Just a reminder that the Women’s World Day of Prayer will be this Friday, 2nd March, starting at 6 p.m. It’s an opportunity to join with other local churches to pray for the church in Malaysia and throughout the world on the theme of ‘Let Justice Prevail’. As we have been considering justice recently and what we can do to see injustice defeated and justice restored, let’s never underestimate the power of prayer.

Please bring tinned food to this event, which the Salvation Army will distribute to needy families in Goldthorpe. We want to do whatever we can to alleviate poverty and help others in need. Please also bring, if you are able to, some Chinese/ Malaysian food to share after the meeting.

Please note also that there will be an offering during the service, distributed by Women’s World Day of Prayer to various Christian charities.

Still on the subject of working to bring justice to the world, the song ’27 Million’ is at Number 3 in the UK iTunes charts. That means an awful lot of people are buying it and are raising awareness of human trafficking! If you’ve not downloaded it yet, it only costs 99p and is available here: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/twenty-seven-million-single/id500399945

Do you have a spare 99p?

If so, you can download the single ’27 Million’ by Matt Redman and LZ7 from today from iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/twenty-seven-million-single/id500399945

Apart from being a great song, buying the song helps the charity A21Campaign in its fight against human trafficking.

Dave preached from Song of Songs 3:1-4 last night, looking at the relationship between the church (the Bride) and Christ (the Bridegroom), a relationship based on love.

Song of Songs is a love story, telling how King Solomon finds a country girl with whom he falls in love. Although King, he doesn’t reveal his identity to her and returns from his country estate to Jerusalem, urging his beloved to wait for him and to prepare for the wedding feast. It is also an allegory, mirroring the church’s relationship with Christ, which is frequently pictured in the human terms of marriage.

Christ is our Lover, our Bridegroom. He came to earth to suffer and die for us, a ‘joy set before Him’ (Heb 12:2), the joy of welcoming His Bride, ‘spotless and without blemish’. We are currently in the position of waiting for His return and there can be doubt and fear in our hearts at times, just as there was in the Beloved’s. Sometimes, like her, we miss the intimate presence of the Lord and need to seek that afresh. We need to seek Him in church, where He has promised to meet with His people, but we need to seek Him everywhere, abandoning our pride to ask those who know Jesus to help us find Him.

How do we hold on to the presence of Christ? We do this by faith, trusting in Him even when we don’t feel His presence. We need to rest on Him, letting our whole hearts go out to Him. We need to pray constantly and urgently, showing our love through our obedience. We keep close to God by ‘prayerful, holy, careful living and loving.’

Ultimately, Jesus asks us the simple question, as He did Peter, ‘Do you love me?’ Only we can answer that.

As we wait for Jesus to return for His Bride, let’s ‘hold on’, for there is ‘mercy in the morning light’:
Phil Wickham, ‘Hold On’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9DUKJEYd6Q

We also had an upcoming birthday to celebrate:

Stephen preached from Gen 12:9-20 this morning, talking about putting your trust in God. Abram has received two amazing visits from God and been told that he and his offspring will be made into a great nation. But at this time in his life, there is famine in the land (Gen 12:10) and so he decides to go into Egypt. Things don’t always go well for us and difficult circumstances and trials often come into our lives, even when we have heard God’s voice. Even when we have received God’s amazing promises, things can look very different on the outside; they often look like life is falling apart…

Abram saw the famine and tried to sort things out himself by going to Egypt. He was trying to look after his family and his own needs. He tried to manipulate circumstances by lying about Sarai’s true identity. How easy it is for us to be led astray and to try to solve our problems ourselves, instead of trusting in God.

Even then, Abram apparently prospered, being given sheep, cattle, servants and so on. Material blessings can’t be seen as a measure of God’s blessing, however. Pharaoh was the one to realise something was wrong and the deception was revealed.

If we leave God’s promise and provision, we bring hardship to ourselves and to others around us. The grass may look greener on the other side of the field, but it’s not necessarily so. We need to learn that God is our Provider and Redeemer and trust in Him and in no other powers.

God has promised us great things. The timing may not be now, however, and we may have to wait longer than we want to! But God is with us and we need to trust in Him for His promises to be fulfilled in our lives.

Last night I was in Salford, Manchester for an evening about the 27 Million launch and A21 Campaign against human trafficking. The cause of worship wedded to justice has long been one that speaks to my own heart; I’m very aware that it’s easy to become comfortable in our lives and think that it’s all about God blessing us, whereas in truth we are saved to serve and blessed to be a blessing to others.

Manchester-based hip-hop and rap band LZ7 have worked with Matt Redman (one of my favourite songwriters) on a song called ’27 Million’ which will be released on iTunes on 27th February. More on that later…! LZ7, headed by Lindz West, started the evening with a series of their songs (‘We’re Gonna Party,’ ‘Sold Out’, ‘Ditto’ and most memorably ‘This Little Light’.) This last song, a new version based on the children’s classic ‘This Little Light of Mine’, much loved at Goldthorpe, can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C4XwH7UitU

After that, Beth Redman spoke from Matthew 14 and 1 Samuel 17 about how, when we give the little have to God, He can do amazing miracles. It’s easy to be overwhelmed when faced with statistics, desensitised to issues or feeling the hopelessness of the sin that is all around us. The figure of 27 million sold in human trafficking, effectively modern day slaves, often working in the sex industry, is almost more than we can comprehend or imagine. We like to think it is only happening abroad, but Beth spoke about a recent case in Salford itself where a deaf and dumb 10 year old girl had been kept in a basement and repeatedly raped and used in the sex industry. Such things rightfully shock and horrify us, but we can feel that there is nothing we can do about such things. Just as one little boy gave his lunch to Jesus and the overwhelming problem of how to feed thousands and thousands of people was solved by the combination of his action and God’s miraculous power, just as David’s stone and faith in the Almighty God toppled the mighty giant, Goliath, so too our actions, however small and insignificant they may seem to us, can make a difference in God’s mighty hands.

One way in which we can do this is to bring the matter to the attention of those in authority and power, working with the police to prosecute those involved in human trafficking and seeking to provide shelters for people who are brought out of this, offering them hope, restoration and true love. The song ’27 Million’, which hopefully will make it into the mainstream charts, tells the story of one woman who was sold into slavery, used as a ‘human commodity’, ‘dead from the inside out’, and urges us:
‘We’ve got to rise up,
Open our eyes up,
Be her voice, be her freedom,
Come and stand up.’
For the cost of a download, we can actually bring what is happening in our society into the light of recognition. Who know what God can do when we offer Him all we are and seek to work for justice?

Matt Redman ended the evening with worship:
* Blessed Be Your Name
* You Never Let Go
* Here For You
* From the Inside Out
* Chains, Be Broken
* 10,000 Reasons
* Our God
* We are the Free
* Dancing Generation

Once again, I was struck by the notion that God has set us free to serve… to make an impact… to live out love and forgiveness… to let our little lights shine. May we receive grace and strength to do that wherever we are, doing whatever He calls us to do.

POSTSCRIPT
Saturday evening 6:30 p.m.
There’s a live webcast with further information about this tonight!
http://twentysevenmillion.2xstreamlive.tv/

Last night’s Bible study looked at Romans 1:5-13. This continues the idea that God gives endurance and encouragement and that when we have the same attitude as Christ (see Philippians 2), we grow in unity and where there is unity, God commands the blessing (Ps 133.)

We are commanded to be imitators of God (Eph 5:1). That means loving like God has loved (Eph 5:1-2) and forgiving as He has forgiven (Col 3:12-14). It also means accepting others as Christ has accepted us (Rom 15:7). There must be no strings attached to our acceptance. The Jews traditionally looked down on the Gentiles, not accepting them as being loved by God (a view Paul refutes from the Old Testament in Rom 15:8-12). So often in church history, Christians have looked down on others, apparently unable to distinguish between who a person is and what he does. Christ, as always, is our example. Change may be needed, but acceptance does not include a list of changes required before we can be welcomed in: none of us would have made it into the Kingdom of God under those membership rules! Instead, God accepts us freely and gives us the power to change; He asks us to accept others with the same generosity of spirit, opening our hearts to welcome people in. It’s a heart attitude.

This section concludes “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Rom 15:13). Jesus promised to give us His joy (John 15:11) and His peace (John 14:27). Then we will not let our hearts be troubled or be afraid, for this joy and peace guard our hearts and allow us to experience hope, not despair.