The Possibilities of Robots (Wonder Zone wk.5)

Preached on: Sunday 26th July 2020
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 20-07-26-Message-PPT-slides.
Bible references: Luke 15:11-24
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Text: Luke 15:11-24 (NIV)
Sunday 26th July 2020
Brightons Parish ChurchLet us take a moment to pray before we think about God’s Word.

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.

Boys and girls, do any of you have robotic toys? That’s a toy which is electronic and programmed to do something. My daughter Hope has this robotic horse. It’s programmed to make noises or move on these wheels or shake and turn its head if you brush it with this comb or try and feed it some of its toy food.

Or, do any of you have a voice assistant? Maybe you have
Alexa at home, or maybe an adult you know has Google Assistant or Siri on their phone? It’s incredible how many things you can ask a voice assistant, and the ways they can help with everyday life – Alexa, add chocolate to the shopping list!

Robots, computers and artificial intelligences are amazing – they can do many things we can’t do, in places we can’t go yet. For example, just last week a robot was launched to the planet Mars to go explore it, because we’re not ready to send human beings yet. Other times, robots can seem very similar to us and do the same things as we do, like Alexa talking and answering questions.

But today’s robots, computers and artificial intelligences are not able to make emotional choices. They might be good at playing your favourite music for you, but they can’t choose to be someone’s friend, and they don’t make decisions that aren’t good for them. But we can choose to be friends with people and we can make bad choices.

I wonder, if you could design a robot or voice assistant to help with something, what would that be? Would it be to do your homework? Would it be to cut the grass, iron the clothes, make the dinner? I’ll give you 30 seconds to think or talk about that at home.
(PAUSE)

If you like, put up in the Live Chat what your design would help with. Sometimes, the choices we make can have unexpected consequences. Like, if you had a voice assistant do all your homework, then you would miss out on learning important things and that could make life boring or hard when you are older. Or, if you wanted a robot to do all your cooking, then you wouldn’t know how make a delicious meal for your family and you might feel a bit useless. So, the choices we make can have unexpected consequences.

The younger son in our story today made some choices. Can you remember what they were? First, he made the choice to ask his dad for money, but not just a little money, this younger son was asking for the money that he would only get when his dad had died. Basically, he was saying, “Dad, I wish you were dead now, so I can go away and have a good time.” That doesn’t seem like a good choice, to hurt the people around us.

Or, what about his choice to use that money in a bad way – he was selfish with it and wasted the money, in fact he made so many bad choices with his money that he ended up poor, homeless and left with a job that no one would want. More bad choices.

So, the choices we make can have unexpected consequences. Sure, it seemed like a great idea to ask for the money and to go spend in the way he did, but the end result showed that his choices were poor choices.

But why was Jesus telling this story? What choices was He thinking about? Well, before Jesus started telling this story, we read these words: ‘Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”’ (v1-2)

Here was Jesus sitting with a bunch of people who had made some bad choices. Tax collectors had chosen to betray their country and their neighbours, often to get rich. Sinners has chosen to reject God ways and live life the way they wanted. And both groups would have known the bad choices they made; both groups could resonate with the younger son, and might be thinking,
“that’s just like my life, and the bad choices I’ve made.”

Now, everyone knew that tax collectors and sinners were not the best people, everyone knew you shouldn’t hang around them with, yet here was Jesus doing that – and this really bothered the religious leaders of the day, because if Jesus was really the promised messiah then why was he hanging out with them, rather than doing what was expected. And so, Jesus tells a story, He tells a story about choices – about the choices we make, and the choices God makes, and both our choices and God’s choices have consequences.

All of us, at one time or another, have made a choice like the younger son. The Father in the story is a picture of God, and we make choices all the time that tell God to take a hike, we make choices all the time that tell God we don’t care for Him, we make choices all the time that say “I want my life but I don’t want you” – even though God gave us this life.

How do you think that makes God feel? How do you think it feels, when the person you love tells you something like that? I’ll give you another 30 seconds to talk or think about that at home. (PAUSE)

In Jesus’ day, everyone knew that tax collectors and sinners had told God to take a hike, that God and His priorities could die for all they cared. For those choices, the religious leaders expected consequences, dire consequences, a complete rejection by God.

But Jesus’ story took an expected turn – do you remember what happened? The younger son realised his mistakes and so he decided to head home. He made another choice, but this time, a good choice. He chose to turn back and prepared himself to say sorry.
And then what happened? What was the reaction of the Father? Did the Father reject the son? Did he? No! I’m sure that’s what people expected to hear, but Jesus told a different story, He revealed an unexpected choice of God – the Father welcomed home the younger son, he ran to His son, He threw His arms around the son, kissed him, and celebrated the son’s return!

That final choice of the son had an unexpected consequence because he didn’t expect to be welcomed home, but that is what happened, for the Father chose to forgive him and lavish His love upon His son.

I wonder, have you made that choice of the younger son? Have you chosen to return to Father God? Have you asked to be forgiven for your wrong choices and your daily

rejection of God? Maybe today is the day when you’ll finally make that good choice?

But, what if you’ve already made that choice? What if you would already say you are a Christian? Well, I was really struck by the interview with the scientist this morning, because at the end she said, “opportunities to make choices to trust in God or not, are always coming up in life, and so it’s important to keep choosing Him – it’s not just once.” It’s not just once.

So, where are you needing to choose God in your life just now? Is there an area of your life where you need to go God’s way, rather than your own? Is there a decision you need to make, but will you let God in on that decision? Is there a hard situation in your life, and you have a choice
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about whether to trust God in that or not? Where are you needing to choose God today?

It was Jesus, who earlier in the book of Luke said, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’ (Luke 9:23) Where do you need to take up your cross? Where do you need to choose to trust God?

I pray that today, each of us, from the youngest upwards, might choose to follow Jesus in very concrete ways by choosing to put our trust, and keep our trust, in Him.

May it be so. Amen.

We close our time together with our final hymn…

The Creatures of the World (Wonder Zone wk.4)

Preached on: Sunday 19th July 2020
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 20-07-19-Message-PPT-slides.
Bible references: Psalm 139:1-6, 13-17
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Text: Psalm 139:1-6, 13-17 (NIV)
Sunday 19th July 2020
Brightons Parish ChurchLet us take a moment to pray before we think about God’s Word. 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.

Boys and girls, so far in our summer services, we’ve looked up with wonder to the stars and planets! Last week we looked in wonder at light and how it makes a difference in our world. Every week though, we’ve also marvelled at the God who made it all.

But today our drama reminded us of the incredible variety of life around us – from the tiny ant, to human beings, to magnificent trees and underground caves. Every animal, every plant, every part of this world has something amazing about it!
Those ants from the drama can do things we can’t – ants can lift 20 times their own body weight, which is the same as me lifting an Indian Rhinoceros – can you imagine?! I can’t! Also, ants don’t have ears but they “hear” by feeling vibrations through their feet, and they also don’t have lungs, instead, oxygen enters through tiny holes all over the body – that’s amazing!

I’ve also met some other amazing animals – when Gill and I travelled to Zambia in Africa we got to touch a lion and a cheetah, who were part of a programme to reintroduce their cubs to the wild. And with the cheetah in particular, such was its size that when I purred it shook the air – that was amazing and slightly intimidating at the same time!

The people who wrote the Bible included songs and poems about the world around us. One of these psalms, Psalm 104, goes like this:
“My God with all my heart, I want to tell you how amazing you are! You built the earth and covered it with the ocean, your voice thundered and mountains rose up, valleys appeared and the oceans were created! You provide water for the donkeys and other wild animals, birds build their nests and sing in the trees. You cause the earth to produce food for all creatures, including us! Stalks make their home in the fir trees, goats make their home in the mountains, small animals make their homes between the rocks! You created the sun and the moon to rule the day and the night. At night lions roar and hunt but in the morning they go back to their dens, while we go off to work. By your wisdom you made so many things!
The whole earth is covered with living creatures and the oceans are alive with creatures big and small! Lord God let your glory last forever and ever! Let everyone see and know how amazing you are! May you be pleased with everything you have created…I will sing of your astounding deeds for as long as I live because you make me glad.”

We truly live in an amazing world, with amazing creatures and plants. So, here’s a question for you today: what is your most favourite animal or plant, and what is so special about it that you would thank God for it? I’ll give you 60 seconds to think or talk about that at home.
(PAUSE)

The psalm we read today is another psalm which speaks of God’s wonderful creation, but instead of talking about plants and animals, it focuses on you and me, human beings. We read these incredible words: ‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you
because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…’ (v13-14)

In the original language, which was Hebrew, the final line there simply reads: ‘I am fearfully wonderful.’ ‘I am fearfully wonderful.’ Not only are the stars and planets, the plants and the animals wonderful – we are wonderful, says God. You are wonderful! The complexity and intricacy of your body, mind, soul is beyond our understanding, it fills us with wonder and amazement… It was Isaac Newton who said, ‘In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.’ And yet the thumb pales in significance to what makes us human, for there is so much which sets us apart from the animal world and confirms that we are made in the image of God. Each of us has a degree of creativity within us and a desire for purpose and meaning; each of us can appreciate beauty; each of us has intelligence, morality and a spirituality. These things are not taught, these things are not modern or ancient developments, they are unique but universal to humanity. God created your inmost being, made in His likeness, and so you are fearfully wonderful.

Instead of a question just now, let us instead take a moment to pray. Boys and girls, you can get involved…
in this as well because in a moment, we’re going to ask God a question, and then wait for God to answer. The question to ask God is this: ‘who do you want me to tell, this week, that they are wonderful?’ You can ask it out loud, you can whisper into your hands, or you can think it in your head, but ask God, ‘who do you want me to tell, this week, that they are wonderful?’ And then whoever comes to mind, first off, maybe that’s who God wants you to tell. So, don’t over complicate it, just the first person who comes to mind.

Let’s take a moment to pray.
(PAUSE)

Today we’ve been thinking about the amazing world around us and that we are fearfully wonderful.
But the psalms we’ve looked at today remind us that it all exists because there is an amazing God who made this amazing world and made all of you amazing people. And this God wants a relationship with you. The psalmist says that God:
• Knows us (v1)
• Follows us (v2-3)
• Hears us (v4)
• Surrounds us (v5)
This is a God who is not only amazingly powerful and creative, this God is also caring and close. There is nowhere in fact that we can go where He is not already there, and wherever we journey God personally pursues us, for we are the continual object of His thoughts. He loves you so much that He wants to relate to you at the deepest level.
But I wonder if you want that? This way of talking about God can appear quite intimidating – is God just the ultimate Big Brother? Is He just waiting to pounce and catch us out? Well, the Apostle John reminds us of the relationship we can have with God, for John wrote: ‘See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!… This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.’ (1 John 3:1; 4:9-10, 18)

We don’t need to fear God’s attention if we have come to know His forgiveness. In that place of being His child, we can allow God to expose all the areas of our lives, just as David prayed, and so allow Him to lead us ‘…in the way everlasting’, the way of life with God close, now and for all eternity.

I pray that each of us knows this powerful, creative and caring God close to us day-by-day, as we rest in the amazing forgiveness and love He offers through Jesus.

May it be so. Amen.

We close our time together with our final hymn…

The Colours of the Rainbow (Wonder Zone wk.3)

Preached on: Sunday 12th July 2020
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 20-07-12-Message-PPT-slides.
Bible references: John 9
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Text: John 9 (NIV)
Sunday 12th July 2020
Brightons Parish ChurchLet us take a moment to pray before we think about God’s Word. 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.

Boys and girls, you probably can’t see me just now, but I am here. What do we need for you to see me? We need…LIGHT! (SWITCH ON LIGHTER) Give me a moment to light a candle here. (PAUSE)

We need light to see – and when we don’t have light, darkness can be very overpowering and scary; darkness can suck the life out of us. So, here’s a question to think about at home: what else does light do? It helps us see, but what else do light do? I’ll give you 30 seconds to think or talk about that at home just now. (PAUSE)
I wonder what ideas you came up with, why not share them in the Live Chat just now.

Light is a fascinating, amazing thing! Do you know that we need light to see rainbows? And the light from the sun, also provides us with warmth, in fact, that warmth hitting the earth, especially at the equator, gives us weather and if we didn’t have the light from the sun we wouldn’t have rain or clouds or wind or heat – did you know that?

So, light helps us to have life – and we see this with plants. For plants to grow, they need light. A plant without light is not going to grow big and strong, and our world, without light, would not be the amazing world that it is! We could say, light gives life.

Jesus said in verse 5 today: ‘…I am the light of the world.’ You talked about that earlier at home and hopefully you came up with some good ideas. Jesus doesn’t explain what He means by this, neither does the Apostle John. But maybe that’s because this isn’t the first time in the book of John Jesus has been described as light.

If you go all the way back to the beginning of John’s gospel, we reed there: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.’ (John 1:1-4)

Jesus, light and life are all wrapped up together. At the beginning of everything, there was Jesus, and He helped bring light and life to all mankind. Genesis 1 paints a picture of God taking the dust of the earth and from that dust bringing life to mankind, a life they get to enjoy in the light of that new creation at the beginning of history. We’re meant to imagine Adam opening his eyes up for the first time and seeing the light of the new world around him, and also the God who is there in front of him.
Does that sound familiar to you at all?

For in our passage today, Jesus uses mud, literally the dust on the ground, to bring light and life to a man. Because Jesus isn’t just restoring this man’s sight, Jesus is giving this man life, for he would be poor, homeless, without family, without purpose, without value or hope.
Living in darkness sucks the very life out of us, physically, but also spiritually.

As Jesus bends down to make some mud out of the dust, He is re-enacting those first moments of creation, when life and light were brought to mankind. Because that is who Jesus is: He is the light of the world, and that is part of what makes Jesus unique. He did it at the start of creation; He did it for the man in our story; and He will keep doing it because it is who He is: Jesus is the light of the world; He is about bringing light and life to mankind, and He’s still doing it even today.

To hear more stories of how Jesus is bringing life and light to people in our time and in our community, join us for
Testimony Tuesday this week, when 6 people from our congregation will share how Jesus has made a difference in their lives, bringing light and life to them.

Now, let’s go back to our story. There are many characters in it and we are meant to wonder, who I am most like? So, let’s think about two of them for a moment, starting with the religious leaders.

Here is Jesus upending their traditions, their preferences, their way of understanding the world, and especially of understanding God. Jesus, the light of the world, is trying to help them find true life in God, by taking apart what they hold dear. But the religious leaders won’t accept that, they don’t welcome it for it’s just too much for them, and so they push Jesus away; they’d rather stay in the dark, than come into the light given by Jesus and find true life.

I wonder, if we’re like that at all? In our own personal lives, have we welcomed Jesus or are we pushing Him away? There are many reasons we might push God away – maybe He seems to ask too much. Maybe a hurt or a difficult experience in our lives, raises within us a desire for some distance. Maybe we simply think we don’t need Jesus. Each of these, is pushing Jesus away, and we’re meant to see, that when we push Jesus away, we push away His light, and so we push away His offer of life.

Or what about on a corporate level, either as Brightons Parish Church, or as the Braes Churches? Where is Jesus bringing His light that we might see something new about Him and His purposes? I wonder, where is Jesus trying to lead us out of old patterns, old traditions, so as find the new life He wants us to experience?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be like those religious leaders; I don’t want to stay in the dark, I want to know Jesus, and experience the light and life that He offers. But to know this we must become like the man in the story, who comes to see Jesus as God in the flesh. For at the end of the passage, we reed: ‘Then the man said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshipped him.’ (v38)

That man’s journey is a model for us, and it began in verse
7: ‘…the man went and washed, and came home seeing.’ The man stepped out in faith because some guy he’d never known, clearly never seen, told him to go wash off some mud. Why do that? Yet he does, and that simple act of faith, of obedience, brought him light and then life.

Jesus said in chapter 8: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ (v12) To follow Jesus, is more than liking the stories, the songs, the ideas of Jesus. To follow Jesus, is to heed His command, it is to respond in faith through obedience, it is to embrace Jesus as Lord.

Who of us needs to do that? Some of us might need to do that for the first time; some of us, who call ourselves Christian, might have a specific area where Jesus is saying to follow Him now, today, in one particular area of our lives. So, will you heed Jesus? Will you follow Him? Will you embrace Him by submitting to Him as Lord?

Because, it’s only when you walk out of the darkness, it’s only when you make that choice, and step into the light, His light, that you can then know His life, true life.

I pray that we will all make that choice, today and all the days before us. May it be so. Amen.

We close our time together with our final hymn…

The Wonders of the Universe (Wonder Zone wk.2)

Preached on: Sunday 5th July 2020
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 20-07-05-Message-PPT-slides.
Bible references: Psalm 8
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Text: Psalm 8 (NIV)
Sunday 5th July 2020
Brightons Parish ChurchLet us take a moment now to pray before we think about God’s Word. 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.

Boys and girls, in our drama today the Wonder Zone scientists got knocked off course as they tried to investigate Saturn, but that helped them to see the wonders of our solar system!

Have you ever looked up at the stars in the night sky? Have you tried counting as many stars as you can see? Why not give it a shot this summer, if you’re allowed to stay up a bit later? Apparently, it’s possible to see with our eyes between 5- 10,000 stars. But even that is just a small proportion, because we think there…
might be at least 10 billion galaxies and each galaxy could have 100 billion stars – that’s a lot of stars!

Boys and girls, some of these stars have been grouped into patterns, “constellations” is what we call them, so that when we can look up at the stars, we can see different shapes. The names given to these shapes were based upon famous stories like Hercules and Pegasus.
Maybe you could try finding them over the summer too.

The psalm we read today also has a story behind it, and it also involves the stars. More than three thousand years ago there lived a man called David. He was no ordinary man, he was a king – he was king of God’s people called the Israelites.

David loved God and wanted to live God’s way and sometimes David got it right, sometimes he got it wrong. But he knew that he could talk to God about whatever happened. Sometimes he had to say sorry to God. Sometimes he needed to ask God to help him and sometimes he just had to shout about the amazing things God had done.

Our psalm today is one of the songs David wrote to God and it was all about the stars, the planets, the Sun and the moon. David was basically saying to God, “Oh God you are in charge of everything. Your name is amazing and the whole earth knows it. When I look into the night sky, I can see how wonderful you are. I know it. Children know it. Even toddlers and tiny babies know it. They all sing to you about your great and marvellous deeds…
The praises of children cause your enemies to fall silent. Everyone who has turned against you can think of nothing else to say. I think about everything in the sky, the whole breadth of the heavens that you have made. I think about the moon and the stars, the Sun and the planets. You put all of these things in their own special place. I ask myself, why do you care about us humans? We are tiny, we are weak. We don’t live very long compared to you and yet we are only second to you. You have given us crowns of glory and honour. You have put us in charge of everything You have made. You put it all under our power: the sheep, the cow, every wild animal, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea and all the creatures of the ocean. Oh, God you are in charge of everything. Your name is amazing and the whole earth knows it.”
That’s basically was what David was saying to God in the psalm, the song we read today. I wonder, when you look at the night sky, and you see the moon, the Stars, the planets, what you want to say to God? I’ll give you thirty seconds to talk or think about that at home.
(PAUSE)

The universe is vast and amazing, and it can sometimes boggle our minds when we try to think about it all. We’re still learning things about the universe, still learning things about our solar system. For example, some scientists think there might be another planet beyond Neptune, a ninth planet, ten times the size of earth – but they have not found it yet. So, scientists are still learning things about the stars, and we’re all still learning things about God – hopefully we have a risky curiosity.
One of the things that startled and amazed David, was to realise that the God who made everything, the God who was powerful and creative enough to make the whole universe, that same God cares about you and me. David said to God, ‘…what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?’ (v4) We may not seem as important, big or amazing as the stars, but God knows us and loves us.

David says that God is ‘mindful’ of us – God remembers us, God has His mind filled with thoughts about us. David struggles to understand that, because God is as big as the universe and yet He concerns Himself with you and me.

But not only do we sometimes struggle to understand this, we can struggle to believe or accept it at all…
In preparation for the “Science and Faith” night last Tuesday, someone sent me a text message, but I got it too late to include in our recording. At the heart of their message was a question about suffering; about believing in a God who is supposedly mindful and caring of us, and yet, so much is wrong in our world. I think that person, like all of us, struggled with the daily reality we face.

To be honest, even if I had received the message in time, I’m not sure what answer I would have given. For there’s really no answer that truly satisfies the pain we feel, the wondering and frustration in our souls, as we look around the world and see that not everything is ‘under [our] feet’ (v6), not everything is under our control, and at times it doesn’t feel like everything is under God’s control.
So, do we just naively carry on? Do we simply bury our heads in the sand? Are we clinging to a lie when a truth is maybe staring us in the face?

Well, as you might guess, I don’t think so. I still don’t have the answers, but the Bible doesn’t duck the reality of the world either. The writer of Hebrews says, “Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them [humanity]. But we do see Jesus…” (Heb. 2:5–9) In Jesus we see the mindfulness and care of God compel Him towards us, such that He – the vast, powerful, creative God of all – was willing to become a weak infant and then die in the most humiliating way, all in order to save us, to provide us with a hope and a future. Because the claim of Christianity, is that Jesus conquered the worst, He conquered death itself, for we claim He is alive even now.
And so, the claim of the Christian faith, is that God raised this Jesus to have all authority and power, it’s just that right now it’s not fully revealed, but it will be one day, and on that day, the final enemy to be destroyed will be death itself (1 Cor. 15:25-26).

I still don’t have “answers” but I do have continuing faith in God, because He has proven Himself, through Jesus, to be the mindful and caring God of our psalm, so much so, that He wouldn’t stay distant, but came to die, He came and ‘…suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.’ (Heb. 2:9)

You and I not just mere specks of dust in a vast and uncaring universe. We are so dearly loved, that the God who made it all, came near, because He could not…

imagine, He could not keep thinking about, a future where you and I are not with Him and resting in His care and His love.

I pray, that in your wrestling, in your dark seasons and times, in your marvelling at the starry night, that you would know this God close to you, ever faithful, never leaving.

May it be so. Amen.

We close our time together with our final hymn…

The joy of discovery (Wonder Zone wk.1)

Preached on: Sunday 28th June 2020
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 20-06-28-Message-PPT-slides.
Bible references: 1 Kings 3:5-15
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Text: Psalm 148 (NIV)
Sunday 28th June 2020
Brightons Parish ChurchLet us take a moment now to pray before we think about God’s Word once more. 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.

Boys and girls, do you know what happens when you take a packet of Mentos and drop them into a bottle of Coca
Cola? If we were to do a science experiment, taking these Mentos and putting them into a bottle of Coca Cola, what do you think might happen? Will the sweets simply drop to the bottom? Or will something else also happen?

Let’s watch this quick video.
(VIDEO PLAYS)

I don’t know about you, but that made me laugh so much! There is a way to do that experiment so that the Coca Cola shoots up in a tall fountain of juice, rather than into your face! So, we’ll put a link up this afternoon on Facebook if you want to try that experiment for yourself.

The reason that the Coca Cola shoots up and out of the bottle is because of a chemical reaction inside the bottle between the juice and the Mentos. We know this because of science; science helps us understand the world and even the universe. Some people think science and faith are opposed to each other, but actually both science and faith seek to help us explore life and the world around us.

When I was at school and university, I loved to learn about science – at university I particularly…
enjoyed organic chemistry and the process of how molecules reacted and combined with one another. I was going to be a Chemical Engineer before God called me into youth ministry.

I think it’s great fun to do experiments and discover new things about the world through science. Many of us enjoy this, scientists especially, because we have a thirst for knowledge – we want to know how things work and how we can make things better.

But I also think it’s amazing to learn more about God as well, and by learning about God to learn about our world too. The Bible encourages us to seek God, to thirst for God, and so to grow in wisdom and knowledge.
Over 3,000 years ago in the country of Israel there was a king called Solomon. His father was the famous King David. At the beginning of his reign, Solomon, like his father, loved God. Just before he died, David told Solomon to follow God and so that’s what Solomon tried to do. One day he went to a special holy place to worship God and he gave God all sorts of precious things to show how much he loved God, and that made God very happy.

That night God appeared to Solomon in a dream and said to Solomon, ‘Ask for whatever you want me to give you.’ (v5) Imagine that! Imagine being told by God that you could have anything you want? You could have asked for money or to be the most famous singer in the world; you could have asked for a big car or all the marshmallows you could eat….
I wonder what you would have asked for? Take 30 seconds to think or talk about that at home. (PAUSE)

Let us know in the Live Chat what you would have asked for but Solomon knew what he needed. Without hesitation he said, ‘I am King, but I am very young. I don’t know very much, particularly about being a king, and now I have to rule over so many people. Please make me wise and teach me the difference between right and wrong. Then I will know how to be a just and honest ruler. I can’t do it without you.’

God was so pleased with Solomon, after all, Solomon could have asked for anything: pots of gold, lots of children, the biggest army, the most power. But he didn’t. Solomon was humble enough to know that he didn’t… know everything, and so God made Solomon the wisest person that had ever lived.

Being wise and discovering new things is great! We can uncover so much about the world through exploring chemistry, zoology, astrophysics and the rest. We can also uncover so much about the world by exploring who God is, what he has done for us, and what that means.

Being curious and being wise are both essential to making new scientific discoveries and discoveries about God and our relationship with him. When we start following Jesus, we don’t know everything about Him immediately. Being a friend of God, is like being a scientist, for it is a lifetime of exciting exploration and discovery. There’s always something new to learn about Jesus and He invites us to know Him better.
So, over the next few weeks we’ve got a few ideas to help you know Jesus better and help our children and young people know Jesus better. The first is this Tuesday Evening when we will have a question and answers time about the interaction between science and faith. If you’ve got a question you want to ask our local scientists, then get it in today before 2pm, and then join us on our YouTube Channel at 7.30pm on Tuesday.

Then, the following Tuesday, we will have an evening with a speaker from an organisation called “Parenting for Faith” – but their name is misleading because what they will share is important for everyone to know. Again, it’ll be a bit of a question and answer night, with stories shared as well. Whether you live with children or not, this evening is for everyone because we all…
need to be involved in nurturing the faith of the children and young people in our congregation and organisations, helping them to know Jesus better and encouraging them on that lifetime of discovery. So, join us on the 7th July.

Finally, in 3 weeks’ time we have our next Testimony Tuesday, when I hope we will hear some more stories about how people have journeyed with God – either in the past or the present. As I said some weeks ago, it’s important that we tell our stories, helping others, near and far, to hear something of the life of faith, the adventure with Jesus that we are called to. At this time, I don’t have anyone signed up to tell a story, so if you would be willing to share something, it can be anything in relation to your faith, then please get in contact with me as soon as possible.
So, there are three ways we can learn more about Jesus and help others learn more about Jesus. When we stop wanting to learn, and stop wanting others to learn, about Jesus, then there’s something missing in our faith. It’s no longer a childlike faith, rather it’s been tamed, maybe dulled, because a childlike faith has a risky curiosity – it asks the awkward questions; it thirsts for knowledge “why, why, why”; it longs to experience life no matter the risk, just like the scientists in our drama today. If you are no longer curious about Jesus, then your hunger for Jesus is waning, and your faith is maybe lessened.

The goal of faith is not to have a set of right beliefs that are precisely defined. Rather, faith is about recovering a relationship with God, a God who shows up in startling ways, changing lives and transforming history…

just like He did with Solomon. This same God invites each of us to have a relationship with Him, a relationship marked by risky curiosity, a curiosity which fuels a lifetime of learning about Him, and His purposes and design for the world in which He has placed us.

This summer, I wonder what you will discover about Jesus? Will you pursue Him with a risky curiosity, and will you commit to helping others to do so as well?

I pray it may it be so. Amen.