A creed (from the Latin ‘credo’, ‘I believe’) is a statement of belief and the Apostles’ Creed is one of the earliest statements of Christian belief. Last night, we looked at the opening statement from the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth.”

I believe in God the Father
The fact that God is our Father is affirmed in both the Old Testament (Deut 32:6, Is 9:6, Is 63:15, Jer 31:9, Mal 2:10, to name but a few examples) and the New Testament (looking especially at Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and John’s Gospel). The New Testament writers frequently began their letters with the phrase ‘grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Romans 1:7, see also 2 Cor 1:2, Gal 1:3, Eph 1:3, 1 Tim 1:2 and 1 Thess 1:1, for example.) God is the perfect Father (James 1:17), giving good gifts. Even when He disciplines us, it is for our own good (Prov 3:12, Hebrews 12:8-10). Our own earthly fathers may have been good or bad, but God is a good Father, a God who is not impersonal but who is keen to enter into a close, personal relationship with us.

I believe in the Almighty
God is not only our Father (indicating the personal relationship we have with Him), He is the Almighty, the all-powerful one. His power is demonstrated throughout the Bible: in the way He chose Abraham and made a whole nation from a childless couple, in the way He coordinated the safety of that nation when threatened by famine or tyranny, in the miraculous defeat of the Egyptians in the Exodus (see Ex 15:4-6), and most especially in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The disciples’ hopes were dashed and lay in tatters at the crucifixion (see Luke 24:24), but not even death could thwart the power of God (Luke 24:5-7, 1 Cor 15:55).

I believe in the Maker of heaven and earth
Nowadays, the belief in God as maker of heaven and earth is under constant, daily attack. If you hold to the Biblical account of creation given in Genesis and affirm that you believe in God as maker of heaven and earth, you are likely to be ridiculed and scorned. But the Bible is unequivocal in its declaration that God is the Creator of the universe, of all we see and of mankind. For those who are interested in the creation vs evolution debate, there are many resources available to help us defend the Biblical viewpoint (see http://creation.com/, for example), but for now, it’s enough to look at the Biblical defence of this credal statement. Gen 1 affirms God’s activity in creation, a fact echoed in John 1 and Col 1. Job 9 and Job 38-42 affirm God’s power in creation and the actual phrase ‘Maker of heaven and earth’ is used in Ps 121:2, Ps 124:8, and Ps 146:6

Our God is the all-powerful Creator, the One who sustains everything by His powerful word, giving us confidence to face tomorrow and grace and strength for today. Our beliefs shape the way we live and help us to live with our heads held high!

Stephen preached from Isaiah 42:1-4 yesterday morning, verses quoted by Jesus in Matthew 12:18-21. Here, we see that God’s King is very different to how we imagine earthly kings to be. Kings are normally thought of as being powerful, valiant, heroic, conquering through force. But Jesus is our Servant King.

His birth at Bethlehem is a reflection of the upside-down world of servanthood which Jesus embraced. He is God’s chosen one in whom He delights – accredited by God, not by pomp, ceremony, circumstances or clothing. His mission is to bring justice to all the earth – something no earthly king has ever managed to achieve. Moreover, He will achieve this through quiet strength: “he will not shout or cry out or raise His voice in the streets.”

God’s way of doing things are very different to the world’s way of working. Jesus will not despise the lowly or hurting: “a bruised reed He will not break, and a smouldering wick He will not snuff out.” He will not falter in His purpose of bringing justice and He will not be discouraged, but will bring true justice and true peace to the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBd3ThCResI

I love words. It is no surprise to me that J. K. Rowling studied modern languages; her books resonate with words that have their roots in other languages and so many of the names in her books ‘play’ on words, a literary device that definitely appeals to the linguist in me.

One of those literary devices is the ‘pensieve’, an imaginary magical repository for memories.

The idea behind this imaginary device is that if your mind becomes over-crowded with memories, you can ‘dump’ them in the pensieve and sift through them at a later date. The word itself is clearly a play on the word ‘pensive’ (which means ‘thoughtful, meditative, engaged in serious thought’), a word which has its roots in French (penser, to think) and Latin (pensare, to weigh or consider carefully), but the spelling ‘pensieve’ also brings to mind a ‘sieve’, a device often resembling a screen that can be used to sift through something. Sieves are often used to eliminate undesired objects or items, such as when an archaeologist uses one to sift through sand or dirt in search of fossils or other relics. The pensieve seems to be a way to prevent people’s often sieve-like memories from losing important information.

Ps 139 starts with the realisation ‘You have searched me, Lord, and You know me’ (Ps 139:1) and concludes with David’s prayer “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps 139:23-24)

We all need some kind of ‘pensieve’, some way of sifting our thoughts and retaining only that which is good, profitable, true, right, noble, praiseworthy or admirable. We need some external method of discerning our own motives and thoughts, for as Jeremiah tells us, the heart is desperately deceitful (Jer 17:9). That’s why we need to pray as David did, ‘search me and know me’, or, as the Message puts it, ‘investigate my life, God; find out everything about me.’

Without the insight brought by God’s Holy Spirit and the piercing revelation of His Word (that word which is like a double-edged sword or sharp scalpel, Hebrews 4:12), we are capable of self-delusion and misunderstanding on a scale that is almost bewildering. We desperately need God’s revelation to uncover the duplicity of our hearts and bring us to that place of honest repentance. David committed murder and adultery and apparently had no qualms of conscience until confronted by the prophet Nathan, whose story pierced his defences. Only then did he say ‘I know my transgressions’ (Ps 51:3).

May we be honest enough and willing enough to let God search us and know us and lead us in the way everlasting.

No, I’m not talking about the love of God here, though Paul’s prayer in Ephesians is worth repeating: “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:17-19) Instead, I’m talking about working on the ground… and on the roof…!

Today we had a cleaning-up day at Beever Street. The building there has not yet been sold and we decided to tidy up the grounds (a lot of rubbish had accumulated in the car park there) and do some work on the roof today. It was a lovely sunny day and a group of willing helpers took up their gloves, shovels and brushes to clear weeds and rubbish.

Some of the things we discovered in clearing the rubbish were not very appetising, like this mouldy pie:

or these underpants:

Meanwhile, work was going on higher up, as the roof was being cleared of rubbish and tiles replaced and repointed:


View from the roof:

As usual, it wasn’t all work:

Apart from wanting to make the site look better in our attempts to sell the old building, we also have a reason for needing the building once again, as we are having a baptismal service on 12th November. We don’t yet have a baptistry in the new building, so may well need to use the old one for this service, so it was good to do work on the old site. We are thrilled to need a baptistry as it’s always fantastic to celebrate new life in Christ. We were also struck by how small the old building seemed on our return: we’ve clearly adapted to the bigger building! May God continue to increase our vision and capacity and add to our numbers!

“Almighty God, in every way, You are above and beyond understanding” goes the song by Tim Hughes (‘Almighty God’), words that could be taken straight from Romans 11. Paul concludes this amazing section looking at the ways of God with these verses:
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!“Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Rom 11:33-36). At the end of all this teaching about God’s ways and God’s plans, including what He is doing in and with both the Gentiles and the Jews, Paul is left in wondering praise, aware that there is so much more that he does not understand, cannot comprehend and will never fathom, but that God is worthy of all praise.

The preceding verses are not easy to fathom, either! Paul has continued talking about the mystery of what is happening now with the salvation of the Gentiles and how Israel seems to be ‘hardened’ (‘calloused’), not seeing the salvation of the Lord. Nonetheless, Paul is confident that God is working all things together for good and that that will ultimately result in Israel’s salvation (Rom 11:26). He is aware that God’s gifts and call are irrevocable (Rom 11:29). He is aware that disobedience does not negate mercy (Rom 11:30-32). The topics of God’s sovereignty and free will rumble on in these verses. It seems there is, known to God, a fixed number of those Gentiles who will be saved (Rom 11:25) and that ‘all Israel’ will be saved (Rom 11:26). When this will come about, how it will come about and who is meant by ‘all Israel’ (‘spiritual Israel’? ‘Genetic Israel’?) cannot be categorically understood by our finite minds, though the references to Isaiah and Jeremiah in Rom 11:26-27 and the reference to Jacob (the schemer, rather than Israel, the one who struggled with God) indicate that God is still indeed working with His ‘chosen people’, the Jews. We have to ultimately admit that there are still many parts of God’s word which we do not fully understand and that God is God and we are not! We don’t have the knowledge or wisdom to counsel or advise God. We have no right, as created beings, to tell the Creator what to do. We do, however, have an ongoing obligation to worship – a theme that will be taken up in Romans 12, as Paul begins the practical application of his theological teachings in the remainder of the letter.

“That You would leave Your throne
And make this world Your home
Forsaking majesty
Embracing mundane
And all of its shame…” (Aaron Shust, ‘Wondrous Love’)

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor 8:9)

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” (Phil 2:5-8)

These verses and this song have kept me reflecting on the mystery that is the Incarnation. I can’t get my head around this! Why Jesus would want to leave the majesty of heaven to dwell on earth is beyond me. I can’t comprehend such love, only receive it gratefully.

Even more amazing in a way, though, is the fact that Jesus came in the flesh, as man, and lived over thirty years as an ordinary man. It wasn’t all about miracles and glorious sights. So much of it was just, as Aaron Shust says, ’embracing mundane’. I love that phrase. The idea of ’embracing’ (with all its fervour, passion and connotations of love) and ‘mundane’ (‘of this world, rather than the heavenly world’, but more commonly, ‘lacking interest or excitement, dull, common, ordinary, banal’) is indeed an oxymoron. Jesus knew what it was to be fully man. He knew what the banal, the ordinary, the everyday life looked like. He ‘knew rejection, loss and grief’, as the song says, or as Hebrews puts it ‘we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.’ (Hebrews 4:15) We so often crave excitement, adventure, spiritual highs… but God Himself knows what the monotony of the ordinary is all about. He’s lived it.

The chorus goes on to say:
‘What wondrous love is this
What wondrous love is this
That You would lay aside Your glory for my soul!
What wondrous love is this
What wondrous love is this
That You would lay down Your life for my soul!’

We are left reassured that God knows what it’s like to live in our world and encouraged by the fact that this wondrous love took our place, bore the agony of the Cross for us and ‘loved a world that nailed You to a tree’. God is so good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXlqJqsAD7A&noredirect=1