Purpose

Preached on: Sunday 28th May 2023
The sermon text is available as subtitles in the Youtube video (the accuracy of which is not guaranteed). A transcript of the sermon can be made available on request. Additionally, you can download the PowerPoint PDF by clicking here 23-05-28 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Acts 2
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
Our purpose is to invite, encourage and enable people to follow Jesus

Connection

Preached on: Sunday 29th May 2022
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. There is no Powerpoint pdf accompanying this sermon.
Bible references: Luke 24:36-47 & Acts 1:3-12
Location: Joint Upper Braes Churches

Some of you may have recognized that today is Ascension Sunday, Thursday would have been Ascension Day and we always celebrate the ascension on the first Sunday after that. And so, today is Ascension Sunday. And we remember that Jesus was crucified and we learned all about that at Easter time and then, much to the surprise of Jesus’ friends and His disciples, Jesus rose from the dead, just as we sang just now. He came right out of the tomb that had been covered with a great big rock. The first to see Jesus were some women and afterwards He was seen by a lot of people and one day Jesus came to see His friends. They had been cooking some fish on the beach for their dinner and when Jesus arrived, they were surprised to see Him in fact, the Bible tells us that they were terrified, they thought they were seeing a ghost, but Jesus explained to them that it was really Him standing there. He said ‘Check my hands. Check out my feet and you’ll see where the holes were made when the nails were put through my hands and my feet on the cross.’ Of course, Jesus disciples, His friends, were really happy to see Him and they shared their fish supper with Him when He said that He was also hungry. And, while they were eating, Jesus talked to His friends. He explained to them many things about Himself and about God His father and then He asked them to go with Him to a place called Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, and while they were there Jesus promised His disciples that they would receive the Holy Spirit but that they should go back to Jerusalem and wait there until the time comes. Then Jesus blessed His disciples and as He gave them their blessing an amazing thing happened. Just as He was blessing them, Jesus began to ascend up to heaven right before their eyes.

They were trying their very best, just like you are, to look up and to see Jesus but the Bible says that a cloud came down and hid Him from their sight. And then two angels came and they said to them ‘Why are you looking up like that? Jesus will come again one day,’ the angel said ‘just as he left, he will come again.’

When Jesus went to heaven it was the end of His work that He had to do here on earth. He had done everything His Father, God, had told him to do and now it was time to do even more work for the people of the world.

God had sent Jesus to earth as a baby. Remember, we talked about that at Christmas time. Jesus was born in Bethlehem but now that He had finished all His work here on earth, He had to go back to heaven to be the connecting point to people all over the world, so that the love of God could be seen in every place on earth.

But, just think about it, the disciples, those closest friends of Jesus, they didn’t want Him to go, they wanted to hold on to Jesus. I don’t know for how long but they were, they really didn’t want Him to go. They were so scared that they would never see Him again they didn’t want to lose that wonderful connection that they had with Him. But the Bible teaches us that Jesus and His love is still connected to every single person in the world.

Look up, the balloon is pretty high, but we can still hold on to it because there’s a cord attached to it and in the same way we still have the connection to Jesus, the love of Jesus, so that we are never lost forever. He is with us always. Every one of us can remain connected to Jesus, to the heart of Jesus and to the love of God. The very last words that Jesus spoke before he ascended to heaven were ‘I will be with you, always, even to the end of time.’ Jesus is never far away from us. We will always have a connection with Him because of His love for us, because of the love of God for each one of us. We love Jesus that’s why we are here today. We have come to praise Him and to say pray to Him, to sing our lovely songs and to join with the children in rejoicing that Jesus is with us.

But we have a job also to do, and that job is to hold onto the connection, to hold onto Jesus. to hold onto Him through our faith and through our prayers. And we have another big job to do and that is to tell everybody that Jesus loves them just as He loves us, just as He loves you and just as He loves me. We must tell others that they too have a connection to Jesus and that His love is for each one of them. Amen, and thanks be to God.

Faith by grace

Preached on: Sunday 13th June 2021
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. Additionally, you can download the PowerPoint PDF by clicking here 21-06-13 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Acts 18:24-28 & Ephesians 2:1-5
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Let us come to God in prayer let us pray:

Come Holy Spirit, soften our hearts to the word of God.
Come Holy Spirit, impart to us wisdom and revelation.
Come Holy Spirit with power and deep conviction, for we ask it in Jesus name Amen.

We’re now in our penultimate week on our sermon series on Grace and previously we’ve seen that God’s grace can refer to the spiritual gifts that God gives us, or to His power to sustain us in the most difficult of times, then, last week, we saw how grace so shaped the early church that they were sacrificial in everything and how they lived, their lives and the lives they shared together, and their sharing of money and possessions. They, in this way, mirrored Jesus and His sacrificial giving.

Yet, today, when we read our passage in Acts none of these meanings applies to what we read about grace and so we find another meaning of grace. We read “When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed.”

Now, it’s noteworthy here, that we don’t read that those that Apollos went to were people who had believed in God’s grace nor are they people who believed in the God of grace rather, instead, we see that they are people who by grace had believed, and that’s an important difference because it suggests that these disciples, maybe all disciples, are helped by grace to, and that’s not something we often think about, I think, or talk about. Maybe because it points an uncomfortable truth, a truth that’s picked up in Ephesians, our reading today, in that passage we read “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world, all of us also lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest we were, by nature, deserving of wrath.”

I’m sure as you read those once again even more questions are coming to mind than they did the first time. Like “WHO is Paul talking about here? WHO’s he talking about?”

Well, he says “as for you” and then “all of us” and then “like the rest.” You, us, and the rest. So, whatever he’s talking about here apparently applies to everyone. Everyone, before they put their faith in Jesus, and it’s not just for some people long ago or one bit of society or for the people we don’t like or we think are a bit dodgy, it’s for everybody.

So, the next question you might ask then is “Well WHAT is the issue, Paul?” and he says “you were dead”. He’s saying that before these Christians had put their faith in, in fact, before any Christian had put their faith in Jesus, apparently, they’re dead.

So, I guess, we might then be saying “Well, WHAT kind of death, Paul? Because, come on, these people are living that you’re writing to, were living before we were, before we were a Christian so what kind of death are you talking about because they were living.” Well, he’s talking about a spiritual kind of death. We might talk about a walking dead or, to use a more modern phrase we know from tv, the waking dead. Of cours,e that maybe raises another question “HOW can Paul claim that? How how can he claim that you and I, anyone, is spiritually dead before we put our faith in Jesus? How can he have the nerve to claim that?”

Well, we see, he says, in the next bit hopefully “You were dead in your transgressions and sins” and by saying transgressions and sins he’s basically using a bit of a catch-all phrase meaning both the sins that we choose to do and the sins we end up doing because we choose not to do other things – commission and omission – and that leads Paul to conclude that we are spiritually dead because of what he knows in the Old Testament in the Old Testament. He knows that it said “Your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear” and then Jesus said this, he said “Now this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” So, Jesus is saying, to have spiritual life, to be spiritually alive, to have eternal life, is to know God but Isaiah is saying, because of our sins our relationship with God is broken. There’s distance between us and it’s that that leads Paul to conclude we are spiritually dead.

So maybe we then wonder “Well, WHERE is this deadness, saint Paul? Because if it’s real, come on, it has to be seen somewhere.” And again, Paul would take you to the Old Testament, he would take you to verses he used in Romans where he writes “There is no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless.”

There is no one who does good, not even one. Where is this deadness seen? It’s seen in the ways we turn from God’s, ways it is seen in our apathy towards God, it is seen in our mistakes, the choices we choose to do that we know are wrong, and the choices we choose not to do which would be good. As Paul says in Ephesians “each of us follows the ways of the world.”

So often and we gratify what’s in our hearts and in our minds, the flesh so that we follow its desires and its thoughts. Where is this sin? It is seen in the brokenness of our world and that we all contribute to that, me included, because, inherent to being human, inherent to being human, is a nature that is marred. We have an intellect, we have emotions, we have hearts, we have motives we have goals, which are not pure. None of it is truly good and sometimes we do stuff and we do it because we think it’s good, but we maybe do it for false motives.

Paul is not saying here that we don’t have potential, that we can’t do some good, and he’s not saying that God doesn’t value you, because he knows that the Old Testament teachers were made in the image of God but, nonetheless, his point here is simply that our nature, the image of God in us, is broken, it’s tainted, we have a darkness to us, our spiritual death is seen every day in our lives and in the brokenness of our world, and that’s what leads Paul to say we’re spiritually dead, that we are separated from God. As he said in Romans, and because of that spiritual deadness we don’t even seek God, we don’t even seek Him if left to ourselves, we’re so trapped by sin that we don’t actually seek reconciliation with God off our own back. That’s our predicament, that’s our predicament, and it affects every one of us.

So, what’s to be done, what’s to be done? Is God just like sitting up there having a big huff, or is it in a rage, and he’s ready just to smite us, because Paul talks about some wrath in there, probably made us a bit uncomfortable. Is He just waiting to come with His wrath, well, No, no, because in the same passage we read these words: “but because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved.”

Despite us being a bunch of rebels and mostly most of the time, telling God to take a hike, He still loves us, His mercy is still so great that He will not wait, he will not stand off and so, just as Jesus was raised from physical death, anyone who puts their faith in Jesus will be raised from spiritual death to new life, made a new creation, given life eternally, by faith in Jesus, by becoming reconciled to God, and He does it because He loves you, God loves you enough to die for you, and so that’s why we read in our passage in Acts today “Apollos was a great help to those who by grace had believed.”

The grace of God helped them to turn to Him, His grace helped them to respond and to repent. Other parts of scripture also teach the same truth so for example we can read “One of those listening to the disciples was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” Or we could see what Jesus says “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.” And then Paul, to the church in Corinth said “For God who said let light shine out of darkness made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the person of Christ.” We need God’s grace, we need His help, we need His intervention if we are to respond to the good news, if we are to come to Jesus in faith, and so, then, have His light shine in our darkness and bring that new life. Grace must come alongside us and work in us before we can respond in faith, and so, sometimes it’s called prevenient grace, the grace which comes before God gives that grace so that we can respond freely to in faith or to reject his invitation.

Christianity, friends, is not about becoming a nicer person, it’s not about becoming religious and having a religious routine, or ticking the box ‘you went to church’, Christianity is about becoming a new person, a new creation, becoming spiritually alive by His grace, enabling you to respond to His invitation so that His life might be in us and raise us from spiritual death. So, if you claim to be a Christian, then God’s grace came first, God’s great grace came first. So, there’s no boasting, there’s no right to achievement or reward, because His grace came first.

God did not stand off, He did not simply wait in wrath until it was too late, He came close, He gave grace so that you might seek Him, so that you might seek Him so that you might turn to Jesus and find new life, that His light might shine and bring that in your heart and your life and restore you, and He did all that because He loves you, He loves you.

And so then, we might wonder What’s our response today if you’re a Christian? Just humbly thank God for His grace, thank God for His grace that He so worked in your life.

One way somehow that that you responded that His grace came, because if that grace hadn’t come you wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t be claiming faith in Jesus. Secondly, you might want to be praying for that grace to be working in others’ lives, but thirdly, listen to what scripture says about the importance of sharing the good news “How then can they call on the one they have not believed in and how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard” Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word about Christ. As we share the good news, faith can arise, is what Paul’s saying here in Romans, but we know from what we’ve just seen, that faith can only come when there’s grace, and so it seems that in the act of sharing the good news God pours out his grace so that people can respond in faith. Now there’s an even greater motivation to be evangelistic, that as we share the good news, grace is given and people then have the choice to respond in faith or not!

Now what if some of us here today, are watching at home, would claim not to follow Jesus, what if that’s you, what if in your heart you know that Jesus is not your Lord and Savior, you’d rather be anywhere other than here in church or watching this at home, and that might include both adults and young people, and you might have attended church for years, you might have got married in church, you might have been brought up in church all your life, but you know inside the reality is, you’re spiritually dead, and you can tell that because Jesus is a bit dull to you, he does not seem glorious, you can tell it because you’re deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit, you can tell it because, in your heart, there’s no love for God, there’s no confidence that that He is your Abba Father, there’s no awareness of His personal presence day by day with you, all this and more besides points to the reality that inside you might come to church, you might even have had tons of sermons, but you’re spiritually dead, your spirits are dead until you come to faith in Jesus.

And, if that’s you, and if it bothers you, and if you want to know God and know His forgiveness and so no new life through Jesus, maybe today God is stirring up your heart, maybe God is pouring grace upon your heart so that you’re in a position to respond. Maybe today is the day to do that because we should not think there will be another opportunity, that I can just put it off to another day, we shouldn’t think that, we shouldn’t assume because Hebrews warns us “See to it that none of you has a sinful unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

You can become so hard of heart that you might hear the gospel but you will not choose to respond and you will not choose salvation through Jesus.

Don’t leave it too late because, who knows when you flip into that point where it becomes so hard that you will not respond, that can happen, that can happen.

And so, will you respond today? Will you respond and seek reconciliation with God and be made spiritually alive by putting your faith in Jesus? Because, in a moment, I’m going to lead us in a prayer, I’m going to give us that opportunity to respond and invite you to repeat the words after me – you can speak them out quietly if you want, you can speak them quietly in your heart, it doesn’t matter, God hears but sometimes speaking them out can just articulate it but, there’s no pressure because today is, remember today that you’ve to respond, today is maybe the day you put your faith in Jesus and become spiritually alive. So, don’t put it off if you’re feeling tugging at your heart today let’s pray:

Lord Jesus, thank you that I am here today and hear you tugging at my heart. I’m sorry Lord Jesus, for the things I’ve done wrong and, in the stillness, just now I name anything for which I’m sorry ……

please forgive me Lord Jesus.

And now turn from everything I know to be wrong and submit to you as Lord. Have your way and my life.

Thank-you that You died on the cross for me so that I could be forgiven and set free and find new life.

Thank-you that You offer me forgiveness and the gift of Your spirit to indwell me. I now receive these gifts. Please come into my life by your Holy Spirit, to be with me forever. Thank-you Lord Jesus.

And I wonder, for the rest of us, what do you need to take home today? Have you grown a bit lukewarm in faith? Have you grown away but lukewarm to the fact that you’ve been given grace? And without that grace you wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t believe? Or are there people that you need to be praying for, or even sharing the gospel with come walk me because how will they believe and turn to Jesus if you don’t share it?

Lord God, lead us in Your ways, give us a holy boldness where we need that, and may Your grace abound in this place, in this parish, across the Braes, Lord, that many would turn to You and find new life spiritual, life eternal, life which begins now by knowing You today and every day.

For in Your name we pray and for Your glory we ask it. Amen.

The grace of sharing

Preached on: Sunday 6th June 2021
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. There are no PowerPoint slides this week.
Bible references: Acts 4:32-37 and John 15:9-17
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Friends, sorry I can’t be with you in person today – the side effects of the Covid jab got a little bit of the best of me but I had already prepared my sermon and felt it would be a little bit unfair just to throw Ian completely in at the deep end so I’ve done this recording and as we turn to God’s word now let us pray.

Come Holy Spirit, come with revelation and wisdom from our Father.
Come Holy Spirit, soften our hearts to the word of God.
Come amongst us Holy Spirit with power and deep conviction, for we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

We’re now halfway through our sermon series on Grace, seeking to understand more of this incredible word.

Previously we saw that grace can refer either to the spiritual gifts that God gives us by his Spirit living within us, or to God’s power to sustain us particularly in hard times, and we thought how the grace of Christ is sufficient.

Today we come across a different working or a different impact upon the church. When we read about God’s grace in our passage from Acts, we read “all the believers were one in heart and mind, no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own but they shared everything they had. With great power the Apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there was no needy person among them.” These are the principal verses we’ll focus on today and we won’t simply focus on the last bit which mentions grace, as the context is important as well, to give some structure to our thinking. We’re going to work in reverse order within these verses starting with the mention of God’s grace.

We see here that God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all, that there was no needy person among them. In the NIV translation this is put as a separate sentence whilst in some other translations they link it to the previous sentence. Seeing the link between grace and power once more as we did, wherein the Apostles testified with great power, we’re told however, all translations are united, and saying that God’s grace was upon them all, and in the surrounding verses it is the collective attitude of believers that is highlighted, not simply the Apostles. So, it makes sense I think, for this to be a separate sentence so as to highlight the fact that it was God’s grace upon them all which brought such radical sharing. This wasn’t normal behavior, it wasn’t something they worked up amongst themselves, rather God’s grace nurtured a different perspective and a sacrificial way of life. We read in the surrounding verses what helped to ensure that there was no needy people, no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had, From time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the Apostles feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. When we read these verses, I wonder if you thought the early church practiced the form of communism, but in fact they didn’t because we see here that the sharing was voluntary, it didn’t involve all personal property only as much as was needed, and thirdly, this sharing was not a requirement to be a member or part of the church.

Nevertheless God’s grace brought about our perspective and way of life, where there was continuous sharing and also extraordinary acts of sharing. These believers did have personal possessions but they did not consider them to be private possessions held exclusively for their own use and enjoyment, rather they understood what they had as belonging to God primarily and that we are but stewards of these resources. Out of this perspective, as God’s grace worked upon them, we see here a group of generous people who are sensitive to the needs of others such that no one went to bed hungry because they could prevent it, no one slept on the street because they could give a bed, no one went without clothes because the members took care of one another, and the wealthy even sold property in order to ensure this reality. The wealthy who sold this property would be what we call today landlords so it wasn’t that everybody made that particular choice yet everyone did have a right perspective about their possessions and gave what they could to support others.

One of our church values is Sharing, it says “Sharing our lives and the good news of God’s love in word and deed”. Our elders chose this because we see it as a biblical value which we are to aspire to grow in, and we see it in part within our DNA already. Yet, there’s always room to grow and I’m not sure we can say that we evidence the generosity of the early church quite yet.

So, how do we grow in this? Well to know what needs there are and to be able to feel able to share those needs we need a depth of relationship of community. We know from Acts chapter 2 that the early church spent time sharing together in meals within one another’s homes. Now, clearly, that’s been difficult to do this past year but I wonder over the summer might we do something with one another because, here’s the thing, do we care about one another, do we care enough to invest in one another, will we be intentional and will we be sacrificial? Because the outworking of God’s grace upon the early church was seen in these ways and if this is to be seen in our lives then maybe we need more of God’s grace upon us, to change our heart,s to change our minds, and help us to obey Jesus. After all, Jesus said “My command is this – love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

How are you going to lay down your life? Because following Jesus should be more than simply turning up to church for an hour, or switching on Youtube at home as Francis Chan says in the book we’re reading this summer. in many churches you have about as much of a connection to the people who are supposedly your spiritual family as you would to someone who visited the same movie theatre as you.

So, how are you going to lay down your life? How are you going to connect with your church family? How will God’s grace be seen in you?

Now, it’s interesting that our value of Sharing said “sharing our lives and the good news of God’s love in word and deed” Notice, we captured both our lives and the good news and this will be shared in both word and deed. We’ve just thought about sharing our lives and the time we give and the needs we meet as we learn of them, but it’s striking that in the midst of a short passage about meeting material needs, that we also read this “with great power the Apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” It kind of seems out of place at first, doesn’t it, kind of wedged in there, yet, as our value says sharing should also include the sharing of the good news of Jesus and our words and this is important because with such a strong emphasis on being a community who share our lives with one another, on being a family together, then a potential danger arises that all our attention is given to this alone, possibly to the detriment of other things.

So, let’s learn from the example of the early church. A shared community life is not the goal, it is not an end in itself, because when this becomes the goal of a church, sadly, church becomes maintenance focused, it turns following Jesus into a cozy holy-huddle which is all about us, and very inward looking as such. Alongside sharing our lives, there still needs to be sharing the good news and deep conviction of its importance, because the perspective which can say what is mine is actually God’s, and so I’ll be open-handed with it to help others. That kind of perspective is nurtured and sustained by a deep conviction that there was a man called Jesus, he really did die for us, he really did die for us, rise from the dead and he will return one day. Such a perspective enables a person to know that this life is not all there is, and the values of our world are not the most important values. Without a deep conviction about Jesus we won’t be willing to financially give in a sacrificial way, and we won’t invest time in one another, and we won’t even bother to speak about our faith.

So, for example, and this is not to boast, but from the day we were married 16 years ago Gill and I have given away about a tenth of our income each year to our local church, or what some Christians call a tithe. We give up some sunny holidays, we give up various other things and we choose to have less, all because we really do believe in Jesus. Likewise we have consistently invested time in our church family wherever we’ve been, and before I was a minister, and we’ve done this because we really do believe in Jesus and that this church is his family, and so, is our family as well.A belief in Jesus and that He truly is alive even today is what helps to rightly shape our individual and corporate lives not only with a care for one another but with an outward concern as well, and I don’t simply mean that we should be evangelistic, though that would be lovely, instead, what I mean is, do we have a right balance between an inward and an outward focus? Do we have a right balance between an inward and an outward focus? And this affects everything in church life. The just retired moderator of the Church of Scotland, Martin Fair, wrote an article in the March edition of Life and Work, our denominations magazine – Martin said near the end “Let it be asked of every worship service – Is it being designed with young people in mind? Let it be asked of every group and organization – Is it being run with the express intention and hope of engaging new people? Let it be asked – Of every pound spent, is this expenditure intended to keep the show on the road or to bring good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, sight to the blind?”

Now, maybe you would take issue with that last quote, particularly around worship, but we need to face facts, as Martin also said in his article, we have been declining numerically for 60 years and the decline in numbers of young people has been nothing short of catastrophic. So, let’s remember that context nevertheless, in every area of church life what is the balance between an inward and an outward focus? Are we willing to right that balance even if it is costly and sacrificial to do? So, because that sounds like a choice which also needs God’s grace.

Our final point today draws from the first verse of our passage which said “all the believers were one in heart and mind.” This unity was of heart and mind, the heart that core place where we are driven to make our choices by both emotion and values, and the mind, the place of reasoning and identity in both spheres. There was unity, and not a superficial unity, but a real unity, a unity displayed in their way of life. What helped them reach that place of unity? What helped them to be willing to sacrifice for the other?

Well, a couple of things, firstly, in just the previous verse we can read after they prayed they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God boldly. There’s that deep conviction again, that deep conviction about Jesus, and it came after they prayed and they were filled with the Spirit. Friends, are we gathering for prayer? Do you make time to come on a Thursday evening, to our time of prayer or to pray in your Fellowship Group? As we pray together, we are brought closer together, and do we pray to be filled afresh with the Spirit? After all, Paul exhorts us to do that as well, but this unity was encouraged and sought in all of the early churches such that Paul, writing to the Philippians said “Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, of any comfort from His love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

We see again many of the same elements as we’ve already spoken about this morning, but the unity of heart and mind is tied here to our unity to Jesus, and are following after his example as Paul will go on to say in that chapter. As such, what brought unity to the early church, was not warm fuzzy feelings, indeed the church was made up of groups that had previously been at odds with one another, instead, what brought unity was a new identity, a new identity founded in Jesus, and a deep sense of call to His mission. It was through this identity and through that mission they were able to focus on something greater than themselves.

I wonder, brothers and sisters, what shapes our identity first and foremost? What shapes our priorities? Is it Jesus and His kingdom?

If we are to have such unity, if we are to embody the value of sharing, then we must pursue Jesus and His kingdom first. Towards that end I do pray that God’s grace will be poured out in greater measure upon us all and so may it be so, Amen.

Amazing grace: amazing power

Preached on: Sunday 30th May 2021
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. Additionally, you can download the PowerPoint PDF by clicking here 21-05-30 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Acts 14:21-26 & Hebrews 4:14-16
Location: Brightons Parish Church

let us come to God in prayer let us pray

come holy spirit soften our hearts to the word of God come holy spirit with revelation and wisdom of our father and our lord Jesus

come holy spirit with power and deep conviction for we ask it in Jesus name amen last week we began a new sermon series on grace and our aim is to understand more of this wonderful word because it is rich and meaningful partly because of its many uses and references in the scriptures and we saw previously that one of its uses is to talk about our spiritual gifts that the spirit gives us to enable us to be part of God’s mission but our passage today doesn’t use grace in that manner we read from Italian Paul and Barnabas sailed back to Antioch where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed earlier in chapter 13 these two men had been prayed for by the local church and sent on their way because the church had felt prompted to do this by the holy spirit so what we read here in chapter 14 is telling us that those prayers are committing of these Christians to the grace of God and so grace here is not referring to spiritual gifts or to saving grace or to God’s character of grace so raises the question what is this grace and what does it do because let’s notice something else first despite being committed to the grace of God despite being faithful and exemplary brothers in the faith they faced hard times in fact a little earlier if you go back earlier in chapter 14 we read of Paul being stoned in response to his labors for the lord and in the second letter to the church in Corinth Paul says five times i received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one three times I was beaten with rods once i was pelted with stones three times I was shipwrecked i spent a night and a day in the open sea i have been constantly on the move I’ve been in danger from rivers and danger from bandits in danger from my fellow Jews in danger from gentiles endangering the city endangering the country in danger at sea and in danger from false believers I have laboured and toiled and often gone without sleep i have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food i have been cold and naked besides everything else i face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches and i don’t know about you but looking at that list there’s part of me that says what is so amazing about grace if this is what Paul had to face what is so amazing about grace

and I wonder friends if you can relate to that and the hardships that you maybe face right now are you maybe asking what’s so amazing about grace where are you God why how am I meant to cope with this when will this end Christians across the ages have shared these same questions and struggles the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon who was used mightily of God in the 19th century suffered recurring bouts of depression throughout his adult life he was also simultaneously popular and unpopular in the stands he took and often as a result would face ridicule including from other pastors added to this was his need to provide relentless care for his wife who was an invalid for most of their marriage and on top of all that if it wasn’t enough Spurgeon faced the last 20 a third of the last 27 years of his ministry out of the pulpit because of his own physical illness there was hardly a weakness an insult a hardship or difficulty that Spurgeon didn’t know personally

so what about you what’s your story

and in the midst of that story are you asking what’s so amazing about grace

and to begin responding to that question we need to turn to other passages later in the same letter to the church in Corinth Paul says i was given a thorn in my flesh a messenger of Satan to torment me three times i pleaded with the lord to take it away from me but he said to me my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness therefore when i am weak then i am strong what does this passage say about grace well the lord says my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness notice the parallel my power my grace so when we receive the lord’s grace we receive his power but power for what does he give this power for well based upon Paul’s experience and the t his teaching in part God gives his grace his power to sustain us to sustain our faith that we might persevere to the end after all in our passage from acts we read Paul and Barnabas return to Lystra Iconium and Antioch strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith we must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God they said core to the teaching of the early church was the awareness that hard times come that in fact we will say face such difficulties that it will potentially rock our faith that will test our faith and we may even be tempted simply to walk from Jesus

so what can help us persevere what will hold us fast that we might persevere to the end and share in the perfection and glory of the kingdom of God when it comes

well the answer my friends is the grace of God it is his power that sustains now maybe you’re thinking well that doesn’t sound like very much Scott I’d like a bit more

and i wonder if part of that thinking is because we want a Jesus who makes things right now we want a Jesus who meets our needs in the way we want them met

but as one commentator said God did not change the situation by removing the affliction he changed it by adding a new ingredient grace God did not give Paul any explanations instead he gave him a promise my grace is sufficient for thee we do not live in explanations we live on promises for promises generate faith and faith strengthens hope

I wonder brothers and sisters how’s your faith doing what’s your level of hope in the face of your hardships how how how are you trying to persevere are you simply trying to kind of work up some more willpower and get through on your own strengths or are you trying to resort to positive thinking and simply downplay the doubt in the heart because Paul’s perseverance didn’t come from either of those approaches instead he found in the grace of the lord Jesus Christ a power a strength beyond any human capacity to emulate or duplicate earlier I spoke of Charles Spurgeon and the great hardships he faced and yet he himself said this it is easy to believe in grace for the past and the future but to rest in it for the immediate necessity is true faith at this moment and at all moments which shall ever occur between now and glory the grace of God will be sufficient for you this sufficiency is declared without any limiting words and there I’ve therefore I understand the passage to mean that the grace of our lord Jesus is sufficient to uphold thee sufficient to strengthen the sufficient to comfort thee sufficient to enable thee to triumph over it sufficient to bring the out of ten thousand like it sufficient to bring the home to heaven whatever would be good for the Christ grace is sufficient to bestow whatever would harm thee has grace is sufficient to avert whatever thou desirest his grace is sufficient to give thee if it be good for thee whatever thou wouldst avoid his grace can shield thee from it if so his wisdom shall dictate hear let me press upon you the pleasing opportunity of taking home now the promise personally at this moment for no believer here need be under any fear since for her or him also at this very instant the grace of the lord Jesus is sufficient

Paul and Spurgeon in the midst of their suffering knew God’s grace in the face of any suffering wherever however whenever they knew the grace of Christ to be sufficient but let’s not fall into easy errors in relation to these words or the words from acts Paul is not a theological masochist who glorifies suffering itself indeed he prayed for deliverance from his hardships what is more Paul is not saying that only when you are weak do you have the grace and power of Jesus weakness is not its one and only condition what is more the experience of grace is not a reward or payment for suffering nor must we seek suffering to receive grace and not going through hardships does not earn us a place in the kingdom of God so let’s not misconstrue things from these weighty passages instead let us see the invitation of God the invitation of God to each of us brothers and sisters to have a grace to have a power that is sufficient for any and every need we may face

yet yet to find and receive this grace there needs to be a response of trust and so we come at last to a passage from Hebrews earlier we read since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven Jesus the son of God let us hold firmly to the faith we profess for we do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are yet he did not sin let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need if we want God’s grace if we want his power and his help in our time of need then the response of trust is to approach him it’s basically to have a relationship with him and to come in prayer that is how we find and receive the grace of God the writer says we’ve to approach let us approach and the idea in the original language is approached regularly almost constantly he says too we’ve to come with confidence as one commentator put it approach with bold frankness with bold frankness that’s the invitation of God to you he’s not a God who asks you to deny the situation he’s not a God that says well it’s all karma so it’s your fault or this is because you’re too attached to the physical world and so again it’s your fault no no no no that’s not our God our God is the God who says come to me oh you are weary and burdened we are to have this confidence we are to pursue God this intently because he knows our experience Jesus knows our experience he shared the depth of our humanity he shared the suffering of humanity our God does not stand alive but he sympathizes to the point of stepping into our brokenness and experiencing it himself

that is our God

yet friends how easy how often too easy too often we drift from God and we allow bitterness and self-pity to create distance between us and God and in doing so we we rob ourselves of immense and timely help

so what about you where are you at with God and the hardships you face the hardships you observe are you making space for God are you coming to his throne of grace or does your life display a practical atheism does your lack of prayer show your true colors do you say with your mouth yeah i believe in God but any lack of prayer simply points to something else that actually deeper down you believe you can do without them that you don’t really need them in huddle recently which is one of our discipleship groups we’ve been exploring the rhythms of our life we’ve been talking about the balance of our relationships and in the midst of that we’re just beginning to hear both the invitation and challenge of Jesus to order our lives according to his wisdom i wonder brothers and sisters do we need more of the same in our own lives

and i don’t simply mean going to Jesus and with lots of words good though that is unnecessary though that is because one of the things I’ve been learning in recent months is just the value and the discipline of silence and solitude and so every day i will try and spend 10 minutes in silence before the lord saying as little as i can seeking him in that place vernally honestly and as much as i can with a heart of worship though it’s easily distracted and it’s only been a couple of months but i can tell you those 10 minutes are making a difference because they are a means of grace in my life but i not only spend some time in silence i do pray as well i pray for the day ahead i pray for my family i pray for some close friends and i pray for at least two families in my pastoral grouping every day so that by the end of the week i pray for my whole pastor of gripping every week and that’s my way of approaching the throne of grace for myself and for these others that we all might know the grace of God and i wonder friends are you creating space are you creating space for God and approaching his throne

because he calls us to be a family and a family is there for one another and so will you seek God will you come to his throne both for yourself and for one another that together with Paul we might confidently say the grace of Jesus is sufficient and though we are hard pressed on every side we are not crushed and though perplexed we do not despair and though we may face persecution we are not abandoned and even if we are struck down and our life is given in the cause of Jesus and his gospel we are not destroyed we are not destroyed for we are heirs of God and coheres with Christ and we shall know his glory and the glory of his kingdom for his grace is sufficient

let us pray

God’s right here right now

is there an area of your life where you need to come before the throne of grace

and maybe just in the quiet of your heart

tell him what that is it might just even be one or two words

he knows what’s on your heart

he knows who you’re breaking

he knows where you’re doubting

and he wants to meet you now with his grace

lord for however is upon our heart or whatever situation breaks our heart maybe today for whatever feels like it’s just too much and we wonder how will i cope and when will this end father we ask afresh for your grace your power to uphold us to hold us fast

both now and always

for we ask it in Jesus name

Amen

The Inner Room- Tacking (Tuesday evening)

Preached on: Tuesday 2nd February 2021
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. There is no Powerpoint pdf accompanying this sermon.
Bible references: Act 15
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Good evening everybody and welcome to our Tuesday night input here on our Youtube Channel for Brightons Parish Church kind of dubbed it The Inner Room. Wasn’t really sure what else to call it to be honest, because tonight is a little bit different from what we’ve done on other occasions, and it’s a bit like, I guess, a mini message, but at the same time I hope it to be have a little bit of a kind of bible teaching element

and as well, as just a little bit more of sharing, I guess, what’s going on inside me about what maybe the Lord has been saying to me, or what I think He’s saying

and so, I kind of just want to share a little bit from the heart. I in that way I just want this to be kind of a safe space and a place where it’s just that “inner room”. It’s the kind of an inner sanctuary, the safe place where I’ve been able to be real and honest, in one way or another with you, So, The Inner Room.

If it ever happens again it might get a new name, but I had to come up with something so that’s what I came up with.

Welcome, anyway, to this time together and it’s really great to have you. Please do say HI! if you’re there on the live chat, and have the means to do so, and if you’re listening back to this on a recording or on a telephone, thanks as well for putting in the time to tune in and have a listen or watch to this particular video.

So, tonight, as I say, is meant to be a little bit of a heart-to-heart, a little bit of sharing from the Scriptures.

I guess, what has led to this has been a journey for me over the last well six to eight weeks. I guess it started before Christmas and I think was prompted a little bit by being aware that towards the end of January I’d be coming up to the end of my second year, going into third, and there are developments on the go with the Braes Hub and there are lots of changes coming for us as a Congregation, as an area, Even things being planned or put on hold because of Covid, and lots of different things, kind of on the go, and so, I guess, it got me in a bit of a reflective mood, thinking “I wonder what is next Lord?”, because what’s been really encouraging for me is to be able to look back over the last two years and see some of what we’ve changed, what we’ve done differently, some the impacts that we’ve had in different places.

If you want in the live chat and feel free to put up things that you see or you’re aware of, for what you would give thanks to God for.

The things that come to mind for me are seeing people come to faith – I’ve been so encouraged by that one guy who got in touch recently saying he came to faith during one of the sermons in January – someone came to faith during the Alpha Course – we saw other people come to faith along the way in previous year’s Alpha Course and different things like that.

I am so encouraged when people say “I have chosen to follow Jesus” and that’s great to see, because not every Church is seeing that. It’s a great encouragement.

I’m encouraged also that and we’ve made some changes in some of our identity and things.

So, we’ve said part of what our Purpose is to “invite, encourage and enable all ages to follow Jesus Christ” It’s really clear, it’s really bold, and it’s really deliberate, and it’s really biblical, So, I’m super excited about where that might take us on a journey together,

and as part of that we’ve also said well here are four Values that go with this, that kind of put some flesh on the bones, and that kind of say well this is part of our DNA. We know what our Purpose is but what’s also part of our DNA, what’s some of the essence of Brightons and where we’re going within that broad purpose, and so we have our four Values and it’s been great fun just to tune into to that, to talk it through with the Teams and the different Teams we have in our Kirk Sessions and Deacons Court, as well as to hear people’s hopes and dreams for 2021.

We’ve also started the Pastoral Groupings, and that’s a big change for us moving from the Pastoral District to the Pastoral Groupings, There’s many more besides.

A Scripture Union group starting up at Wallacestone and the input in classes picking up again and since Murdo’s time, I know that he did that,

and there have been lots of things like Belong starting in the last two years – and Yes, okay, we’ve not been able to continue that and lockdown, like many things, but it got started. It gave us a flavor of things.

I was so encouraged just before we went into lockdown that we had our first Sunday morning where we had Prayer Ministry in the morning Service. I thought that was a huge step for us and it felt like we were in a good place as a Church family, because I didn’t feel like people were thinking or feeling “Not sure about this, Scott!” because I remember two years ago and I was asking you to respond to the Word and I did some things that were a wee bit out-there, even for me to be honest! A few of you, or probably a lot of you, were like “I’m not sure about this!” but a year on you allowed me to lead you into Prayer Ministry, and about six or seven people came forward that morning to be prayed for in the morning Service, about some really personal things and that’s just amazing! Amazing!

There’s much more besides and you can feel free, as I say, to put some things up in the live chat that’s encouraged you.

So, I’ve kind of been reflecting a little bit on the last two years and thinking about some of what’s been achieved, but there was a growing sense within me that there’s something else around the corner, and Yes we’ve done all these things, Yes we’ve seen Huddle start, an initiative through the discipleship team and you’ll hear more about that in the coming weeks so, listen out for Huddle, but my sense was there was something more, that and there’s more around the corner for us as a Congregation and part of what I want to share tonight is around that.

This is unscripted, other than some bullet points and notes, so we’ll see what comes but before we get into that before we turn to God’s Word let’s pray okay, let us pray.

My God and Heavenly Father, we do give You thanks for all that we’ve seen of You in the last two years that, even in the midst of lockdown and a pandemic, Lord, you’ve been at work in us and through us, and before this time, Lord, before this season, You were at work in ways that were great and so worthy of praise. And so, we want to lift our voice up and glorify You and give You the thanks and the honour.
But Lord, we’re on a journey, we’re on a journey together. That’s part of one of our Values of being Family – community journeying together towards wholeness – Lord, we’re never complete this side of heaven, so there’s always more, there’s always a next step, there’s also always something around the corner.
So, as I share, Lord, from Your Word and what you’ve been, I think, saying to me, Lord, give us ears to hear You, let me help us to hear You. As John said, John the Baptist, “May the speaker decrease and Jesus of Nazareth increase”, for we do say and pray all this for His glory and in His name, Amen.

So, if you will turn with me in your Bible, whether hardback or electronic, to Acts chapter 15, Acts chapter 15.

Prior to this point the Church has been going through phenomenal growth. Peter’s had that vision where how this has led him to Cornelius’s house the church has grown Peter’s miraculous escape from prison Barnabas and Paul have been sent off on a missionary journey and they’ve seen God do incredible things, and the Church has grown in different places and then they come back and to him to Antioch and they’ve spent quite a bit of time there and so, chapter 15 verse 1 we read this:

Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.

And then we’re going to jump on to verse 24:
Prior to this in the in between time they’ve done a report and there’s been lots of debate and conversation and then James gets up and he says in response to this that and he thinks they should do certain things and say certain things to the believers in Antioch, and other areas, who have come from a Gentile background and so they decide to write a letter and what we’re about to read is part of that letter, verse 24:

“We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul – men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:”

and then detail some things and say Farewell, well and send these gentlemen off back down to Antioch with the letter and it brings great encouragement to the people if you read on into verses 13 and 31 so, Amen and thanks be to God for this reading from His Word.

I came across this passage as I was reading a book about discerning the will of God together. It’s by a lady called Ruth Haley Barton and I’d encourage you to have a look at it. It’s a phenomenal read in quite a revolutionary way really of doing discernment as a congregation. A lot to share. Not something you could implement straight away. I think it would take some time, months if not years, to get to that place as a community where you could put it fully into practice, but it gave me quite a bit of food for a thought.

And she points out in her book that in this passage, that circumstances arise which God utilizes for the furtherance of His mission, for the spread of the Gospel, for the building up of His Church, and it arises in the midst of a very difficult situation, even conflict, and yet it’s used, and it’s in the midst of that, and trying to decide how to respond, and what’s next, what’s the right way.

We were thinking about, in Jim’s preaching on Sunday, what is the way of Jesus? They were trying to think, what is the way of Jesus for these Gentile believers? and so they discuss and, I presume they pray as well, because in their letter and I think it’s also there in the earlier passage which we skipped over we get this these words “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”, I just think that’s incredible what they say. They have real sense that the Holy Spirit was teaching them, leading them, in that way and in the way of Jesus and guiding them in that moment.

I and Ruth Haley Barton says that we come across many situations in life, in Church life, where something arises, and we discuss, and we pray, and we wrestle about it, and, in the midst of that, God does something that we might discern the mind of Christ together, and move forward in His way and into His purposes for us,

and my sense is that we are coming into a season of trying to discern some of that, or at least I am, but I think it will involve many of us, or that should involve many of us. I’m not quite sure what that will look like or be like but I’m excited about it!

I was listening to a podcast and went out walking Hector, I think maybe during my Christmas break, and it’s a leadership podcast – really helpful – but, actually, this particular episode, was from early on in the pandemic maybe the Summer time, I’m not exactly sure, maybe June/July time, but in that podcast the speakers talk about how even at that stage the pandemic was what they called an accelerator and a revealer, an accelerator and a revealer, and what they were meaning by that was the onset of the pandemic has accelerated certain things, for example it’s accelerated the use of Zoom and virtual communication, and has accelerated issues within the NHS or within us as a nation, and even as a world, it has accelerated within the Church, it has changes too.

That we went online and I can remember having conversations with our IT guys, I said Well we eventually get to that in four or five years time! and not knowing what was around the corner, and I’m sure you can think of other things that have been accelerated – if you want put it up in the live chat.

It’s also been a revealer. It has revealed where we’ve maybe put our trust and, for the Church, has it really been in God? or has it only been in the good times. It has maybe revealed the insecurity of life or the fragility of life. Has maybe revealed just how insecure certain structures are within our nation and across our nations.

So much has been accelerated and revealed and, again if there are things revealed that could pop up for you then please do again share it in the live chat.

And what Barton was saying, what these folks were saying in the podcast, and I think tied-up together in Acts chapter 15 here, that things are revealed for the Church here. Revealed that there’s a kind of change needed and it’s really interesting that in Acts chapter 10 the Disciples already knew that things were permitted and certain practices were to go, and when Paul & Peter got that revelation from God by the Holy Spirit and went to Cornelius’s house, and the Gentiles came into the faith, and things have been revealed but I’m not sure exactly how much change.

Yes, Paul and Barnabas went out but they hadn’t pinned down, they hadn’t made some decisions yet, and that lack of communication, the lack of decision, the lack of kind of concreteness, ushered in some of these issues, and so, it kind of accelerated change, accelerated the need for a decision.

I think it also revealed that need to make a decision. It also revealed what were to be the Church’s priorities for Gentile believers. They hadn’t pinned that down before, they hadn’t pinned down What are we going to pass on from our Jewish roots to these new believers, and they were still wrestling with those things. They hadn’t figured it all out and so, there were things revealed. There are things accelerated in that story, and, as I say, this time of pandemic has accelerated and revealed things for us.

But, I wonder what’s next because?

Hopefully, at some point this year in the not too distant future, we will be able to return to worship in person,

But.

I wonder whether we will seek to simply just return to what was and, remember that sermon where I quoted the Moderator the Church of Scotland, and he said we all yearn to get back to normal and he kind of questioned Why do we yearn to get back to normal, when normal was Church membership going off a cliff in churches without children. And then I don’t think it was that sermon but I think it was a Tuesday Evening Sermon in December, if you didn’t see it maybe go back and have a look, where I talked about the Brightons situation that, Okay, Yeah, we’ve seen people come to faith and we do have a number of contacts with children and families, but if you look at our demographics we are declining. Even within Brightons our membership is going down compared to what it was. Our demographic is getting older and if you look five, ten years down the road, unless things change dramatically, we’re gonna have some really tough times, and we’re going to have to think about what are we going to stop doing, because we just can’t sustain what we are doing just now. And so, maybe again, that’s part of why I was thinking What’s next Lord? You’ve taken us this far, we’ve reached this stage together what’s next?

and I don’t have an answer to tha.t I don’t know what you expect of my leadership as the Minister.

I’m certainly not what you’ve maybe had before, clearly. You’re certainly not what you maybe hoped or expected for.

I’m not someone that’s going to steady the ship. I’m probably going to rock the boat more often than not, because that’s what I think is needed in the Church just now nationally, never mind just here in Brightons. But I hope, within that rocking, I can also be a catalyst.

I talked with the Nominating Committee, I think, about wanting to be a catalyst, that, rather than being the answer-man, I would be a catalyst, kind of question-man.

and again I was influenced by a book I read called Canoeing the Mountains, and the Elders have read a good chunk of that along with our Deacons, and we’ve not finished it yet, we might come back to that at some stage, who knows, but it’s been almost a year since we last dipped into that together, but that book again influenced that kind of way of thinking and I find great freedom in that, that I don’t have to have the answers myself, that this can be a team effort, a family effort, a community effort, that we all you all have a place to play in us, and I can act as a catalyst alongside the Kirk Session and the Team Conveners and the different groups that we have in the ministries we have within the congregation. So, you’re not going to get from me a grand vision – Oh, this is the vision for the next year or the next five years, you’re not gonna get that from me. Sure, you’ll get some principles and foundations which is probably in part what has led to our Purpose and Values but I didn’t come up with all that on myself, again it was a team effort, and it was taken to the Kirk Session and unanimously voted on by the Kirk Session, that these should be our Purpose and Values.

So, I want to be a leader that enables and champions ideas, rather than the one has to come up with all the ideas.

Nevertheless, I do think as part of that catalyst part of my job is listening out to the Lord so that both in the preaching and in other ways of leadership and influence, I can be part of kind of steering us forward. Because in crisis, not just in the pandemic, but let’s be honest folks, as a Church, as the Church in Scotland, not just the Church of Scotland but the Church in Scotland, we’re in crisis largely, falling numbers, as I say in bits and pieces and again in this podcast I was listening to, he said it is tempting to hold on to what makes you feel secure and what is familiar, in times of crisis, rather than pivot or innovate.

So, in crisis, it’s tempting to hold on to what makes you feel secure and what is familiar rather than pivot or innovate, and I know places that have Churches that have really struggled in this time and Yes, we all have, but in some ways, they’ve struggled more because their ministers their members have not been able to innovate and or pivot in these times,

and the sense of isolation is much greater than what we have, and I think folks are so hungry, much more than we might be, hopefully, because we’ve been able to do certain things and provide certain things. We haven’t got it perfect clearly, there’s always things we can do better,

But I think this is in my thinking because this crisis makes us want to turn in and feel safe, and I wonder what happens later on in the year when we get back and Yes there’ll need to be a time of coming together, of being family, of reconnecting and of celebrating that, and valuing that, but the danger would be that we then get comfortable again and don’t look at what we need to be looking at, and even in this time now, to be looking out and I’m thinking “Well where next God? Where next?

and in all of this, just last week actually, I believe it was only last week, and I was sitting in this chair, I just read the bit, I think it was Mark, final chapter of Mark wasn’t it last Monday and I knew it was my Spiritual Director the next day and I thought he’s going to ask me if I’ve been spending some time in prayer and listening to the Lord, which is an exercise that I do every so often, and sometimes I’ll maybe get a picture or maybe get a phrase that’ll come to mind, and it’ll really help with my leadership. Actually, of late, it’s been really helpful for leadership. He can speak in other ways but I find, most often, nice speaking, into me about leadership,

and so, like the last two years there’ve been different things for my three or four months block so, I had my Bible reading, jotted down my thought or my prayer for the day, as I encouraged you in the Mini Message. I thought Right, I’m gonna spend some time preparing to see God says anything and he did! Surprise, surprise!

and I normally get a picture but this time it was more a phrase, and the phrase was “It’s time to tack” and I knew it was about sailing and tacking and I didn’t really know why this had come to mind.

At first I thought God was correcting me and that’s a bit of my own insecurity that I think as a young leader I’m till guessing half the time. I’m probably, like most ministers even with 30 years experience, probably still feel that they’re guessing, but I definitely feel that I’m guessing half the time, and that’s experimentation, and it’s life of faith and all that,

but Yeah, it kind of feels like I’m guessing half the time and with guesses can come wrong things, and Imake mistakes, and I have made mistakes in the last two years, and so I thought I’ve done something wrong, He’s correcting me. It’s time to tack. It’s time to change direction. It’s like What have I done wrong? What needs to change? but I decided to do some a searching on Youtube, actually, we’re all on Youtube aren’t we to some degree or another? and you get some nonsense on there, but I went looking for tacking, because I didn’t really know anything about tacking at all.

But I watched a couple of short videos about tacking and about the physics of sailing and some really startling and interesting things came up!

So, tacking is when the boat changes direction so as to be able to keep moving forward in a particular rough direction. So, if you’re wanting to go that way, you’re kind of tacking different angles to keep going in the rough direction but you’re cutting across and the rough path, so that you’re doing a kind of zig-zag to eventually get there,

but what’s interesting with tacking is, you’re sailing into the wind which I didn’t know you could do, like sailing into the wind just sounds mental, How is that even possible? but apparently it is, it’s apparently possible because the boat has a keel and forces and vectors, apparently, apply and the result of that is that you go forward!

A couple of things that jumped out to me that people said:

you can actually go forward faster than the speed of the wind when you tack. So, you’re going into the wind but because you’re going at a particular angle and all the forces and physics that are involved, you can actually go faster than the wind. I find that crazy! And you can go faster than the wind being blowing behind you. Which I just thought was really startling!

What other things kind of jumped out at me and just the general idea that it’s into the wind, faster than the wind, and it’s still going in a rough direction. You’re keeping your course but you’re changing slightly so as to catch more of the wind, and because you’ve maybe run out of distance, you’re getting near the shore, or you just need to change direction slightly, so it’s not actually about having done something wrong, it’s about keeping your course, but catching the wind so that you can do that, and you can maintain kind of maximum speed almost, and so, when thinking about this, talking about a few others, the sense of that it’s about aligning, it’s about God directing and guiding rather than correcting came to the fore, because he wasn’t seen to change direction completely.

So I think we’ve got our Purpose and Values. We know our overall direction but it’s time to tack, and that will feel difficult because, when you tack then, notes tell me, you go through what’s called the no-go zone.

Basically when you’re turning into the wind and that’s when the sail starts flapping because the wind’s on both sides of it, is not properly catching the sail, and the rigging is swaying a little bit, and you kind of lose a little bit of momentum, but then you keep going round and eventually you get past 45 degrees and you start picking up the wind again, and you go forward, and it sails and the rigging pulls taut, and you go forward in your direction with your crew, and you pick up speed to hopefully travel faster than the wind.

And, this next season, my sense is that there’s a season of perhaps three months maybe more where we need to do that tacking, and it might feel a bit awkward and the sails might flutter a bit, and we’re not really sure what’s happening, and we don’t really feel comfortable.

It was interesting reading a blog about the analogy of tacking with ministry and I’m often encouraged, the encouragement was that’s a time to be still and be in God’s presence, and you know what I’ve been talking about with my Spiritual Director, the need for retreat, the need for solitude, and silence, with God, and to grow in that discipline, and just how many things can come together at the one time – I was just blown away!

and so, I feel like God was just saying, It’s time to tack! and it’s funny, I had been talking to the Kirk Session back in December and thinking Well, I’m not quite sure when next I’ll share with them directly so I’ll give them their New Year’s message before Christmas, and the message was there’ll be more change on the horizon and who was to know that God would give this Word at this time to tack, that in my reading I would come across Acts 15, that in my time off I would listen to a podcast talking about this time being an accelerator and a revealer, and in times of crisis we want to buckle down and feel safe, but actually we need to pivot, we need to tack, we need to innovate, and just all that’s coming together,

and I want you to know where I’m at as your minister, as your leader, and some of you will find that really hard because you want a pastoral leader, you want to be made to feel safe, and there are times when I can do that and do do that, there are times when I bring a measure of encouragement, or try to at least, but we also need to pivot. We need to tack, we need to innovate. We’re not out of this as a Church, Yeah, we’re not out of our time of crisis even when the pandemic goes away, we still are faced with the situation that our membership numbers are going off a cliff. We’re barely seeing anyone come to faith, numbers of children are dropping, it’s going to be even harder. Younger people and children have been away from Church and Church groups for so long – Will they come back? – who knows. Will the adults that we’ve been reaching out to come back? Who knows.

So, it’s not time, I don’t think, to buckle down and feel safe. It’s time to tack, and we do that together.

As I say I’m not going to be your answer-man. I’m not going to come up with a grand plan. We need to do this together.

What does that look like? Here’s a couple of ideas:

I was chatting with some folks recently kind of about the bits and pieces of this and one part of the conversation led to send to someone You know if you’ve got ideas and you want to contribute to the life of the Church, then get involved in some of the Teams and in the Church, and I think that’s an avenue If you want to help shape the life of the Church, if there’s something that’s bugging you, or if you see that there’s an opportunity, then get involved in the Teams of the Church and those teams.

There are teams on the Kirk Session: Pastoral Care, Discipleship, Community Outreach and Up-and- Coming which looks after the under-25s. Information about all those Teams is on our website on the Get Involved page. So, go and have a look there.

There are also Teams within Deacons Court: Communications, Property, Finance and a few other minor pieces, but those are the kind of major teams. Maybe you could lend some of your support there, to help us move forward.

So, or it might not be one of those bigger Teams. It might be a team that reports to one of those teams for example the Sunday School Leaders Team

or it might be within, as I was saying recently, your Pastoral Grouping. Remember I talked about this recently in a sermon. Getting involved there, speaking to your Elder and saying How could I play a part in this Pastoral Grouping? Are there some people that I could phone or I could visit? And are there ways that we could be together?

My Pastoral Grouping and one of the people said
Well in a previous existence in time we had this thing where we would do like a kind of trip around people’s houses and share one course together and then you’d move on to someone else’s house for the next course

Clearly we can’t do that just now but let’s have a Zoom call, and an hour of fun, and we’ll do a quiz, and maybe do some games, and bits and pieces, and there was quite a few a party cracker jokes, Christmas cracker jokes. It was a great hour! Someone else’s idea, largely organized by other people, and I just facilitated it, and it was such an encouragement to be together, and I have a sense within my pastor of grouping that we’re becoming a bit like a kind of mini family within this wider family of the Brightons family. I’m really enjoying seeing just how that’s kind of growing.

Maybe you could lend your time and your love and your gifts there, if it’s not part of one of the wider teams.

Another idea for you is that hopefully you’ve watched the video from the start of the year, I think it was the second week in January, where we shared some hopes for 2021 from different people, and maybe there’s some stuff that’s resonated there, for you. I’ve certainly taken notes of things to pursue potentially, pursue the year ahead, but you might, you may have a hope for 2021. We couldn’t ask everybody. So, get in touch, send a message to our Facebook page or drop us an email, and say Hey, I was listening to this message and Scott invited us to share one hope around one of the values maybe, and this is what I hope for in 2021,

and clearly if it’s the same as what’s been repeated in that video, there might be no need to email, but if there was something different, or else you wanted to add to someone’s idea, again, drop us an email saying this is one of my hopes for 2021 for the Brightons Church family, and again we take that on board,

and I’m not saying that we’ll pursue all these ideas but it’s starting to do that discernment together of What does it mean to tack? Where is God calling us to tack in these coming months that we might be ready to catch the wind as we come out of restrictions, and hopefully come back together.

Yes, we’ll come back, and we’ll celebrate, and we’ll love seeing each other. I really miss you, I miss you all. I miss that Sunday morning –

one of my favorite points on the Sunday morning was around about half past 10 to 10 to 11, I go around and I talk to people and that people had come early so, if you never got that opportunity you clearly know that you didn’t arrive in time, and for that I’m sure you’re right on time for the service just not in time for me going about, and I really loved that time, it was just a really special time. I’ve missed that. I’ve missed that. Live Chat doesn’t equal it, not everybody’s on there that I would normally talk to at that point. I’ve missed that and I’m looking forward to that starting back as I say.

As many people are saying if we don’t allow God by Sis spirit to work amongst us so that it reveals and accelerates and that, so that we pivot, so that we tack, then we are just gonna run aground or we’re gonna just get comfortable and kind of bunker down or we’re gonna get kind of stuck in that no-go zone and the sails just gonna flutter and we’re gonna lose momentum,

and we really can’t afford to because, we have a community, we have a Parish that needs to know Jesus, needs to know that He’s real and living and active, needs to know the love and grace of God, and we’re called into that ,we’re called to invite others to share, we’re called to encourage one another in the way of Jesus, we’re called to enable all ages, the youngest to the oldest, to follow Jesus, and to know what that means, and to know and play their part.

So, I look forward to the next year, to the next two years and more, and I wonder what’s on the horizon for us next, as we tack,

and there’ll be more tacks along the way, but we’re entering into that season of tacking. Now and I pray that we would have the boldness, and the courage, and the sensitivity that the early Church showed in Acts 15 as well, and then from that see the Church of Jesus flourish in this place, and the Kingdom come like we’ve never known.

May it be so let us pray

My God and Heavenly Father, we thank You that You promised to never leave us nor forsake us, to journey with us by the Spirit. Jesus You promised that Your sheep will hear Your voice and that the Spirit will lead us into truth and into life, that He will reveal You and Your way.

Help us Lord, to be sensitive to the Spirit and to hear what You’re saying to us as a community, to us individually, by Your Word, and in the place of prayer.

Lord, where things have been of me, just pull them away, let them not linger in our hearts and minds, and cause unrest, or lead us in the wrong direction. But where things have been of You Lord, take it deep, keep it safe and bring forth a harvest that would be to Your glory.

Lord, we seek Your way and Your will. Help us to be bold where we need to be bold.

We ask this in and through the name of Jesus, Amen

Friends, thanks for being with us tonight. I realize it’s a bit of a longer message or session than normal, that’s the danger when I don’t have notes or detailed notes, and I just kind of keep going a bit, but I’m excited and passionate about what’s coming. So, hopefully, forgive me in the midst of all that.

It’s been really good to share in this time together. Look forward to our next time and in one way or another, and next week we’ll have Testimony Tuesday, so join us then, as folk share about their faith journey, and various different ways and forms. We’ve got our Thursday Prayer back on Zoom this Thursday as well as well as on our Youtube Channel and then I’m back in preaching this Sunday morning, as we continue in Philippians.

So, as we go from here, the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you, my dear brothers and sisters, this night and forevermore. Amen

Advent: welcome and sent pt.2 (Tuesday evening)

Preached on: Tuesday 1st December 2020
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. There is no PowerPoint PDF associated with this sermon.
Bible references: Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8; Luke 10:1-3, 8-9; Acts 11:19-21; John 3:5-6; Luke 15:20-24
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Good evening everybody welcome to Tuesday Evening Sermon where we dig a bit more into God’s word. Thank-you for putting in the time to be here and to grow in your relationship with God. Sometimes Tuesday Sermon is about recapping a previous series but tonight is a bit of a touching point on some extra reflections on Sunday’s sermon and a bit of a transition I guess to aid that transition from our last series into our Advent series and into the new year potentially.Today we’re also going to look at a number of different passages in the scriptures and we’re going to look at shorter portions than we did with our sermon last month but still a number of portions we were going to jump about and draw out different things from different parts of the scriptures. So get ready with your Bible and whether it be a Bible App or a hard copy, get ready with your Bible so you can follow me through with us because there won’t be any slides on screen.

But before we do that let us take a moment to pray so let us pray:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight oh Lord our strength and our Redeemer, Amen

So in our last series we had seven weeks on the theme of justice and we saw how core justice is to the heart of God, that he is a God who loves justice and so His people need to be your people who seek justice and hopefully that series began to sow some thoughts and ideas or maybe brought affirmation. If you’re someone who seeks justice maybe in your everyday work or in your volunteering and maybe up till now you’ve not really heard the Church speak much about justice and so hopefully that series was of some help and I’m grateful for the folks that introduced elements within Community Corner just to get trying to help make it practical as well. I’m sure that we’ll need to return to the theme of justice again in future years and to help us grow in this because I’m not sure it’s something that we often think about and we need to grow and mature in that way but as we saw on Sunday we’re not only called to justice we’re called to another important role. So let me recap a few verses for us this is from Matthew chapter 28 at verse 18 – Matthew 28

Then Jesus came to them and said “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Soly spirit and teaching them to be everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.”

Likewise we could jump into the book of Acts chapter 1 at verse 8; Jesus has risen from the dead and he has been meeting with the disciples teaching them further about the kingdom of God and he says to them: Acts 1 verse 8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”

So “Yes” we are called to justice, to seek it, to make it a priority, but we are also called to go and share our faith and to help others grow and become Christians themselves. And so, part of our purpose here at Brightons is to invite people to follow Jesus and I’m so encouraged that the Kirk Session agreed with the Strategy Group that this should be part of our purpose, to invite people to follow Jesus and so it’s got to be a core part of our Church life and more than just words on a nice document or a website because Jesus calls us to go and make disciples; He calls us to be His witnesses, His ambassadors to the nations and to our neighbors, and often, sadly, in the Church, it seems to have been one or the other between justice and what we call evangelism, that we are either a Church that pursues justice and ignores evangelism or a Church that does evangelism but we ignore justice. And from since the beginning of the Church, since the beginning of God’s people thousands of years ago, beginning with Israel, there has been that duel call of justice but also to be a light to the nations and so seek to share the faith with others. Because if you don’t have evangelism you miss out on a lot of important things being realized and we’ll touch on a few of those just now. But if you don’t have justice your message just doesn’t help particularly in today’s society and world that if you don’t show that compassion, if you don’t show that concern, then it just feels like empty religion and it’s not just today that that’s been a case. One of the huge times of growth within the Church was about 300 day or so when there was a huge plague in the Roman Empire and it was the Christians who put their lives at risk and showed compassion to neighbors when the rich Romans fled to keep themselves safe, but because the Christians showed that care and concern then the people began to become much more receptive to the Christian message and people came to faith and the Church grew

And I see that in other organizations as well. CAP (Christians Against Poverty) pursues justice, seeks to help people in the midst of brokenness but it’s very clear also about giving the opportunity to hear more about the Christian faith about what fuels us. Now they don’t force it down anyone’s throat. I believe it is very gently done having known workers in that field of work, but they hold them both together, they seek to hold them in tension and one they help people get out of debt but two they often help people to meet with Jesus and both elements transform their lives in the more complete way that God hopes for us when we experience his shalom. It’s the physical and the spiritual. Or one of my other favorite organizations is One Life and One Life it seeks to earn the right to speak into the lives of young people and I think that is key in our generation we have to earn the right now we’re not in Christendom any longer we don’t have an automatic right to go into schools or to share with people we have to earn the right and so it’s keeping that tension between justice and evangelism. But both are part of the mission of God.

But if we don’t heed the great commission, if we don’t seek to share our faith, then we face some serious issues and problems and we miss out on a lot as well and I want to briefly talk about three things that we miss out on and that are so crucial for us to bear in mind.

Firstly, as I was speaking about on Sunday, part of sharing our faith is partly as part of growing in our maturity as children of God, as followers of Jesus, and we sought to give that idea about sharing the Christmas card this advent season with a neighbor or a friend and inviting them to watch a service. And so sharing our faith is so key in helping us grow. Let me take you to Luke chapter 10; Luke chapter 10 and we’ll read a couple of verses here 1 to 3 and then 8 to 10; Luke 10 at verse 1 – “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field. Go, I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. When you enter a town (this is verse 8) and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you, heal those who are ill and tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you.”

Here we’re seeing part of the training model of Jesus, how he discipled his disciples verse 1 says “the Lord appointed seventy-two others” others to the 12 disciples and sent them out two by two. So we can see here that the going out to share the gospel, to share the good news, to evangelize wasn’t just for the apostles, it wasn’t just for the big-yins, those that are super confident and got a really important role. Every disciple of Jesus was called to this. He began with the 12 and then moved on to the 72. And we see it just replicated time and time again in the life of the Church and we’ll speak more about that in a moment. Jesus says the harvest is pointing about the workers are few and so he calls more he grows this movement which will one day be the Church to go and share the good news of the kingdom of God. That the kingdom has come near through Jesus breaking into our world, coming into the world as a babe. Growing up and entering into this ministry, anointed by the spirit. The kingdom has come near and he sends out the 72 others. Likely this 72 had been journeying with Jesus for a while as his ministry grows, as he shows compassion and seeks justice. It begins to open doors and people become receptive. He begins to gather people around him a huge crowd of people and he initially picks the 12 but then he’s gotten 72 others that he has picked and he sends them out. He’s taking them under his wing to grow them and his disciples and in maturity. But the time comes when they have to go out. Can you imagine being the 72 others? Like you’ve seen the other 12 get picked and they are like the superstars; they are like your models and heroes, and now it’s your turn! He’s probably sent them out two by two again because that was the model of Jesus. Can you imagine being one of the pairs in that 72? “Jesus you want me to go out? You want me to go out and heal and preach? Like Jesus, Okay, you can do it because, well, you’re the son of God – and the 12 can do it because they’re the special guys, they’re the ones that you’re going to build your Church upon.” But, but us? Me? That would have been really scary. But in the model of Jesus of how you grow in faith and disciple others, there comes a time when you have to go and share your faith. And if you don’t take that step, and if you don’t follow the model of Jesus, eventually your growth, my growth, our growth as a Christian becomes stifled, stunted. We get capped. And I wonder if that’s part of the reason that the Church in Scotland, the Church of Scotland is in such dire straights, because we are not particularly mature in our faith. Sure we can probably do the justice thing reasonably okay. We are very active and we help other people and we try our best to be good people, but that has capped us because we have bought into that thing that “well I’m an introvert our faith is very personal” or “I don’t feel comfortable with this” and so we hit a ceiling. But we need to get through that ceiling if we are to grow and if we are to see the Church grow as well.

I think I was very blessed that when I came to faith at nineteen. Within a month I started university and I came into an environment within the Christian Union there where it was just natural that you shared your faith, you sought to do it. Now we did it in some terrible ways – surveys and street preaching and different things and I’m not advocating any of that! But I grew phenomenally in my faith, in confidence in my faith, and until actually you have to try and articulate what you believe and why you believe it and help others to engage with that,
your growth is stunted. Or trying to share your testimony – if you can’t share your testimony, and I’m not saying you have to do it on Testimony Tuesday, but if you can’t share that testimony, if you can’t share how you journeyed in faith and came to faith and have grown in faith and how your faith has made a difference to you, again, your growth will be capped, And the number of people who have said either during Testimony Tuesday or after Testimony Tuesday “Actually, that was really scary at first but it really helped me” – there’s quite a few who have said that – and so if we are to grow as ambassadors, if we are to grow as disciples we need to follow the model of Jesus and we need to learn ways to share our faith. Now it might not be in public ways, it might not be in Testimony Tuesday, it might not be as I do it, but somehow, some way we need to learn to grow and share our faith.

Because point two of the really important reasons for sharing our faith is about the future of the Church in this area and in Scotland, anywhere. Let’s turn to Acts chapter 11 at verse 19. Acts 11 verse 19 – “Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed, travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.”

Another key reason for heeding the call of Jesus to be as ambassadors, to go make disciples, to share the good news of the Lord Jesus and of His kingdom, is that’s how the Church grows. If the disciples had just stuck to the Jews or if the disciples, because they faced persecution in difficult times, had decided just to become very personal about their faith or retreat, then things would just have died out, in that area, maybe even more broadly. But they didn’t. They were bold. They would not allow what they had experienced to stay for them and so they spoke about the good news and the Church grew. A great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

You know I think most of us are aware that the Church is declining in Scotland and particularly in the Church of Scotland i think the statistics are something like in the last 20 years the membership of the Church of Scotland has halved, halved, has halved. It is really quite small now in comparison to what it used to be. The population that would identify as Christian and as having an active faith is much smaller than it used to be. And this is true also of Brightons. I don’t think we always are aware of it because when we’ve been able to gather in person and we we’ve also had quite a busy Sunday service and we so we think we’re doing pretty well and we feel quite secure and it kind of insulates us a little bit. But, for example, in the last two years in my time we’ve had 23 deaths and by the end of January, hopefully, we’ll have about 17 new members because there’s hopefully some new members joining us just before Christmas. So that’s pretty good but that is not average and still we are declining there and let’s not overlook that.

Or, for example, I dug into some of the statistics as well: currently only 35% of our membership is under 65 versus 81% nationally within Scotland. 35% under 65, 81% nationally. And that’s important because, well the Church doesn’t just happen. If we are to sustain what we do, if we’re to expand what we’re going to do, then we do need to see people coming in. We do need to go out and be able to share our faith because in 10 years time, if things don’t significantly change, we’ll have 20% under 65 versus what is projected to be 76% nationally. 20%, 20%! And, to be honest, that 35 to 20% just now, it’s already stretched in a lot of ways. If I look around and I’m looking around for someone to do a job or do something else I’m often having to ask people who are already doing a lot.

We need to understand that Brightons faces this issue as much as any other Church. Yes, we’re unable to do a lot just now but if things don’t change there is going to come a point in the next five, ten years when we’re gonna have to stop doing what we do if things don’t change. We’re gonna have to not shut up shop, but we might not be able to keep running Boys Brigade, Girls Brigade, Sunday School, Pre-Fives as we’ve been doing. All these things that we take great joy in and we’ve got history and we’ve been running it for decades. Some of this is going to stop if we’re not more active about sharing our faith, and that’s a reality we just have to become aware of.

And we all have to be part of it. It can’t just rest on me or select group, the extroverts, those that are comfortable and confident in their faith. We all need to be involved in this because a large part of my time, for example, is getting taken up with other things. And that’s okay because I think we’re in a season where ministers across the Church of Scotland are going to have a much broader kind of remit. It’ll be a bit more strategic. It’ll be a bit more strategic and where time is invested to grow and train up others because the model that we’ve inherited of ministers being heavily pastoral and kind of neglecting the development aspect and the strategic aspect, is just not working anymore. That has to change. We probably have to go back to a little bit more of what Jesus did where he had the 12 and he invested heavily and then he had the 72 and we see that kind of transition in ministers. Aand so that does require us to transition in how we do Church as well.
So, for our own maturity and growth, we need to get involved in sharing our faith. For the future of our Church, for the spread of the gospel we need to get involved in sharing our faith.

But also, for those that we are seeking to reach out to, we need to share our faith as well.

Let’s jump to John chapter 3. John chapter 3 at verse 5 – “Jesus said to Nicodemus “Very truly I tell you, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit.”

Again and again across the scriptures, in every gospel, nearly every letter there is mentioned somewhere to the necessity of sharing the faith and helping others to choose to follow Jesus for their own benefit. Not just in the present time, because there is great benefit in the present time to following Jesus, that hope, that light, that joy, that peace that can only come through a relationship with Him is there, is for now, but they is also that eternal dynamic and we don’t speak often of it and I doubt you’re going to hear very many sermons of fire and brimstone from me you’ll be glad to hear, but there is an eternal dynamic to all this and we need to remember that. No-one can enter the kingdom of God unless they’re born of water and the spirit.

Doesn’t give very much leeway – and I know we get pretty uncomfortable with that. I get pretty uncomfortable with that. It’s not often part of my chat with people but it seems to be a reality within the scriptures.
,
And then, particularly in today’s society, we are uncomfortable with that dynamic and we seek maybe to try and get ways around it or we allow ourselves to be shaped by the culture rather than by the scriptures. So, for example, there was there is a Christian author called Rob Bell – he was a pastor in the States and for a long time. I really revered Rob Bell his messages were relevant understandable, very helpful, and we did some DVD series called Nooma and they were great, very powerful. And I think I’ve maybe read a couple of these books but I had friends that read his material and I think I’d listen to sermons and such like, but then Rob Bell produced a book called Love Wins and on this cover that sounds very appealing. Doesn’t it? Love Wins! Who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t want to share that message? But really his message wasn’t watertight. It lacked substance and you read the book and got to the end of it and basically all that he had was a hope and a prayer. Even if that, to be honest. A hope that there might be another chance that once we die maybe we’ll have the opportunity to appreciate something of God in Jesus and there’ll be another chance, that was where he ended up kind of landing –

but he his argument was pretty flimsy.

I think most of us would like that to be the case. I think most of us really want love to win,

and we see that in – I think we still see that in the scriptures that the love of God wins. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. Love still wins, but love is still just love does not delight in evil, and so God can’t overlook sin. There is an eternal dynamic to things.

And I think we have a hope that stands up and is greater than Rob Bell’s flimsy argument that let’s hope that there’s another chance on the other side. We don’t need that flimsy hoping argument, We have a hope in Jesus and all you need to do is put your faith in Him and bow the knee to Him. And yeah that’s huge, and it’s costly in different ways but Wow! I would never turn my back on Him now, because following Jesus, having bent the knee to Jesus, has changed my life for the better, And His wisdom, His ways are so much better than mine or any others I’ve ever come across.

So, there’s an eternal dynamic, but as we know, and see within Luke chapter 15, we have a heavenly Father who welcomes us home, who is waiting to welcome us home, and not only waiting to welcome us home, he sacrifices something of Himself to welcome us all.

Luke 15 at verse 20 – “So the younger son got up and went to his father, but while he was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants “Quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened in calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and this found. So they began to celebrate.”

In Advent we remember the love of God that sent his Son into the world. The person, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, God himself came into our broken world, into our darkness, to seek and save the lost. You and me, This world. And He’s not just waiting, He’s pursuing. There is that welcome home to everyone, and we are called to share that message. To make it known. We are called to be ambassadors of this incredible good news, this incredible invitation, this incredible welcome home from God.

And if we want to grow in our faith, if we want our Church to grow and if we want individuals to know, the joy, the blessing, the hope that only comes through Jesus, both for this life and for the next, we need to share our faith. We need to learn how to share our faith. We need to have boldness and not allow the excuses that we’ve used and utilized for so long to hinder us and cap us and restrict us and stunt us. We need to cast them aside Church.

And we need to go out into our neighborhoods, into our families and friends and one way or another share the faith.

I’m not saying I have all the answers. I’m not even sure necessarily how to do this, but if we don’t have a deep conviction, our future actions won’t change.

So, may we heed the invitation of Jesus. May we have that deep conviction and begin to explore ways, even this advent season, of sharing the welcome of God.

Amen

Let us take a moment to pray.

Our God and Heavenly Father, through Your Son You have called us to a high calling, an important calling, to share the good news of Jesus and of Your kingdom breaking into the world, of that welcome home to one and all. I pray that You would come and fill us afresh with Your Spirit and give to us a holy boldness to invite someone this Advent, to consider the welcome of God and then into the New Year Lord teach us your ways, give to us opportunities, help us to become more proactive in sharing our faith. Maybe it’s as simple as saying “I will pray for you” maybe even there in person on the phone “Can I pray with you just now?” Lord, who knows there are many ways that You might lead us in this and equip us but Lord it begins with a deep conviction and I would ask that we would have a deep conviction and that from us empowered by Your Spirit, Your gospel, Your message would ring out loud and clear across this area and through your people, to see Your Church grow. to see Your Kingdom grow, to see You receive more glory and honour in Your rightful place and to see people come to know You, come to know Your joy and Your hope and Your peace and Your love and Your purposes both for now

and for all eternity

I ask this Father in Jesus name. Amen

Persevere in your calling (Haggai 2:1-9)

Preached on: Sunday 27th October 2019
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. Additionally, you can download the PowerPoint PDF by clicking here 19-10-27-Brightons-Powerpoint-Scott-sermon.
Bible references: Haggai 2:1-9; Acts 18:1-11
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Texts: Haggai 2:1-9; Acts 18:1-11
Sunday 27th October 2019
Brightons Parish ChurchLet us pray. May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of all our hearts, be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

I wonder if you struggle with church as it currently is? I wonder if you feel disgruntled about how things are done now-a-days? Or I wonder if you compare our present state as a congregation, or as a national church, even the state of our country, to what it used to be? For some of us, we may have vivid memories of Sunday School numbers in their hundreds, or of the singular focus on a Sunday being church and family life. And maybe you compare what we have now-a-days to that time and you may struggle with that comparison – it may grieve you, sadden you, and maybe even provoke the thought that what we have now is nothing compared to what once was.
You may assume, that such things are felt only by older generations, and so you may also assume that this message is going to be aimed at those of you amongst the older generations – but that is not so.

Feelings of dissatisfaction, even disillusionment with our present experience of church, are not limited to older generations. Those who are younger may not look back to the glory days of a particular congregation, or even to the glory days of a denomination or country, but they may look back to moments when God moved in power in particular places, or even their own lives, those moments when God seemed much nearer than He does in today’s church.

What’s more, there can be a tendency, across the generations, to hark back even further still – to the early church in the first century and to yearn for those days when the faith was new, and the Spirit moved in such power and the growth and vibrancy of Christianity turned a whole empire upside down.

Dissatisfaction and disillusionment are not limited to any one generation; we all feel it at one time or another.

You may even have felt your despondency and pessimism increase another notch with the recently proposed Presbytery Plan with the reduction in ministers for the Braes area – maybe that news provoked you to think that we are simply managing decline and that the future of the Church in this area is doomed with such a trajectory.
In every age, across all the generations, spanning thousands of years, God’s people have had times and seasons where dissatisfaction and disillusionment rise up. In what we read in Haggai today we see those very same feelings.

God’s people had returned from exile in Babylonia some twenty years before Haggai began his ministry. A small fraction of the total Jewish community had returned and begun the reconstruction work, but strong opposition from neighbouring peoples soon brought the work to a standstill. And so, in the year 520BC, Haggai is called by the Lord to bring a prophetic message to God’s people; coming firstly with a word of challenge to the people, which we read about in Haggai 1 last week, and which Ian superbly covered in my stead…
We heard that the people did respond to the Lord’s challenge and they began the work on the temple.

But now a second prophetic word is brought by Haggai and yet it has a different tone. We read earlier today: ‘On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai…“Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?”’ (Haggai 2:1-3)

We can guess that during the intervening weeks between the first and second messages that efforts were concentrated on clearing the site of rubble, re-dressing stone, testing the walls for safety, and organizing teams of workmen. Such preparations on a sixty-year-old ruin, without any mechanical aids, would tax the endurance of even the most enthusiastic people, so no wonder there was a degree of frustration. But there was another factor.

Progress would have been delayed during the seventh month by the major Jewish festivals on which no work would be allowed. In addition to sabbath days, the first day of the seventh month was the Feast of Trumpets, and the tenth the Day of Atonement. Then on the fifteenth day the Feast of Tabernacles began.

So, how could there have been any measurable progress in such a short period of time considering the few days the builders had to work? And so, with seeing little real progress, pessimism once again may have set…in amongst God’s people, as they became overwhelmed… by their external circumstances and their internal expectations.

Indeed there was a small proportion of the remnant who remembered the first temple built in the days of King Solomon; a magnificent structure, full of glory in its material decoration, and at one time full of glory with the presence of the Lord dwelling in the Most Holy Place. Some could still remember that structure, which had been destroyed some 60 or 70 years earlier, and compared to it, what they saw before them in Haggai’s day was pathetic in their eyes, it was nothing.

And so, maybe people begin to question the call upon their lives – were we really called to return from exile?
Maybe we should have stayed in Babylon…
and enjoyed the good life. Were we really called to rebuild the temple when all we have is this heap of rocks? Maybe we should just give up; maybe our leaders were deluded or on an ego-trip; maybe it’s better to cut our losses and downsize our dreams and mothball any sense of calling we had to this.

And into that situation God sends Haggai once more – not with a message of challenge, but with a word of encouragement, of exhortation, and the Lord gives two specific encouragements so that His people persevere in their calling.

Firstly, the people are exhorted to find strength in the Lord’s presence. We read today:
‘“But now be strong, Zerubbabel,” declares the Lord. “Be strong, Joshua…Be strong, all you people of the land,” declares the Lord, “and work. For I am with you,” declares the Lord Almighty. “This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you.”’ (Haggai 2:4-5)

Be strong and work, for my Spirit remains among you. In one form or another this promise is said by God to His people over 50 times across the Old and New Testaments:
• “let them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.” (Exodus 25:8)
• “go and make disciples of all nations…surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew
28:19-20)

• “One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you…’” (Acts 18:9-10)

Each time the Lord placed a calling upon His people and promised to be with them.

What is also striking is the similarity of the words from Haggai with what is said to an earlier Joshua in the history of Israel, a Joshua who also led God’s people in equally challenging times. In the book of Joshua we read this:
“After the death of Moses…the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant: ‘Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the River Jordan into the land I am about to give to them…As
I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you…Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.’ (Joshua 1:1-2, 5, 9)

On both occasions, separated by hundreds of years, we find a Joshua leading the people, and into both situations God speaks a word of encouragement to strengthen them for the calling upon their lives. Now the word of encouragement that would give strength was similar in both contexts: ‘Be strong…for the Lord your God will be with you’ (Joshua 1:9), or in Haggai: ‘Be strong…for I am with you…my Spirit remains among you.’ (Haggai 2:4-5)

In both periods it was a crucial encouragement, for in one
Moses had just died, their leader. He was the one… through whom God had brought them out of slavery in Egypt, and the people would wonder, is God with us still?

In Haggai’s time, the people had returned from exile, but after twenty years little had been accomplished with regard to the temple, and maybe they too wondered: is God with us? Does He want this calling fulfilled? Has He given up on us?

Into both situations, God speaks a word of encouragement – “I am with you, I am among you, press on”. At both times, the people of God needed to persevere in the calling upon their lives, and to do so they needed to be strong: strong of conviction, strong in hope, strong in faith that the Lord would come through for them and strong in faith that the Lord would work through them to accomplish His purposes.

But to find and keep that strength, they needed to have and know the presence of God in their midst. They needed to shake off disillusionment and dissatisfaction by turning their focus upon the Lord, who was among them and working through them, for with a focus on Him the people of God would find new vigour for the calling upon their lives.

I wonder friends, is that what we may be need at this time? In the midst of our dissatisfaction and our disillusionment, do we need to pursue the Lord Himself? In whatever way we may be feeling despondent and pessimistic, whether it be in comparing things…
to how they once were, or frustrations with the present, or what the future might look like in our Braes area, do you need to seek the Lord’s presence and face?

Because, as I emphasised in the latter weeks of our previous series, we have God’s Spirit in an even greater way than what the Lord’s people did in Haggai’s day. Back then, they relied on prophets and leaders, for it was only key people who had the Spirit of God upon them.

But in this age, through all that Jesus won for us, every person who calls themselves a Christian, is a temple of the Spirit, you have the Spirit of God living within you, and so any Christian can seek and know the Lord’s presence in greater and more intimate ways than those to whom Haggai spoke.
Friends, there have been too many instances to count when this has been the case for myself. Even just last week in my own devotions, the Lord gave words of encouragement in the times I spent with Him to sustain me in the call upon my life. Key, for me, and indeed for any of us, is the Bible – it is God’s principle way of speaking to us, and we need to be in the Word so that we can hear God’s words of encouragement, strength and affirmation.

But – it is in the real, dynamic, up-close presence of the Lord that we find strength not to crack up under the demands upon us, nor to give in to the worries that assail us, or turn bitter and judgmental in our present time.

In our dissatisfaction and disillusionment – will we heed the encouragement of the Lord, to draw near to Him and to know that He is with us?

If you’re not sure how to go about this, then one practical step would be to listen to the sermon from the 17th of March this year, and download the resources from our church website for that date on the “sermons” page.

But equally, you could join a Fellowship Group, get a copy of the Bible reading notes, come along to one of our prayer times. But let us seek the Lord, one way or another, for He is with us and in His presence we find strength to persevere in our calling.

Now, the Lord also gave a second exhortation to the people of Haggai’s time, for He said:
‘“Do not fear…[For]…In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory…The silver is mine and the gold is mine,” declares the Lord Almighty. “The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house…And in this place I will grant peace.”’ (Haggai 2:6-9)

In this portion of prophecy, the people are exhorted to overcome fear, they were exhorted to find courage, by trusting in the Lord’s promises. They are to trust that God will move in power and accomplish the calling He has laid upon His people.

The fear that they would have felt would have been of the mighty nations that surrounded them. This remnant of the Jewish people are in a struggling province on the edge of the great Persian empire, dwarfed by it and by the stronger provinces around them. Fear had been evident in the early days of their return from exile, and once again fear is beginning to rise up.

Understandably so, we might say – for they have been called to rebuild the temple, there is opposition against them still, and they have no idea where the resources are going to come from, especially in light of such a poor harvest – where will they get the money for the elaborate decoration that the temple demands?

And so, into this situation comes the word of God, a word exhorting them to have courage by trusting in the Lord’s promises. He promises “once more” to shake “the heavens and the earth…[indeed to] shake all nations.”

Now, the reference here to “once more” is to jolt their memory back to other times when the Lord caused a shaking upon the land and amongst the nations. In particular, we reed in the book of Exodus:
“Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire…and the whole mountain trembled violently.” (Exodus 19:16-19)

Here the land shook because of the presence of the Lord. As for the shaking of nations, the exodus of God’s people from Egypt shook that nation to its core, as the Psalmist recalls for us in Psalm 114.

And so, God makes a promise in Haggai’s day to shake cosmos and the nations again, such that “what is desired by all nations will come” – i.e. wealth, treasure – and so financial, material provision will be made for the calling upon God’s people to rebuild the temple.

Indeed, if we were to go into the book of Ezra, where we reed of the wider story and what is happening around and through the people, then we come to see that soon after this prophecy God did meet their financial need.

In chapter 6 of the book of Ezra, we reed that the very opponents of God’s people,…
the opponents who had hoped to bring the building work to a halt, well these opponents were ordered by the emperor to pay in full the cost of the temple repairs (Ezra 6:8–12).

But the people first had to respond in faith – they had to trust in the Lord’s promises, so that courage could arise, fear be overcome, and the work continue. They could have held back, they could have played it safe, but instead they responded in faith, then the doors began to open, then the resources were provided, and God’s purposes for this time were fulfilled.

We might be tempted to spiritualize these material elements of Haggai’s prophecy. But the Lord did promise to provide His people with the material resources…
for the building of His kingdom purposes. His provision is simply a sign of His sovereignty over these resources as Creator and Sustainer of the cosmos.

And the same is true for the church. This same sovereign God promises to provide the resources for kingdom work in material as well as spiritual ways. The church, as the place of God’s presence today, as His present temple, needs material resources to carry out the Great Commission given to us by Jesus, and God does promise to provide those resources (see Phil. 4:10–20; Matt. 6).

Indeed, in this very year, your giving has confirmed this – God has more than given the resources we need as a congregation, because our level of income has gone up significantly…
The question has always been, whether we would be open handed with it; would we give sacrificially, and thankfully we have, we have responded to God’s sovereign provision in our lives with generosity towards His Kingdom work.

But let us take the principle of these verses beyond material provision, and let me ask you this friends, what are the promises we are clinging to by faith for our present time? As we face potentially radical changes in how we do church in the Braes area; as we compare church now to church as it once was – what are the promises of God that we are clinging to?

For we need to have those promises and cling to them, because it can be tempting, especially in hard times, especially in times of dissatisfaction and disillusionment to play it safe, or to bunker down.

But to live in step with the God of Haggai is to place ourselves in the dangerous position of trusting in God’s promises; it is placing ourselves in the dangerous position of grasping the hand of our Creator and Redeemer, and walking into the unknown with Him.

Personally, I find some of the promises of Jesus helpful: “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Matthew 16:18)

Or that passage where Jesus said to the disciples:
“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

God used Haggai to call a generation to experience God in the present, not only in similar ways to the past, but in ways that would dwarf the past. That is akin to what Jesus meant when He said: “you will do even greater things than these”. We often see the past as setting up patterns that are insurmountable. But Haggai encourages us to see the past as only setting precedents that can provide a springboard to even greater miracles.

To a people who were wavering, laid low with dissatisfaction and disillusionment, the encouragement of God through Haggai is to persevere in your calling by finding strength in the Lord’s presence and courage through the Lord’s promises.
I pray we may be such a people as well, a people who resolve to seek and trust the Lord always. May it be so.
Amen.

The proclaimed Kingdom

Preached on: 6th October 2019
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. Additionally, you can download the PowerPoint PDF by clicking here 19-10-06-Brightons-Powerpoint-Scott-sermon.
Bible references: Acts 1:1-9 and 1 Corinthians 12:7-14
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Texts: Acts 1:1-9 and 1 Corinthians 12:7-14
Sunday 6th October 2019
Brightons Parish ChurchLet us pray. May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of all our hearts, be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Last week in our current sermon series on ‘the kingdom of God’ we saw that in Jesus the Kingdom of God came, that when He came to earth He was the embodiment of God’s people, God’s place, His rule, King and blessing. Hopefully we went home thinking about that, excited about who Jesus is, and ready to be part of His Kingdom.

Because when Jesus was here with His disciples, after His resurrection, they were excited, they were expectant. For forty days after He rose from the dead Jesus taught them about the Kingdom of God, and it prompted one of the disciples, we don’t who, to ask this question:
‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ (Acts 1:6)

Gathered around Jesus, expectant of what might happen, because He’s just come back from the dead, they start to wonder: is this it? Is this when we’ll see all our hopes and dreams for the kingdom of God realised?

But within the space of minutes, we read this about Jesus: ‘After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.’ (Acts 1:9)

Jesus leaves, He ascends to heaven, as He said He would do – He’s alive, but Jesus is now no longer present. What does this mean for the Kingdom of God? If Jesus…
is the embodiment of God’s kingdom, does that mean that the Kingdom of God is no longer present either?

Well, we did miss out a few important verses, in what we read this morning. Jesus had been teaching them about the Kingdom of God and reminded them that something was about to change. On one occasion he said: ‘Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’ (Acts 1:4-5)

And in response to the question He was asked, Jesus said this: ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8)

Jesus reminds them, time and time again, that they are going to receive the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, whom Jesus had during His ministry, this Spirit, whom only the greatest heroes and prophets in the Old Testament had known, well this Spirit was going to be given to the Church, to the disciples of Jesus.

Paul in His first letter to the Corinthians wrote these words:
‘Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. And so the body is not made up of one part but of many.’ (1 Cor. 12:12-14)
It is by the Spirit that we are formed into the body of Christ – that in sharing the Spirit we become united to Jesus, part of His body. And so, Paul affirms that the Spirit is given to all who claim to have placed their faith in Jesus – indeed, in writing to the Romans, Paul says:
‘…if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.’ (Romans 8:9)

You cannot be a Christian without the Spirit – the Spirit is essential – and if you have confessed Jesus as Lord, and called out to Him to be your Saviour, then the teaching of Scripture is that you have the Spirit, you have been given the Holy Spirit. But what does it mean, what are the implications? Well, let’s take our familiar headings, of
God’s people, God’s place, God’s rule and blessing, and see what the Spirit does for the Kingdom of God, and for you and me.
We’ll begin with God’s people. Last week, we looked at those verses from John’s gospel:
‘I am the vine; you are the branches.’ (John 15:5)

In calling Himself the ‘vine’, Jesus was saying that He is the true Israel, the embodiment of God’s people. But in calling His disciples the branches, Jesus affirms that God’s people includes all who are joined to Jesus. But how do you get joined to Jesus? Is it simply head knowledge, is it about knowing the right stuff? Is it about attending church?

Well, earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus had a meeting with Nicodemus, one of the Jewish leaders and we read this:

Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’
‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’

Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.’ (John 3:3-5)

We come into the Kingdom of God, we are joined to Jesus, we become part of God’s people, as the Spirit brings about a new birth. We are not then part of God’s people because we come to church, or because we are nice people, or even because of what we know about Jesus. And sadly, these ideas still persist, even today, not only within our culture, but within church folk. I’ve had people said to me, over the years…
that such and such is a Christian, or must be a Christian, because they are deeply religious, or display Christian values. But being deeply religious, being a good person, is not confined to the church – there is in most people, if not all people, a tendency towards being ‘religious’, it maybe just gets masked with other things.

I was with a friend the other day, and he recounted going to a football game, and he described the experience as like being at church – because football, the game, had become for some people their religion, the thing that was foundational to life, that gave purpose and meaning, to which they gave of themselves, even sacrificially. It is their religion, but many other things can be other people’s religion – family, success, the list is endless…
So, maybe we’re all religious about something, so being religious doesn’t mean that you’re part of God’s people, that you’re part of the Kingdom of God, even if you’re religious about church stuff.

Likewise, being a good person, isn’t confined to the church, and theologically we explain this because of what we read in Genesis – that we’re all made in the image of God, and even though that image is marred because of the fall, we still see something of God in all of us, there’s still good in people. And so, being a good person, doesn’t mean you’re part of God’s people, that you’re part of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’

Are you born again? You might ask, how can we know? So, here are a few ideas:
• John 16:7-10 – Jesus said that the Spirit would bring conviction of sin. Have you been convicted of your sin, and is the Spirit continuing to convict you of your sin? Because if you’ve never been convicted, or it’s been some time since you’ve been convicted, maybe you’re not in a good place with God.
• Romans 8:15 – Paul says that the Spirit brings about our adoption as children of God such that we know God as ‘Abba’, our heavenly Father. Do you know God that way? Is God intimate and known to you, is He real and personal? Because if God seems distant, if God is simply up in the sky to you, again maybe, you’re not in a good place with God – you might know about God, but maybe you’re missing out on that new birth.
• 2 Cor. 5:5-15 – Paul says that anyone who is a Christian has been given the Spirit, and an outworking of this, is that we should no longer live for ourselves but for Jesus who died for us and was raised again. Do you live for Jesus? Does He shape your choices, your values, your priorities? Because if Jesus is just a nice guy, or if you think about Jesus on a Sunday but the rest of the week you call the shots, then I’m afraid you’re may not be in a good place with God.

Jesus said, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’ You’re only part of God’s kingdom, you’re only part of His people, part of the body of Christ, if you are born again. You may not be able to say when it happened, but Jesus makes no if’s or but’s about this, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. So, are you born again?
As I said at the beginning, all who are God’s people are given the Spirit, not only to facilitate this new birth, but for other reasons as well.

Let’s look at God’s place. The kingdom of God includes God’s people living in God’s place, enjoying God’s presence. Before the Fall, God lived amongst His people in the garden of Eden. After the Fall, God formed a people for Himself and He took them to a land He would give, and He lived among them, He presenced Himself in the place of the tabernacle, and then eventually the temple.

However, last week we saw that Jesus is the embodiment of God’s place, because in Jesus the Word became flesh, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity moved into the neighbourhood. And so, we might say that Jesus is the true temple, the place of God’s presence.
But within the writings of the New Testament, we find another change because of the Spirit. Jesus is still the true temple, but because we are part of Jesus, by the Spirit, the language of ‘temple’ is extended in two ways. Firstly, in 1 Corinthians 6, we reed:
‘Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from
God?’

It’s a natural development of what we’ve seen already about the Spirit – if we individually are now part of Jesus, by the Spirit, then our very selves, are temples of the Spirit, He lives within each of us.

Secondly, we reed these words in Ephesians chapter 2: ‘In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.’
(Ephesians 2:21-22)

Paul describes the church as a building, with a foundation, with a chief cornerstone, such that together we are a holy temple in Jesus, a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. Now, this isn’t referring to us individually, but as a community – within us, as a community, God lives by His Spirit. So, God lives within us individually, but God lives within us a community; God’s place is within His Church, because His Church is within Jesus by the Spirit.
Now, if we are God’s people and so also the place of God’s presence, all because we are in Jesus Christ by the Spirit, then this really should have an impact, don’t you think?

I think it should, and it should have an impact in at least two ways. Firstly, it should have an impact on us individually, on how we live and on what we do with our lives. This is part of the reason why Paul in His letters will say in one form or another: ‘…I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.’ (Eph. 4:1)

You are God’s people, you are God’s temple, so live as such, and we do so by living under the rule of God, just as Jesus did. Paul will detail, in every letter, what this looks
like, but he will also remind them…
that it is by the Spirit that we are enabled to live under the rule of God. For example, he writes in Romans: ‘…by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body…’ (Romans 8:13)

When we trust in Jesus and are born again, we are saved from the penalty of sin by the death of Jesus. In a future day, when Jesus returns, we will be saved from the presence of sin. But in our present time, we are being saved from the power of sin. And so, although we shall
never be sinless this side of heaven, God the Spirit is at work within us to help us fight sin and become more like Jesus.

The Spirit is ready to help us grow in love of God and love of neighbour, so where do you need the Spirit’s help?
What is the sin over which you need the power of the Spirit to break free?…
Where in your life, do you need power to pursue the things of God and His ways? In some cases it will take time to change, as you partner with the Spirit, and that will bring greater maturity of character. But in other cases, the change can be more instantaneous. Where do you need the power of the Spirit to live under the rule of God?

I said earlier, that now we are God’s people and His temple, then it should have an impact in at least two ways, and the second way it should have an impact, is through us to the people around us.Remember that
promise given to Abraham: ‘You will be a blessing…and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ (Genesis 12:2-3)

What we have, and who we are, is meant to ripple out and affect the world around us. As Jesus said in our passage today: ‘…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8)

The blessings that we have in Father God through Jesus by the Spirit are not just for us, not just available to us – we are meant to help others know the blessing of God for themselves; we are meant to be a signpost to God, an ambassador of His kingdom.

And again, in this the Spirit helps us, that by His work in us, changing our character into the likeness of Jesus, love for neighbour should be seen. And so, bringing a donation for the Foodbank should be a natural expression of who we are, but this really shouldn’t be a one-off, this should be regular and generous, if we are going to live up to our calling.
We can also be a signpost, a witness, to God in other ways. For example, our reading in Corinthians reminds us that we are each given gifts by the Spirit of God for the good of the Church and for our corporate mission. Are we giving ourselves to the ministry of this congregation? You have been given gifts to further and strengthen what God would do amongst us and through us. Are you playing your part?

But love of neighbour, and use of gifts, are only two ways that the Spirit works in us to impact the world around us. I came across a challenging quote this week, which read: ‘We cannot claim to be filled with the Spirit as individuals or as [congregations] if we are not active in evangelism; [for] the Spirit’s great concern is to lead people to Christ.’
(Vaughan Roberts, God’s Big Picture, page 136)
I wonder what you make of that. I suspect a lot of us will be uncomfortable with it. We’ll push back. We’ll try to argue against it, maybe we’ll say: “I’m introverted”, or “it’s the minister’s job”, “or I don’t know how to share my faith”. But this writer is correct is saying that the Spirit’s great concern, even His greatest concern, is to lead people to faith in Jesus.

But the Spirit seeks to do that through God’s people, and the testimony of the church is that from the very beginning, in the book of Acts, up to our modern day, that individuals and churches who share their faith are also individuals and churches who are full and overflowing with the Spirit. They might not know how to do it, but they will try or they will try to learn; it will be an itch that needs attention, so they might read, or go on courses,… or give it a shot and make really bad mistakes, but they will have a burden to share their faith.

And where that burden is weak, or non-existent, in an individual or a community, then it’s not to say that you don’t have the Spirit, for all in Christ do, but the Scriptures say that we can ‘quench’ the Spirit, we can turn off the tap, with regard to the Spirit’s influence in our lives. The Scriptures also say we can ‘grieve’ the Spirit, and so whether it be by quenching, or whether it be by grieving, there are ways we can become less full of the Spirit, because the Spirit will not give of Himself in great measure to a people, or to a person, who resists, or outright rejects, the Spirit’s concerns and activity. His principle concern is to see people come to know Jesus, and if we do not share that concern, if it is not a burden of our hearts, then He may well hold back a little,…
and that may go a little way to explaining why our denomination, and the Western Church, is in such dire straits. Friends, let’s not kid ourselves: if we don’t share the concern of the Spirit, then maybe we have a lack of the Spirit, individually and as a community.

But that too can change, quickly and powerfully, as we respond to the Spirit’s promptings through the Word, as we say “yes” to Him, as we give of ourselves in prayer for His concerns.

Friends, I want to play for you a video that speaks of what the Spirit can do in our lives, and in the lives of anyone. It’s a video that we saw on Wednesday night at Alpha, so apologies to those who have already seen it, but I found it deeply moving. (PLAY VIDEO)
Brothers and sisters, friends, the Kingdom of God came in the person of Jesus 2000 years ago but even though we can’t see Jesus, He is still extending His kingdom by the Spirit of God. That Spirit invites us to experience a new birth, of being joined to Christ, part of God’s people, such that we become a dwelling place of God, individually and corporately. To each who has the Spirit, there is power over sin, there are gifts for service, and there is a call to be a witness through love and the sharing of the Good News, so that the rule of God and the blessing of God, might extend to the nations.

I pray that we would be a people, together and individually, who are full of the Spirit, and as such see the
Kingdom of God come in our midst. May it be so. Amen.

Continuing ministry of Jesus: our role

Preached on: Sunday 24th February 2019
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. Additionally, you can download the PowerPoint PDF by clicking here 19-02-24-Brightons-Powerpoint-Scott-sermon-morning-website (1).
Bible references: Acts 2:42-47 and Matthew 5:13-16
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Texts: Acts 2:42-47 and Matthew 5:13-16
Sunday 24th February 2019
Brightons Parish ChurchLast week we took out first look at the verses from the end of Acts chapter 2 and specifically focused on verse 42. If you missed that week, or forget what was said, then you can now access the latest sermons online via our website, and thank you to our team who have made that possible. Last week we saw that the life and vibrancy of the early church flowed from them dwelling in Jesus and Jesus dwelling in them; that as “they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…the Lord added to their number.”

We saw that these four key facets of church life were like the four wheels to a car or four key ingredients to a cake, that there is no good life without the Good Lord.

I encouraged you to think about how you might live out these verses in your own life and we had some time to talk that over with one another. So, for 1 minute, why don’t we turn to our neighbour and share what came of that discussion? Maybe you did something, thought something, prayed something – so, for 1 minute, it’s over to you again – what came out of last Sunday for you?!

(PAUSE FOR DISCUSSION)

Throughout this series in Acts we have seen again and again that a key theme is the continuing ministry of Jesus and that we (each) are invited to play our part, we are all invited into the adventure of partnering with Jesus. One commentator on the book of Acts points out that the author of Acts never attributes the growth which took place primarily to the preaching of the apostles; indeed, as we see in our reading today: “All the believers…[were] enjoying the favour of all the people.” (v44, 47) This favour that the whole church was experiencing would have given opportunity for them individually to share their faith with friends and colleagues and neighbours – this would have involved all the disciples, not just the apostles – and from this, the seeds of faith were sown and the apostles watered, and God, by His Spirit, brought about a great response.
So, if last week was primarily focused on how we each can walk closely with the Good Lord, then this week we are faced with the question: how can we adventure with the Good Lord? How can we play our part in His continuing ministry? Maybe you don’t think of it as an adventure, but in this next video let English Bishop J John tell you why it really is an adventure! (VIDEO)

As a follower of Jesus we are involved in God’s global mission – it really is an adventure. So, again, like last week, I am going to try and limit what I say on these verses, to give you as much of the remaining time to chat amongst yourselves.

I’ve summarised the verses here as: wonder, wallet and welcome.

• So, firstly, “wonder”: “everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles” – these wonders and signs provoked awe, probably provoked questions. They were given as signs to the Jewish people to highlight that their hopes and dreams were now being fulfilled through Jesus, that the dawn of a new age had come, and the kingdom of God was breaking in to this world. But it wasn’t just the apostles who provoked wonder or questions, as I said last week, the church at large impacted the wider Roman culture. And in chapter six of Acts, Stephen is described as “a man full of God’s grace and power, [who] performed wonders and signs among the people” – so the miraculous wasn’t limited to just the apostles. But the principle is this: whether through the miraculous or through love in action,…
the church at large stirred up wonder, they provoked healthy, positive questions. A small book I read last year talks about this, it’s called ‘Surprise the world’ and in it, Michael Frost suggests that “all believers [are] to live questionable lives…lives that evoke questions from their friends…our task is to surprise the world.” How can we do that? He suggests that we should seek to bless others, understanding that “bless” means to “strengthen the arm of another”. Maybe through our words, our acts of kindness, through a gift and of course our time. So, maybe there is someone in your street you can seek to bless? Or what about prayer? Many of us have a conversation with a friend about an issue in their life, and we listen and we nod and we give comfort, but that’s as far as we go. Yet, would it not provoke a question, maybe wonder, if we said,…
“I’ll pray tonight for you about that.” Or indeed, if we go that extra step, and say, “Can I pray with you just now about that?” No one’s ever turned me down, even before I was a minister, and with a one sentence prayer, you could both strengthen and stir up a little wonder.
It’s a great way to adventure with Jesus.

• Secondly, “wallet”: “all the believers…had everything in common…They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need” – last week we saw that the believers devoted themselves to fellowship, to “koinonia”, the sharing of life. That sharing, as we see here, went as far as to touch the wallet and the purse, for property was sold according to need; it wasn’t enforced sharing or communism, but it was sacrificial sharing of life for the benefit of one another.
So, can I ask, when was the last time you reviewed your giving to church? Many of us may give through standing order, but have left that unchanged for some time. Or, when was the last time you donated to the Foodbank? So, this week, or in the coming month, why not think about whether you can adventure with Jesus through your wallet or purse?

• Lastly, “welcome”: “they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” – last week in v42, we saw that the disciples devoted themselves to “the” breaking of bread, but here it is simply that they broke bread and ate together, a subtle difference. Their sharing of life together included the sharing of meals, of hospitality. It was done with
“sincere hearts” –
which means it was done without pretence, but simply and with generosity. It stands in contrast to our individualist age. Prior to coming to Brightons we lived in Dalkeith, in a new housing scheme, with lots of folks that didn’t go to church. We would talk with neighbours quite regularly, but not once, I’m embarrassed to say, did I invite them in for a meal, and likewise they didn’t either. Maybe that’s the reason why the conversation only went so far. It’s just so easy in our time, in our country, to run the rat race, and go from one little box to another little box, rarely interacting with those around us.

But if we opened up our homes, to folks on our street who don’t come to church, then it might open doors to deeper sharing, it might help lonely people…

find a place where they are valued and accepted. You don’t have to necessarily invite the young families, if you don’t feel able to do that – if you reached out to someone your age, or someone 10 or 20 years younger than you, and over time if they decided to give church another try, even at the age of 40, 50, 60, 70 – then that might stir up questions in their children or grandchildren, and who knows where that might lead. So, inviting the neighbours ‘round might look different for each of us, and that’s OK. But let’s not allow embarrassment over furniture or fear of serving an inadequate meal hold us back; to do so is simply letting pride get in the way.

So, once more, let’s break into small groups and talk about what it might look like for us to adventure with Jesus in these areas – and, again, if you can, try to come up with one more thing you personally could do to partner with Jesus in His continuing ministry.

(PAUSE FOR DISCUSSION)

Friends, whether it be through one of these three ways, or by reading the vacancy list and volunteering for a role there, we each are called to adventure with Jesus. As our reading from Matthew highlighted, the nature and character of our lives proves the reality of our faith: we are salt and light if we claim to be Christian, and that saltiness, that inner light, cannot actually be lost…
so it should be evident in our lives and through our lives to the people around us.

That has always been God’s plan – for you and I to play our part in the continuing ministry of Jesus. God has no “plan B” – it’s you and me adventuring with Jesus that will help change this world. And maybe as we lean in to that, through wonder, through our wallet, through our welcome, we might waken up people out there to the fact that the kingdom of God is near at hand and the light of the world is Jesus, and then they too might glorify our Father in heaven.

May it be so. Amen.

We seek to invite, encourage and enable people of all ages to follow Jesus Christ.

Acts