the letter to the Romans with some warnings and advice. He has written to them outlining the true nature of the gospel so that they can hold fast to the true faith. He warns them “to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.” (Rom 16:17) It is vitally important that we are aware of truth and that we learn to discern the false from the true. Jesus taught His disciples that true disciples could be recognised by their fruit: “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognised by its fruit.” (Matt 12:33) Here, Paul talks about ‘smooth talk and flattery’ and urges the Romans to “be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil” (Rom 16:19), again echoing Jesus’s words to be “as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” (Matt 10:16) We don’t have to have experiential knowledge of evil, but we do need to be shrewd, wise and discerning about all that is good. Naivety and cynicism are both extremes to be avoided.

Isaiah 43:2 tells us “I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” Romans 16, the concluding chapter of a long letter through the seriousness of sin, the wonders of grace and the challenges of sacrificial living, is full of names. Most of these names are not found anywhere else in the Bible and we know tantalisingly little about these people. Paul is greeting people in the Roman church with all the familiarity and affection of a friend and fellow believer. The names, unfamiliar to us in form as well as in detail, are many and varied: Priscilla, Aquila, Epenetus, Mary, Andronicus, Junia, Ampliatus, Urbanus, Appelles, Aristobulus, Herodion, Narcissus, Tryphena, Tryphosa, Rufus and his mother, Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas and others. People with Paul send their greetings too: Tertius, his amanuensis, Timothy, Gaius, Erastus. Both men and women are mentioned. Some details are there, but we know remarkably little of how Priscilla and Aquila risked their lives for Paul or why Adronicus and Junia are ‘outstanding among the apostles’.

The Bible teaches constantly and persistently that we are more than a National Insurance number or a statistic on someone’s database. It teaches us the value of each human individual. It teaches us that God knows us by name, numbers the very hairs on our heads and knows everything about us. It teaches us that no man is an island but that we need each other. Eugene Peterson says, in his commentary on Ephesians called ‘Practise Resurrection’, “church is the textured context in which we grow up in Christ to maturity. But church is difficult. Sooner or later, though, if we are serious about growing up in Christ, we have to deal with church… Many Christians find church the most difficult aspect of being a Christian. And many drop out… There are certainly plenty of warts in any church.” (Eugene Peterson, ‘Practise Resurrection’, P 11).

Romans 16 reminds us of the context of church. Church is made up of real people, often unnoticed by the world, often unnamed in the wider context of fame. But for every ‘named’ Christian leader or artist or ‘famous’ person, there are many more, labouring behind the scenes, praying, serving faithfully, loving graciously. Read any foreword in a book or the inlay card of a CD and you will see the artist’s thanks to people we will never meet. Nonetheless, these people support, love, envision and inspire others.

Never for one moment imagine that your life is insignificant or unnoticed by God. Take comfort from Romans 16, this glimpse into the lives of people about whom we know virtually nothing, but who were vital links in the Christian chain as far as Paul was concerned. We are not alone. Think of Hebrews 11, that great chapter on faith, where some of the names tucked in there with the spiritual giants of the faith are mentioned casually, in passing. God knows each one of us, calls us by name and values each one of us.