• Jeremiah 28:5–9                Few Prophets speak of Peace
• Romans 6:12–23               Be Slaves to God not Sin
• Matthew 10:40–42           Whoever receives you receives Me
• Psalm 89:8–18                   Mighty, Righteous, Faithful; our Shield

Introduction

Well, here it is, Trinity 3 and my last sermon amongst these churches. Last week I shared something of my personal testimony to the glorious reality that is God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This week I want to say something about that reality in the people that he calls to be his treasured possession amongst all his creation.

In doing so I am aware of the extraordinary times in which we now live and the challenge of being Church in them. As I retire others will take up the responsibility of leading these six churches across the south-east Lizard coast and it is an impossible task. I commend them to you with love. Pray for them.

But Church has never been about the people who lead. It is nothing less, or more, than the body of Christ, a gathering of Christians together in relationship to Christ and one another. What Church is, is what those Christians are, whatever institution or leadership they are involved with.

God is Serious about His Church

Whoever receives you receives Me

So, Jesus, as he sends his disciples out ahead of him can say, “Whoever receives you receives me”. When they knock on a door it is as if Jesus is knocking on the door. Some will receive him, and others will not, but either way it is Jesus, not the Disciples that they are responding to.

That is an extraordinary statement. Sometimes people have tried to distinguish Jesus from his church and say something like ‘come to Jesus, not church’, but that is not the way Jesus sees it.

There is a real downside to this, as scripture shows, when people get the wrong idea about God because of his people:

“For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’” (Rom 2:24)

But the upside is that the church will display God’s name, not only to friends and neighbours, but also to the whole of creation:

^“ … and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Eph 3:9-10)

That is why God will reward anyone who gives even a cup of cold water to one of his little ones, because they are Christ’s disciple/representative.

When we have an idea of church as something separate from us, something we can join, we may think that we can hide in what that ‘church’ is. We may act like supporters reflecting in is glory or accomplishments. But not before God. Church is not a club we can join or attend, it is a body we are born (again) into.

God is serious about this. God did not withhold his own Son; he held nothing back, as he pursued his plan to display his glory in human disciples – a church, body and bride – together in Christ. And he will hold nothing back in bringing that body to the perfection of Christ, formed in them.

Nor can we think that he will deal kindly with those who “destroy the one for who Christ died” (Rom 14:15) in the way that treat the members of his body.

Judgement Begins with the Household of God

God is serious about church. He is serious about church being Christ’s body. So, when as Christians we may look down on the world and think ourselves ok, we should remember the scripture:

“… it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Pet 4:17)

God will not turn a Blind Eye

That, I think, is what underlies Jeremiah’s words to the false prophet Hananiah. Hananiah had been telling God’s people that they were ok. He said that the people who had been captured and sent into exile in Babylon would soon be returned. But God has exiled them for a reason, because he was serious about his church (his people). God was not going to let them go their own way and cause his name to be blasphemed.

So, Jeremiah sarcastically says “Amen”. But, he says, that is not what God usually has to say. If God warns “many countries and great kingdoms” to turn and repent, who would think that he is going to turn a blind eye to his own people’s rebelliousness?

God will Prune

And Jesus, himself, tells us that the Father prunes his vine, casting off the dead branches and pruning the fruitful ones (Jn 15). If we are being faithful and fruitful, the loving judgment of pruning will still come, so that we may bear more fruit – so that we may display more of Christ in us. Pruning is not comfortable, but it is an act of love – God’s love for his vine, his church.

But, especially with what is going on in the church at this time, we ought to be careful to ensure that it is God’s pruning, not ours. There is too much history of well-meaning Christians taking it into their own hands to prune away what they see as wrong with the church.

It is not that the church lacks things that need pruning. But when we do it in our own wisdom and strength, we are apt to miss the log in our own eyes and do as much or more damage than good. It is a much harder thing to build up in truth and love, than to tear down.

So, Present yourselves to God

We are called much more to build up than to tear down. And the work of building up the church always starts with ourselves. As our Romans reading reminds us, the one bit of the church we can make a real difference to, is ourselves. As we present ourselves to God, the fruit that he gives us “leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life”

As Ephesians tells us, building up the body (the church) comes from Christ, but it comes through us as we are joined together by him – with all the joints that he supplies – and as “each part is working properly” (Eph 4:15-16). Jesus promised to build his church, but he uses his people to do so. In Christ, his body builds itself up in love.

In that passage in Ephesians, Paul speaks of this building up as each one of us “speaking the truth in love”. But “each part working properly” is a greater thing that just what we say and the way we say it. So, he goes on to urge us all to be imitators of God, by walking (i.e. living) in love and righteousness. The way we live, each one of us, is either building the church up in Christ or stunting its growth and bringing it down.

As a mundane example, I remember my pastor advising me as a young man in search of a godly woman, to look to myself. ‘Be a godly man, and you will attract a godly woman’. The same is true in the church. The more each one of us pursues Christ in our own lives, the more we will encourage others to do so. It is a hard thing to live faithfully as Christ’s disciple in this world (as our Gospel last week reminded us), we ought to be making church an easier place to do so.

Each one of us has a part to play, as God calls us and equips us. It is not for us to compare ourselves to others, or to mistake public exposure for importance. God says, ‘present yourself’, and as we do so he will build his church.

Pilgrim Church

What all this means at this present time is a real challenge. As I am preparing to move on to God’s next thing in my life, it has never been harder to see what is the way forward for the churches that I have been part of here.

A Weak Church and a Hungry People.

The institutional church that many of us have known is weak and in danger of collapse. At the same time, the hunger for God among our communities seems greater than ever.

If people do not find that hunger satisfied in God, they will seek satisfaction elsewhere (even though it is no satisfaction). But God’s design is that they find him in the company of his people.

I am convinced that being church is at the heart of all this. God’s desire is for a church that is so full of the life of Christ that, even in its imperfections (of which there will always be many), the church is both salt and light in its community.

A Passionate God

I believe that God is passionate about this church and is moving heaven and earth to bring it into being. But I do not think that he is passionate about church buildings, or the Church of England, or any other institution, or any idea of our church that sets itself apart from other Christians

I do believe that God is passionate about you, each and every Christian whom he has purchased with the blood of Christ. And everyone in our communities whom he knew before he made the universe, whom he chose and has purchased with the blood of Christ, though they do not yet know him.

God is at work amongst us, in our churches and outside them. And he is at work in all the challenges that we face. He is working everything according to his wisdom and plan. And he is calling us out to journey with him as his Pilgrim People.

Pilgrim Church

We too easily forget that God has always called a Pilgrim People out to journey with him to the fulfilment of his promise. Because we use church buildings that have stood for generations organised by an institution that is just as old, we forget that we are a Pilgrim People. Our buildings, no matter how old, are just tents – temporary structures for the journey. So are our institutions.

Even the newer churches that have grown up in recent years are apt to become too fixed. The first generation sets out as pilgrims with nothing but a sense of calling, but traditions, buildings and institutions grow. Too often people can settle into maintenance mode and forget that we are pilgrims, we are called out. Like Abraham, we are “looking forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb 11:10)

God know that we need tents, whether they are made of stone or canvass. He knows that we need organisation, the church is a body after all. Worshiping together needs liturgy, we need common hymn sheet. But when any of these things become more important than the call and the journey, God will shake them up. Just as he is doing.

So, What Now?

Though so much seems uncertain and unclear, God’s word and his promise still stand. The work of Christ for our salvation is eternal. The Holy Spirit is amongst us and working in our world. God’s call on your life and his promises to you, will not be taken back – they are guaranteed in Christ himself.

Each one of us must play our part in love and truth, bearing with and encouraging one another in Christ.

May God bless you all, as you pursue his upward call together in Christ.

• Jeremiah 20:7–13 To You I have Committed my cause
• Romans 6:1–11 Died to Sin … Alive to Christ
• Matthew 10:24–39 a Call to Witness in the face of Opposition

Daily, Ordinary, Life

Today is the Second Sunday of Trinity, that great season of ordinary time in the Church’s calendar. And its also my penultimate Sunday as Rector of the parishes of St Keverne, St Ruan w Grade and Landewednack. I have a feeling that these last two Sunday’s ought to be more important and yet they occur in the Church’s Ordinary Time.

But, perhaps, this is as it should be. We can all rise to the occasion of a special season (whether its Christmas, Lent, Easter or Pentecost), but it is in our ordinary days that we show our true life. The reality is, of course, that all of our days are lived in Ordinary Time. We may take time to remember the great seasons that are the grounds of our faith and life, but we live that life now, day by day, between those foundational beginnings and the great hope that is to come when Christ returns and fulfils all his promises.

Lent may touch on this, but it has an unusual intensity and limited duration. Jesus has called us to live in him and for him in the ongoing ordinariness of our lives. Other seasons flow through our lives – childhood, becoming adults, working life, perhaps marriage and parenthood, retirement and old age – but these are the ordinary seasons of life that we share with all our friends and neighbours.

What is it, then, that shapes and fills your ordinary days? What is the fountain of life in them, from which your daily living flows? And what sustains you when living is itself an exercise in perseverance – more like walking through mud than surfing the crest of a wave?

Costly Christianity

Our readings this morning set a challenging context for such thoughts.

Just Like Jesus

Jesus tells us clearly that being a Christian – in anything more than mere words – is going to be as difficult for us as it was for him. People will try to stop you living that way, to oppose what you do and say, or to try and make you keep it private – hidden and personal – not part of ordinary life. And some of that opposition will come from your closest friends and family.

Sometimes that is the hardest place to be true to Christ’s calling, amongst your friends and family. I read, as I was preparing this, of a young man in India murdered by his fellow villagers because he and his family converted to become Christians. That is extreme for us, but it reminds us that living as a Christian is as hard as Jesus told us it would be, even for us.

And yet, even here, there is another dynamic. The Father sees, the Father knows, and he loves it when his children show themselves to be his children.

Struggling with this

And Jeremiah illustrates this so powerfully.

He struggles with his calling, because it is so hard – “everyone mocks me”. He feels deceived even. Perhaps, when he felt that call to be a prophet, he had hoped that it would be a good and honourable thing, and now his experience is anything but. He has become a reproach and derision, not honoured. And people are threatening his life.

And yet he cannot but speak as he does; it is like fire in his bones and he can’t keep it in. Being a prophet, rather than good and honourable, feels more like being a slave. God has overcome him – “you are stronger than I”.

Perhaps, sometimes for us, being a Christian can seem like a burden; something we feel forced to do. I think that God gives us times like that. But as Jeremiah pushes through – as we push through such times – he comes to a deeper entrusting of his life to God and a deeper hope in God.

So, he comes to say – “to you have I committed my cause”. And he comes to trust in the one who – “has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers”.

Always a Slave

And then, in Romans, we see a hard truth. None of us are as free as we think that we are.

There is a freedom in Christ. It is the freedom from being enslaved to a way of life that is killing us. But is comes at a price, being enslaved to a way of life that leads to enduring life. It is a hard truth to take in, but it is the reality of life whether we like it or not. All of us must commit ourselves to life – slaves, is not too strong a word – in order to live.

The difference that Jesus makes is that before him we had no choice in whose slave we would be. We were born into slavery to sin and death. And it is only through death – his death, and our death in him – that we are freed from that slavery. We were helpless and hopeless, even the faith that unites us to Christ in the benefits of his death and resurrection life, is a gift to us from God.

So, now, we have a choice – a choice we make and live each day. Whose will I be? Sin no longer has any claim over us, but we can still present ourselves to is as if it did. Or we can present ourselves to Christ, alive to God in Jesus Christ. It may sometimes feel like a new slavery – just as it did to Jeremiah – but it is one of life and freedom.

An Ordinary Glory

What is it, then, that shapes and fills your ordinary days? What is the fountain of life in you, from which your daily living flows? And what sustains you when living is itself an exercise in perseverance? Perhaps, in my penultimate sermon, you might indulge me sharing something of my answer to those questions.

If I look back at my ordinary life – and it has been ordinary – three things have had an enduring impact from God and fulfil what those questions are looking for.

God Is

First comes an encounter in a railway carriage – it could have been a brief encounter, but it has stood at the heart of my life ever since.

I was not brought up as a Christian and had no encouragement to seek Christ or become a Christian. But I suppose I was looking for something, a meaning and purpose to life, something spiritual. In that I was very ordinary, like so many people then and now looking for s spiritual reality.

In my sixth form college I met a young catholic boy, I can’t even remember his name, or whether the encounter was really significant. But we discussed what we believed in – I with my mixture of eastern philosophies and he with his faith in Jesus. I don’t remember anything that you would call gospel or doctrine, it was just a discussion, but perhaps it stirred something.

Whatever, one morning following this I was alone in a railway carriage on my daily commute to college, and I had an extraordinary experience of God’s presence. It was the most real thing, but completely inexplicable. I just experienced a presence and reality and knew that God is, God was there, and I could not deny that he was.

As a result of this I sought out Christians at the college and sought out a local church to join. That’s another story. But what I want to emphasise is that realisation that God Is. There was no burning bush and no sound saying, ‘I am”, but there might as well have been.

The thing about God is that you can’t make him up. He is what he is. He is the reality behind all reality, the life behind all life. The only choice is whether you accept him as he is and seek to know him, or whether you reject who he is and try and ignore and hide from his reality and truth.

Word and Spirit

Once I had encountered this reality and said yes to him, two other things became real and central.

The first was his word, the Bible. I had read bits of the bible before. I had a very good RE teacher at secondary school, even though it did nothing for me at the time. But now the Bible came alive. The more I read it the more real and clear God became to me.

I have heard many rational arguments for the reliability and truth of the Bible. But the greatest for me is John Piper’s description of its peculiar glory that is self-authenticating. Reading it with enlightened eyes it is just satisfyingly true. And so it was for me. I kept finding more and more that just seemed to fit with the reality that I had first encountered.

Then, whilst all of this was going on, I stumbled upon the Holy Spirit. I was still searching for a church to join – I am afraid that I found the BCP and chanting of the local parish church too impenetrable – and I came across an advert for a meeting at the local Baptist Church with Arthur Wallis, speaking about the Holy Spirit.

I went. I did not know, as some Christians might have told me at the time, that the Holy Spirit was controversial or dangerous. I went, and that evening I both made my first public commitment to faith in Christ, and was baptised or filled with the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps without that, my first experience of God would have faded and become a mere memory. But in the Holy Spirit I found a daily renewal of that encounter and reality. That is not to say that every day since has felt Spirit filled. I have grieved him many times since then, and he has given me the gift of his apparent absence at times to increase my hunger.

But, in all that, the Holy Spirit has been an abiding presence and an ever-flowing fountain of life. If there is anything of Christ visible in me, or any understanding of his word, I know that it his doing as he has opened his word to me.

Glory

The third thing I need to share, is in many ways of a piece with the first two. But, somehow in my mind and heart, it seems to have its own life-giving experience.

It was given to me through the gift of a book by John Piper. His most famous book is probably “Desiring God”, but the one I came to first was “The Glory of God in Preaching”. I was not preaching at that time and I am not sure who recommended it to me (it might have been my father-in-law), but I am eternally grateful.

It begins with John Piper speaking about a preaching series he felt led to give. It was focussed on the Glory of God. It was unusual in that it contained no practical applications or exhortations, and preachers have always been taught that you must give people practical applications and make the preaching relevant to their lives. But this series was just about God.

It was a series about the God, just that – who he is, what he is like. It was about how glorious God is in all that he is; majestic, almighty, faithful, true, good … etc. It was just about the glorious reality that is God.

And in the midst of that series one family in the congregation were going through hell. Any normal pastor would have thought that they should preach words of comfort, about God’s love for us, about what he has done for us, about how he can meet our needs. But the experience of that family was that seeing God like this, seeing his glory, was more sustaining and healing than any practical teaching.

And since then, I have come to know that God in the glory of who he is, is everything. Unless God is my glory, unless he is the one who captivates my heart with the sight of him, no amount of me-orientated comfort means anything. I know, I also have been through times of hell.

In them I knew that God loved me and my family, but at the heart of that love was not me, but him. It was not that he loved me and would take away my pain and suffering, but that he would use them to bring me closer to him. The words of Asaph come to mind:

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. (Ps 73:25-28 a Psalm of Asaph)

Is it Just Me?

All of which seems very self-indulgent of me and too much about me. But if this God is as real and glorious and present as I have come to know, surely it can’t just be me? Surely, others must see this and know and live this as well.

I have to believe that he is doing this in others as well. Though you might describe it with different words – God is more than any one can see and even the whole church of Christ is going to need eternity to explore his unfathomable riches – this glorious reality is meant to be shared.

At the same time, it has always seemed to me that this glorious God is mysteriously non-transferable. I can do nothing to make others see or share what I am talking about. All my words and deeds are just that, my words and deeds. Only God can give anyone an experience of his glorious reality.

But, equally, no one can see and remain silent. And neither can I.

So, as I am preparing to lay down my place amongst these churches, I hope that you will forgive my indulgence. I hope even more that you will worship with me and know the one whom to know is life. And that, in the ordinariness of your life his extraordinary glory will shine.

Next week, God willing I may share something about what I believe happens when we shine with his glory.

May God show us the path of Life.
In his presence alone is fullness of Joy
At his right hand is everlasting pleasure

• Matthew 9:35–10:8[9–23]         Disciples Called and Sent
• Exodus 19:2–8                                A Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation
• Romans 5:1–8                                Rejoicing in Hope … and Suffering

Introduction – the Importance of Names

Names can be powerful things when they are given to us with care. How many parents have agonised over the right name for a child, as yet unborn – unknown but full of hope? And, amongst friends, nicknames tell us something about how our friends see us and our place in the group. Surnames may say something about our place in society, a trade, location, or parentage.

In scripture, names have always carried meaning, throughout the old testament and the new. Amongst the disciples, James and John were known where they came from as ‘the sons of thunder’. One wonders what this says about how their friends saw them. Yet John came to see himself in later years as ‘the beloved disciple’. Simon, for all his impetuousness and volatility, was named Peter (Rock), by Jesus, and became so in the early church.

Revelation tells us that those who is faithful in Jesus will receive a new name, that is not given or known by others, but a personal gift from God himself known only to the one who receives it (Rev 2:17). Imagine that, a name that is not about who we are in our community, or who we have come from, but all about who we are to God himself.

In our Gospel reading today, we have the names of the twelve followers that Jesus called to him and sent out before him; twelve disciples, who become apostles, representatives of the one who sent them. Whatever they had been – tax collectors, zealots, fishermen etc. – they were now his disciples. They had received a new name. And now, the way that they are received by people will be treated as if the people had received or rejected Jesus himself.

In our old testament reading, the people are called a ‘Treasured Possession’, ‘Priests’ and ‘Holy’ (set apart for God). And in the epistle, we are called sinners whom God has loved. Names are important, and what God calls us is most important of all. Let us pause and look again at what God calls us.

Called

Jesus had many who followed him in various ways. The crowds followed him about, perhaps intrigued or entertained. Some followed him out of a need to be healed or set free. Some followed him in order to test him. And some had left everything behind to follow him.

Chosen and Called

But all of those who truly followed him were first called by him, and none more so than the twelve disciples whom he called apostles. We see this truth in this passage as these twelve are called out from the rest of his followers as disciples. But we could also have seen it in the way each of them was called, one by one, to leave their old lives and follow him.

This has been the pattern of God’s way of salvation since Abraham and even, you might argue, since Adam, whom God called into being. So, Jesus can say to them in the upper room, “you did not choose me, but I chose you” (Jn 15:16). And Romans tells us

“And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” (Rom 8:30)

A Liberating Blessing

This is a glorious truth that has blessed and sustained Christians through the ages … He chose. Whatever choice we made was in response to his first choosing, so it depends in his choosing not ours. But those whom he chose he also called; and he called them to be, and to become … something new.

In the normality of this world we are all called into being, by our parents, by the friends and community in which we live, by what we do. And we also call ourselves into being, as we pursue our own vision of who we are, and who we can be.

So, for example, John was called one of the sons of thunder, and may have lived up to that reputation. But as he followed Jesus call, he came to see himself as – and to be seen by others as – the beloved disciple. What does it do to you when you leave behind a sense of thunderously imposing yourself on life and come to know above all other things, that you are loved by God?

Or, Matthew, who was known to everyone – and judged by them – as a traitorous tax collector. He would become a father figure to many as he shared his master’s words in the Gospel and the growing churches for which it was first written.

Christ in You

And, what of us … what of you? Who are you? Each one of us, he has called, one by one, name by name. Part of our discipleship is allowing him to name us, to call us into being who and what he wants us to be. The Holy Spirit is at work in us so that Christ is formed in us (individually and together). Christ is the pattern and goal, but he is calling you to be ‘Christ in in you’. A name he gives to you, alone.

Nevertheless, since Christ is the pattern, there are some names that we share.

Treasured

So, God says to the people he called out with Moses – “you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples”.

Among all his possessions

To make it more clear, he says “all the earth is mine”. It is not as if we are his possession and the rest of the world is not. We are not God’s people in that way. All people are, in a real sense, God’s people. They are his whether they reject him or ignore him. We need to remember this in all the divisions and denigrations of racism and nationalism (or whatever) that beset our world. Every single person is God’s, made by him and for him.

With No Intrinsic Value

And amongst all these, God has not chosen the brightest and best, the wisest, strongest, or most skilled.

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor 1:26-39)

But, though there is nothing in us that deserves it, God has called us Treasured. Out of all his possessions we are, in Christ, his treasured possession. For me, that says more than that God loves me. We can love people that we don’t like. We are called to love our enemies. But God calls you treasured – cherished, rejoiced over.

Whatever the world says, whatever your heart says, this is what God calls you!

God’s Eternal Choice

And we are Treasured by the one who sees all things. At his command, Jesus called twelve disciples, knowing that more than one would betray him. But only one was choses as a betrayer. Peter and the others were chosen as treasure.

We may have let him down, and may disappoint him in the future. We may have given him every reason to regret his choice and calling. But he has determined that we will be his treasure, so that he sanctifies all whom he calls, and he glorifies all whom he sanctifies. And, if we can begin to feel what it means to be treasured, to be called a joy and crown, by the one who made all things, perhaps we can begin to find – in him – the way to become what we are called.

Holy

We are called Treasure, and we are Treasured. But we are also called Holy.

Holiness speaks of God’s uniqueness, in goodness, purity, power and wisdom. But the root meaning of the word is about separation. So, God in his holiness is not like us – he is certainly not made in our image – he is different, set apart, holy. And when God calls us holy, we too are set apart, to be his people, to bear his image.

Abraham: Called Out … to be a Blessing

So, from Abraham and his children, God called out a people for his won possession. They were part of the same overall people group as their neighbours, but they were called to separate themselves and live differently as God’s people. They were given religious markers – including circumcision, clothing & food – to mark them as separate. But the heart of their separateness (their holiness) was there love and worship of God alone and their moral way of living.

They were not entirely separate. They were to live among the other peoples surrounding them. But they were to have a different hear, and a different way of life from them.

Ultimately, from Abraham’s first call, they were to be a blessing to those amongst whom they lived. This was not an exclusive isolation. They had a duty to strangers and especially refugees. And what they were called to be was meant to be seen by the nations, who would wonder at the God who gave them such laws and instructions

And we also, in Christ

And when Christ came and the gentiles were included in this calling, some of the religious markers were fulfilled and left behind. We are no longer called to be circumcised physically, to avoid certain foods, to dress in a certain way, or to worship in a particular place or way. Now Christ is being formed amongst all the nations and cultures of the world. But the heart of our call remains the same, God has called us out from what and where we were to be his.

So, what does this mean for you and for me?

Christian British or British Christian

Fundamentally, it means that we belong to God in Christ. Whatever else we may also be in our relationships (husband, wife, parent, child, neighbour etc.), or in our nationality (British, Cornish or whatever), in our occupation (people always ask ‘what do you do?’), or even in our own identity – whatever else we are, first and fundamentally we are Christ’s.

So, if we are British and a Christian, are we a Christian British person or a British Christian person. The English language emphasises the last adjective as fundamental, so I would say that I am a Christian who is also British – a sort of dual nationality in which my fundamental identity is Christian.

New Person, New Roots, New Identity

This also means that I am a new person in Christ. I may have been a sinner, but now I am freed from sin and a new person (2 Cor 5:17). I may have been abused in my childhood, but now I am freed from any claim that abuse has on my identity, I am new in Christ.

When God calls you Holy, it is a liberating thing. You have been called out and set apart. So now you are free to live in wholeness and fulfil all God’s calling for you

But it is a freedom that does not entirely detach you from what you have been. Because God wants you to be a blessing. So (for example), if you have been abused, that abuse no longer defines or controls you, but you may have a special ministry to share with the abuses – to comfort with the comfort which you have been comforted with in Christ (2 Cor 1:4)

Sent

Which leads to a final part of our new calling and name. We are Called to God to be sent out by him. Just as the Twelve were called by Jesus to be sent out. The Apostles are special case for what is a general calling for all Jesus’ disciples.

Our Gospel reading records the calling of the twelve who were called Apostles – a word which means a representative, sent in the place of their master. But Jesus called other disciples and sent them out (Lk 10:1). And all of us are sent to make disciples (Matt 28:19)

Sent and Called

And as we go, we will discover that being sent is not merely a part of our calling, one aspect only. As we go, we will discover more of what it means to be called.

So, Jesus tells them not to take extra possessions. We are called to God in Christ and now belong to him, set apart and holy, and he is the one who now looks after us. So, going without extra supplies and resources, we will discover how much we are treasured as God supplies our needs.

And, whilst we are sent out as sheep amongst wolves, we will discover – in Christ by his word and Spirit – wisdom to overcome all their wiles. God will reveal Satan’s devices to us so that we are not left unaware and vulnerable. And, when we are tested by courts or kings, we will be given the words we need.

We cannot rejoice at being called and given a new name, or at being set apart and treasured, without also being sent and going as he directs us. Without the obedience of going, we ill not truly discover what our calling and new name is, or how set apart and treasured we are.

Called for Glory

Ultimately, we are called to be what Adam and Eve were made for – to bear and display the image of the God who made us. We are called for display –

• to be for the praise of his glory (Eph 1:12)
• a display of God’s wisdom (Eph 3:10

Just as God has delighted to display his glory in the extraordinary variety and beauty of the physical creation, even more he has purposed to display his deeper glory of wisdom and truth in a people that he has called and made (rescued and re-made). We should not be surprised that we are sent and called to go out into our communities and world rather than hide away. God wants his grace in us to be seen.

A New Name

Who is like God, and who is like the Son who he has given to be our saviour, and the Spirit whom he has lavished upon us in his grace? He has chosen us when we rejected him. He has called us when we were not looking for him. He has treasured us when we were less than worthless; loved loveless sinners. And he has given us a new name, a new calling and purpose, to the praise of his glorious grace.

Let us finish this morning with words from Romans (Rom 11:33-12:2)

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

So, may each of us, brothers and sisters, by these mercies of God, present our bodies as a living sacrifice, each one of us called holy and acceptable to God. What other worship can we give? Let us not be conformed to this world, as we have been called out of it. But may we be transformed by the renewal of our mind, as we obey his call and so discern his will in all its goodness and rightness and perfection.

• Matthew 28:16–20 All Authority … Go and make Disciples
• Isaiah 40:12–17, 27–31 Behold your God
• 2 Corinthians 13:11–14 Grace, Love & Fellowship

Introduction – Behold your God

The Old Testament speaks of a time when:

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Isa 11:9

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Hab 2:14

And in the coming of Jesus, the fullness of that blessing is revealed

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Jn 17:3

On the Sunday in which, above all Sundays, our focus is on the fullness of God in his glorious Trinity and Unity, we ought to reflect on the God that we know.

Behold Your God

Our Isaiah reading begins, before the section we have in the lectionary, with this:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God … Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

Isa 40:1,9

Behold your God. How well do you know him? The riches of his glory in Jesus Christ are unfathomable. But to know him is eternal life. And we should know him.

Good News

The Gospel is Good News; good news concerning Jesus Christ. But in its Old Testament roots (as we see in these verses) it is expressed as the heralds’ cry of good news – Behold your God. God, himself, in all his glorious trinity-unity, is the Good News. To speak of him, to see him and know him, is comfort and strength to God’s people.

By his grace we have been given eyes to see and hearts to know this God. His Glory has been made to shine in our hearts in seeing the face of Jesus Christ – the image of the invisible God (2 Cor 4:6).

He is the Good News. He alone is the comfort that we need. Anything else is fake news, comfortless, “a broken reed of a staff, which pierces the hand of the one that leans on it” (Isa 36:6)

Your God

The heralds of Good News proclaim, “Behold your God”. Yet, I wonder how many Christians see and know him as they should. From the beginning, Satan’s weapon of deceit has been aimed at the nature of God and his word. In the garden he says to Eve and Adam, “did God say?”, and he questions not only God’s word, but also his character.

Today, I wonder how many Christians have been deceived into seeing God as something less than he truly is. We may think that idolatry has to do with statues and carved images, but as A W Tozer says, it is much deeper than that:

“Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes God is other than He is—in itself a monstrous sin—and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness …

Let us beware lest we in our pride accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that civilized peoples are therefore free from it. The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place. “When they knew God,” wrote Paul, “they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”[1]

Only the word of God and the grace of the Holy Spirit can truly enlighten our darkened hearts.

Go … and make Disciples

Our Gospel is familiar as the ‘Great Commission’ to go and make disciples. But it is founded on an awesome statement that Jesus makes:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

One God, over All

This is the one who is THE Way, THE Truth and THE Life, and he has authority over ALL things. We dare not present Jesus as other than he truly is. He is full of grace and truth, and we must not so emphasise the grace that the truth is lost, or so emphasize the truth that his grace is lost. Sometimes that will be hard, especially when the Truth is challenging, but we must seek always to proclaim Jesus in the fullness of his grace and truth.

And, as this Sunday should remind us, we must present Jesus as he is in the fullness of the Godhead. There is no place for setting the Father against the Son, or some idea of the Old Testament God of wrath against a New Testament idea of the God of love. Jesus tells us to baptise these new disciples,

“in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

One Name, one God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – throughout eternity; revealed in his one word (both old and new testaments).

Disciples of the Word

And this one God, over all, calls us to be disciples of his word – “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”.

The word ‘observe’ (gk. τηρέω tēreō) has its roots in a word for guarding, keeping watch over, or preserving. So, it speaks not only of obeying, or believing, but holding closely to, and passing on with care.

If we call ourselves disciples of Christ, we must cherish his word, being careful to keep it, to hear it, live it and pass it on, just as he has given it to us. Throughout history there have been those who sought to accommodate his word to their circumstances, their feelings, their group, or institution. But God has kept his word remarkably unchanged and available to us.

Every generation is charged to keep this word. And we must faithfully put this word at the centre of our discipleship, testing every tradition and new thought against its challenging plumb line.

Our Comfort in His Glory

Isaiah keeps this focus on God as the good news and our comfort in troubling times.

Is God Impotent or Uncaring

In the second part of our reading, we see the issue from the people’s point of view. The people are troubled and wondering about God:

• Can he not see the trouble we are in – “My way is hidden from the Lord”
• Does he not care about the trouble we are in – “my right is disregarded by my God”.

These two questions have worried Christians over centuries, when they are facing troubles; either God is not powerful, or he doesn’t care. You may have faced them, yourself. Certainly, they have been at the heart of philosophers’ criticisms of God, faced with the problem of suffering

So, what is the answer?

Who is Like God?

In our modern view of things, you might be quick to assert that God does care. You might point to the suffering of Christ for us? But this is not the answer that God gives. Whether you look at this reading, or in that great treatise on suffering, in Job. Again, and again, God does not tell us that he loves us (though he does). His first answer seems always to be to point us to his glorious fullness. ‘Who is like me?’, he says. Who has made all this, who understands and measures it, who taught him the wisdom?

We might look for God to affirm his love for us, to say that we are valuable to him and that he cares for us. But instead he says, “the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as the dust on the scales”. If all were offered as worship to him, they would still come to “less than nothing and emptiness”.

Our Comfort is in His Glory

It is not that he does not care. God is love, faithful love. But when we see God’s love as a reflection of some value in us, we are on shaky ground. So, God establishes his love on the solid ground of who he is, not who we are.

He is the everlasting one, the creator of everything, the unfainting, unwearying one. There is no limit to his knowledge or understanding. And, from this limitless fountain, those who wait on him receive strength. Those who see Gods love as a reflection of their own worth or value are doomed to faint and fall, but those who wait on God will fly – They

“shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint”

He works for those who wait

Is this your God? Too many Christians seem to have a view of God as the one who loves them, but when troubles come, they have no answer to them. In times of trouble the cant see that God loves them. They ask, does he not see, does he not care?

When we are like this, we may not realise, but it is as if we have made everything – including God – revolve around us and our cares. But the truth is that everything revolves around God. He is the centre; he has to be for our sakes. And for us to learn this, he may bring us to troubles, and to the pit of Ps 40, where we learn to wait patiently for him.

That may seem hard, but it is glorious and liberating. Every other god, every other religion seems to depend on us; we serve and look for blessings. But as Isaiah tells us elsewhere, this God is the one who works for those who wait for him:  

“From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.”

Isa 64:4

So, let us put God at the centre and look to him to be God amongst us, as he wills.

Let God be God amongst us

And, finally, our short reading from Corinthians, speaks of what it looks like when we let God be the centre, when we let God be God amongst us.

When it is no longer about us, or our group but about him, we can begin to experience what it is like when his grace, his love and his fellowship is the reality of our being church. Rejoicing in him, we can pursue restoration and peace.

• His Grace – a faithful mercy that is founded in truth, freed to us through the sacrifice of Christ.
• His Love – a love that reflects who he is more than who we are, faithful and full of wisdom that flows from his holiness to meet our real need
• His Fellowship – bringing us to be with him in the mysterious fellowship of the eternal trinity, where we find our place, identity and meaning in him.

Going back full circle, we are those who are baptised, together, into his name and his word.

Behold your God

Now we see, dimly and imperfectly as in a mirror (1 Cor 13:12), but as be we see we are changed by what we see (2 Cor 3:18), from glory to glory. Now we see imperfectly, but one day we will see and know, just as truly as we are seen now by him. And when we see him, out transformation will be perfected (1 Jn 3:2).

So, let us take care how we see. Let us not let our own desire, or any tradition, replace the one who IS, with any idol. To see him truly is comfort and strength in our troubles. To know him is eternal life. Accept nothing less.

[1] AW Tozer, The Essence of Idolatry from ‘The Knowledge of the Holy’ 1961 Harper Collins

• Acts 2:1–21                         The Spirit Comes on the Disciples

• 1 Corinthians 12:3–13      The Spirit of the Lord on his Servants

• John 7:37–39                      The Promise of the Spirit awaits his Glory

• John 20:19–23                    The Promise of the Spirit for Mission

• Psalm 104:24–35               The Spirit creates anew

Introduction

On the day of Pentecost, they were all together – as they had been since Jesus ascension, devoted to prayer. The Holy Spirit came, as Jesus had foretold in his dramatized prophecy[1], like Jesus breathing on them. The wind was accompanied by fire that rested on each of them, echoing both the fire that accepted Elijah’s sacrifice, and the bush of God’s presence to Moses that burned but was not consumed.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit (all, not just the Apostles). And the first thing that the Spirit brought was worship. They spoke in tongues; the tongue of all the nations that Jesus had commissioned them to witness to, but what did they say in these tongues? Later the crowds tell us, they were “telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” They were worshiping.

Worshipers, before Witnesses

This outpouring of the Holy Spirit would lead to the mass conversion of 3,000 people. Scripture does not say where the disciples were gathered, but they attracted quite a crowd. Just as Jesus had said, the Holy Spirit when he came, convicted them of “sin, righteousness and judgement” because of Jesus (Jn 16:8-11).

But what started it? Crowds probably gathered at that time in Jerusalem when anything new or unusual happened. It was part of their entertainment (much like social media today). When they gathered, they were asking questions. Some would, eventually, ask whether they were drunk. But the first question was how and why these Jews were praising God in every sort of language? Why were they worshiping like this, and in a way that we can understand?

And what were they saying in their worship? They were praising God for his mighty works, but what works? Surely, they were praising God for all that he had done in and through Jesus; they were praising Jesus! And they were doing so in a way that all the people who gathered could hear and, potentially, join in with them in praising Jesus.

Today, the church remembers and celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit in his first outpouring. Those first disciples were instructed to wait for the one who would equip them to be witnesses. We see the outcome in Peter’s first sermon, and we have one of the scriptural lists of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But before we focus on those, we need to see something that the Holy Spirit does at a deeper and more foundational way.

The Spirit of Faith and Love

When Jesus first introduces the promise of the Holy Spirit in the upper room (Jn 14:15ff) it is all about seeing and knowing Jesus and his Father. The Holy Spirit is given to those who love and follow Jesus as the presence of God in them – a seal of love on a relationship of faith and love.

• He will be the one who leads us into truth, as faith is filled with understanding.
• He will be the one who brings fruit in lives of increasing Christlike righteousness – as we abide in Christ in the Spirit of Christ.
• He will convict the world, but to the disciples he will be the gift by which they see and know Jesus. And perhaps, he will convict the world as the world sees Jesus in his people.
• And, as they live more and more in Christ, he will be the gift of prayer that is answered, because it is in Jesus’ name.

The Spirit of Life in Christ

Every blessing that we receive from God is in Christ as we are united to Christ in faith. But the reality of that being in Christ is mediated to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, in us. He is the gift of the life of Christ in us, like a well of living waters springing up in our hearts (Jn 7:37-39). Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col 1:27).

No wonder, when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost, their first response was praise and worship. They were not just praising God for his mighty works; they were praising him for his mighty works in them.[2]

The Spirit of Worship

The true presence of the Holy Spirit in a disciple, as Paul reminds us, is not works of power, but a heart of worship.

“Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:3)

The evidence is twofold. Anyone who truly has the Holy Spirit cannot curse Jesus; that much is understandable, how can a heart that has been so endowed with love, speak ill of the one it loves. People may be forced to speak against their heart, but words spoken in integrity reveal what is truly there in us.

But, if anything, the second statement is even more forceful. You cannot truly say that Jesus is Lord unless you have the Holy Spirit! Many people may say that Jesus is Lord and believe that it is true. But only those who have received the Holy Spirit in them can truly say it:

• not just as a statement of general truth, but as statement of personal reality – Jesus is my Lord; and
• not just as a statement of reality, but as one of joy-filled love in that reality. It is no great statement of his lordship that speaks of one who has forced us to submit. But when we rejoice to call him Lord, his Lord indeed.

The Holy Spirit is at heart a spirit of worship. Just as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well; the Father is seeking those who will worship in Spirit and truth. This is his first and greatest gift to us … and everything else flows from it.

I do not think that it is too strong to say that if the Holy Spirit is not dynamically at work in us as a Spirit of worship, and of the transformed lives that grow from worship (2 Cor 3:18), we will never truly be witnesses, nor will any of the other gifts manifest their true purpose.

Witnesses more than Heralds

But you can’t keep this gift to yourself, as the disciples found on that Pentecost day. So, Jesus says “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses …” (Acts 1:8).

This reinforces the personal heart work of the Holy Spirit I have been emphasizing above; you will receive power, and you will be witnesses. Jesus does not say that you will receive power to witness. You will receive power, for all that he has spoken about above. And, in the outworking of that power you will be (or, perhaps, become) witnesses.

Witness are Evidence Bearers

Witness is a special description. It speaks of one who gives evidence, as in a court. When you stand as a witness, you are not asked your opinion, but to testify to what you saw. It is no good saying I believe that she did it. You must be able to say, I saw him do it.

When the Apostles sought to find a replacement for Judas, they looked only amongst those “who have accompanied us during all the time that Jesus went in and about amongst us” (Acts 1:21). They needed someone who could witness to what they had seen and heard.

Now, as we are called to be witnesses, the same criterion applies. We need to be people in whom Jesus has come ‘in and about’, so that we can witness to what he has said and done in us. Only now it is not the physical Jesus of his ministry amongst those first disciples, but his Holy Spirit ministry in and amongst us.

Heralds are a Particular Appointment

There is a role and gift of being a herald (gk. Kēryx), which is often translated as preacher in the New Testament. Paul says that he was appointed a preacher (1 Tim 2:7), or herald, just as the Spirit gives different gifts to different disciples. Not all of us are appointed heralds, but we are all appointed as witnesses.

This ought to be a liberating truth. We don’t all need to be evangelistic heralds. We are called just to be witnesses. To say what we have seen, what has happened to us – ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us (1 Pet 3:15)

But we can’t do that unless the Holy Spirit is in us and we have truly come to know Jesus as Lord. We are witnesses, more than we are heralds.

That can be hard enough, because even witnesses have to get their thoughts in order. We must learn to speak about things that are often deep and personal. We must put words to things that are sometimes hard to find the right words for. And it must be about us, because we are witnesses, not purveyors of hearsay. Nothing less is truly honouring to Jesus. And nothing else will satisfy the hunger of our friends and neighbours for the reality of Jesus.

Only the Holy Spirit will do

And in all this, only the Holy Spirit will do.

The disciples had been with Jesus all the time that he went in and about amongst them, but even they had to wait for the Holy Spirit before they could truly become witnesses to him. If that was true for them, surely, we must be eager for the Holy Spirit, and once we have received him, eager for more and more of his work in us.

Somehow, in the centuries since that first Pentecost outpouring, much of the church has lost sight of the Holy Spirit. He has been replaced by creed, liturgy, legalism and much more. He has been assumed as a given for all who call themselves Christians, when the clear witness of scripture is that his presence is visible and transforming.

So, much of the church has become a poor shadow of what it was called to be. Its people have been robbed of their power and confidence in Christ. And the world has been robbed of a witness to the only spirituality that is life-giving, true, and eternal. Liturgy has become passionless and a mere shadow of the worship that drew the crowds that day. At best it evokes s spirituality that is natural and human, rather than one that is inexplicable and supernatural. And evangelism; it has been relegated to often to eloquent wisdom, emptying the cross of Christ of its power.

Perhaps that is an exaggeration and simplification, because there has been a revival of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in recent years. But still there is much ground in the church that needs the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to soak into it with new-wine life and fruit.

That means You and Me

And this is true for you and me, this Pentecost. Only the Holy Spirit of Christ will do. If he is not at the centre of life for you or me, we need to pray and ask and wait – as those first disciples did – until we know his presence and power in us.

And if he has come, we need to be filled more and more. We need to kill those things in us that grieve his presence and stunt our life in Christ. We need to walk with him in more of what we do and say. And, most of all, we need to let him lead us in worship of the one who is all in all. Only the Holy Spirit will do.

If we celebrate Pentecost, however we do so, without the Holy Spirit, we have totally missed the point. Let us seek him and welcome him. Read the bible with him, pray with him, listen to him and follow him. And let him bubble up as a living spring of faith-filled joy in Jesus Christ.

New Wineskins

And, finally, if he is living us like this, let us do all we can to live in him together. If the church has become a shadow of what it is called to be as the Holy Spirit has been neglected, what will his welcome bring to us.

As Jesus said:

“No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” (Matt 9:16-17)

As we seek answers to the challenge of being church, we know that will mean changes. May they be inspired and shaped by the Holy Spirit, as we allow him to make us, together, a dwelling place for Jesus Christ in his Spirit.

What would that look like? That’s for another sermon, but one thing is certain it will be full of the Holy Spirit.

[1] One of the ways that Old Testament prophets used (for example Ezekiel)

[2] This is where the greater part of the Holy Spirit’s work is, in us. Imparting the life of Christ to us and growing that life in us, as Christ is formed in us by his Holy Spirit presence. And not just in us individually, but in us together as his body.

• Acts 10:34–43
• Colossians 3:1–4
• John 20:1–18

It is a hard soul who can contemplate the torture and crucifixion of Jesus without being moved. And who can come to news of his resurrection without being given hope. Just as, In the midst of our current crisis it is not statistics that matter most, but the stories of individuals and families going through such suffering and loss. And those who have recovered from the near death of ICU on a ventilator are celebrated as signs of hope for all of us.

Something more than Empathy

We can all come to Good Friday and to Easter day with the same deep empathetic involvement: moved to tears and sorrow at the Cross and dancing with joy before the empty tomb. But Jesus death and his resurrection life are about so much more than this.

He is risen! Hallelujah, Christ is risen!

But, if you will forgive me putting it like, this … so what? What is the real difference to you, and me?

A Mystery to Unfold

We stand, as Christians now, with the benefit of so much in the New Testament that explains the meaning of this Resurrection. But on that first day it was different. The resurrection is the climax to Jesus’ work in his earthly ministry, but it did not happen with one big bang – with everyone rejoicing together. That day was a chaotic mixture of comings and goings, misunderstanding and faith, fear and joy.

It was going to take many days more of Jesus showing himself to his Disciples for the reality of what had happened to begin to dawn on the Disciples. Many, like Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Peter and more, would have their own meeting with Jesus. Even when a huge crowd saw Jesus taken into heaven, some doubted. And, as Peter discovered weeks alter in our reading from Acts, the true implications would take much longer than one day to be unfolded.

So, as we celebrate today, I could ask what the resurrection is about, and I am sure many of us would give a good answer, but I am wary of thinking that we truly understand its meaning yet. We may be a long way from the simple empathy of spectators, weeping at the sorrow of the cross and rejoicing at the resurrection as a sign that life goes on. But, I am sure, that there is more in the new reality that this day brings – that is certainly what the resurrection brings, a new reality – that we have yet to come to know and live.

WHY?

Why did Jesus die, and why was he resurrected?

All that Jesus did, from his incarnation through to his death and resurrection is for a purpose – actually, for many purposes, though perhaps they have one central purpose.

Certainly, it was to obtain the forgiveness of our sins, as peter says, so “that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” But that is only the beginning. Without that, nothing else of all God’s glorious purposes for us in Christ are possible, but what are those purposes.

John Piper has written a brief book “The Passion of Jesus Christ” in which he sets out (from scripture) 50 reasons for Jesus’ death and resurrection. And, as I have read it again, I have recognized that these 50 reasons are not exhaustive.

What does it mean for you?

Hidden within this first ‘why’, is a further question. What does it all mean for you? What difference has Jesus death and resurrection made for you, what difference is it now making for you, what difference will it make for you as your life unfolds?

The resurrection is a reality change for the whole of creation. It is a reality that can, for a time, be embraced or rejected. One day its reality – the risen Jesus – will come to this world in glory. He will confront all who have rejected him and hardened their hearts and he will welcome all who have embraced his new reality and been transformed by it.

So, I am eager this morning, that none of us should miss the depths of riches for life that are hidden in the mystery of Jesus resurrection.

A Living Hope

In Colossians, we hear that our life has been changed by this new reality in Jesus. So, the life that you now have in Jesus is hidden with him in God. There is something not yet fully revealed in this hidden life. So, “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory”. You are new and being made new in Christ, and what your truly are in him is yet to be revealed.

Peter expresses it like this:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead …” (1 Pet 1:3)

Living Hope

Through his resurrection, Jesus has brought us to life – a radical life-change that is like being born again – and this life is described as Living Hope.

Our hope is truly ours in Christ – perfected and kept for us as an inheritance, imperishable, undefiled and unfading. And we are being kept, through faith in Jesus, until it is revealed to us in his coming. But now, in the meanwhile, it is not just a future hope, but a hope that lives in us now.

Such is the weight of glory in this hope that nothing that happens to us in what we know now – coronavirus or other sickness, loss and grief, fear and weakness, suffering and persecution – none of it compares to the hope that lives in us and for which we long.

Set your Hearts and Minds on it

No wonder God says, set your hearts and minds on the things above; the hope that is kept for us, the life that is hidden waiting to be revealed.

So, as we rejoice this Easter Day don’t settle for a simple joy in the fact that Jesus is alive. Let us pray that God will unfold to us, just as he did for those first disciples, all the height and depth and length and breadth of his purposes towards us in Christ.

We won’t get it all today, just as those disciples didn’t. It is for today and tomorrow and the next day; forgetting what lies behind and pressing on towards the upwards call of God in Christ Jesus. It may take closed church buildings and much more, but set your hearts and minds on Christ and he will bring you to it.

A Hope to Share

And, one final thought; on that day not everyone saw or understood, but people told people what they had seen. This was a living hope that lived and grew as it was shared. Let us share it too today.

Not everyone gets it. Not everyone gets it at once – some, like Thomas longer than others. Perhaps that’s why Jesus did not reveal himself to everyone, but only to a chosen few. So that they would share this living Hope as they received it. It is grace, mercy and extraordinary patience that has called to us and now calls through us.

Then, on the day that our life is revealed in his appearing, our joy will be all the greater, because it is shared

The Unfolding Mystery of life … in Jesus Christ

So, this Easter Day, let us celebrate and rejoice in what we have come to know. And let us press on together to discover the unfolding mystery of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; in us, in our churches and for all our world.

Hallelujah, Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed, hallelujah!

• Matthew 21:1–11 Jesus enters Jerusalem
• Psalm 118:1–2, 19–29 Open … that the King of Glory may come in
• Isaiah 50:4–9 The Lord wakens and opens my ear
• Philippians 2:5–11 Have the Mind of Christ Together

After three years of teaching, and demonstrating the kingdom of God in signs and wonders, Jesus comes to Jerusalem for his final great work. It is not his first visit to Jerusalem, but this is different. Jesus enters the city not just as one heralding the kingdom of God, but as King.

Crowds and Critics

Crowds herald Jesus’ entrance, though the religious authorities are deeply critical. But before we applaud or boo these ‘pantomime’ heroes and villains, perhaps we should pause.

The crowds had always gathered around Jesus, hungry for something, or just born along with the crowd. Perhaps some where there for the entertainment, some because Jesus touched something in them (a desire for something deeper, or a physical need), and some because Jesus had truly become everything to them.

It would not be long before some in this crowd – gathering in a different crowd – cried ‘Crucify!’ And even his closest Disciples would flee and betray him. The coming days will test the crowd, each one. And even after the resurrection, as a new crowd gathers to witness Jesus ascension, some in it still doubted.

And, when, days later the Holy Spirit fell upon a crowd gathered in prayer and drew in a greater crowd – adding to their number daily – it still did not bring certainty and perfection. This new crowd – the Church – would know argument and disagreement as well as love and generosity. Some would fall away and some, as Ananias and Saphira, would know decisive judgment.

We may stand with our Palms raised this Sunday, to welcome the King. But all of us should find ourselves brought to our knees before the one we call King. Once again, judgement is beginning with the household of God. And, if the righteous are scarcely saved, what will become of the unrighteous? (1 Peter 4:17-18)

Historic Event and a Living Reality

Palm Sunday begins Holy Week, but what is Holy about this week? It is more than a name. In one sense this was a week, historically, in which the Holiness of God was revealed in a way like no other. But now, it calls us to enter into that holiness. It will not be a holy week just because that’s what we call it. We need to enter in.

So, many Christians will live through this week, enacting each day in their prayers and worship, Jesus’ journey to the cross. In part this is an exercise in remembering – just as Communion is commanded to be by Jesus. But, surely, it has to be more than remembering.

When Jesus hung on the cross, he did something no one else could do. Once and for all; he died for our sins, he condemned sin in the flesh and became truly The Way, The Truth and The Life – pioneering the way of salvation for us. It was accomplished.

But it was not all done. On that day, the disciples stood as helpless spectators, but now we are called to enter in. ‘Can you drink this cup’, Jesus asked John and James (Matt 20:22ff). No, Jesus must drink it first, must drain its depths, but yes, they will drink it – in their own way and for themselves they will drink the cup of the cross … and so must we.

What Jesus did, once and for all, we must enter into. We must learn – in Christ – to put sin to death in our lives. In Christ sin no longer has dominion over us (Rom 6:12-14), but we must still unlearn all the ways that we have presented ourselves to it to do its will. If we truly want to be Easter people, we must become Holy Week people, and especially, people of the cross.

Paul was certainly and Easter person, living in the spiritual reality of the resurrected Christ. Yet, when he came to Corinth, he says “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). And he pursued this all his life determined to know the power of Jesus resurrection by sharing in his sufferings, “becoming like him in his death, that by any means I may obtain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 310-11).

Pilgrim Disciples

And so, Philippians and Isaiah, direct the way.

We seek the mind of Christ (individually, and especially, together); the mind of the one who humbled himself for us all, “becoming obedient, even to the point of death”. And how do we do this? We do it by a lifelong, daily, pilgrimage of discipleship.

I love this passage in Isaiah, in many ways it has been God’s hand on my life. But it is not just for me, or for super saints. This is for all of us.

For too long, church people have been spoon-fed faith; just enough each week to keep them going; perhaps coming to those who lead for something in times of crisis. But we were not meant to be like this. God will raise up leaders and teachers, but he leads his sheep to green pasture so that they may ecah learn to feed on him. To change the metaphor, God wants us all to put down deep roots into his grace (into him).

Scholarship, theology and training, are not an end in themselves. They are useless unless they become the means for Christians to live in Christ; for Christ to be formed in their daily living. God gives grace to each of us in different ways, but we are all called to grow up into Christ; to play our part in the body of Christ, sent to witness to him in this world.

So:

• Each one of us needs to wake up to Christ, each morning.
• Each one of us needs to hear truth as the Spirit opens our ears to his word and renews and transforms our minds and hearts
• Each one of us needs to learn obedience and confront our rebellion against his ways
• Each one of us needs to discover the strength (in him) to confront the hardship and criticism that witnesses to our life in him

And

• Each one of us has to learn to become someone whose words and way of life sustain the weary; building others up rather than just tearing them down

O Church of God, Arise!

Oh, may God stir us again! Let judgement indeed begin with us! If the world goes back to normal after this crisis, it will be disappointing. If the Church goes back to normal, it will be a disaster.

Let us pray for God to do what only he can. And let us offer ourselves to him, in Jesus, through the gift of the cross (his and ours).

Jesus said, “if these were silent [speaking of the crowd], the very stones would cry out” (Lk 19:40). If we are silent, God is able to raise up those who will respond as they should. But in his extraordinary mercy and patience he is still speaking to us. Lord give us ears to hear.

• Ezekiel 37:1-14 – Life to Dry Bones
• Romans 8:6-11 – Mindset
• John 11:1-45 – Lazarus

Introduction

As we come to the end of Lent and prepare for the hard journey to Easter, both Gospel and Old Testament readings are substantial and very familiar. So, we need to take care. They may be familiar, but we need to hear God speaking to us today.

So, Let’s take time to read them, prayerfully and slowly (preferably aloud). Listen to what the Spirit underlines. Ask God for understanding. Remember Paul’s charge to Timothy – as we set ourselves to think and pray, God will supply understanding.

“Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. “ (2 Tim 2:7)

Romans will set the right tone

Romans 8:6–11    Developing a New Mind Set

The NIV translates v6 as “the mind of sinful man” vs “the mind controlled by the Spirit”. But this makes it sound like something beyond our control. What the original text is about, however, is mindset. Something that involves us.

First, though, there is indeed an underlying reality of our need for God to do something for us. Unless we have the Spirit of Christ in us, we are not able to please God, and not even able to submit to his word. Without God we are merely IN our sinful humanity – without God and without Hope (Eph 2:12). Our first need, then, is to turn to Jesus and cry out for help.

The good news is that if we have any sense of this need for his help, that is (in itself) evidence that God is already at work in us, reaching out his hand to us. His Spirit and only his Spirit, convicts us of our need for help (Jn 16:8). So, if this is you, be encouraged, cry out to God and he will respond (Rom 10:13).

But I am sure, that most reading this, will be (as Paul says) IN the Spirit, because the Spirit of Christ is in you. What, then, is everyone who is in Christ (who has the Spirit of Christ in them) ‘controlled’ by the Spirit, as the NIV implies? That’s not what this word from God suggests.

The whole sense of this part of Romans 8 – read from the beginning – is that we have been freed by the Gift of the Spirit of Christ to do what we could not do in the flesh; to walk (or live) as God’s word calls us to (which is righteousness); to submit to God’s law; to please God. In that freedom, living this way flows from a new mindset; a mind set on the Spirit and the word that the Spirit enlightens for us.

Receiving the Spirit – becoming IN the Spirit and the Spirit in you – can be instantaneous. Developing a Spirit mindset and walking in the Spirit are the work of a lifetime. Each day, each moment, we have a choice to set our minds and hearts to follow the Spirit.

• It requires Prayer – Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain! (Ps 119:36)
• It requires Bible – letting his word abide and live in you (Col 3:16)
• It requires Perseverance – we will fall and fail, but press on (Jas 1:25)

It requires effort, because even though we are in Christ there is something about us still that struggles with this. Paul’s term for this is the flesh, and it encompasses all that is hardwired into our bodies, minds, hearts and souls that is from our old life. But, again, God helps –

“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom 8:11)

Hallelujah! “In all these things we are more than conquerors, through him who loved us.” (Rom 8:37)

Ezekiel 37:1–14

This promise – life to our mortal bodies – takes us to Ezekiel and his vision.

One of the hard truths of the Gospel is that God often needs to undo us before he can remake us, and we can often underestimate the depths of that undoing – we are so inclined to see ourselves as essentially ok.

Ezekiel’s vision was for a people who felt that “dried up”, whose hope was “lost” and who felt “cut off”. That latter word seems to have extra resonance in the Coronavirus crisis. Young people are often said to feel invincible, but older folk can feel the same. We need to let God takes to where these people were and feel what they felt.

Churches are shut and public services are cancelled. This may be temporary, but the truth is that many of our churches are more vulnerable that we realise. Some rural churches have closed permanently and even large and thriving churches need constant renewal. Many look to their church to sustain their life in Christ; how many of us look to our life in Christ to sustain church?

The end of the vision is a people who are a “mighty army”, who know that what they are is the Lord’s doing (not their own efforts or deserving) who know that he is Lord! A ‘might army’, speaks of a people who are in God’s hands, for his purposes. This is a word that I need to hear. I am convinced that our churches need to hear it to.

It starts with a valley filled with very dry bones. But these were God’s people. How had it come to this? In part, it was because they had neglected their life in God. They had set their minds on their own needs and desires rather than on the Spirit. They were still going up to the temple, outwardly looking like God’s people … but in reality, they had become dry bones

In part it was their doing, but it was also God’s doing. He had let them become dry bones, precisely so that when he gave them life, they would know that it was not their doing, but his. His desire was (and is) for a people who know him; a people who truly live in him.

And this work of God, bringing us to the valley of shadows, is not just for those who are failing to live in Christ as they are called to. It is also for those who are setting their minds on the Spirit to live in Christ. As Jesus said, Father prunes the fruitful vines so that they may bear more fruit (Jn 15).

So, I want to be careful when I read Ezekiel (I want us to be careful). I don’t want to see this just as a word for other people – it’s easy to think of other people who really need to hear this, but what about me, what about us?

But this is a vision of Hope! It is a word that says God is for us. “Can these bones live?”, he says to Ezekiel, who can only say, “O Lord God, you know.” Yes, they can. So, it is a word of hope, but is there any part in it for us? Yes. Speak the word, is his command. We are to speak the word to one another. And we are to hear the word when it is spoken to us

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Col 3:16)

John 11:1–45         A Personal Story

Romans and Ezekiel prepare and lead us to Lazarus. Here we see these things written in personal terms. We can read Paul and understand his teaching, but a personal story is so much more digestible.

Lazarus is ill and he is going to die. Jesus know that. But, because Jesus loves Lazarus, Mary and Martha … he delayed going. He could have hurried and healed Lazarus, but because he loved them, he let Lazarus die. When hard things happen to us and we question whether God really loves us, we should look to the cross – God has held back nothing in his love for this world – even those who will reject his love. Believe in his love even if you do not understand it. He is a rock of unchanging love –

“his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” (Deut 32:4)

Then, when Jesus says he is going, some of the Disciples are fearful. Let’s go and die with him, says Thomas. How many of us are fearful in these days? Jesus does not rebuke the, but patiently draws them along with him. Our fears do not keep us from his love. God is for us even when we are fearful.

And, when they come to Bethany, Martha comes out to meet him, But Mary stays at home. Both of them have the same thought – if you had been here our brother would not have died. One comes out to Jesus and one stays away. Martha and Mary are very different characters. Here she comes to Jesus, on another occasion she is distracted by business, when Mary sits at Jesus’ feet.

Jesus doesn’t seem to have a generic response to all people at all times. He understands us as the people that we are, with extraordinary patience and love. At times he may rebuke our unbelief, but he does not condemn or reject us. That’s no reason to try his patience, but every reason to come to him, late or not, as indeed Mary did.

Nothing highlights this more for me than Jesus reaction to Mary & Martha as they come to him. He knows that he will raise Lazarus to life. He knows that people will see, believe and rejoice in his glory through this. But knowing all this, still he weeps. This is the Saviour that God has given to us. There is no one like him!

And, finally, of course, Jesus speaks the words ‘Lazarus, come out’. Lazarus is dead, he cannot here, and he cannot respond, but in those words of command, life is given. And, whenever Jesus commands us, with the command, he gives the power to respond.

There is much deep theology in this account of Lazarus’ death and resurrection. But there is also so much of real people and a real – extraordinary – saviour. One technique that I was taught with such Bible stories was to try and imagine myself as one of the characters in it – to inhabit the story. Which one are you? At different times (and sometimes all at the same tome) I find myself in all of them; something of me in my weakness and need, or in my stumbling faith. To every one of them Jesus says – I Am … I am the resurrection and the life … I am everything that you need, always.

Good Shepherd, there is no one like you.

• 1 Samuel 1:20–28
• Colossians 3:12–17
• Luke 2:33–35

Colossians – Getting Dressed for the Occasion

In this time of Coronavirus, more than ever, we need to heed the words of Colossians 3:12–17.

The things that God calls us to are feelings, but they are also choices. You can put them on just as you chose what to wear when you get up each day. God is calling us to make the choices that he makes and put on Christ, in:

Compassion means thinking of how others are feeling and putting their interests before your own. Kindness means treating others as you would have them treat you. Gentleness means treating others perhaps better than they deserve, recognising their vulnerability. Meekness or Humility knows that the world does not revolve around us.

And Patience (bearing with one another and forgiving one another) is an antidote to our frustrations and pride. We put frustrations and pride off when we clothe ourselves with Patience, Bearing-With and Forgiving one another.

Love binds all these together. And we are, as Paul reminds us, “Holy and Beloved”. Those who have been chosen and loved by God should, above all people, know what it is to love … as we have been loved.

When the world around us is panic-buying, ignoring good counsel because they think that they are invincible, whatever the risk to others; When families locked in together, working from home and trying to teach their children at the same time; when some are left all alone and forgotten … we need to heed these words.

But it is not easy, and we will need to feed our hearts and minds if we are going to be able to do this. So, we must keep making time to read God’s word and let it really settle in our hearts and minds. We must keep making time to worship God, with thankfulness and love – feeding on his goodness and truth in a time when it may seem less real in our world.

So, as we live in the context of the Coronavirus, much more we must seek to live in the greater reality of Jesus Christ. The virus will pass, he is eternal. The virus may harm and even kill, but it cannot extinguish the life of Christ in you.

We may think that in these times the world is facing the consequences of its reckless disregard for God’s goodness and truth, but God is still in charge, still working his purposes of love and grace out in our world. And this, even this, he will work for good for those who love him. Jesus is Lord!

1 Samuel – Putting Loved-Ones in God’s Hands

Hannah had longed for a child all her life, and in her old age God granted her request with the birth of Samuel. In modern parlance he might be described as a ‘rainbow-baby’, though personally I am not keen on that term. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that Hannah loved Samuel as a precious gift.

Given this it’s a surprise to read that, when Samuel was weaned (how old that would have been in that society we are not sure) she brought him to the Temple and gave him to God – for his whole life, as long as he lives.

This year we face a Mothering Sunday when most will not be able to visit their mother. And we do so at a time when those mothers seem more vulnerable and at risk than ever before. How can we bear this?

The answer, and its not an easy one, is to sit a while with Hannah. Hannah loved Samuel as the son of her old age, a very special son. But she recognised that in a very deep way, Samuel was not hers to hold and keep.

She did not stop loving Samuel all her life. Every year she made a new robe for Samuel and took it to the Temple. So, every day Samuel could literally clothe himself with his mother’s love.

Yet, she let him go into the Lord’s hands. Hannah shows us that we can love and still let go; that loving we can see letting go into God’s hands as an act of costly love.

I don’t think that there is any easy way to do this and only God can help us to do it. But the reality is that we are all, first of all, in God’s hands. We may love our mother (or children, family or whoever) and feel as if that loved one is ours in some way, but first of all every one of us is God’s. And though we love and care for those we love, we will not be able to do everything for them that our love wants to do. Only God can hold, nurture and keep them, so that no one can take them out of his hands.

So, let us sit with Hannah and learn how she did this. Let us place our loved ones in God’s hands, even when this feels like letting go from our hands. And let us trust his love and power – so much greater than ours.

We can still make our robes for them, however that may be; in phone calls, gifts and above all our prayers.

Luke 2:33–35 – A Sword shall pierce your heart as well

In a time of fear and real suffering, when deaths that any other year would have been largely invisible are counted daily before our eyes, we need to remember the suffering and death of our Lord.

Without Jesus, suffering – which is an unavoidable part of all life – seems futile, meaningless and tragic. We avoid thinking about it in the main, because otherwise life itself would be impossible – futile, meaningless and tragic. But sooner or later its reality will catch up with us, and most of us are entirely unprepared.

But Jesus has changed that. It is not that he has done away with suffering – though a day will come when he will – but he has himself entered into our suffering and transformed it. Without him the ultimate end of suffering is death. With Jesus, trusting in his suffering and death, its ultimate end becomes life; eternal life, fullness of life, reigning now in life!

Because Jesus has suffered for us and died, suffering and death are not taken from us, but they are transformed. So, Mary is told “a sword will pierce your heart also”. Some of us will learn again the reality of this during this Coronavirus crisis. So, let us also learn how Jesus can transform that suffering, so that our grief may not be without hope.

Paul learned this lesson. Just as, at his conversion and call to service, he was shown “How much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). So, in later life he says:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—  that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil 3:7-14)

Sooner or later ‘a sword will pierce your heart also’. Will it destroy you? Will it destroy your faith? Or will you receive it as grace – a very hard grace admittedly – because you have been counted worthy to suffer with him who has suffered for us all.

Only Jesus can transform your suffering, and mine. Now is the time to prepare our hearts, by giving them to Jesus. Now is the time to share the gift of Christ with others; to bear him and reveal him in our lives, as Mary did for us, regardless of the cost.

Have you yet discovered “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”? Now is the time

• Acts 16:9–15
• Revelation 21:10, 22–22:5
• John 14:23–29

Introduction – A More Focused approach to Preaching

Ordinarily, my approach to preaching is to take whatever the readings are for the service and try and see what they are saying to us. The Lectionary is not perfect, but it does take us through a wide pattern of scripture over its three years. However, sometimes, I believe that a more focussed approach is needed.

Where we are now, individually, and especially together as church; we need to hear what God is saying to us. When we are facing real challenges in terms of how we live as Christians in this particular time, merely seeking what God’s word says in general may be a cop-out. We need to hear what he is saying to us; what in us he is putting his finger on; what he is calling us to turn towards. So, we need this focus as we read and hear; what is God saying to us and our situation.

And, we are in a situation where we need God’s discernment and direction. We are facing a considerable challenge as churches. The old pattern of church as something provided – a service, if you like – is becoming unsustainable.

Challenging Church-Provided

When the church is provided – the Bishop provides a Vicar or Rector, and a Parish Church is inherited – people can go to church, attend it, support it and even work hard to maintain it; but it is always something else (separate). And, of course, many just assume that it will go on being there, being provided. People can have a sense of belonging, even ownership, but it feels somehow independent and separate.

This pattern is being challenged for a variety of reasons. Buildings are hard to maintain, and smaller congregations (even with community support) can only do so much. There seems to be more and more paperwork associated with just being church as regulations increase. And, of course there are less clergy to lead them and make church happen.

This situation is becoming acute. As a Deanery we cannot truly afford the 4 ½ full-time stipendiary we currently have. One benefice is already without a full-time Vicar and is seeking a replacement. One, has a Vicar on a half-time stipendiary basis and one has someone on a ‘House-for-Duty’ (i.e. unpaid but given a house to live in and asked to work part-time). And, several of us are nearing retirement.

So, we need to be thinking seriously about how we do church – how we are church.

Discovering Church as People

We have always known that the church is not the building, but it is the people who meet in it. Nevertheless, the church building carries huge spiritual and emotional weight, as it stands as a marker for the church as provided, inherited, somehow separate and independent of the particular people who meet there at any one time.

In contrast, the true church is the people – these actual people; look around you – who make church as we gather together. It grows as these people grow in their relationship with Christ and one another, and it changes as we change – for good or otherwise. And, given the weight of history and tradition, we are going to need all the help that God’s word can give us, to discover what a Church as People might look like.

So, as I say, I want to try and take a more focussed approach to preaching each week. To see what the words we are given have to say to our situation and the challenges that we face.

Biblical Metaphors

As we seek wisdom, encouragement and instruction from God in his word. I hope that we will find that what looks like an insurmountable challenge may become – in God’s grace and power – an opportunity for a greater experience of God amongst us. God is behind all this, working his good purposes out.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” (Jer 29:11–14)

Notice, the heart of this promise revolves around prayer – if you call upon me and come and pray to me – seeking God with all our heart.

But prayer needs some object, some focus, so I want to direct us to some key Biblical metaphors (maps, if you like) for what God is calling us to. Though the way may be new for us, God has taken his people this way before – again and again. The Bible gives us encouragement from the history of God’s people, and hope from his promises and what he has revealed of his purposes in us.

A New Exodus

So, one of the things that I want to direct us to is the pattern of God’s dealings with his people in the past. In particular, I believe the Exodus is a key biblical metaphor for our situation:

It may seem harsh to compare what I have called Church-Provided to Egypt; but keeping this church going does often feel like making bricks with less and less resources to do so. Even so, Egypt is familiar. The people had houses there, and food was available. To go out into the desert, living in tents, depending on God utterly for each day’s bread, in the hope of a promised land that we can’t see and know, was as much a challenge to them as our situation is to us.

It would be much easier if we could see exactly what God was calling us to, if someone could explain it in detail. It would be much easier if we could do something to repair or make good where we are – some project that would bring people in to help us keep this church going.

But, God’s way has always been to ask us to leave and let go of what we have depended upon and known, and to journey with him in the desert. Only there will we discover what it is that he is calling us to, and how great is his power (and faithfulness) to bring us to it.

If we meditate on the biblical history and pattern of exodus, we may find:

• something that keeps us from falling back into nostalgia and past comforts and
• something that encourages us to engage with a daily trusting and praying, that lest go of the past and presses into what God is calling us to

If you want a specific text to shape this, you could look to Paul in Philippians (Phil 3:4-16)

A New People – Christ’s Body and Bride

The second, biblical metaphor (or picture) that I want to direct us to is God’s description of the Church as the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ.

It is hard to read the New Testament seriously without seeing that God is not looking for a crowd of saved people, but rather something more organic and related. Jesus says, ‘I will build my Church’ (Matt 16:18). Ephesians reveals his purpose in ultimately displaying his wisdom and glory through this Church (Eph 3:10). And, it is not an institution, but a Body. Revelation describes it as a Bride (Rev 21:2)

We need to take seriously what God says about this church. Just as we are not sent to save people, but to make disciples; so, we are gathered as church, not to build ourselves up individually, so much as to build one another up in Christ.

As I say, with the buildings, long history and all the institutional organisation and hierarchy of church, it is hard to see through to the reality of church as People; nothing more (or less) than God’s people living together in a community of faith. It is too easy to see church as something somehow independent of us.

When we do this, church is something that we can go to, get involved in ad work for. But our part is, perhaps, not crucial. It will go on without us, and what we do is not so significant as to make much difference to it, one way or the other.

But if church is really more like a family, or – more intimately – a Body, things are different. If you get together and all the family are present but one; you really notice who is not there. If one member goes off the rails, it affects the whole family. If the smallest, seemingly insignificant part of your body, is hurt, it affects the whole body.

So, if that’s what we are as Church, everyone is important. We all have a part to play in the health and growth of the body. And, the body’s health and growth have a major part to play in the health and growth of each part.

If we meditate on the biblical metaphor and calling of the church as a Body, and each one of us as a living part (members one of another; Eph 4:25) we may find:

• that who we are and what we do is more important than we thought, and
• that the life and relationships of this group of Christians that God has put us with, is more important to us than we have thought.

If you want a specific text to help in seeing this, can I suggest Ephesians 4 (and especially Eph 4:11-16)

Today’s Readings

If this is what is on your heat and mind, and filling your prayers, when you come to God’s word, he will speak into this. As he has promised, he will be found.

Acts – the Simplicity of Church

So, in Acts we see the simplicity of church. Paul hears the call “come over to Macedonia and help us” as a call to preach the gospel there, and to plant God’s church there. We only see a part of it in this passage, but its simplicity always amazes me.

Paul goes to a place, starts to share the good news about Jesus Christ and people respond; coming to faith in Jesus. Here it is Lydia who is highlighted, but she is not alone. Paul spends time teaching them and laying the foundations of faith and life in Christ. But, eventually – actually after a very short time – the opposition comes to a head and Paul is turned away from the town.

What happens to the church? Apparently, they just get on with living together in Christ; sharing the good news with neighbours and serving them in love. It’s only later, that Paul will pass by again and help them recognises leadership that they can trust; appointing elders in each church.

This seems to be the pattern in all his missionary, church-planting, journeys. It’s amazingly simple. Long before we added all the layers of hierarchy and tradition, it was just Christians living together in Christ.

Revelation – a Temple of People

And, in Revelation, we see the temple – which is Jesus Christ and his people – perfected in the new earth. Its an international body, with all the nations in Christ, healed by him, bringing in the treasures of their worship.

But, in case we get to caught up in the whole-body image of the temple, we are also told about its members. They, each, see his face, and his name is on each of their foreheads.

Revelation is full of metaphors and images, but we should not let pictures of temples and cities hide the truth that this is a new people, bound together in Christ.

John – Each and All

And, again, in our Gospel reading, we see Jesus teaching his disciples about how things would be changed after his death and resurrection.

How do we hear this promise? Is it an individual you, or you in the plural (i.e. you together)? It seems to be both

The gift of the Holy Spirit makes Jesus available to everyone to whom he is given. Jesus is no longer restricted to a time and place, but is available to all who are united to him in faith.

So, to each one who loves him, Jesus and the Father will make home with them by the Spirit. There is an individual reality, in and for each of us. As we love him and, in that love set our hearts and wills to follow his teaching and commands, God enters into us as Home – not a guest, or lodger, but making his home in you – and we have a new life in him.

But it is not just each one. When Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you”, the ‘you’ is plural. It’s the same with “he will teach you all things”. Jesus’ words here are for each of us and for us together. Just as he says, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matt 18:20); there is something about his presence, his peace and his life-giving word, that is for the Body, gathered and living in relationship.

What, then, are you going to take from this morning?

What, then, are you going to take from this morning?

God’s promise stands. God has plans for us, for good. I we believe him; he calls us to respond:

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord

“Then”, is now; if we have begun to see where we are and hear what he is calling us to.

There are no easy answers to our situation. We will only find the way forward to blessing when we pray; when we continue to pray, pressing into him and his promises, with everything that the Spirit inspires in us, with all our heart.