Why are you here?

10 12 2013

We had a guest speaker this Sunday, he spoke on 1 Corinthians 12vv14-31 and asked us, “why are you here?”

There’s many reasons we could be a church

  • We’re on a rota
  • Force of habit
  • Routine
  • Social time
  • Free childcare

These may be factors, but they aren’t the main reason, these only form a secular shell.

The reason is a relationship with, or an interest in, God.

That can be done at home, but that ignores large chunks of the bible. Church was God’s idea. Lot’s of the letters in the New Testament were written to churches. Church isn’t the building, it’s the people. We’ve recently been looking at the One Another commands, these commands need other people to one-another with.

Some people have been hurt and scarred by churches, but don’t let your past dictate your future.

  • A bad parent doesn’t make every parent bad.
  • A bad marriage doesn’t make every marriage bad.
  • A bad church doesn’t make every church bad.

Why did God give us unique fingerprints? To remind us that we have been made unique.
Each church is unique as it is made up of unique people. Each person has unique gifts and abilities. Each person has a part to play.

If you’re an eye trying to be an ear, then you’re not going to be good at it. Plus you’re stopping an ear from being an ear.
If you’re a hand, and you’ve been a hand a long time, maybe consider: is it time to be a wrist, to support a hand?

God has called us, chosen us, appointed us, to His church. We are hear today because God has chosen us. He knew us before we were formed, He was the first to hear our heart beat, the first to love us.

The reason we’re here is a whole lot less about us, and a whole lot more about God. We can’t do anything in our own strength. The Holy Spirit has the power. God used and uses the most unlikely characters to create the biggest ripples.


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Consider one another better than yourselves

5 12 2013

Housegroup was called off this evening for various reasons, so seems the perfect opportunity to put up my notes from the last in the One Another series 🙂

Galatians 6vv3-5 and Philippians 2vv3-11

This command is the starting point for any of the one another commands.

False teachers think their self-righteousness is in keeping the law, but we are robed in Christ’s righteousness.
Those that see themselves as spiritual elite don’t want to help and get their hands dirty.

There’s a story that says Muhammed Ali was once on a flight, and when asked to put on a seatbelt, replied “Superman don’t need no seatbelt”. To which the air stewardess responded: “Superman don’t need no airplane either”. (Can’t remember how that anecdote tied in, but definitely seemed worth sharing!)

To carry someone else’s burdens we have to put our own down for a while. It can be costly.

Christ became nothing for us so that we might inherit everything. We can serve others, recognising that they are robed children of God.

There is a correct form of pride, not that compares self to others, but we can take pride in ourselves because Christ has poured Grace into our lives.

We don’t need self esteem classes, we just need the Gospel.

Christ died for us, we should be proud that we have been saved and adopted into God’s family.

“for each one should carry their own load.” – Galatians 6v5
and
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.” – Galatian 6v5
seem contradictory. But the Greek for ‘load’ is not the same as the Greek for ‘burden’.
A burden would be something like a massive container, something that is too big for one person.
A load would be a rucksack, something that is our responsibility.

Our responsibility is doing everything for the Glory of God. Using our gifts to build His kingdom.


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Carry one another’s burdens

22 11 2013

From this Sunday just gone:

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.” – Galatians 6v2

The parable of the good Samaritan – Luke 10vv25-37

The idea that we should manage our burdens on our own is very British, very western. The poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling reflects that. We don’t like to be burdens to others, but we’re designed for community.

We all have burdens, there are many types, and they are unique to each of us. We can’t know what burdens feel like for each other, but we can help. We can help with prayer, kind words, hugs, practical support, time.

Rotas are not just rotas, not just names on lists. They are ways of releasing others to worship in the church, to serve them.

We can be too passive, explaining away burdens and dissolving responsibility.

Christ has already taken our burdens on Himself. He often lightens our load by getting other Christians to help carry – we can be porters for Him.

“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” – Galatians 6v10

Christ took our burden for us so that we can come with empty hands to receive God’s grace, love and mercy.

We’re not do-gooders. Christ has done good to us.
Do-gooders tell people the good we’ve done. We tell people the good that Christ has done.
There is a whole world of difference between Christians and do-gooders.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” – Matthew 11v28

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” – 1 Peter 5v7


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The Good Samaritan – retold

14 11 2013

On Sunday we had a guest speaker from Open Doors, and for his children’s talk he told the story of the good Samaritan, a parable Jesus told to illustrate what He meant by loving our neighbour, but not as I’d heard it ever before!

The problem with this story in the church is that “Samaritan” means something totally different to us. In the context of the bible story, a Samaritan is someone from the neighbouring country, a foreigner, not a friend. In the present day in the west, A a Samaritan makes us think of this parable where we have learnt that he is the ‘goodie’, it makes us think of the charity the Samaritans, who help people.

So on Sunday the guest speaker told the story this way, and I found it pretty helpful!:

There was a Christian man who went to a business meeting, it was in a slightly dodgy part of town, and as he left the meeting he was mugged. He was left on the side of the road near a church and a pub. The church had just finished choir practice, and the choir mistress came out the church, she thought he was one of the drunks from the pub and left him be. Shortly after the vicar came out of the church, and also kept well away. Just after that, two men came out of the pub. They saw the man, and called for an ambulance. They went to the hospital with him, stayed with him, and looked after him.

Maybe the “choir mistress” part still makes it a tad old school, but in comparison to 2000 years ago on a different continent, I think this version is far more relateable, don’t you?

Have you heard any good modern retellings of parables?


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Forgive one another

8 11 2013

So I’ve missed several sermons in this series now due to Sunday School, Uganda, and visiting the parents, but this week at housegroup we were looking at the bear with one another and forgive one another commands, and something interesting came up…

We are told to “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” – Colossians 3v13.
We often take this to mean that we must forgive anyone who has hurt us, however in 1 John 1v9 it says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

So does this then mean that we only have to forgive those who ask for it? What an interesting question! I don’t know where I stand on this yet and would love your input!

Discuss!!


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Pray for One Another

6 10 2013

Still a week behind! Last weeks reading was from Colossians 1 vv 3-14:

“3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people – 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world – just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Wow. There’s some big stuff in there!

Also a mention for James 5v16:

“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

We’d good at praying for people when they’re going through hardships, but when things are going well or routinely, we tend to neglect them in our prayers.

C.S. Lewis recognised that prayer is needed at all times, he wrote to a friend: “I specially need your prayers because I am traveling across ‘a plain called Ease'”

We need prayer as much when things are routine as when there’s trouble. But what do we pray for the routine times? Try out verse 10!

We can’t improve on Paul’s prayers, take 2 or 3 names a day from the church directory (or some other list of people you know) and use Ephesians 1, Ephesians 4, and Colossians 1 and put their names in!

Otherwise we end up as just prayer chain pray-ers, what about everyone else? They still need to grown in the love and knowledge of God.

“His letters contain some things that are hard to understand” – 2 Peter 3v16, Even Peter admits some of Paul’s writing is difficult!

Things Paul prays

  • “Be full of the knowledge of God’s will”
    This means to know God and His character better
    When you know someone well, you get to know how they would think and act in a given situation à la Mr & Mrs.
    If you think WWJD, you’re only going to know the answer if we’re close to Him and walking with Him.
    He entrusts decisions to us with our knowledge of Him
    We may want to know who to marry, but He’s more interested in us being a good husband or wife.
  • “Live a life worthy of the Lord”
    When we are not in church, we still have a “I belong to Jesus” badge on, so how we live matters. People can smell hypocrisy a mile off. Our lives can damage Jesus’ reputation
  • Bearing fruit in every good work
  • Growing in the knowledge of God
  • Being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience
    Endurance and patience is quite a different look on “power” to what we’re used to
  • Joyfully give thanks
    When you count your blessing you can’t stay grumpy for too long!
    If you’re struggling to realise your blessings, try reading Ephesians 1.
    We’re not called to pretend that bad things that happen are good, but we shouldn’t lose perspective. We should remember that God is Good.
    We can joyfully give thanks no matter what because of what Christ has done for us.
    You can’t stay grumpy for long knowing that Christ died on the cross on our behalf so that we can be right with God and spend eternity with Him.

If our greatest need was a economy or entertainment, God would have sent an economist or Ant & Dec (wait a minute?!), but He sent us a Saviour.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God

When we pray for others, we can pray through all the bullet points above!


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Welcome one another – part 2

4 10 2013

I don’t intend to double up on these every week, but again at housegroup this week I noted something I want to mention.

A lot of the content of the sermon and the housegroup discussion seemed to go back to coffees after the service, and how we tend to just stand like a lemon, waiting for someone to talk to us, or just talk to the people we want to talk to.

The idea was to encourage us to talk to someone different, but part of me wonders what’s wrong with it being an opportunity for me to talk to my friends, some of them it’s the only time I see them in the week.

And anyway, if you’re going to keep saying how none of us want to talk to each other, why do I want to put someone through talking to me who obviously doesn’t want to?

Just a thought…..


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Welcome One Another

29 09 2013

A week behind, this is last Sunday’s sermon, but hopefully I’ll catch up on these soon enough!

We looked at Romans 15v7 and Romans 16 vv 1-16

To welcome can also mean to accept, to greet, to receive.
It means to look beyond the physical, look beyond the differences, and see them as children of God.

People long for a sense of acceptance.

We’re naturally drawn into friend groups. That’s good, and it’s a God given gift, but we need to not get stuck in them.
It’s good to have close friendships, but not to be exclusive. It’s hard for new people and visitors to break in.

There’s a positive to facebook in that it allows you to know something about what’s going on in someones life, and so when you see them in person to have something to ask them about.

Woman and slaves may have been bottom of the pile, but in Romans 16 Paul spends half of the list bothering to greet them. How do we treat those who are vulnerable and lonely?

Everyone has been invited into God’s family. Christians are those who have accepted the welcome.
Jesus is the welcome of God to us. He opened His arms on the cross and welcomed us home.
The parable of the prodigal son is the strongest example of this.

“Christ will shine forever, loves unfading splendour”


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Love one another

8 09 2013

This morning in church we started a new series on “the one another commands” which feels like it’s been a long time coming – we’ve had a lot of references to “one anothering one another” and so I’m hoping this is going to be really good. If today was anything to go by it will be! We had a guest speaker who opened with the one mentioned in the title!

“Over every thought
Over every word
May my life reflect
The beauty of my Lord”

“You do not faint
You don’t grow weary”

Love One Another :: 1 John 3 vv 11-24

Loving one another is hard!
You can break it down into it’s elements, but at the end of the day you just have to do it – kind of like learning to swim!

Loving one another is part of salvation
Loving one another is proof of salvation
It’s not an optional extra.

“One another” covers everyone, it’s a mutual thing, it’s 2-way

So often our experience of God’s love is through other people.

Loving one another is about five things

  1. Responding – “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” – v16
    Loving comes from being loved
    Hurt people hurt people (that’s hurt (adjective) people hurt (verb) people!)
    Rejected people reject people
    If we know that God loves us, and we know that God loves everybody, then we must love everybody.
    He loves the annoying, the hurtful, and so must we.
    When we experience the love of God in all it’s fullness then that heals us.
    We need to come back again and again to knowing God’s love for us.
  2. Giving – “And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” – v16b
    We need an attitude of giving, not getting. Responsibility, not rights.
    Rights are about other people’s duties towards me.
    If you complain that no one is loving you, are you loving others?
    “Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.” – Philippians 2:3-4, The Message.
    A servant heart is needed.
  3. Seeing – “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?” – v17
    We often fall down in loving one another because we don’t see the need
    We ask how someone is, they say “I’m fine”. FINE = Fearful, Insincere, Neurotic, Emotional
    Often our pride won’t allow us to express our need. It takes humility to let others know our need.
    There are all sorts of needs: physical, emotional, material, spiritual.
  4. Opening your heart – “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?” – v17
    We need to be affected, not indifferent.
    Indifference is the opposite of love. Hate at least still affects you.
    Let someone else’s need touch your heart.
    Listen! When we listen we get to know how people feel.
    If someone listens to you, you feel valued, it helps you unravel the things in your head.
    Anyone and everyone can listen!
  5. Action – “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” – v18
    “Love is not a feeling, it’s an act of the will”
    We have to choose to do something.
    Love has to be demonstrated in action
    It’s easy to have an intention but not follow it through. If you don’t start immediately you’ll put it off.
    We can feel promptings, but if we don’t act on them immediately we’ll argue our way out of it.

Love has to be done in a way that people will receive it. We all have particular ways we receive love and affection – The five love languages (gifts, time, words, touch, acts of service).
We tend to love other people in the way that we like to receive love. We have to find a way of loving people in a way that they can receive it and know that they are loved.

The world will know God’s love when we love one another, when the world sees that we can love people we don’t like.

“This is my command: love each other” – John 15v17
“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” – Psalm 133v1

“Keep us from just singing
Move us into action”

“You have shown us what you require”


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Good News!

1 09 2013

In October my church is launching a Christianity Explored course, (please let me know if you’d like more info!), and so in place of today’s sermon we watched the first video from the course, the introduction, by Rico Tice. It looks *really* good, it’s a few weeks plus one away day, looking at the Gospel of Mark! If you aren’t local to me, but are still interested in hearing more about Jesus, find a course near you!

“In this song the actions praise His name.
I want my actions every day to do the same.”

“Name above all names,
You are worthy of all praise.
My heart will sing,
‘How great is our God.'”

Good News – Mark 1 vv 1-20

Think of somewhere beautiful part of nature you’ve seen. A river, a meadow, a mountain? Table mountain was the example given:

Do you really think something that stunning could have happened by chance?

You are incredible! In your body there are about 100 trillion cells, each of which contains DNA. If you stretched out the DNA in one cell it would be about 2 or 3 metres. If you put all the DNA in your body in one long line, then, depending on what website you look at it’d stretch to the moon, or to the moon and back 8 times, or to the sun and back 4 times… whichever it is, it’s a long long way! You are incredible!

Christianity is not about churches, rules, leaving your mind at the door and ruining your fun. It’s about Jesus Christ: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah” – v1a.

It was risky for Mark to call him Christ. At the time Roman Emperors were said to have the divine authority.

Gospel = Good News. And not just average good news. This is dancing in the street, end of the war Good News!
If you’ve heard it, and don’t think that it’s the best news you’ve ever heard then you haven’t understood it.

Mark was written around 45-60AD and he was guided by Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers.

It all gets a bit weird in verses 9-11, heaven tearing open and a voice booming out – the people even thought it odd at the time, but they’d been told in advance! (vv 2-3)

Jesus is more than an ordinary man, we should be surprised that extraordinary things begin to happen.

Mark is just getting started.

We have a responsibility not to keep this to ourselves in the Great Commission.

Go forth and tell! O Church of God, awake!
God’s saving news to all the nations take;
Proclaim Christ Jesus, Savior, Lord, and King,
That all the world His worthy praise may sing.

Go forth and tell! O Church of God, arise!
Go in the strength which Christ, your Lord, supplies;
Go till all nations His great name adore
And serve Him, Lord and King, forevermore.


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