Mark preached from 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 on the ‘fragrance of Christ’ this morning, opening with the provocative question ‘What do you smell of?’

Paul begins these verses ‘Thanks be to God’, reminding us that we should always start with thanksgiving. He is thankful for the triumph we have in God, reminiscent of the triumphal processions of the Romans, where the conquering army’s victory parade would be celebrated with burning spices – a pleasant smell for the conquerors but the ‘smell of death’ to the captives. In the same way, we have been given the ‘aroma of Christ’ and our role is to diffuse that fragrance gradually (rather as Mark did with his aftershave for us all to smell!)

We are not responsible for how others respond to the fragrance: some will respond to Christ; others will reject Him. But we are called to be diffusers, spreading the aroma of Christ wherever we go.

Romans 5 talks about the many blessings of salvation: peace, grace, hope being the ones initially mentioned.

Peace with God means that we are in harmony with Him; there is no longer enmity between us. We have found favour with God (Luke 2:14) and with that comes the peace of Christ (see John 14:27). Peace doesn’t necessarily guarantee peaceful circumstances (see John 16:33), but we can be at peace with our circumstances, even when they are painful or difficult, as Christ Himself demonstrated on the cross.

Peace is also one of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22) and is available through Christ. We are able, through faith, to stand in the grace of God, working with God but accepting His gift of grace, knowing that His peace is available to us at all times.

Later in the chapter, we looked at the three things we can rejoice or boast in: the hope of the glory of God (vs 2), in our sufferings (vs 3) and in God Himself (vs 11). The glory that God has prepared for us is almost more than we can imagine, but we have the hope of a glorified body (see 1 Cor 2:6-10 and 1 Cor 15:42) and the hope of being transformed into God’s image (see 2 Cor 3:18).

This hope of glory acts as an anchor, giving us perspective in our present sufferings. The suffering that God allows into our lives produces good things: perseverance, character and more hope!

Despite technical problems with the projector which meant we had to use a large screen to project the words of songs, we still managed to get through a variety of topics last night!

First of all, an important birthday!

Then, a sermon inspired by Psalm 68:19 and looking at Matthew 11:28-30 on loads and burdens and how God wants us to come to Him with our burdens and exchange the heavy yoke we carry daily for the light yoke which is available through Christ.

Rarely seen without a host of bags, Julie talked about the daily load she carries:
/>First, there was the exercise bag, complete with towel, shampoo, deodorant, MP3 player and headphones and gym equipment:

Then there was the work bag, containing useful guidelines for her job as a teacher, including GCSE specifications and the infamous yellow ICE booklet to help with conducting exams:

Finally, there was a rucksack, containing tapes and the lever arch folder that holds the weekly plan for each lesson taught:

At times, we too wrestle with a host of baggage that we ought not to be carrying around. We can help share each other’s burdens (Gal 6:1) as part of the church community, but there are also times when we must be prepared to lay down the burdens of wrong attitudes and thinking, sin and guilt and idolatry which God never intended us to carry.

Sin and guilt are burdens which will crush us: “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.” (Ps 38:4) With God, there is forgiveness from sin and no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1, just like a shower after exercise can wash away the sweat and dirt! Wrong thinking and attitudes have to be replaced by the truth of God’s word, so that our minds are renewed (Rom 12:1-2) – rather like listening to one’s own MP3 player at the gym instead of the music blaring forth from Kiss radio! And instead of relying on a over-full Lever arch folder of carefully constructed lessonplans, we need to face the fact that life was not meant to be lived solely under our control. We are not meant to be in sole charge of our lives. We don’t have to have everything neatly organised and tidily filed. Life is messy at times and we are not the ones who have to fix everything. Instead, we can come to Jesus and learn from Him who is gentle and humble in heart. We can rest in Him and exchange yokes. We can find rest for our souls.

Aaron Shust’s song ‘Come To Me’ takes the words of Matthew 11 and puts them to music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVa7nheT56Y

Each Sunday morning, remembering is an important part of the service, for we take communion on a weekly basis in our church, choosing to set aside the hustle and bustle of the week to remember the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dave preached this morning from 2 Timothy 2:8, looking in particular at the resurrection of Christ, having considered His death last week.

This verse urges us to “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel.” Paul, writing towards the end of his life, was at pains to urge Timothy to teach the gospel and good doctrine so as to keep the church pure. We are urged to remember Jesus Christ, whose name reflects both His role as Saviour and His mission as God’s anointed one and who was fully human as well as fully God.

The death of Jesus is well documented and although it has been refuted by many who claim He merely ‘fainted’ or ‘passed out’, there is much evidence to indicate that He was truly dead. The Romans were used to crucifying criminals and the evidence of blood and water from His side shows that He was really dead. The women who embalmed His body also would have recognised death. Yet there is also ample evidence that Jesus did not stay dead. Other religious leaders may have set good examples, but their tombs can still be visited and the remains of their bodies are still there. Jesus, however, is no longer in the tomb. He was raised to life and this fact was witnessed by about 500 people, so it was not exactly the figment of a few people’s imaginations!

The resurrection of Jesus acts as a proof that there is indeed life after death, for He came back from death to demonstrate this fact. He had a spiritual body, yes; but it was a body that could be touched, that could eat, that was more than just a ‘spirit’ or ‘ghost’. His resurrection underlines the hope we have that after death we too shall have a glorified body like Christ.

The resurrection also acts as a seal, showing that God has accepted Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins. Death (the result of sin) was defeated at the Cross. Death could not keep its hold on Jesus, for He was without sin. He paid, instead, for our sin.

What Jesus promised to do (see John 2:19 and Matt 12:40) before His death, He did indeed do and therefore we can trust His promises in every aspect of our lives.

It’s good to remember Him and to remember all He has achieved for us through His death and resurrection.

“I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”
(Ps 77:11-12)

Anniversaries are special occasions. They are times when we choose to remember, when we hang our memories on the pegs of dates. Some of us are better at remembering dates than others; some set more store on remembering than others. But the Bible clearly encourages us to remember.

A year on from when we first got the keys to St Mark’s and wandered around the building, much has happened.

This is what the main hall looked like after a few weeks’ work:

Then we had the first service there in June, just four months later:

Similar transformations were wrought elsewhere:

If you want more reminders, then just check out the St Mark’s blog (see sidebar) for the full story.

We remember the deeds of the Lord and the miracles He worked on our behalf with awe and gratitude. We remember His greatness and how the impossible became possible. We remember the joy of adding our talents to His infinite power. We remember also the exhaustion, the setbacks, the frustrations and the tears. We remember how God worked all things together for good. We remember the lessons we learned, lessons of faith, hope, patience and endurance.

And as we remember, we look forward. What have You got planned for this place in 2011, Lord? What is the next step? What else is there for us to do, walking hand in hand with You?

This week in the Bible study on Romans, we looked at Romans 4, which talks a lot about Abraham, the ‘father of all who believe’ (Rom 4:11). Here, Paul develops his argument that righteousness is credited to us, as it was to Abraham, through faith rather than through works. Abraham heard and believed God before the law, even before circumcision, and it was that faith in God which is credited to him as righteousness (Rom 4:3). Circumcision, that sign which for the Jews had become the defining mark was, in fact, ‘a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.’ (Rom 4:11) David too knew what it was to be forgiven, to have one’s sins covered, something that happens through the grace of God rather than by observance of the law.

We have so much to learn from Abraham, this man of faith who shows us what it is to obey God in trust even when the outcome is still far from clear. He left his homeland to go to a place he did not know… he heard God’s promise that he would be the father of many nations when it was all but impossible that he would ever even have one child… he learned to wait many years for the promise of God and even then, when Isaac was born, had to face the test of sacrificing the son of promise. The Biblical narrative in Genesis makes it clear that Abraham didn’t always get it right (he lied about Sarah; he succumbed to human reasoning when he slept with Hagar), but here in Romans 4 we read the key to his success:
“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” ” (Rom 4:18)

Abraham faced the impossibility of his old age and Sarah’s barrenness, but still held on to the promise of God. “When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do,” we read in the Message version of Romans 4:18.

That is the key to living by faith: deciding to live not on the basis of what we see, but on what God has said He would do. Today (12th February 2011) we remember the fulfilment of one of God’s promise to us as a church, when we finally – after a mere two years, compared to Abraham’s wait that was much longer! – obtained the keys to the building that used to belong to the Methodist Church but which would become Goldthorpe Pentecostal Community Church. For months and years before that, people had held on to the promise of God for a new building, living not on the basis of what they saw, but living in the hope of God’s faithfulness and power. We have seen God do so much in the past year. Our hearts overflow with thankfulness and gratitude. Yet, as always, we must consciously remember that this is all because of what God has done, rather than because of our own merit or goodness. God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody… That is what He is so good at doing, and we can only receive that favour with thankfulness and awe. It’s all from Him.