Family & Grow

Preached on: Sunday 25th August 2024
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 24-08-25 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: John 3:1-8 & Romans 8:11-16
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
– Born of the Spirit
– Fruit of the Spirit
– Led by the Spirit

Intentionality

Preached on: Sunday 18th June 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 23-06-18 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: John 15:1-13
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
– Posture for Growth:
– remaining
– pruning
– Posture of Love:
– joyful obedience
– active sacrifice

What is God up to?

Preached on: Sunday 28th August 2022
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 22-08-28 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Genesis 17:1-2, 7, 9-14 & Titus 2:11-14
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
– God’s plan: a people of His own
– God’s plan: old and new covenants
– God’s plan: the place of children

Let us take a moment to pray before we think about God’s word. Let’s pray together:

Come Holy Spirit and soften our hearts to the word of God that we might receive what You have for us today.
Come Holy Spirit and reveal to us the plan of God.
Come Holy Spirit with power and deep conviction, for we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I’m going to put three statements up in a moment and I want to ask you, in a moment, to turn to your neighbor and decide which one of them or which couple of them are true. Okay. The statements are:
• baptism saves a child
• infant baptism is a relic of Christendom
• sharing in communion requires cognition – understanding.
So, baptism saves a child infant; baptism is a relic of Christendom – when the church was at its height and such like; and, sharing in communion requires cognition, understanding. I’m going to give you 30 seconds and if you feel up to it, turn to your neighbor and see what you come up with. Which of these is true? Over to you.

So, okay, sounds like I could have left you to talk about that for some time but if you’ve, if you want to, you can obviously debate that over tea and coffee after the service. But, in my understanding of things, I would say that none of these statements is true and we’ll get into those issues over the next two weeks. Now, at the outset of this series, I’m going to put up front that I know that we are quite a broad congregation theologically and some of these issues, particularly around baptism, have actually split the church and I’m certainly not wanting that however, I hope that, from the series, that wherever you stand on this, and you might be someone who holds to more a kind of believer’s baptism, a credo baptism, that you think someone should only be baptized when they respond in faith themselves, that could be as a child but not as an infant, not before you’re able to make your own choice, that might be you and I have people that I highly respect that hold that position and this series is not about persuading you to change that position necessarily however, we need to understand the tradition that Brightons Parish Church finds itself within, a reformed presbyterian tradition, what is it we understand about God’s covenants and God’s sacraments, that we, that might then guide our practice, our life as a congregation, particularly, as I said earlier, as we think about allowing children to be more proactively included. And so, I hope this series will bring greater unity, not disunity, and again, another thing to put out at the start is that this is all a journey for each of us and it has been a journey for me too. A journey that has felt like a maze at times. i grew up in the Church of Scotland. I was baptized as an infant. I would say I really came to faith when I was 19, although there was always a belief in God over those years, but when I came to own a personal faith in Jesus, I was very, very frustrated with the denomination, with my congregation, probably even with my own family, and part of the reason is because I cannot remember one person having ever told me the Gospel that Jesus died for me because God loves me and I need to own that for myself for me to be forgiven and be part of what God is doing in the world. I had not heard that and so, when I came to own that I was frustrated, I was annoyed, I was upset that that hadn’t been done and I attributed that lack of sharing to nominalism. I saw, within the church, of people saying they were Christians or even coming to church where there seemed to be no faith, no follow-through on what was being taught and it was simply a tick box exercise for a lot of people. That I saw, or at least I thought that way. The youth of me was rather more judgmental than I am just now. And I blamed some of that nominalism also on infant baptism, that too many people thought ‘Well, if I get my child baptized, get them dunked, get them wetted, get them christened – I never use the word christened, it’s not in the Bible, so I’m not going to use it, baptism, infant baptism – so, because of that practice, because of the misunderstanding around that practice, I attributed that to a lot of nominalism. ‘Well, my wean’s been done. Job done! Don’t need to turn up at church anymore.’ That’s how it felt and appeared to me and so as I grew in faith over those early years, I came to hold myself to believers-baptism, that you should only get baptized when you can respond in faith. That would deal with all the issues that are wrong with the Church of Scotland, or so I thought. And, actually, in my early 20s I was part of a church where I was training to be a youth worker where they didn’t believe in infant baptism and I chose to get baptized again which I’m never going to do now as a minister. I would not offer that. I would not say yes to that, but I did at that time.

And then, God has a sense of humor and he calls me into the Church of Scotland, calls me into ministry as part of the Church of Scotland and I, as part of that discernment process, I had to wrestle with ‘Can I ascribe to this? Can I be open to this? Is there underpin an understanding that is okay for this? Can it be justified from the Scriptures?’ And, eventually, I came to a point of acceptance but still with a measure of discomfort, confusion even, and, I must admit, I’ve even had that over the last three and a half years as a minister until this summer. Because of the request of the Kirk Session, I’ve done much more digging into this than I’ve ever done before and two books, in particular, that no one had ever pointed out to me before have been so helpful. One book is ‘The fulfillment of the promises of God: An explanation of covenant theology’ which is a branch of systematic theology and ‘The case for covenantal infant baptism.’ These books have been so helpful, bringing things that I’d never come across, never thought about and so I’m actually now at the point of being much more convinced of those arguments but also just being more confident and passionate about God’s plans and purposes and the place of children within that. Now, so let me repeat, we’re all on a journey. I’m on a journey still. I don’t have all the answers to this and I know that three sermons is not going to cut it for everybody. You might have more questions and I’m willing to engage with those questions, I just asked for some grace as we wrestle with something that can be quite tricky and we can have very different perspectives and, at times, it’s going to be maybe a little bit heavy, and some things might go in one ear and out the other, but I encourage you to try and come back to it. Maybe re-watch the sermon on our website or Youtube Channel. If you don’t have internet at home we will get you either a CD a DVD or a printed copy of the sermon, so we can cover everybody’s needs. So, whatever you need, if you want to go over it again, just ask because this stuff is actually so important, so important.

Beginning the journey then, over these next few weeks, let me ask this question – What is God up to? I mean overall. What is God up to? What is His goal? What are His saving purposes? If we were to put it that way. Because, at the beginning of the Bible, the book of Genesis, at the very start, we see that God creates and within that creation He makes humanity unique amongst all creation. He makes them in His image. That God can then relate to them in a very personal way. And we understand from scripture and theology that God does this because, as a God who is trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, He wishes to lavish His love upon humanity because God is community, as trinity and so He makes another community, and, within that perfect community of Trinity, there is perfect love, and perfect love just desires to lavish itself upon others. We know that with our own children, with our grandchildren, children in our church, we just want to share that love with them. Well, imagine being a perfect being with perfect love, at the overflow of that love He creates and He creates humanity to be recipients of that love. But then, we rebel. Adam and Eve sin and the fall creates a whole host of issues and problems within creation.

Theologian Wayne Grudem who doesn’t hold to infant baptism, he’s a Baptist writer, he says this, ‘The rest of scripture after the story of the fall in Genesis 3 is the story of God working out in history the amazing plan of redemption whereby sinful people could come into fellowship with Himself.’ So, we have the fall, and the rest of scripture, you can see, is a story, not just the story but there is a story there, a thread of a story of what God is doing to bring about a plan, to bring us back into relationship with Himself, that He can lavish this love upon us. And we see that in our passages today we read, God’s saying to Abraham ‘I will establish my covenant to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.’ I’m your God Abraham. I’m coming into relationship with you, and you and your descendants are going to be my people. And then, what do we find Paul saying to Titus and in the letter, he writes he says of Jesus ‘Jesus, who gave himself’, who came to earth, died on a cross, who gave himself ‘to purify for himself’ for himself ‘a people that are his very own. The great and grand plan of God is to have a people of His own. There’s more besides to the plan for sure. He’s going to deal with sin, death and the devil, so that the kingdom of God can be all in all and God can receive glory. All of that is there in the plan but core to all, central to the plan is this purpose, that God would have a people of His own, a people upon whom He can lavish His love.

So, let me pause there. Is that part of your understanding of God? Can you see this overarching purpose within and across the scriptures? And let me get a bit more personal, I don’t want this just to be a lecture for three weeks. Does it move you? Does it move you? As you recognize what you’ve been invited into, does it move you? Because, let’s remember, we don’t deserve this. It’s undeserved because each of us, like Adam and Eve, has told God to take a hike. We’ve told God we know better; we want to live our way, we’ve rebelled. The bible says that’s sin.

So, we don’t deserve this. God wasn’t obliged to include you. God didn’t need to include you and yet He does, He has. Doesn’t that move you at all at the wonder of that?

And maybe you’re sitting there or watching at home and you recognize that you don’t share in that yet. You’ve not said yes to Jesus. Well, this is what you’re missing out on. This great purpose, this great security, this great belonging that God is working out in history and that, one day, that’s all there’s going to be. This great people with God and His new kingdom and, without you choosing to follow Jesus, you’ll miss out on that.

Maybe that’s what needs to move you today to explore that. Is the preacher just mentioning some rubbish, or not? We’ll dig into the Scriptures. Come along to Alpha when it starts up in the autumn term. Explore these things because, maybe you need to be saying yes to Jesus. So, wherever we are on the face journey, I hope that, as we just touch on this, that it moves you, in some shape or form. You might have heard this a million times but I hope you’ve not grown cold too it. I hope it stirs something within you.

So, God has this plan to have a people of His own and it spans the Scriptures both Old Testament and New Testament. But, you know, the words Old Testament and New Testament refer to more than just two halves of the Bible. I think a popular misunderstanding of Old and New Testament is ‘Well, the Old Testament is just the first half of the Bible and the New Testament well, that’s just the other half of the Bible.’ But that’s a popular misunderstanding because, really, those words are chosen because of what those words mean. Because testament in the Greek actually is derived from a word meaning well or covenant, and we find the Bible full of , both old and new covenants. And so, we read it today in Genesis 17 God said ‘As for me, this is my covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you.’ So, God enters into this special relationship with Abraham, a covenant, an agreement and, really, what He’s doing here in chapter 17 is building upon what happened and began in chapter 12, then was given greater detail in chapter 15 and as now you’re given even more detail in chapter 17. It’s all the one covenant made with Abraham but given more detail over those chapters. I encourage you to read them separately later on.

But maybe, you’re wondering ‘Well, what is a covenant, Scott, because you’re using that an awful lot, but I have no idea what it means? Well, again, Wayne Grudem, just to stick with that one book, it says this ‘A covenant is an unchangeable, divinely imposed, legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their relationship.’ So a covenant is God setting up a relationship with humanity and He sets the terms and He invites humanity into that and it has legal consequences, both good and negative, and there are actually, in the Old Testament, there are five covenants:
the relationship with Adam that’s set up in Genesis chapter one and two that can be described as a covenant; there is a covenant with Noah; with Abraham as we’ve seen; with Moses; and with David. And some of those covenants stand-alone, like the covenant with Noah, and we give thanks and praise for that covenant because it means, despite our rebellion, across all this world, God is not going to flood the earth again and that’s a good thing, we thank God for that covenant. There are other covenants that become intertwined, like the covenant with Abraham and with David, that they build upon one another. There is also mention in the Scriptures, including in the Old Testament, there is mention of a new covenant. In fact, that’s where it’s first mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah. And so, God says through Jeremiah ‘The days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel… this is a covenant I will make with the people of Israel … I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.’ So, God says a new covenant is coming and it has certain hallmarks. Again, we see that hallmark of being, Him being their God and they being His people. He carries that on, He will also write the law in their hearts and if you look at the surrounding verses, He also says that each person who shares in that new covenant will know God and that their sin will be forgiven and remembered no more. That’s all part of the new covenant that God describes in Jeremiah. But what is striking, what is striking is that all those aspects of the new covenant were there already in the covenant made through Moses, given through Moses and that was building upon the covenant given to Abraham. So, God made a covenant with Abraham and to help bring that to fruition, He made another covenant with Moses, but that covenant with Moses didn’t bring to fruition, that the things that God had promised to Abraham and that’s because the covenant made to Moses did not have power to transform God’s people from the inside-out, it did not change them, they continued to rebel in terrible ways and so, God makes a new covenant to replace the old. And again, Wayne Grudem says this to sum all this up ‘Only the covenant under Moses is called the ‘old covenant’ … to be replaced by the ‘new covenant’ in Christ. The Mosaic covenant was… given for a time to restrain sins and… point people to Christ. So, really only the old covenant is that one given to Moses. So, we had Abraham and then Moses and then David but they all built on one another, but the covenant with Moses did not transform the people, something better was required and so, God promised to bring a new covenant that would replace that covenant with Moses and that new covenant was brought about through Jesus, to transform us from the inside out, to fulfill that initial promise given to Abraham that there would be a people, a people that spanned the nations, and they would know God and relate to God and be God’s people, and share in all His promises. So, God began this purpose in the Old Testament, fulfilled it through Jesus, and we live in the time when it has been worked out in reality.

So, again, let me pause because that was heavy, that was a heavy section and I tried to keep it as short as possible. There are chapters on this stuff, so you’ve got the very condensed version, but let me ask this as we take a moment to catch our breath,
maybe we need to catch our breath quite literally or maybe we should literally have our breath taken away, have our breath taken away by the sweep of God’s plan, have our breath taken away by the intricacy and the interconnectedness of God’s plan, that He has been working out for thousands of years, across all these different people and yet, they speak with one voice and with one purpose, that there’s this thread, through all that, God has a plan to have a people of His own and that plan has been out worked now through Jesus and all who will follow Him and that is what you are caught up in if you claim to be a Christian, if you claim to be a Christian, if you said yes to Jesus if, whether at home, in your heart or last week with a piece of Lego saying yes, if you said yes to Jesus this is what you are caught up in, brothers and sisters, this is what you’re caught up in. We are not about keeping the lights on in the building. We are not about keeping a charity on the go. We are not about being religious or being more moral than we once were, or be more moral than our neighbors. We’re not about any of that. We’re about God’s purpose to be His people and invite others into that and, if it doesn’t take your breath away, I don’t know what else will because that’s incredible, incredible. you are part of God’s great and gracious plan and that’s amazing because it’s undeserved and all of love, all of love. But, you know, when we start thinking about this plan and we start thinking about how it relates to our lives, as I said in the prayer, we can turn it very inward because, as a culture, we’re very individualistic and that can make us often very selfish, and we can do that with our faith, but God’s covenant with Abraham included others. In Genesis 12 Ne mentions ‘the nations and in Genesis 17 He mentions ‘children. So, we read earlier that God said to Abraham ‘As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, for the generations to come, every male among you ‘shall be circumcised, you are to undergo circumcision and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.’ So, God establishes this covenant, this binding legal agreement, this way of relating between God and His people, and children are included, from infancy, they are part of the covenant community, they share in the covenant promises and as a sign to remind them of these promises, they’re given circumcision to point towards that covenant, and we’ll think more about baptism next week. But, for now, let’s note that the Jewish people, across the centuries, and up to and including the Jews in Jesus day, saw children as sharing in the covenant community, sharing in the covenant promises, both the blessings and the repercussions of that, and so, when Peter stands up on the Day of Pentecost and the church is birthed and has this great speech and 3000 people and more pile in to say ‘Yes, I’m following Jesus!’ he has a couple of very interesting lines. He says this ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call.’ Peter speaks of ‘the promise’, ‘the promise’. He might be referring to the promise simply made through Joel who he quotes earlier on in that passage but even if he’s only referring to that particular promise, that particular prophecy, that prophecy tells of things that are part of the new covenant and, as we saw, the new covenant builds on the covenant made with Abraham, a covenant which included children and so, in Peter’s understanding, children are included under the new covenant as well and it’s natural for him to do that, as it would be for any Jew listening to his speech, because the old covenant included children too.

And it’s carried on into the rest of the New Testament because not once in all of the New Testament are the place of children questioned. They’re encouraged to heed teaching and to grow in faith. They are addressed as members of the church but they’re never questioned, their place is never questioned. There are many other questions and raised and answered. For example, dietary requirements, the dietary requirements of the Old Testament, they’re lifted, they’re done away with, and that’s noted. That the priesthood and the sacrificial system, that’s done away with through Jesus, and that’s noted. The requirement to be circumcised to ensure that you were saved well that’s rejected, and it’s noted. That now both males and females are given a covenant sign, baptism, well that’s a change and that’s noted. But what’s never questioned, never written about, the place of children, the inclusion of children, because God, in His plan cares for and welcomes the children of His people.

Now this is going to raise a lot of questions for some of us. Some of us will already be going to questions like ‘Does that mean children are saved?’ and ‘What about the place of faith? salvation comes by faith in Jesus alone. An infant can’t have faith. So, what about the place of faith?’ and ‘What happens if someone has been baptized, as an infant, but drifts away from the faith? What then, what do we understand then?’

Well, I’m afraid time’s up! And so. I’m going to have to come to those questions in the next two weeks, but I’m not going to try and duck them, I want to try and wrestle with them because I know some of you will be asking them. Yet, for now, let’s note what we’ve surveyed so far and what Peter says the promise is for you and your children. God’s plan includes you and your children, such is His goodness and grace. It was a plan conceived by the Trinity, an eternity passed amongst the persons of the Godhead and They chose to make it known through the various covenants that God made with His people across the centuries, until it was finally fulfilled and secured through Jesus in the new covenant and proclaimed now by the church in His name. And, I wonder if God is raising this up for us now, not simply because the Kirk Session asked a question, but because He wants us to wrestle with this afresh, to maybe understand afresh, maybe even for the first time, to understand something of His purpose and plan, something of His provision for salvation and maybe, within that, we’ve got to allow the breadth of Scripture to shape our thinking and understanding more than we’ve ever done before, so that it might deepen our confidence and fuel our passion. I pray it may be so. Amen.

Confidence in Christ Jesus as Lord

Preached on: Sunday 6th February 2022
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 22-02-06 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Colossians 2:6-15
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Let us take a moment to pray before we think about God’s word:
Holy Spirit, come among us and soften our hearts to the word of God.
Holy Spirit, come among us and help us see the truths of Jesus and hear them for ourselves.
Come Holy Spirit now, we pray, with power and deep conviction, for we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.I wonder, do you ever feel like your faith has waned or diminished somehow? Maybe when you were a teen or a young person? Maybe when you took on a new role in church that was a real high point in your faith journey, but you know, maybe something’s happened and your faith has taken a knock it’s dropped, it’s dimmed, and maybe now you’re feeling less confident in your faith? And you know, if that’s you or someone that you know, it’s very similar to what Paul was feeling for the Colossians. Maybe even very similar to what the Colossian Christians were feeling themselves, because, in their case, Paul was afraid that other teachers, maybe especially Jewish teachers, would come in and try to influence the church, trying to undermine their confidence, their confidence in the faith and so, he writes now both to safeguard and strengthen that faith.

He begins by taking them back to the start of their faith journey. He writes in verse 6 ‘So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord.’ Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord and with those eight words, Paul has the heart of his letter. This is the central bit to the whole letter. It concludes what has kind of come before. It has been building up to this point but those eight words prepare for the rest of the letter too, and we can just so easily skip over them because we’re like ‘Oh well, we know that language. We know what that means and yet, in the first century, those eight words were radical. Those eight words were daring, dangerous words because, to claim Jesus as Lord, well that was to assert that no one else was God, no other God was God, and it was to transfer your allegiance to Jesus, above all other allegiances, including the Roman Emperor and that was dangerous to do back in the day. This was a claim that could get you ostracized from your family, from your local community. This was a claim that could get you arrested, even killed but, really, it’s the natural conclusion of all that Paul said before. Particularly Donald’s passage a couple of weeks ago in chapter one where we looked at the supremacy of Jesus. This one who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation and whom the fullness of God dwell. This is a natural conclusion that Jesus is Lord and so Paul is saying that to be a Christian is to have received Jesus as Lord, the Lord of your life. It’s to have transferred your allegiance to Him, above all other allegiances.

Now, we might say ‘Well, I’m a Christian because Jesus is my Savior.’ and that might well be true but true saving faith also includes transferring your allegiance to Jesus as Lord because, when we repent, we’re not simply saying sorry for things that we’ve done for our sin, we’re turning from that old way of life and we’re seeking to live a new way of life under the Lordship of Jesus, and that was part of Jesus’s teaching as well. He says in Matthew chapter 11 ‘Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.’ The rest of salvation, the rest that comes through knowing you’re forgiven and reconciled to God, but he goes on ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.’ That language of the yoke and taking it upon you was a Rabbi’s way of saying my way of life, my teaching, take it upon you come under my authority, learn from me. It is coming to Jesus as Lord and so, you might know some knowledge about Jesus, you may even think well of Jesus, you might even say ‘Well, I’ve asked Jesus to forgive me’ but biblical faith, saving faith, includes receiving Jesus as Lord. That is central to being a Christian because, you know, even the demons believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, even demons believe that you can go to Jesus for forgiveness but they don’t receive Him as Lord.

So, can I ask you, have you, have you received Jesus as Lord? Have you transferred your allegiance to Him?

I’ve told my story of coming to faith on a number of occasions but a central part of that faith story is that I transferred my allegiance to Jesus. Up to that point, at the age of 19, I’d been pretty much living how I wanted to live. My way was the highway, and I just did what I wanted to do, and it hurt a lot of people along the way. Actually, it was a very selfish life but when I came to faith I realized not only did I need forgiveness, which I did and which I asked for, but I had to turn from that old way and I had to come under the Lordship of Jesus. Now, I didn’t know that language, I didn’t know that’s what I even really did, but looking back, that’s what happened. I came to transfer my allegiance to Jesus to see that He had to become my Lord and I had to live under His authority. can I ask you friends, have you come to that point, truly come to that point, where Jesus is more than just a nice guy, an old teacher, a figure of wisdom, he might even be someone you regard so highly? Because you can be forgiven through Him but if you come to know Him as Lord, true repentance includes that. So, can you say that, with the Colossians that you have received Jesus as Lord?

So, that’s what Paul begins this section by reminding them, of taking them back to the start of their faith journey, that they received Jesus as Lord and he does that because Paul is concerned for their spiritual welfare. He says in verse 8 ‘See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy.’ Paul is concerned for their spiritual welfare, He’s concerned that someone is going to take them captive through other teaching and the words there ‘take you captive’, the language there has echoes of the day of slave traders coming and taking off victims body and soul and taking them into a new way of life, a life that is no life really, and Paul doesn’t want that for them, he doesn’t want them to be taken away from the life they found in Jesus and taken into slavery and so as to safeguard and strengthen their faith in Jesus, Paul wants to give them confidence in Jesus and to build up their confidence in Jesus.

He gives them four reasons that they can have such confidence and his first reason is this – Have confidence in Jesus, because He is fully God. In verses 9 and 10 Paul says ‘For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.’ So Paul’s concerned that some teachers are going to come along and they’re going to say ‘Well, if you want truthfulness, if you want to really know God, Jesus is not enough, you need to to do something else or you need to have something else or know something else or know someone else.’ But not so, says Paul, because in Jesus actually the deity, not just divinity, the deity lives in Jesus and that means that Jesus is not a demi-God, He’s not half-divine and half-human and nor does He simply have a human body within which is a divine spirit or mind ‘No, no, no.’ all the deity fully lives in Jesus. He is the sole human being who embodies the fullness of God and, as such, that means He’s the head over every power and authority. He is all authority over them. He is the Lord Almighty, the unopposed ruler. He is more powerful than any other. He is the Lord. To have confidence in Jesus, the one who is fully God.

Reason number two, have confidence in Jesus because you have been fully integrated into God’s family. You have been fully integrated into God’s family. He says in verse 11 ‘In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self, ruled by the flesh, was put off when you were circumcised by Christ.’ Now these verses can seem a bit odd, slightly out of place and pretty dense stuff as well, and it’s because of these verses and because of what Paul writes here that it seems likely Paul is concerned about Jewish teachers coming along to undermine the faith and confidence that Colossians have in Jesus otherwise, why would Paul go off on this tangent. And so, we need to remember first of all what circumcision was about. It was about being obedient to God’s covenant in the Old Testament and it signified that someone was part of the people of God. It was a sign, a way in, and so Paul is aware of this from the experience with the Galatians, that people might come along and say ‘Well, if you really want to belong to the people of God, if you really want to be saved, if you really want to be reconciled to God, then you need to have circumcision it’s not just enough to have faith in Jesus’ but Paul says otherwise. It says otherwise in just about all these letters and his argument here is that they actually, the Colossians and any Christian has been circumcised, already circumcised, and the only sense that really matters, a circumcision of the heart, not done by hand, a circumcision of the heart done by Jesus and what Paul means is this, that when you come to faith in Jesus and you put your faith in Him such that He becomes your Lord, not simply your Savior, but your Lord as well, that means you’ve submitted to the Lordship of Jesus, His rule in your life, you’ve transferred your allegiance to Jesus in the depths of your being, where it really matters, and that’s what circumcision was meant to facilitate and enable and represent That old circumcision was meant to represent that inner circumcision and so, Paul says your whole self, ruled by the flesh, ruled by sin that that old way of life where you were under the mastery of sin, that is not gone because you’ve been circumcised in the heart where it really matters and so at that point of repentance when Jesus became your savior and your Lord, you put off that old master and you receive Jesus as your new Master, your new King, your new Lord, and you transferred your allegiance to Him and that means you’re no longer an enemy of God. Chapter 1 verse 21 ‘Because you receive God and his lordship through Jesus in your life’ and that means you’re now part of His people and so you’re fully integrated into God’s people and that is represented and displayed and affirmed in baptism, particularly the baptism of immersion, is particularly helpful to portray this and so Paul writes in verse 12 ‘Having been back buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.’ So the idea here is that in the baptism of immersion where you go under the water to be baptized that that is a dying a picture of dying going underneath the ground that you’re buried with Christ, you’ve died to your old way of life, you’ve died to your other masters, and you’re rising to a new life in Jesus, to having Jesus as your Lord and submitting to Him. That’s what Paul is getting at here and so through these verses Paul is saying, have confidence in Jesus because you’re fully integrated into God’s people, you’ve had the true circumcision, the true circumcision of your heart, which the Old Testament physical circumcision was meant to point towards and help facilitate, that inner circumcision has happened and so you don’t need that other circumcision because your allegiance is now in Jesus who is God after all, and so you are part of the people of God and you can have confidence in Jesus.

Reason number three, have confidence in Jesus because you are fully forgiven. Paul says in verses 13 and 14 ‘When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ he forgave us all our sins having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away nailing it to the cross’ and so Paul says that these Colossians, before they had faith in Jesus, were dead in their sins which every human being is before faith in Jesus, and in the uncircumcision of your flesh that that sin, your flesh, was your master in that previous state. You were dead, you were estranged from God, the source of life but then God made you alive and He made you alive by forgiving your sins by forgiving you fully through Jesus’ death on the cross. Now, the phrase in these verses where Paul says ‘the charge of our legal indebtedness’, that phrase, the charge of our legal indebtedness, that’s Paul’s shorthand here of referring to the Old Testament law. The Old Testament law would simply build up a list of things that we failed to do, a list of ways that we rebelled against God, ‘that we were enemies of God in our minds by our evil behavior’ Chapter 1 verse 21, and as such, the law simply put us under a doomed future, a curse, because we sin and we sin and we sin, and we send some more and all that means is that our future, the only future ahead of us, without receiving forgiveness, the only future that was ahead of us is eternal separation from God because of sin, but Paul is saying that now, through Jesus, you can have that debt taken away, not ripped up and forgotten about, but actually borne by Jesus on the cross. There it is nailed with Jesus and He dies our death, He bears the punishment of our sin. God can’t simply ignore it because He’s a holy, righteous God but, out of love, He dies in your place and in my place and if we put our faith in Jesus, we can be fully forgiven such that the law, the charge of our legal indebtedness has no charge against us now when we have faith in Jesus, when we belong to Him because we’re fully forgiven, we’re reconciled to God. Chapter 1 ‘and so let’s have confidence in Jesus because of his death on the cross.’

Reason number four, have confidence in Jesus because you are fully secure. Paul says in verse 15 ‘and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross.’ Now there’s various references in this letter and in other letters of Paul’s to the spiritual forces to powers and authorities and it’s not exactly clear what Paul means by that language. Here he doesn’t really expand upon it overly much so it could refer to demonic powers, it could refer to foreign gods, it could simply refer to the Roman government even. Of course, it could refer to all three and whichever one, it is ultimately Paul’s point is still the same, that Jesus has disarmed these powers, Jesus has disarmed any embodiment of rebellion against God and so that means that Colossians, by having faith in Jesus, don’t need to fear these powers, they don’t need to submit to these powers. Again, they don’t need to try and appease these powers once more, rather they’ve to see that, in Jesus, they have the true God of true Gods, they have the Lord of all creation who, through his death, has won the final victory and such that one day His kingdom will be established and that will be all there is. So, have confidence in Jesus because you’re fully secure through Him.

Those are the four reasons that Paul gives to the Colossians. Reasons to have confidence in Jesus and I wonder friends, which reason do we need to take heed of today in our own life?

Do we need to have confidence that in Jesus? We have the one who is fully God, so why look elsewhere? Why look for faith and another God, or by another name? Simply come to Jesus.

Or do you need to have confidence that through Jesus you’re fully part of God’s family? So, why are you taking other steps to try and earn it, earn your way into God’s family, earn your status or your welcome in God’s family. You are part of God’s family.

Are you needing to have greater confidence in the forgiveness you have through Jesus? And so, you don’t need to look to your own solutions, you don’t need to try and appease God with your good behavior. Come to faith in Jesus and a confidence in what He’s achieved on the cross.

Or do you need to know that you’re fully secure in Jesus, that you don’t need to fear other powers, you don’t need to trust in other sources of security or salvation? Trust in Jesus, have confidence in Him, for in Him you’re fully secure.

Friends, where is it you need to grow in your confidence in Jesus today? Where is it you feel undermined? In these four areas of life, we can feel undermined by so much, so Paul exhorts us, as he exhorts the Colossians, to have confidence in Jesus and Jesus alone, because of these four ways.

And so, Paul has seen seeking to safeguard and strengthen the Colossians faith in Jesus as Lord and he gives those four reasons but actually, Paul said something else as well, something I skipped over just to help me structure this sermon.

In a useful manner Paul earlier on said this ‘So then, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him. Strengthened in the faith as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive.’ Paul doesn’t want to see this group of Christians just hang in there with a lukewarm or dry faith. His picture of the Christian life is not that someone comes to faith in Jesus and just hangs in there until the day they see Jesus’ face to face. No, no, Paul has a greater vision for the Christian life. He wants to see these Christians continue in Jesus, to continue exclusively in Jesus, to continue strong in Jesus, to continue in Jesus with thankfulness. That’s his heart and vision for these Christians and so he says ‘Continue to live your lives and him keep trusting in Jesus. Pursue Jesus with passion and with excitement, with overflowing with thankfulness because’ as he says you’re rooted in Him already, you’re rooted in Him when you received Him as Lord, you’ve become rooted in Him so now, be built up, don’t be undermined, don’t just hang in there, with the smallest amount of faith or knowledge or joy or passion, be built up, build on the foundation you have in Jesus Lord so that your strength, faith is strengthened and then you’re not taken captive by other false philosophies which are empty, which are dead, which don’t lead to life, don’t allow your allegiance to be transferred from Jesus to something or someone else keep your allegiance in Jesus and evidence that by continuing to live in Him and grow in your faith.

And don’t we need to hear this as well church? There is so much in life, whether it’s on social media, in the newspapers, and what we see on the TV and the demands of the marketplace to try and get us to buy different things. There is so much around us in our culture which seeks to draw our allegiance away from Jesus and give our allegiance to other things, to find our security, to find our salvation, to find hope and confidence and authority in other places rather than in Jesus. And you know friends, there are local groups, local institutions which you might even be a part of on a voluntary basis, which are seeking to lead you astray. They might even claim to be Christian in nature. They could even involve the Bible in certain ceremonies and rights, but you know, they might prevent you from mentioning the name of Jesus, they might bar you from mentioning His name in prayers or in other activities and meetings. And if that’s the case friends, if you’re part of a group that’s like that where the name of Jesus is banned then it’s seeking to draw you away, it’s undermining the authority of Jesus, it’s not encouraging you to have Jesus as your Lord, truly and so I caution you there.

But whether that applies to you or not friends, all of us at times can feel an emptiness in faith, even in life and all of us at times can have faith feel like it’s waning a little bit or that God seems more distant than He once was, there are times in all of our lives when our confidence in Jesus is undermined but the answer is not, it is not to go looking elsewhere. The answer is to seek Jesus, to pursue Him afresh, to continue in Him, to continue exclusively in Jesus and keep our allegiance to Him because, let’s remember these great promises of Jesus ‘Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, for everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds’ and then later in the same gospel He says ‘Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’

Friends, do you need to come to Jesus afresh today maybe this year? Do you need to come to Him, to find the rest of knowing God that you don’t need to look elsewhere? In Jesus, you have God in all His fullness so come to Jesus. Do you need to know the rest of being part of God’s people, His family through Jesus, that you’re safe and secure in Him for all eternity? Do you need to know the rest of being forgiven, of reconciled to God through Jesus death on the cross? Do you need to know the rest of being secure in Jesus that He has disarmed all powers and authorities? You don’t need to fear them. Have peace through Jesus and come to Him afresh today because friends, Paul exhorts us to continue in Jesus, to come to Jesus that we might have confidence, that we might overflow with thankfulness for all that we have in Him because, in Jesus, we have the one who’s fully God in Jesus, we are fully part of God’s people now and for all eternity, in Jesus we are forgiven, we are secure, so let’s continue confidently and thankfully in Him. I pray it may be so. Amen.

We close our service with our final hymn, How firm our foundation. We’re going to sing it to a different tune than we know it would normally but it’s a tune that should be well known to you. We sing together then, How firm a foundation.

Family: Belonging and Purpose

Preached on: Sunday 12th September 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 here21-09-12 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Exodus 3:1-12
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Let us take a moment to pray before we think about God’s word

Holy Spirit, come among us and soften our hearts to the word of God.
Holy Spirit, come among us and reveal to us the heart of God and be a balm to our heart if we need that today.
Holy Spirit, come among us with power and deep conviction, for we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

If a friend or colleague or neighbor was to ask you why they should bother about church what would your answer be? Could you give an answer? What would your answer convey to them and do you think it might resonate with them in any way at all?

Most likely your answer will be dependent upon your experience of church so if you think church is boring your answer’s probably going to be a pretty dull or you might struggle and start her to try and say something because there’s something in there that says you have to have a good answer and you’re just waffle something of course on the other hand if church has been beneficial to you may have something positive to say but again I wonder would it resonate with today’s culture one analysis of today’s culture suggests that people across the age ranges yearn for belonging and they yearn for purpose the yearn for belonging and for purpose so I wonder have you experienced either of those when you’ve shared in church

I know I have I have I’ve experienced a depth of belonging that is so very rare in our culture today at one time I was part of a small group of young adults when I was in my 20s at a church in Edinburgh and some of them Gill and I are still in contact with now they know the depths of who we are they have journeyed with us through some of the darkest times in life they have encouraged us they have spurred us on and picked us up we’ve hung out we’ve had meals together in each other’s homes we’ve had a cuppa at the latest time of night you can imagine we were family and it really was and as a gift so that even though we are in different countries now we still make the effort to book a holiday once a year and go see them and be with them and keep in contact across the year that’s the experience of church that I’ve had so that when church is at its best there is true belonging and it really functions like the best of families but the same writer goes on to say that today’s generation not only wants to belong they want purpose indeed they yearn to be part of a community that lives and works for a purpose higher than mere survival its own survival a purpose higher than its own survival yet sadly too often how often does that feature in the church sure we’re a place you can belong but we are very focused on our own survival particularly when things seem threatening and many a church lacks a sense of belonging to something greater and maybe that’s because we end up making church about us about me about I sadly too few of us have a sense of belonging to something greater something that is worth living for even something that is worth dying for either literally or metaphorically so by now you know that we’re working through this new teaching series on our purpose and values and today’s value is the value of family we’re a family of all sorts of people journeying in community towards wholeness our passage has much to say about this value but before we dig into it it’s helpful i think to recall some of the story of Moses he was an Israelite part of the Israelite nation that grew up in Egypt and became slaves to the Egyptians and his life was a threat because of the command given by pharaoh to suppress the growth of the Israelite nation but his mother saved him and he actually ended up living in pharaoh’s household we might say as a prince of Egypt but then as a young man he intervened in an altercation when he helped uh try to help a Jewish slave that was being mistreated and that led to him fleeing Egypt fleeing into the wilderness into Midian and living there as a shepherd for 40 years and that’s where we find him in today’s passage Moses is out tending his flock on the far side of the wilderness and that’s where God meets him God catches his eye with a burning bush a bush that is con not being consumed by the fire and so Moses thinks to himself well that’s pretty strange I’m going to go see this yet before he can even take a step God intervenes and says Moses, Moses do not come any closer take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground Moses meets with God this holy God that we were thinking about last week and again we see God keeping that distance because of his holiness so Moses has this personal and life-changing meeting with God which was our value last week if you recall but there’s something we need to see in this passage something else as Moses encounters God he receives a calling a calling into something greater something greater than merely personal faith or personal benefit and let’s pause and think about that for a moment because as i said already we often make church we often make faith or following Jesus about ourselves how does it benefit me does it meet my needs does it take enough of my boxes what am I getting out of this do I really have the time for this

yet Moses story shows us that when we meet with God he calls us into something bigger something that has both belonging and purpose God goes on to say I’m the God of your father the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt God in meeting with Moses is calling Moses into this people again into this family the family of God and so we should be quite familiar with us by now because I’ve said it so often in the last couple of weeks God has a heart to have a people of his own and he’s going to relate to them now we see as a family with him being the perfect father to them and but in the very next people he reaffirms this he says in the next chapter even he says when you return to Egypt say to pharaoh this is what the lord says Israel is my firstborn son and i told you let my son go so that he may worship me the firstborn son his pride and joy his heir and so God has his heart for our people but he has his heart for our family he will treat them as his children and he calls Moses out of the wilderness out of estrangement out of distance and back into this place of belonging when we meet with God when we meet with God it is meant to lead us to something more than just a personal faith yes God wants you to know forgiveness and he wants you to know peace and he wants you to know hope and he wants you to know life but as we’ve seen biblical faith is meant to be more than merely me mine and I we’re called into something greater we’re called into belonging to something greater and that carries over into the new testament we read there see what great love the father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God and that is what we are it’s what we are does it is it core to your identity I hope I remember talking to hope about this the idea that we talked about this morning it’s a hard concept for a five-year-old to get our head around this idea that as deep as your family roots go you still have a family that goes deeper and for all eternity and Paul carries that on he says you’re no longer foreigners and strangers but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household members of his family with God as your father we’re called into something greater we’re called to belong to something greater to something that can never be lost never be taken away from us even after death

have we allowed this to grip us have we allowed it to shape our mind and our heart to shape our living the sense of belonging to the family of God to something greater because when we do church is no longer an event that we turn up to once a week and it’s no longer just a club or a loose group of people it’s your brother and sister someone you love and it really does become family in church we becomes the best it can be God was calling Moses back into this family he’s called us into this family and do we allow God’s word to shape our thinking in this way because it sounds a simple lesson something you tell kids till they grow sold enough that they’ve heard it so many times but do we live it out do we live it out do we see one another as our sisters and brothers in Christ so our family value says we’re a family of all sorts of people but it doesn’t stop there and it didn’t stop there for Moses either God goes on to say i have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt I’ve heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I am concerned about their suffering so i have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land a land flowing with milk and honey God has his people his family and he now tells Moses he’s going to take his children on a journey a journey out of darkness oppression and strife and to a place that is full of joy and life and goodness so when God speaks here of a good and spacious land a land flowing with milk and honey he’s simply using the language of the time he’s using the language of a shepherd and he does so that he might paint a picture and help his people understand a concept that we’re familiar with I’m sure but it’s still hard to get our heads around it’s spoken of in many ways throughout scripture often referred to as peace or in the Hebrew shalom maybe our best contemporary word would be wholeness, wholeness and shalom has this idea of a wholeness that’s both individual but collective it’s meant to ripple out across society in the wider world it includes wholeness both physically so that there’s no more suffering or death it’s meant to affect us emotionally and intellectually no more brokenness in those areas of life it’s meant to be part of our spiritual wholeness as well and speaking of shalom across the scriptures this is what God speaks of wholeness and its greatest extent that you can imagine that’s the peace that’s the wholeness that God wishes to give to his people is this is the wholeness he calls them into that would affect every area of life every area of brokenness and so when Jesus says i’ve come that they may have life and have it to the full he’s not limiting this to forgiveness

his death on the cross was not just so that you can get forgiven that’s the tip of the iceberg God’s intent through Jesus is yes for you to be forgiven because you need that we’re all a bunch of sinners as we thought about last week but that forgiveness is simply an entrance point into something greater a greater destiny a greater future God intends for his people to know this shalom his peace his perfection his wholeness and so that’s why our family value says we’re a family of all sorts of people journeying in community towards wholeness as a family we’re on a journey and we do it in community because we need one another but we’re journeying towards somewhere we’re not journeying aimlessly we’re journeying towards life in all its fullness as part of the kingdom of God into that new heaven and new earth that will one day come

now at this point I can imagine that there’s either two objections or struggles with this first of all you might think this sounds kind of selfish again Scott this me mine and I thing maybe it’s too earthly minded maybe it’s sinful maybe I feel I’m a bad person that I want this but then also remember please all I’ve done is quote scripture so God wants this for you more than you want it God wants this for you more than you want it he is a good God he came to save that you might have life, life in all its fullness life and all its wholeness but I suspect the other struggle that will come to mind as I say this is a struggle that every one of us faces from time to time and we are facing it even again today with the news that I’ve had to share because you hear this chat about a God a God who yearns for a people of his own a family of his own that he came to die that they might have life in all his fullness and yet this world is still so broken and it’s just getting worse isn’t it you know Gill and I were in for our 20-week scan the other week and when the doctor found out I was a minister lead came off is about all I can say because suddenly we faced with all these questions about these very issues it’s where he went to second time we saw him so maybe as i share God’s heart his heart to bring us on a journey to wholeness you struggle with that because maybe in your life or in the life of someone you love all you see is brokenness and the more you see of it the more brokenness comes about because then it ends up breaking your heart and maybe even ends up breaking your faith

and friends there’s no silver bullet to that there’s no answer that fully resolves the pain

in some ways i believe there shouldn’t be because when we try to have an answer the answer it probably just minimizes the dark and difficult realities we face

yet know this God is not unaware nor is he unaffected in the verses i quoted earlier God said i am concerned about their suffering now to you and me concerned probably sounds pretty cold distant about as caring as a politician pick the one you’d most want to fill in the gap there but that’s a fault of our English because the Hebrew word that’s translated here concerned it involves the idea of knowing of knowing with certainty of knowing with intimate knowledge even knowing with experience so we could even paraphrase God as saying I have experienced their suffering i have experienced their suffering just as a parent may experience a genuine degree of suffering as they see their child struggling so too does God yet God sees all suffering so the hardship that you and I know in our lives and what we feel as we watch a loved one struggle these are multiplied a billion-fold time a billion-fold for God who has experienced the suffering of every life of every moment of brokenness in this world at least from the beginning of time but as an eternal God maybe he’s always experienced it

and a day and a year can seem a long time in our lives what’s eternity like carrying all that suffering

God is not unaffected friends and now of the overflow of his love for you and me in this broken world he desires for all of us to belong to his family and then journey towards his peace his new kingdom the new heaven and earth that we might know life in all its fullness

there’s much more that can be said on this the tensions of the now and the not yet the tensions of waiting but this is God’s heart for us he calls us into family and he calls us on a journey to wholeness but he also does something quite strange with Moses he says to Moses so now go I’m sending you to pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt God has this people his family and his plans and purposes for them and yet for some unfathomable reason God wants to involve Moses this guy who messed up he messed up so bad he had to flee when he was younger and yet God still wants him to be involved i think he does it so as to rewrite Moses story so that the the future that Moses has is different from what he has had because God is calling him into something bigger into family towards wholeness into a new story by being involved and Moses responds not only this one time in verses 11 and 12 if you go on and read he responds four more times to God saying God who am I mean come on God you might be God you may have all wisdom but this just seems crazy why be no way but God says i will be with you and he later provides Aaron and others to journey with him towards these purposes so brothers and sisters God has called you into his family he has called you towards wholeness and he is calling you to be involved that the future story of this place the future story of an individual’s life the future story of our community might be different you’re part of a bigger story you know I’m I’m journeying with someone who came to faith about a year or so ago and it’s a real privilege to journey with this individual and I’m getting to know this individual story and there are hard parts to the story but I believe that God has got better in front of her than what she’s known that there will be joy again there will be peace and purpose because God is calling us all into that and he’s calling us to be involved but maybe as you hear that you’re thinking uh that sounds a bit scary I couldn’t do that I can’t do what you do Scott I can’t do what Jean or Ann did today well maybe you’ve got a different role to play you will have I’m sure and you need to know that God will be with you as well his grace and power will be with you to further what you might do in your life to help us be a place of family to help us be involved in the purposes of God there will be others of us however who need to drop the excuses just like Moses had to because God calls us all to be involved for the sake of others for the sake of his purposes for the sake of his family because if this family value is to be realized more fully we need everyone brothers and sisters we need everyone to play their part and if we do then maybe maybe when someone says to you why should i bother about church your answer certainly won’t be dull and you might still stumble and stutter a little but what you say won’t be from a place of trying to come up with the best answer possible you’ll just speak from experience and that might be captivating to them because you’ll be speaking of something greater I’ve been called into something greater I’ve been called into the family of God where you belong and into a purpose that is about more than mere survival it’s about inviting encouraging and enable people of all ages to encounter and follow Jesus Christ such that their lives change for the better and they too journey with us as a family as a community towards that wholeness and peace which he promises and which we will experience one day when His kingdom comes in all its fullness and we share in that new heaven and new earth

I pray it may be so, Amen

Advent: welcome and secure

Preached on: Sunday 20th December 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 20-12-20 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Matthew 1:18-25
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Text: Matthew 1v18-25 (NIV)
Sunday 19th December 2020
Brightons Parish Church

Message
Let 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 true and pleasing in Your sight, O LORD, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Boys and girls – adults even: what makes you feel secure? I’ll give you 30 seconds to think about that, talk about it at home, or even put it up in the Live Chat.
(PAUSE)

I wonder what came to mind for you. Maybe it was family – the security of loved ones being close and able to listen or help. Maybe it is our homes – we might have a chair, or a room, where we feel especially safe. It could be…
holding our favourite teddy or being wrapped up in a blanket you’ve had for years. Maybe we feel secure because of the things in our homes or the plans that we have. We all find safety and security in a range of places and ways, and some will be common to us, whilst others are unique because they hold a special place in our lives.

Do you remember boys and girls who we read about in our story today? We didn’t read about the story of the stable, like in this nativity scene, but we did read about some of the people we see here. We heard the names…Mary, Joseph and Jesus. And who else was in the story? Who else came and visited Joseph? Can you remember? Joseph was visited by…an angel. I don’t have wooden one of those yet for my nativity scene, but here’s one from my Christmas tree.
Our Bible story today reminded us of the beginning, the genesis, of the story about Jesus the Messiah. Mary was engaged to Joseph – they were going to get married. In that culture, as soon as you were engaged you were seen as married, even though for a whole year Mary and Joseph still lived with their parents, rather than together.

But during that time, Mary became pregnant, she was expecting a little baby. We know from other stories in the Bible that Mary had went to visit her cousin Elizabeth for about 3 months, so it’s possible that the story we read today is when Mary is about 4 months pregnant, and she’s maybe starting to show a little – not enough for everyone to notice, but enough that Joseph, and maybe some close family or friends are aware as well.

So, Joseph thinks that Mary is expecting someone else’s baby, not his baby, and wonders if he should call off the marriage, rather than going ahead. But then, the angel appears, and that angel says: ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’ (v20-21)

What Joseph experiences and hears is enough to convince him, and so he does what the angel says to do, even though Jesus is actually the son of Mary and the son of God, by the work of the Holy Spirit. Even though this is the case, Joseph chooses to take Mary home as his wife and Joseph chooses to name Jesus. These were two very public actions and they made Jesus the son of Joseph…
These actions meant that Jesus was adopted by Joseph.

And that’s important because when Joseph adopted Jesus as his son, that made Jesus heir to the promises God made to King David – Jesus became part of the legal family line, that traced his way from David, to Solomon, all the way down to Joseph and then to Jesus. To adopt Jesus, was a big step for Joseph – he was making a choice that would be for the rest of his life, because when we adopt someone, we are saying that they are welcome into our family forever, and there’s no going back, there’s no changing our minds – it’s irreversible, it’s forever, they are secure in our family.

Boys and girls, we often talk about church being like a family, and that’s been very important this past year…
because we’ve needed extra help, and at times we’ve felt alone, and other times we’ve maybe even felt a little bit scared.

But, why is the church like a family? Who’s family are we? I’m going to put up three pictures on screen and I wonder if you can guess which family, we’re a part of, OK? So, are we a part of the royal family? Or, are we part of the Peter Rabbit family? Or, are we part of God’s family? I’ll give you a few seconds to think about this. The correct answer is…we’re part of God’s family, that’s right, well done! We are part of God’s family and it was made possible because Jesus came as a baby at Christmas.

The story of Jesus, and what He sought to achieve, is a story of family, of adoption – Joseph chooses to…
adopt Jesus; Jesus chooses to adopt human form, God took on human flesh; and this was all done so that Jesus could extend the family of God. From all eternity there was the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and in love for this world they wanted to include others, they wanted you and me to be part of their family.

But because of sin, that doesn’t happen straight away. We each need to make a choice, the choice to allow Father God to adopt us into His family. Joseph made a choice to adopt Jesus; Jesus made a choice to adopt human form; and we need to make a choice as well, the choice to allow Father God to adopt us into His family.

I wonder friends, have we each made that choice? Have we come to God and said “yes, I want to be part…
of Your family!” – have we said that, or something like it? Because if we haven’t, and if we do not have an identity as adopted children of God, then we may feel even more adrift, overwhelmed or alone; we may feel that it all rests on us – on our plans, on the stuff we can get, the money we can make. But if we know ourselves as adopted children of God, if being part of God’s family is more than turning up to church or being “religious”, then with that identity can come a security because then we can become confident of God’s welcome, His rescue and presence, and the value we have to Him.

Friends, this Advent season, may we each make the choice to allow Father God to welcome us into His family, because when He adopts us, there’s no going back, He won’t change His mind – it’s irreversible, it’s forever…
and so as the Apostle Paul once said:

‘…I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
(Romans 9:38-39)

I pray that we may remember the babe who came that we might be adopted into His family line and so be secure in Him forever. May it be so. Amen.

Advent: welcome and re-storied

Preached on: Sunday 6th December 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 20-12-06 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Matthew 1:6b-11
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Text: Matthew 1:6b-11
Sunday 6th December 2020
Brightons Parish Church

Message
Let 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 true and pleasing in Your sight, O LORD, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

I wonder what Christmas films you’re looking forward to watching in the coming weeks? Do you have a family tradition of watching a particular film each year? Maybe it’s ‘Miracle on 34th Street’, or ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, ‘Elf’, ‘Meet me in St Louis’ or even ‘The Muppets Christmas Carol’ – there’s so many to choose from! Why don’t you put up your favourite in the Live Chat.

In each of these there is a story of fortunes overcome, struggles faced, and battles won. Often the stories we go back to, are those that are stories of change, of freedom, of redemption and a new life, a new future secured.

Last week, we began a new sermon series that will see us through to the end of December, focusing on the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel, which began with these words: ‘This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham…’ (v1) We dug in to some of the names and titles here: Messiah, David and Abraham. We saw that Jesus was the fulfilment of promises made long ago by God and that the initial people listed by Matthew show the welcome of God to one and all, that no one is written off. In those opening verses, we saw more of the identity of Jesus…
as the promised Messiah but also the identity we are to have: followers of Jesus, who are welcomed into the family of God and sent out to invite others to share in this good news as well.

Today we move on to the next portion of the genealogy and as you look over that list – as you take a wide-angle view of who you find there – what do you see? I see story after story filled with dysfunction. In the family line of Jesus there are a lot of skeletons in the cupboard!

Many of the individuals listed here were wicked kings of Israel and Judah, and even going back to last week’s portion of the genealogy, we find broken people there as well: Jacob who was a deceiver and thief; Judah who sold his brother into slavery; David who was an adulterer… and murderer; Tamar who engaged in incest; Rahab who was a prostitute. Time and time again, the individuals listed here are not the folks you would expect to have in the family line of the Messiah; the people here – both this week and last – are flawed, weak-willed, selfish individuals with some seriously shady stories. A real bunch of misfits.

So, what are we to make of this list? What are we meant to see about the family line of Jesus? Well, first off, I think it shows, once again, the welcome of God, but this time amidst all of our brokenness. Because not only does the family line of Jesus have a back story, we each have a story as well. In each of our lives, there is brokenness, there is imperfection, and still God calls us home to Himself and He is ready to welcome us.
One author, Brennan Manning, wrote: ‘The heart of Jesus [which is the heart of God] loves us as we are and not as we should be, beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity. He loves us…without caution, regret, boundary, limit or breaking point.’

This is the love of God for you and for me. This is the welcome of God extended to you and to me. No matter who you are or what you’ve done, God loves you and is ready to welcome you home into His family. Just look at the list of individuals in the family line of Jesus – and yet
God chooses, Jesus chooses, to be born into that particular family line. God knew what was coming, none of their stories took Him by surprise, and yet He still chose to identify with them, to become part of that family line.
Friends, as another author put it: ‘the grace of God is…lavish, excessive, outrageous and scandalous. God’s grace is ridiculously inclusive. Apparently God doesn’t care who He loves. He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends or the people He calls [family]…the grace of God is indiscriminate, foolish, impractical, unrealistic, crazy and naïve.’

I also wonder, friends, I wonder what’s in your story– I wonder what you are facing just now, or what you have faced in the past – and whether it has sown a seed of doubt about whether God would ever welcome you home, whether God would ever delight in you and value you? I wonder if there are skeletons in your cupboard, which maybe you keep hidden from others, and maybe even try to keep hidden from God?…
Well you don’t need to, and you don’t need to doubt – because we see in Jesus the welcome of God and His love of broken people, like you and me.

Friends, this advent season, do you know the welcome of God? Do you know His grace? All of us are broken, all of us are flawed, just like the individuals in the family line of Jesus – all of us are undeserving, we’re all on the same level – and yet we are all welcomed home as well. (P)

Nevertheless, the grace of God is not only there to welcome us, but to save us, to redeem us, to restore, even re-story our lives. You see, the people in the family line of Jesus were broken people – like you and me – but they were broken people because of sin, because of a deep darkness and sickness that is in each of us…
Jesus came, not only to reveal the welcome and grace of God, but to do something about our underlying condition. In fact, it’s so key to the identity of Jesus that it’s part of His name. Matthew began by saying:
‘This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah …’ (v1)

To us, a name is little more than just a word, but in the culture of the time a name carried meaning, and ‘Jesus’ meant ‘the Lord saves’ and as we’ll see in a few weeks’ time the angel also said to Joseph: ‘[Mary] will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’ (Mt. 1:21)

God not only wants to welcome us, He wants to save us, He wants to restore and re-story our lives, in fact He wishes to do this for the whole of creation…
When Matthew says, ‘This is the genealogy of Jesus…’ the original Greek literally reads: ‘This is the book of the genesis of Jesus…’ and that would have made the Jewish readers of Matthew’s time think about the start of the Old Testament, where God began another ‘genesis’, the genesis of creation itself. Matthew is trying to tell us that the coming of Jesus is a new beginning, a new creation, a new genesis and that this is for all the nations, for all broken, sinful people. This coming Messiah came to save, to restore, to re-story our lives and the whole of creation. The Apostle Paul would one day say, ‘…if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!’ (2 Cor. 5:17)

Friends, Father God accepts you as you are – back story and all – but now as part of His family, part of the family…

line of Jesus, He wants to re-story your life, weaving a future – your future story – into the great and cosmic story of what He was up to at Christmas: that Jesus, the Messiah, had come to bring about a new creation, starting with the broken people of this world.

Friends, your past, your back story, doesn’t need to define who you are or your identity or your value or your future – because Jesus came to save, to restore, to restory your life and mine. I will never tire of retelling my story, of how God broke into my life at the time when the darkness of my soul had gone too far. And in that moment, I met with the grace and welcome of God – He welcomed me as I was, but since then, He has re-storied my life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in all the world.
Maybe you’re wondering: how can I know the welcome and grace of God? How can I let God re-story my life and save me? Well, later in Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus began teaching about the kingdom of God, He said this:
‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’
(Matthew 4:17)

Repent. That’s how we let Jesus re-story our lives. It’s more than simply saying sorry. To repent, is to have your thinking changed about Jesus that it affects the core of who you are and how you live your life. When you repent truly, you make the choice to follow Jesus – His teaching, His ways, His example – you seek to follow Him first and before all. Now, you won’t get it perfect, because none of us are, we’re still broken. But if there is genuine repentance, then there should also be a desire in us…
to allow Jesus to shape and lead our lives.

Friends, if we want saved, if we want our lives restored and re-storied, such that we know the welcome and grace of God, then it always begins with humbling ourselves – repenting – and calling out to Him for help. If we do that, then God always responds, He always welcomes home anyone – no matter their story – God welcomes home such a person to be part of His family.

Brothers and sisters, every season of Advent is a time to remember the greatest of stories – not captured often by Hollywood – and yet, in this story, the story of the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, we find a story of struggles faced, and battles won, a story of change, of freedom, of redemption and new life. Because…
in the story of Jesus, in His family line, we see the grace of God extended to broken humanity and the invitation for us all to find ourselves in His family, becoming a new creation and so having our futures re-storied.

I pray that each of us, whether for the first time, or the hundredth time, may we all repent and come into the life that can only be found in Jesus. May it be so. Amen.

Called to Wholeness and called to Family

Preached on: Sunday 9th August 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 20-08-09-Message-PPT-slides.
Bible references: Matthew 9:1-13
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Text: Matthew 9:1-13 (NIV)
Sunday 9th August 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.

Last week we were introduced to that statement from the Church Without Walls Report, which said that the core purpose of the church is ‘to invite, encourage and enable people to be disciples of Jesus Christ.’ We focused especially on the words ‘invite’ and ‘disciples’, so today I want to focus more on ‘encourage’, because in this life of faith, in this calling to be disciples who invite others to be disciples, we need encouragement.

Boys and girls, have you ever done something that’s hard? Maybe you had to try something new? Well, whatever that hard thing was, what helped you keep going? To keep trying? I’ll give you 60 seconds to think or talk about that at home. (PAUSE)

If you like, put up in the Live Chat the ideas you came up with. Maybe you said, people who were around you, like friends or family; it might have been the words that they used; or maybe it was a sense of accomplishment that helped you to keep going.

One of my hobbies is rock climbing, and when I was starting out in rock climbing, it was really hard. My arms would get sore, I’d fall off the wall, I’d get frustrated that
I couldn’t get to the top of a climb…
But what kept me going were my friends, because their encouragement, their words, their own perseverance, helped me find strength, of body and of heart, of will.

The word “encouragement” literally means “to give heart” – to give strength to your heart to keep going, to persevere – and we all need that, most days, most weeks; we need someone to help us keep going, maybe through their example, their words or even just their company, because these things strengthen our heart, our will.

In our story today, once more we see Jesus calling someone to follow Him, to be His disciple. Can you remember his name? It was…Matthew. Now, can you also remember what Matthew’s job was? Matthew was
a tax collector and tax collectors were not liked…
very much. They were employed by the Romans, who everybody hated, and Matthew’s job was to make sure people paid a certain amount of money to the Romans. But tax collectors were also a bit of a bad bunch, because they’d usually charge too much and so they would get rich on the extra money. This meant that everyone hated them as well, because they were traitors for helping the Romans, and they were bad because they got rich at the expense of others.

So, here comes Jesus and He calls Matthew, a tax collector, to be His disciple. Matthew was being invited into relationship, invited into God’s purpose, just like the other disciples were last week. But Matthew’s story teaches us something else as well.

Matthew would have been despised, he would have been an outcast, with a group of friends you could only trust as far as you could throw them. But Jesus calls Matthew and then goes home with him to have a meal. That was a big deal back then because there was an old saying that said: ‘to share a meal is to share a life.’ The people you ate with were the people you accepted and welcomed into your life.

So, Jesus is doing something special here, in particular with Matthew. Jesus is inviting Matthew into a new family, a new place where he belongs. Matthew is no longer going to be known simply as “the tax collector”; he’s now a disciple of Jesus, he’s in relationship with Jesus, and as Jesus will say later, ‘…whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister.’
That goes for all the disciples – to every one of them, to every one of us: Jesus gives us an invitation to relationship and to purpose, but we don’t do it alone, to help us keep going, to give us heart and strength, Jesus invites us into His family, the family of God. This is more than just a loose collection of acquaintances or superficial friendships; we are called to be family together, in all the seasons of life.

In our current season this is especially important. You may have heard that the elders at Brightons have decided not to open up the church sanctuary for worship just now. It is their decision to make and they weighed up all the issues and feedback. Currently, things are very limited in what we can do in worship and who could attend, and it was felt by the elders that such a worship environment… would not offer as meaningful an experience for the majority of people than what is currently available online, on via CD or in printed format.

Nevertheless, the elders are aware that maybe what we most yearn for right now is community, to see one another and to be family together. There are probably many ways we could do this, from watching the Sunday service together with a neighbour (though without singing); or inviting some someone round for a cuppa, whether outdoors or indoors. But there may be other ideas as well, so if you have an idea about how we could be family together, then please get in contact and help us be family in this time. Equally, if you are feeling isolated and want support, then get in contact as well or try something new.
For example, your picture in for Community Corner, or joining the pre-service Zoom Cuppa. This runs from 10 to 10.40 every Sunday morning, and you don’t need to use a computer or tablet, you can just phone in and talk to a group of other people from the church. And because we are family, there are people around who are willing to help you get connected, so please just ask if you want to give it a try.

Matthew was being invited into a new family, the family of God, but in this story of Matthew’s call to follow Jesus, we see something else. Matthew is also invited into forgiveness, to have peace with God. Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick…I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’ Jesus comes with the invitation to know the forgiveness of God,…
which is central to what God wishes to give us, because sin has broken our relationship with God, it has broken our relationship with others, it has broken this world, even ourselves. Jesus, the Great Physician, comes to forgive sin as part of the means of healing this world.

We see in the Old Testament, that the heart of God is for us to know peace, shalom, which we might describe as ‘wholeness’ today. It includes peace with God, peace with others, peace within yourself, peace of soul and mind. Jesus comes with the invitation to begin a journey towards wholeness. Matthew had lost his way, he’d gone down a wrong track; he was broken on the inside, he was broken in his relationship with others, he was broken in his relationship with God – yet in every dimension of
Matthew’s life, Jesus offers healing, He offers wholeness.

And as Matthew begins to experience this, he naturally invites others into that experience for themselves, to meet with Jesus, this God-man, who has authority to forgive, to heal the soul, and change our lives forever.

Friends, will we respond like Matthew to Jesus? Will we take up His calling to follow, to be family, to show a scandalous generosity towards others? You can’t do that by staying removed, or just looking out for yourself – you have to start looking out to others, and rather than seeing them as people who don’t meet your mark, you have to show mercy, loving-kindness, the ‘hesed’ covenant love of God.

Yet, all of us have failed in this at some point, and so all of us are broken on the inside, we need the healing…
Page
of Jesus, we need His forgiveness. I wonder, will you respond to the invitation of Jesus? To family and to wholeness? I pray it be so. Amen.

We close our time together with our final hymn…

The Father who rejoices

Preached on: Sunday 23rd June 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 19-06-23-Brightons-Message-Powerpoint-–-Sunday-School-Closing-Service (1).
Bible references:
Location: Brightons Parish Church

• GOOD MORNING AGAIN TO OUR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE!
• I HAVE BEEN SO IMPRESSED WITH ALL THE HARD WORK YOU HAVE PUT IN TO PREPARE FOR TODAY’S SERVICE.

• NOW I ASKED YOU TO DRAW A PICTURE FOR ME TO SHOW ME WHAT YOU IMAGINE GOD TO BE LIKE, OR WHAT YOU IMAGINE GOD TO BE DOING RIGHT NOW.
• SO, WHAT DID YOU DRAW?
• THESE ARE ALL WONDERFUL PICTURES OF GOD, BUT TODAY I WANT TO SHARE WITH US ALL SOMETHING ABOUT GOD, SOMETHING THAT I DON’T SEE VERY MUCH OF IN YOUR PICTURES.
• ONE TIME, JESUS TOLD A STORY ABOUT A WOMAN…

• THIS WOMAN HAD 10 COINS, 10 VERY SPECIAL COINS, AND THESE COINS MEANT
A LOT TO HER, THEY WERE PRECIOUS TO HER. BUT THIS WOMAN LOST ONE OF
HER COINS. HOW DO YOU THINK SHE FELT? (SAD, WORRIED)
• WHAT DO YOU THINK THE WOMAN DID WHEN SHE REALISED SHE HAD LOST ONE OF HER COINS? (SHE SEARCHED FOR IT)
• AROUND THE CHURCH I’VE LOST 10 COINS THAT LOOK LIKE THIS…

• I WONDER IF YOU CAN HELP ME SEARCH FOR THE 10 LOST COINS AND BRING
THEM BACK HERE WHEN YOU’VE FOUND THEM? NOW, DON’T START YET – WE’LL
START WHEN THE BAND STARTS PLAYING THEIR MUSIC. I’VE GOT A FEW RULES
FOR YOU: YOU HAVE TO WALK. YOU MUST BRING A COIN BACK AS SOON AS YOU FIND IT. YOU MUST BRING IT BACK WITH A YOUNGER CHILD. (SEARCH BEGINS)
• SO, THE LADY SEARCHED FOR HER ONE LOST COIN….

• SHE PROBABLY LIT A CANDLE TO HELP HER HUNT HIGH AND LOW FOR THE LOST COIN.
• EVENTUALLY SHE DID FIND IT. WHAT DO YOU THINK SHE FELT? (HAPPY, EXCITED, RELIEVED)
• NOW JESUS WAS TELLING THIS STORY ABOUT THE WOMAN WITH THE LOST COIN BECAUSE HE WAS TEACHING ALL THE PEOPLE ABOUT FATHER GOD…

• IN HIS TEACHING ABOUT FATHER GOD, JESUS TOLD ANOTHER STORY, THE STORY WE HEARD READ TO US THIS MORNING. IT IS A STORY ABOUT A SON WHO LEFT HOME AND A FATHER WHO WAS SAD BECAUSE HIS SON LEFT HOME.
• IN THE STORY, THE SON RETURNS HOME EVENTUALLY, DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT
THE FATHER FELT AND DID WHEN THE SON RETURNED HOME? (HAPPY, FORGIVES, THREW A PARTY)
• BECAUSE HE FELT THAT WAY HE THREW A BIG PARTY…

• NOW, JESUS TOLD THE STORIES ABOUT THE LOST COIN AND THE LOST SON BECAUSE JESUS WAS TRYING TO TEACH US ABOUT FATHER GOD.
• AND ONE OF THE THINGS JESUS WANTED US TO KNOW ABOUT FATHER GOD, IS THAT FATHER GOD IS A GOD WHO SMILES AND LAUGHS. IN FACT, GOD LOVES A PARTY, AND FATHER GOD KNOWS HOW TO REJOICE AND CELEBRATE.
• NOW, LET’S LOOK AT YOUR PICTURES AGAIN…

• I DON’T SEE MANY PICTURES OF HOLD THROWING A PARTY OR EVEN OF GOD BEING HAPPY.
• MOST OF US, INCLUDING THE ADULTS, HAVE A PICTURE OF GOD IN OUR HEADS. WE CAN IMAGINE WHAT GOD IS LIKE, OR IF WE WERE ASKED, WE COULD USE WORDS TO DESCRIBE GOD.
• NOW, WHAT I FIND INTERESTING, IS WHAT YOUR PICTURES OF GOD, REVEAL ABOUT THE ADULTS’ PICTURE OF GOD. I THINK
THAT THERE ARE PROBABLY VERY FEW PICTURES OF GOD BEING HAPPY OR CELEBRATING IN WHAT YOU DREW, BECAUSE FEW OF THE ADULTS THINK ABOUT GOD THAT WAY EITHER. IF WE DID, THEN WE WOULD TEACH YOU THAT AND THEN YOU WOULD HAVE DRAWN THAT.
• BUT EVEN THOUGH THE ADULTS MIGHT BE UNCERTAIN OF THIS, THE BIBLE TEACHES US THAT FATHER GOD DOES REJOICE…

• GOD ALWAYS LOVES US – HE LOVED US SO MUCH THAT JESUS DIED TO HELP US. HE DIED THAT WE MIGHT KNOW GOD AND HAVE PEACE WITH GOD. HE DIED TO SHOW US HOW MUCH GOD LOVES US.
• BUT WHEN WE CHOOSE TO BE GOD’S FRIEND, WHEN WE CHOOSE TO FOLLOW GOD’S WAYS, WHEN WE CHOOSE JESUS AS LORD AND SAVIOUR, THEN FATHER
GOD NOT ONLY LOVES US – HE ALSO REJOICES OVER US WITH SINGING! THAT’S
HOW MUCH HE LOVES US – YOU AND I MAKE GOD SO HAPPY THAT HE SINGS OVER US! NORMALLY WE THINK THAT WE DO THE SINGING ABOUT GOD, BUT GOD SINGS IN HEAVEN WITH SONGS ABOUT US AS WELL.
• SO, TODAY WE HAVE CELEBRATED EACH OF YOU…

• WE HAVE CELEBRATED THAT EACH OF YOU IS PART OF THIS CHURCH, YOU ARE
PART OF GOD’S FAMILY. WE ARE SO ENCOURAGED BECAUSE YOU COME ALONG TO SUNDAY SCHOOL AND LEARN MORE ABOUT JESUS EACH WEEK. AND WE ARE THANKFUL FOR THE ADULTS WHO GIVE THEIR TIME TO HELP YOU.
• BUT YOU HAVE ALSO HELPED US TO CELEBRATE GOD…

• TO CELEBRATE A GOD WHO LOVES US, LIKE A PERFECT FATHER, AND CARES FOR
US LIKE A GOOD SHEPHERD. SO, WE SHOULD COME ALONG EVERY WEEK AND CELEBRATE IN OUR GOD…

• BUT TODAY, LET US ALL ALSO REMEMBER THE TEACHING OF JESUS AND THE SCRIPTURES – THAT GOD CELEBRATES, GOD REJOICES AND HE REJOICES OVER US.
• BECAUSE WE ARE PART OF HIS FAMILY, BECAUSE WE HAVE CHOSEN TO FOLLOW HIM, GOD NOT ONLY LOVES US, HE DANCES AND SINGS AND THROWS A PARTY IN HEAVEN FOR YOU AND ME AND FOR ALL OF US.
• SO, WHEN WE ARE TELLING OUR FRIENDS ABOUT CHURCH AND THEY ASK US WHY
WE GO TO CHURCH, MAYBE, WE CAN TELL THEM, THAT PART OF THE ANSWER IS THAT WE HAVE A GOD WHO LOVES US BUT A GOD WHO ALSO REJOICES OVER US AND THROWS A PARTY IN HEAVEN FOR EACH OF US.