Ready to die to self (evening)

Preached on: Tuesday 26th March 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. There is no PowerPoint PDF accompanying this message.
Bible references: Isaiah 49:5-6 and John 12:20-28
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
– The Son’s time
– The Son’s mission
– The Son’s prayer

Live for the will of God

Preached on: Sunday 3rd March 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 124-03-03 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: 1 Peter 4:1-11
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
Live for the will of God:
– be done with sin
– be mindful of your judge
– prioritise prayer and serve faithfully

Holy Rest

Preached on: Sunday 2nd July 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 23-07-02 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Mark 1:29-39
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
Holy Rest:
– Divert Daily
– Withdraw Weekly
– Abandon Annually

The Lord is my Banner (evening)

Preached on: Sunday 25th 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. There is no PowerPoint PDF accompanying this message.
Bible references: Exodus 17:8-16
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
– victory through prayer
– perseverance in prayer
– understanding through testimony

Prayer changes things

Preached on: Sunday 30th October 2022
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. There is no PowerPoint PDF accompanying this sermon.
Bible references: Luke 17:20-21 & 18:1-8
Location: Blackbraes Shieldhill and Muiravonside

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

Come Holy Spirit and soften our hearts to the Word of God. Let there be light.
Come Holy Spirit and teach us the things of the Kingdom.
Come Holy Spirit with power and deep conviction, for we ask that ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Recently, down the roads at Brightons we had a few volunteers come and share an incredible story with us, during the service there. We have an All Together Time which is normally some time to engage with the children but we also use it to maybe share testimony or are there bits of news. And so, I’d asked Nadia and Allison to share a recent experience of theirs because, on the Monday night just before, Nadia had been at the Fellowship Group that she attends and during that time someone had shared a prayer request for their son, who’s a student, to find some accommodation. I’m sure we’ve read in the news about the lack of accommodation for students and so, they committed it to prayer. On the way home that night, Nadia remembered that she knew a friend in Glasgow who had a flat and sometimes it was available and so she contacted her friend who came back that night and said actually, it was available and she was just waiting to see how God might want to use it. So, by the following morning, this student had a flat. But the story doesn’t end there, because then Nadia went to Pre-Fives, the toddler group down at Brightons that morning, the Tuesday morning, and during the prayer time before the start of it one of the other volunteers, Allison, shared a Bible verse that had spoken to her that week or maybe even that morning, about sharing your faith and being bold to share your faith and so, in that time of prayer, Nadia really took that to heart and when she went into Pre-fives that morning and got talking with some of the adults there, she met a couple and, rather than just exchange the usual pleasantries, because she took that word of prayer and encouragement from Scripture to heart, she decided to share, with them, this answer to prayer from the night before, and it opened up a whole range of conversation about faith, about coming to church, and then, maybe, God was on the case of this couple who’d just come along to toddlers that day, that He was wanting to be part of their life. And it all began with prayer. With a few words of prayer on a Monday night, with a few words of prayer on a Tuesday morning leading to a cascade of events the next day. And who knows where it will continue in that couple’s life. Who know. All this, prayer changes things. It brings about the unseen Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke about in our passage. It brings about that unseen Kingdom into both our lives and into the lives of people around us. And our passage today, we are called to prayer, we are encouraged to pray and, also, that we can keep on praying.

In verse 1 of chapter 18 we read ‘Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.’ To show them that they should always pray. Jesus calls us to pray, to be a people of prayer and part of this parable with this widow women, part of its purpose is to hold up to us her example that, without her persistence, nothing would have changed, and what we, in part, are to take away from it is that, without prayer, nothing which truly matters will change either. And that’s a point Illustrated across the scriptures.

So, we can go into First Timothy Chapter 2, a verse often used in reference to prayer where Paul says to Timothy ‘I urge first of all that petitions prayers intercession be made for all people for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives.’ Now, let’s remember, Paul is writing at a time when the church is being persecuted and so, he’s encouraging prayer for a leader, an emperor who was evil, that people wouldn’t like and I’m sure we know some leaders of government or others that we don’t like but yet, we are to pray for them because our prayers affect society, they affect leadership. But, maybe, the opposite is also true that when we don’t pray, things don’t change. And so, we all know of the economic crisis that we’ve been facing, particularly at the instigation of the mini budget some weeks ago, and we might want to just simply blame Liz Truss or others for that kerfuffle and the impact upon our lives. But, what if we, God’s people across this nation and here, are in part to blame because we just moaned and we criticized and we judged, but did we pray? Did we pray consistently for those in government?

Or let’s go to Acts chapter four. We’re at the end of chapter four. We read that the church is facing persecution and has gathered for prayer and, in one of the verses, we read that they pray. ‘Stretch out your hand O Lord.’ and maybe we wonder ‘Well, they’re just asking for God to take away the hardship, to click His fingers and magic it away.’ But that’s not actually what they pray. They pray for themselves to be changed, for them to have boldness in the face of their circumstances and maybe that’s the most pressing area for prayer for us, to be changed, to be changed from the inside out rather than just wishing things away. In these examples we can see how prayer is essential and so why it should be a priority for us. We are called to prayer because prayer changes things and especially changes ourselves. But, brothers and sisters, do we see it that way?

It’s often said that we’ve got time for everything else but prayer. Everything else seems much more urgent. Everything else seems to take greater priority but not prayer. We don’t make the space to slow down. We don’t meet the space to give time to prayer, to learn to pray. We put it off. Yet, the parable of this widow shows us why we are called to prayer. Just as her circumstances would not have changed without her persistent action neither will ours without prayer. So, let us respond to the call of Jesus to be a people who pray.

Now, one of the common pitfalls with this passage is to think that Jesus is saying we must persist in prayer because God is as unwilling as the judge. We read about his unwillingness in verses four and five. We read there ‘For some time he refused but finally he said to himself ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think yet, because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won’t eventually come and attack me.’ He’s unwilling, he’s selfish, he’s only looking out for himself really and it’s common to think that maybe Jesus is comparing like with like, that God is like the judge. Yet, what Jesus actually says of God in verses 7 and 8 ‘Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones? He will see that they get justice and quickly.’ God is different to the judge. Jesus is not arguing like with like. He’s arguing from a lesser example to a greater example and He does that to encourage us. The Scriptures teach us that there’s at least five ways in which we have something greater in God than what this woman experiences.

So, for example, she is but a woman, a poor widow woman. She had no status in society, easy to be overlooked and ignored but that’s not our situation. We are the children of God and so we come before our Heavenly Father who will not ignore us.

She had no access, no rights really, to come before this judge but we have access. The way is open for us in prayer, to come before our God any time that we please.

She had no-one to come alongside her as she went to the judge. She went alone but that’s not the case with us because we have Jesus as an advocate before the Father for ours, we have the Holy Spirit living in us to take the groans and yearnings of our hearts before God on our behalf.

She had no leverage to influence this judge but we don’t need the leverage because we have the promises of God to stand upon, to claim, to cling to. He will be faithful to those.

She came to a cold court of law but, brothers and sisters, when we come in prayer, we come before the throne of Grace, the throne of Almighty God.

Jesus is arguing from the lesser to the greater. He’s saying, in effect, if this poor woman got what she deserved from such a selfish judge how much more should we be encouraged to pray because God is our Heavenly Father and we are reconciled to Him through Christ.

So, brothers and sisters, are we encouraged to be a prayerful people? Are we praying through the week, not just on a Sunday, and do we do so together at any point? Possibly not, but then, the thing to do is not to shrink from prayer, not to think it’s beyond you or too hard, but to give it a try, to find ways of growing in prayer.

When I came to faith at the age of 19, I probably had only three experiences of prayer, three common experiences.

The first was growing up saying bedtime prayers. Maybe you did the same and you maybe had a rote prayer. I had a rote prayer but that fell away probably around primary school somewhere and prayers at bedtime stopped. I heard prayers on a Sunday morning being said at church there by the minister and I had prayers from the minister at maybe a school assembly. Literally, those were the three areas of prayer I’d only ever come across in my life. But when I came to faith at the age of 19, a month later I started studying at Herriot Watt University because I’d taken a gap year after school, and when I went along to the Freshers Fayre, I found out about the Christian Union and got involved with the Christian Union and, within a very short space of time, some folks from the Christian Union invited me along to the prayer meeting that they held on a Wednesday morning at half past eight – Yes, even students can get up early! – when we gathered at half past eight for classes before starting at quarter past nine and we prayed. And, at first, I probably just did a bit of listening because I’ve never been exposed to something like that, but being in that environment around those people, it taught me to pray and to grow in confidence to pray out loud and that was a gift, a real gift. I probably wouldn’t be standing in front of you without that influence in my life.

Now, I will always encourage you to learn to pray out loud. I think it’s something we should learn to do but I recognize not everyone is quite ready to take that step yet. We can all find ways of growing in prayer, of weaving it into our day, our week, our rhythms so that it’s not just from Sunday to Sunday when we pray, but that we pray in many other ways, that it comes as easy as breathing to us, and, maybe, as regularly. And if we will grow in prayer, if we will find ways and rhythms to do so, there will soon come to be encouraged to pray all the more, just as Jesus sought to do in this parable.

Yet, we all know, there are times when prayer seems to go unanswered and that is the context of our passage today. In verse chapter 17 at verse 20 we read that Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come and they asked this because they prayed for this, they’d been praying for 400 years, if not more, for the Kingdom of God to come. They wanted to be free of Roman rule. They wanted to see God’s Kingdom established with His justice and peace for their people and their land. And so, they asked this new Rabbi ‘Well, when will the Kingdom of God come?’ and then His answer, both of what we read and the portion we skipped over, He says that the Kingdom is hidden in part. He says, in verse 20, ‘The Kingdom of God is in your midst.’ it’s hidden, part through Him, through Him coming into the world. The Kingdom is breaking into the world. But He goes on to say more is to come. The Kingdom is here but not yet. It’s here in part but not fully. And so, He goes on, in the parable we read, to teach us to pray, to be persistent in prayer even. And so, in verse 1, He speaks of not giving up. In verse 3 the widow is described as coming, who keeps coming to the judge. The judge says in verse 5 that she keeps bothering him. She’s that persistent. In verse 7 Jesus speaks of the children of God who pray day and night and in verse 8 that He wonders when He returns, will He find faith, ongoing, persistent faith that displays itself in prayer. I wonder, does that describe us? Are we a prayerful people? Or, have we given up?

The Greek word for ‘give up’ in verse 1 can also be translated ‘to faint.’ It speaks of someone who has grown weary, who’s lost heart, who’s become discouraged and feels helpless. Maybe you come to church feeling that way today, or you’ve known seasons like that and, maybe, you’re in that place because you’re waiting, you’re waiting for God to answer our prayer and, when He seems to delay, you maybe wonder ‘Well, why does He delay?’

I’m not sure I can give you an answer to the why, but I read something that gave me encouragement nonetheless, as we wait upon God. Warren Wiersbe, one commentator, said ‘God’s delays are not the delays of inactivity but of preparation.’ God’s delays are not the delays of inactivity but of preparation. And he bases that upon Romans 8 verse 20 where Paul says to the church at Rome ‘We know that, in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose, God’s chosen ones.’ called ones as Jesus said in the parable are ‘the children of God’ and that includes us. And so, this verse is as true for us as for the Christians in Rome, that we know that, in all things, God works, God works for the good of those who love Him. God is at work. His delays are not of inactivity but of preparation.

We might gather today feeling discouraged about many things. The last time I was with you I brought news about the future of our churches in the Upper Braes and you may feel like God is inactive. Why are things not changing? Why is the church in decline? You might also wonder in this message ‘Well, if we start to gather for prayer, if we started a prayer meeting, if we learned to pray out loud, would God then change things, might we have a future?’ I can’t promise that. Even if you started to pray and gather for prayer, the building still might close yet, that does not mean God is inactive. Maybe in that season, maybe through those prayers, God begins our work of preparation, our work to change your heart, to make you more like Jesus, to grow you in faith, to grow you in passion, to grow you in boldness, to help you see you’re part of something new. Who knows what He might do and teach as you pray in that season but His delays are not of inactivity but of preparation. For our part, we are to keep on praying in and through the delays, refusing to give up, just like the persistent widow because we know we come to God our Heavenly Father and that He works for the good of His children.

So, brothers and sisters, let us take heed of God’s Word to us today and respond, both to the call and the encouragement of our Lord, to pray and, in so doing, be a people who keep on praying. May it be so. Amen.

Prayer: gift of the Kingdom

Preached on: Sunday 24th July 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 22-07-24 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Matthew 6:5-18
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
– the kingdom is based on trusting relationship
– prayer is a gift of the kingdom
– get praying this!

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

Come Holy Spirit and soften our hearts to the word of God.
Come Holy Spirit and captivate our hearts with the ways of the kingdom.
Come Holy Spirit with power and deep conviction for we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen

I don’t know about you but in my life, there are things that I’d love to see change, love to see ways that I would mature and grow in bits and pieces and the same is true in my faith. In my faith I’d love to mature and grow in different areas of life. And so, when we read passages like ours today, we instinctively think ‘Well, I need to get better at prayer’ or ‘I need to pray more often’ or something like that and I wonder, if you had a choice between growing in prayer or growing and reading the bible or just some other aspect of faith, what would you pick? What would you pick? If you feel brave enough, why not turn to your neighbor and share with them what you would pick. Would it be prayer? Would it be bible reading? Would it just be to know God is there? Whatever it is, if you can pick one of the two or go for something different. So, over to you just for 20 or 30 seconds. Over to you.

I’m not going to ask you to do a hands-up or anything like that, but those are maybe a conversation to carry on afterwards and just explore that a bit. Often when we get asked these kinds of things I probably, if you’re anything like me, ends up making you feel a bit guilty, a little bit like ‘Oh, I’m not as good a Christian’ or whatever, as you maybe think you should but, as we’ve been seeing throughout this series on the Sermon on the Mount, behind everything Jesus teaches is an invitation, an invitation to more, know more of the life of God’s kingdom, that He wants good for you and for me. So, yeah, today might include one or two challenges. You wouldn’t expect anything different from me after three and a half years, after all. But there’s invitation here. There’s invitation into the life of the kingdom and last week’s passage, at the end of it, we saw that Jesus brought a particular challenge to one practice that the hypocrites were doing and He flows now onto the next couple of practices where the hypocrites are abusing the ways of God, in different ways.

And so, he says ‘and when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. When you fast do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others their fasting.’ And so, Jesus brings this critique of the hypocrites of the Jewish leaders of His day to say ‘Well, they are turning the practices of prayer and fasting, they’re turning them inwards, they’re turning them into a show, a pretense by putting on this mask and faking it before God so as to be looked at and esteemed by others.’ They’re corrupting these practices through their selfishness.

But Jesus also has a critique for the pagan practice of prayer and he said earlier ‘and when you pray do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many word,’ One of the most convincing comments I found on this, doing my reading during the week, was one commentator saying that there was a pagan practice where you would try and find just the right name of God and so you would keep repeating names of God to try and get power over that God or pronounce the name just in the right way so as to again get that power and then have control over the God. And so, it was all about manipulation again, taking prayer and corrupting it for self, for selfish purposes and Jesus holds up both these practices to say well, neither is what you should be about.

There’s a third way, the way of the kingdom and so we read earlier ‘but when you pray go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen. Do not be like them for your father knows what you need before you ask him. When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting but only to your father.’ There are a few things we need to note here in passing. The ‘you’ that’s used here is not meaning a group of people but an individual and so this is about our individual practices. It’s not a ban on public prayer so, Rachel, you didn’t do anything wrong here sister, you’re not sinning, good job so you’re fine, Also Jesus is not banning us repeating our prayers nor is he banning us having long times of prayer around a particular issue. I know this because He did it. Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, prayed three times for the same thing so, it’s obviously allowed. He prayed through the night before choosing the apostles so, that’s allowed too. It’s not a ban on either of those practices when it comes to prayer and clearly, when He mentions fasting, He has an expectation that we’ll fast but for all you foodies amongst us I’m not going to speak about that today so we don’t need to worry about that so much. All these things aside, what is this passage revealing about the kingdom? Because, remember, we saw a few weeks ago that everything that’s going to come here has got to reveal something about the kingdom. It’s about the ways of the kingdom. So, what is Jesus revealing?

Well, he reveals that the kingdom is based on trusting relationship. He says ‘Your father, who is unseen’ is about relationship. It’s not about reputation and status, like the Jewish hypocrites. He says ‘Your father knows what you need.’ It’s about trust, not about manipulation, like the pagans. And so, core to the kingdom, is this basis of trust, of having a trusting relationship. It’s there within the Godhead. It was there at the beginning of creation but lost this trusting relationship that we’re called into. Called into a trusting relationship with God as our Heavenly Father. With a Heavenly Father who knows what you need before you ask. A Heavenly Father who sees you in the secret hidden place and knows the deep hidden things of your soul, of your heart, the aches and the joys, the worries and the stresses, the questions and the griefs. He knows it all. H sees you like no one else sees you. He sees you to the depths of your being. He sees the things you hide away and the mask that you put on. He sees behind it such is His love for you and He calls you into trust and relationship with Him. So, can I ask you this morning, do you know that? Do you have that kind of relationship with God? Or are you keeping God at arm’s length? Are you keeping Him at arm’s length? There might be many reasons you do that. Maybe it’s something from your past. Maybe there’s something there maybe.

I was watching a program, it was the Chosen program, I’ve mentioned it before, and I was mentioning a recent recording, I’m watching a recent recording they did with some Gen-Zed young people, whatever that is, what? early twenties, late teens, that kind of age range, and they were speaking not only about the pain of fathers but also the pain of mothers and so, I don’t want to assume that it can just be one or the other that actually it can be either, that we’ve maybe had a difficult background and it warps our picture of God and we end up seeing God in what was portrayed to us by parents or by a faith leader or by whoever it might be, and we get this warped picture of God that matches nothing like what Jesus teaches. Or maybe you’ve been to church before or it was religion at school, with school assemblies and school times of prayer, whatever it might be, and it just left you cold and unmoved and it just seemed like people were just going through the hoops, but it meant nothing, and it was empty, and it’s just you think ‘Well, I want nothing to do with God.’ If that’s what it is. But that’s not what it is. That’s not what Jesus comes to reveal. He comes to reveal a God who wants a personal relationship with you, who wants to be in that place of trust with you, and has tried to prove that to you by dying for you and for me, and that’s the invitation of Jesus this morning, to take up that invitation into trusting relationship again.

Now, we might wonder ‘Well, why did Jesus teach it at this point in the Sermon? Like, ‘Why did he not include it earlier in the Sermon? After all, if trusting relationship is so important, why not after the Beatitudes? Why not include it there? So, cuz you’ve got that great high of the of the Beatitudes, of this great welcome into the kingdom and the blessed life, why not include it at that point, this great invitation to trust in relationship.’ Or, why not include it at the end because well, You know Jesus, if I was Your PR agent, You’ve ended on a bit of a downer? Like, if I don’t trust You if I don’t follow Your teaching it might not be the best. Like, that’s a wee bit morbid. So, like, let’s end on a high. Let’s end on this trusting relationship thing.’ Why, why does he have it in the middle?

Well, maybe it’s exactly where it needs to be. Maybe it’s in the center of the Sermon because of all that came before and all that’s going to come next because, after all, if you scan through this Sermon, you can’t be salt and light without God’s help, you can’t seek to try and follow the ways of the kingdom with a righteousness greater than the Pharisees without God’s help and, when you mess up, you’re going to need to know His forgiveness and, rather than seeing these as a bunch of laws that just weigh you down, to see it as an invitation into the goodness of God’s kingdom you need to know the Father’s love. Maybe that’s why Jesus puts it there. And then, if you go on into chapter six and seven it’s all about trust and so, this prayer is a springboard into that whole section of trust because prayer is that expression of trust. So, it’s right where it needs to be. It’s right in the center. And maybe that’s where it needs to be in our lives, in the center, in the center of our lives and the rhythms of our days, of our weeks, of all the rhythms of life and maybe that too is the invitation of Jesus to see prayer as this gift not as a burden, not as an obligation, not as just another tick box exercise or an empty religious practice but to see it as a gift, a gift of love for you to open and to have at the center of your life, not as something that He beats you up with, not as something to wear you down with, but a gift to bring you into life. And so, maybe there’s an invitation to be vulnerable again with God, to be vulnerable in that place of prayer with Him and carve out some time to be in that place now, if you’re ready, if you’re ready to pursue God in either the secret place, maybe in your room or in a walk or you’re ready meet with God in times of corporate prayer. What might we pray? How might we pray?

Well, Jesus gives us this prayer but you can pray in different ways. Did you know that? Did you know that because Matthew says ‘This, then, is how you should pray…’ like, here’s a model, here’s an example, here’s a rough structure and some kind of kickstart. A kickstart for you. If you look at, look he says ‘When you pray say ‘Our father who art in heaven.’ Nuance difference there. Are they contradictory? Well, No, because both examples can lead to life and we’re going to look at that just in a moment. They’re not contradictory. One is a model and one’s a set prayer, and both can lead to good things. But let’s look at the specifics of this prayer and this is going to be a whistle stop tour. I’m going to get through it pretty quick and you might want to go back to the recording just to pick up on some things that can’t catch your attention.

So, Jesus says ‘Our father in heaven’ and I don’t know about you but father feels a bit formal. I don’t know about you, I never called my dad ‘father’ and if I did, as I say, it feels quite formal. And, actually, the word that Jesus uses here doesn’t have quite the same connotations that His Hebrew word would have been Abba. Abba, as I was saying to the children earlier, Daddy, Daddy God and that would feel a bit maybe too informal for us but Abba might work. That intimate relationship with God and in heaven well, we end up thinking ‘Well heaven, in heaven means up there somewhere. He’s so distant and far away’ but that’s not what it would mean in the original, in Jesus’ day. They didn’t picture God in that way and ‘in heaven’ it was their way of saying that He had authority and power that He was omnipotent, God Almighty. So you might want to change the language here to ‘Our Abba Almighty’ that would be a more fitting way to capture what He means there. ‘Our Abba Almighty, hallowed be your name’ is to honor, is to treasure something and we treasure God’s name because His name represents His character, His person much more than you or I’s name. My name, Scott, means from Scotland, which, okay, is technically true but not every Scott is from Scotland and so it often doesn’t carry any great meaning for us but not the same with God. Every one of His names reveals something of His character, something of how He wants to relate to us and so we hallow His name above all other names.

‘Your kingdom come’. There’s two parts to this prayer. One is asking for more of God’s kingdom to come into the present, to change our world, to make our world less broken than it has been and we saw that, when Jesus comes, He comes preaching saying that the kingdom has come near and so, we’re asking for more of that to come. The other side, that the more long-term bit, is actually saying ‘Well God, we want you to end this current age and for Your kingdom to come in all its fullness. And, I don’t know about you, but that feels like a pretty radical prayer but sometimes we need to pray that and want to pray that because of the brokenness we see in our day.

‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ And when we speak of God’s will here, we’re meaning His divine purposes, of what He is seeking to accomplish through all of human history. We’re praying that for that to be done on earth as He’s promised, as He’s outlined, as it is in heaven and we can see here that the start of this prayer is very God-focused. It starts with praise and adoration and moves on to kind of God’s agenda, God’s concerns and that might be a helpful place for us and we’ll come back to that in a moment.

But then He goes on and gets very personal about our own lives. He says ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ and sure, this does include food and I’m sure in the day of Jesus folks would have been thinking ‘Well, we’re needing food’ because they lived from day to day, literally. But it was Martin Luther, the reformer, who said that this could mean so many other things. It could include all that’s necessary for life. He included things like the weather and, in Scotland I’m certainly praying for slightly less heat, but you might prefer it. But we could also include home and family here. We could include peace and government. All that’s necessary for life is what we could be praying here.

‘Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.’ I don’t know about you but I mess up and I need God’s forgiveness but, as we, as we receive that forgiveness, if it’s more than just a casual asking God to forgive us, then it should change our hearts, it should change our hearts and enable us to be more forgiving towards others, it should overflow and so this bit and the later verses in verses 14 and 15 it’s not about earning forgiveness, because you’ve been forgiven, but Jesus is talking about someone who has become so bitter that they refuse to forgive and they want to hold on to a grudge and so they haven’t really appreciated what God is offering them and His forgiveness and so we pray ‘forgive us as we forgive our debtors.’

And then ‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.’ And the more traditional phrases ‘deliver us from evil’ but, actually, saying the evil one is quite a helpful translation because, we know from the book of James, that God does not tempt us. He doesn’t do that. He’s a good God, a loving God and so, Jesus is not implying that but saying ‘lead us not into temptation’ is about asking God’s help for us not to succumb to temptation. That when the evil one tempts us with things, that we don’t go into rebellion, we don’t distrust God and break our relationship with Him because we listen to the lies of the enemy and so we ask to be delivered from his influence when those temptations arise and that looks like the good life rather than the good life of God’s kingdom.

So, that was the whistle stop tour and I’m sure there’s many questions. There might be three questions I want to just tease out with you very briefly.

You might be wondering ‘Well, do I just pray as it’s written?’ You can do. It might be exactly what you need to pray. You might just need to pray ‘God, Your kingdom come’ but, you know, you might want to just use it as a launching board into other things. ‘God, Your kingdom come. Would healing come in a situation. God would Your kingdom come, would You bring reconciliation. God would Your kingdom come, would You bring peace amongst the nations.’

Another question might be – Do we pray in this order, and only in this order? And again, you can do because, I don’t know about you, but my so many of my prayers are quite selfish, quite me-focused, God help me, help mine, that kind of thing, and it can help at times to start somewhere else, to start with God and His priorities and set our issues in the context of that, of what He’s doing and not only to us, to get good priorities but it helps us be hopeful when we get on to praying for ourselves and our loved ones but, equally, like the Psalmist, you might begin with what you need. God, I need daily bread, the daily bread of wisdom and you might pray into that and eventually you might come right around to praise and say ‘Our Father, You’re the God who provides wisdom. You’ve promised to provide wisdom and I thank you for that. I praise you for being this faithful God who promises to be with me, to be my good shepherd and lead me through into green pastures’, and before you know it, you’re praising God, but you started with what you needed. There are different ways to pray.

Final question is ‘Well, can I pray anything else?’ Of course, you can. Of course, you can. The Bible is full of other prayers but equally it has been said that everything you might want to pray about, every concern, every situation you can come across in life there is something in this prayer. You can pray every situation. So, here’s a challenge for you this week – as you go about praying for stuff, your day, your loved ones, situations at work or in the world, come back to The Lord’s Prayer and see if you can find something that fits and let me know if you find anything that doesn’t fit. But, I’m pretty sure you will.

At the beginning of this week just as I was beginning my preparation, I came across a news article and in this news article it was of a 16-year-old lad and he is now this international DJ. He goes off to Ibiza and plays there in front of thousands of people at the age of 16. and it in the story, in the article he shares that he’s only been doing this for about four or five years. Clearly has, I guess, clearly has applied himself to this but what started it was that four or five years ago, for his birthday his dad, not making this up, his dad bought him his first DJ equipment and it has led to this incredible life, this incredible joy in his life, but it began with that purchase, that gift. And imagine if he got that gift, and I imagine a lot of teenagers like what I was like, were like ‘Hmm, not sure about that? Just put that to the side, thanks very much. What’s next?’ Or imagine he got a gift and he tried it for a wee bit but, you know, all the dials and all the faders and just too complex, I’ll just put that to the side as well. Imagine he’d done that. He would have missed out on this great life. He would have missed out on something that brought him great joy. And the same is true of prayer. If the kingdom is based on trusting relationship, if prayer is a gift, then we need to get using it. We need to get praying. We need to get into that secret place with God and sure, at times, it doesn’t come easy and it raises so many questions but He invites us into it just like that young lad was given a gift and I don’t know what that looks like for you. Maybe it’s as you walk somewhere or as you drive somewhere. Maybe it is set aside some time and you close the door just to get away from distractions. Maybe it’s setting some time to join in to the Thursday Live Prayer and I know it’s online but you don’t need a smart device or a computer to join online, you can literally use your telephone to join in and listen to that and you don’t have to pray out loud. Maybe it’s coming to the 10:15 prayer on a Sunday morning and again, you don’t have to pray out loud, you can just sit in there and listen and as you listen you’re encouraged and you learn what to pray as you listen to others and be in that environment.

But if the kingdom is about trusting relationship and if prayer is a gift, we need to get praying, we need to press in and really appropriate what God has given us that we might know that life and that others that we know and care for, might know the life of God’s kingdom as well, So, may we be that kind of people. May it be so. Amen.

Prayer before action

Preached on: Sunday 1st May 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 22-05-01 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Nehemiah 1:4&11; 2:1-9
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Sermon keypoints:
• Prayer changes things
• Prayer prepares things
• Prayer is the first thing

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

Come Holy Spirit, come among us and soften our hearts to the word of God.
Come Spirit and equip and envision us for the purposes of God.
Come Holy Spirit with power and deep conviction, for we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I recently had some leave at the beginning of April and so the family went down to our home, our house in East Ayrshire where I think I told you last year there was some building work on going. I didn’t really get much of a rest because I had 30 hours or so in the garden to do and it wasn’t light work. I probably dug up a couple of ton of stone and rubble and other junk as part of my time there. In fact, there were some boulders that were so large I had to cantilever them out of the ground. I couldn’t physically lift them and all this because we’re hoping that this month we will get our lawn finally sewn. But there’s always preparatory work to be done isn’t there, and the preparatory work is the hardest work and it’s essential work because without that getting done there’s no way that people could come along and rake over the ground and then sow the seed. There’s no way it could be done so the preparatory work had to be done but it is often the hardest and the heaviest work.

Last week we began our new series in Nehemiah and there we began with thinking about the situation of the church both locally and nationally and that, if we want a better church, a better future, then we need to engage with that preparatory work, the deeper preparatory work of the heart, which is often the hardest work. And so, last week in our first week, we thought about repentance preceding restoration and we all know probably that repentance takes time, it’s not just a one-off moment where you say sorry and move on, that true repentance takes time to work through as we change the direction of our lives. And so, although we move on today, please don’t forget about last week. If there were things that struck you there, if there’s things that you were driven to talk with God about, keep talking with Him, keep in that place of prayer.

But today we move on and yet we move on to another preparatory step we might see. Before things will change there’s something else required and it seems almost too obvious to mention but it is the place of prayer that we see in the example and story of Nehemiah. He prays. He prays for God’s help and intervention but he not only prays for confession, he prays to receive God’s help. And so, we read a little bit of the prayer from chapter one ‘Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revealing your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.’ So Nehemiah asked for God’s intervention and God’s help and it goes to show, as we were saying to the children with the little ornament, prayer changes things and we see that in chapter two that by verse six and then verse eight the king is responding positively to this request from Nehemiah and I think there’s a danger for us that we almost just skip over that. We think ‘Of course that’s going to happen you know, Nehemiah is a cup bearer, of course he’s going to trust the cup bearer, so he’ll automatically just say ‘Yes’ to that.’ But we think that because we don’t know the backstory maybe there is a backstory that 12 years prior to Nehemiah had been Ezra and that’s just the book before, so if you ever want to read it just a couple pages back, and Ezra had been sent. He was a priest and he’d been used of God to bring a people, part of the people, back from exile but some opposition arose against Ezra and the people, and they wrote to the king about the situation and to try and change the king’s mind and the king replied this way ‘The letter you sent has been read and translated in my presence. I issued an order and the search was made. It was found that this city has a long history of revolt against kings and has been a place of rebellion and sedition.’ This is not good. ‘Now issue an order to these men to stop work so that this city will not be rebuilt until I so order. Be careful not to neglect this matter. Why let this threat grow to the detriment of the royal interests.’ And so, what comes of Nehemiah, of Artaxerxes’ letter. As soon as a copy of the letter of King Artaxerxes was read they went immediately to the Jews in Jerusalem and compelled them, by force, to stop it. Stopped because of King Artaxerxes being persuaded. And so, Nehemiah’s not praying a little prayer here, he’s not just asking for a wee favor, this is a change of royal policy that he’s asking for. This is a big deal. Can you imagine trying to walk into Downing Street and persuade Boris Johnson to change his mind? Probably not. King Artaxerxes was Boris Johnson on steroids! That’s hard to imagine admittedly, but you know what I mean. Imagine doing that. That’s what he’s asking. This is an audacious request but prayer changes things, because Nehemiah prayed the future of thousands of Jews, the future of Israel, maybe even our future was changed because if Nehemiah hadn’t prayed there wouldn’t be his story to inspire us, to challenge us, to encourage us.

And likewise, I came across a recent story and a book I’ve begun to read. It’s a new book by Pete Greig called How to hear God, and in his very first chapter he recounts a story of a young lady called Azrin and it’s an incredible story that sparked because she prays and I’d like to read it to you. I’d like to read it in its entirety because it’s just such a good story so please sit back and just soak this up because it inspired me and I hope it inspires you.

Pete Greig writes:
I’ll never forget the testimony of a young woman called Azrin who first shared her story with me one evening over dinner. Azrin grew up in northern Iran where six of her cousins were killed by the ruling Ayatollah’s forces with whom the Kurdish Iranians are at war. Her earliest memories therefore, are of playing in the cemetery where her mother would go to mourn then, at the age of just 16, Azrin was arrested, accused of crimes she had not committed and forced to sign a declaration of guilt. She said ‘I had done nothing wrong and still they held me guilty’ and I detected a flicker of fire in her eyes. ‘These people had killed my cousins and now they were accusing me of crimes I had not committed so I decided I might as well go and do the things they had forced me to confess. I would travel to the mountains of Iran and join the Kurdish militia. Up to this point Pete Greig writes, Azrin had always dutifully attended the mosque to pray but she said Allah had never responded. As communists, the Kurdish militia denied God’s existence and Azrin began to wonder if they were right. ‘Either God was going to speak to me’ she said with a flash of that same fire ‘or I was doing or I would have nothing to do with him. I gave God an ultimatum.’ she grinned ‘I told him he had seven nights to speak to me or I would be permanently upset with him. On the seventh night, just before bed, Azrin reminded God of his looming deadline. ‘Either you appear to me tonight’ she said ‘or that’s it. I will live the rest of my life as if you don’t exist.’ And that night she had a dream. She dreamed that she was in a vast reception room full of many people feeling very alone until she recognized a man in front of her leaning against the wall. It was Hazrat Isa, Jesus, the holy highly honored one, highly honored in the Koran, as a prophet but not as the son of God. ‘He was standing so close I could feel his breath.’ she said.All around him there was a brilliant light. Nervously, Azrin addressed Jesus. She told him she was here to talk to God. He looked straight back at me and said the strangest thing ‘Talk.’ ‘No’ I protested ‘you don’t understand. I need to talk to God.’ Again Jesus looked at me and said ‘Talk.’ Then very slowly he repeated the most astounding phrase ‘I am God.’ he said ‘I am God. I am God’. Azrin’s face seemed to be shining with the memory. She whispered ‘As I heard this, all doubt drained away from my tired heart. We talked and talked and talked. I just poured my heart out to him, to God in Jesus, and for the first time in my life I experienced God speaking back into my life. When Azrin awoke from her dream she hurried to share the news with the local Mullah but he told her angrily that Jesus could not be God. Next, she told her family but they just laughed at her. And then, one day, as she was sitting in a park far from home, a total stranger gave Azrin a New Testament in the Persian language. It was the first Bible she had ever seen. The stranger also invited her to church where she was amazed to hear the preacher say ‘God is love.’ Reading her new Bible in the park afterwards Azrin finally found the words that made sense of her dream. Jesus said in John chapter 14 ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.’ No wonder he’d invited her to talk. Right there and then, sitting in that park, Azrin acknowledged Jesus Christ as the Son of God and, as she did so, she experienced an unfamiliar sense of hope flooding into her body, displacing the many years of despair. Azrin shared this story with me quietly and calmly but I just kept shaking my head in amazement and forgetting to eat. A couple of times I wanted to scream ‘Hallelujah!’

‘So, what did you do’ I asked ‘after you became a follower of Jesus?’ ‘Oh’ she laughed ‘I never joined the Kurdish militia. I didn’t want to kill people anymore, I wanted to bring life so I trained to plant churches instead.’ ‘Of course’ I said encouragingly ‘and how’s that going?’ ‘Well, I’ve planted five churches so far.’ she replied casually. ‘Isn’t that a bit dangerous?’ I asked instead, I’m already feeling a complete coward. Azrin fixed me with a steady gaze ‘Pastor Pete’ she said ‘I was willing to die fighting to kill for the Kurdish militia, don’t you think it’s much better to die fighting for Jesus?’

Wow!

Prayer changes things and sometimes when you pray you have no idea what you’re opening up yourself up to.

Prayer changes things, and it changed her life yet, we need to remember that prayer is not like treating God as a genie in a bottle. He’s not a slot machine or a spell that we’re trying to say the right words to get them working. That’s not how prayer works and we do need to acknowledge also that prayer goes unanswered. Indeed, Nehemiah knows a little of that experience too. It’s not obvious because we use the original words of the months, but chapter one begins in the month of Kislev which is late November/early December. Chapter two begins in the month of Nissan which is March/April time. So, he prayed for four months. I wonder if he ever thought his prayer was going to go unanswered? Change wasn’t instantaneous for him either and so not all changes we pray for occur and if that resonates with you and if you feel God is silent then maybe you should pick up Pete Greig’s other book which is titled God on mute, God on mute. Nevertheless, it was William Temple who said ‘When I pray coincidences happen and when I don’t they don’t.’ And the apostle James writes saying ‘You don’t do not have because you do not ask God.’ But he also cautions that ‘When you ask you do not receive because you asked with wrong motives.’ Sometimes we don’t have because we don’t ask and sometimes, we don’t receive when we do ask because we’re asking with the wrong motives. Nehemiah did ask and he asked with the right motives. His focus was on God’s kingdom, God’s glory, God’s purposes, and he prayed in line with God’s promises as well, His promise to restore His people.

And so, when thinking about our situation and our prayers for the church, if change is going to come it can’t be just by restructuring, there needs to be that deeper work. We need to repent, but we need to pray, we need to pray with right motives and we need to pray in line with God’s promises. Like Matthew 16 would be a great promise to cling to where Jesus says ‘I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overcome it.’ If we want the future of our church to be better than its present, then we must pray, because prayer changes things.

Now we might wonder ‘Well, how does prayer change things?’ And there’s many possible answers to that, but the story of Nehemiah shows one way that prayer changes things and, in particular, prayer changes Nehemiah, prayer prepares Nehemiah and so he writes of his own account ‘I took the wine and gave it to the king I not been sad in his presence before so the king asked me why does your face look so sad when you’re not ill this can be nothing but sadness of heart. I was very much afraid’.

So, Nehemiah’s experiencing this fear as he embarks on trying to change the king’s mind and there’s some debate about why he might be fearful. He might be fearful of punishment because there’s some literature that would suggest that being sad in the king’s presence could get you killed. But also, maybe he’s fearful because he realizes that this is the moment, this is his moment to share with the king, to persuade the king to go with a different plan, to change his policy. He realizes this is the moment when the lives of thousands hang in the balance. I’m pretty sure I’d be a little bit fearful too. And yet, Nehemiah is able to overcome his fear because he spent four months in prayer and even draws on prayer amid communication with the king, in verse four. It keeps him going, it strengthens him, it gives him boldness. And how can I say that it gives a boldness? What gives me that clue, that idea well? Back in chapter one he prayed this ‘Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.’ This man, this man, who with the click of his fingers, could have him killed, this man who everyone else was in fear of, this man who had ultimate power.

But, to Nehemiah, he’s nothing compared to God, God who is the God of heaven, the Lord Almighty who parted the Red Sea, who defeated Pharaoh, the great and awesome God. That’s his God and, in light of that God, Artaxerxes is just ‘this man’. In the place of prayer, he was equipped to have boldness to ask for his request, to overcome his fear. I wonder, is part of our purpose, as part of living out our faith, is fear holding us back? Fear of saying ‘I’m a Christian’, fear of saying ‘I go to church’, fear of sharing our faith, fear of playing our part ‘I couldn’t do that. I’m not like that person.’ Whatever it might be, is fear holding us back? Maybe it’s in the place of prayer that we are prepared to overcome our fear as we come face to face with God.

But Nehemiah is prepared in other ways as well. In the middle of our chapter 2 there’s a cluster of verses that show he’s prepared in a number of ways and i’ll I’ll just run through them very quickly:
he said ‘I answered the king. If it pleases the king, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it. I may have a letters to the governors and a letter to Asaph, keeper of the royal park.’

Now, again, we just skip over this, but we need to realize something’s going on here, we need to realize that first of all he says ‘send me’ and we think ‘Sure, of course he’s going to pray that or say that but, maybe at the start of the four months he was praying for Ezra ‘Lord, Ezra is already there, would you just open the door for Ezra’ because, you know, if you and I are praying for situations, don’t we just pray for the people who are local, never think to pray that we’d have a part in answering that prayer, and so he probably did the same, but over that time he comes to realize ‘Actually, maybe I should play a part here, maybe I’ve got something to give. Maybe I’ve got influence and skills that can be utilized, so send me’ becomes part of the plan.

But then, he also formulates a plan about how to speak to the king. Notice what he says. He begins by saying about his ancestors, where they are buried and that’s a clever move because the Persians had a great respect for the dead, a great respect for the dead and the living we might say and so he begins there rather than digging up old stuff about the history and about Gods and religions and anything like that, he begins with what the king can understand. That’s a wise move. But also notice that he figures out he needs letters to the governors to keep himself safe. He knows the person who oversees the wood so I need to go and speak to that person. So he’s formulating a plan here as if as he prays over those four months, he’s led to formulate a plan, he’s given wisdom and all this culminates in him in verse 8 saying ‘because the gracious hand of my God was on me, the king granted my requests.’ God’s grace was upon him.

Now, let’s remember from our teaching series last year, that grace equips us, grace changes us, grace sustains us. All that he received, as he recognized that he had a part to play and there was a plan to formulate and he needed God’s grace to keep him persevering and being able to say to the king ‘This is my plan and please honor it.’ So again, thinking about our future, if our future is going to be more fruitful, if we’re going to see that the empty, vast empty spaces in this church filled once again, we need to be praying so that we are prepared, so that we overcome our fear, so that we receive wisdom about how to go forward, so that we receive grace that we might play our part and be equipped and sustained to keep playing our part. Because, why else Jesus does say in Matthew 16 that he will build his church? In Matthew 18 he also says ‘Go’ and Matthew 28 he says ‘Go and make disciples of all the nations’ He says to you and me and there’s a tension there. He says ‘I will build my church’ but ‘you go make disciples’. So Jesus has no plan B. It’s you and me. He’s not just gonna click His fingers. it’s through you and me that He will fulfill His purposes and He will extend His kingdom and He will build His church. So, we need to be praying.

And that leads us to our final point, the most crucial point of all, about everything we learn about prayer in chapters one and two, and it’s this: prayer is the first thing, prayer is the first thing. Notice that in chapter one he quickly gets into sharing his prayer which is really a summary prayer because, as we said, he’s been praying for four months so this is not the only prayer he prayed but this sums up the flavor of what he was praying but his prayer comes before his reputation, his title, prayer was the first thing to Nehemiah, is it the first thing in our lives. Is it the first thing in the church? Because, I think, we prioritize action. For a number of reasons, it is easier maybe or we may be like to be seen as busy, we like to be seen as doing something. And let me just give you an example of this. How many plaques around church do you see that are because someone was a prayerful person? How many statues, how many buildings are named after someone who was faithful in prayer? Whereas, more often than not, they’re named after someone who was busy.

So, prayer is the first thing for Nehemiah, before reputation or title, prayer came before action. It’s very obvious. Chapter one, he prays, chapter two is when he finally gets down to some action. Are we similar or not? And in some ways we’re not similar I think because we hear sermons about prayer but no one’s come alongside us to teach us how to pray. We’ve not been discipled in that and all I can say is the best way to learn to pray, is to pray, and to be around people who pray, which is why I love going to the Thursday evening time of prayer because I listen to other people’s prayers and I learn from them and that’s how I learned to pray. You know, I never learned to pray just by someone giving me a chance in church or listening to Sunday prayers. The most influential time of that influenced me and how to pray and have confidence to pray myself was when I was at the Christian Union and they said ‘Oh, we’ve got a prayer meeting at halfway Wednesday morning, do you want to come along?’ In my naivety I said ‘Yes’ and I went and as I kept going, I grew in boldness to pray.

Does prayer come before action for us? and in prayer before restoration. Chapter one prayer and the rest of the story unfolds from there, the story of restoration. So, if we want to see a different future, then prayer needs to be the first thing for us as well.

So, how are we going to do that, church? How are we going to do that? You can do it individually, of course. You can maybe set some time aside for that and to be praying for us as a congregation, for us as a denomination. You could do it in your Fellowship Groups. Many of you are in a Fellowship Group and you probably pray for needs locally and in your own life but, could you create some space to pray for the church locally, nationally. If you’re in a team, I know that many of our teams when they gather, they begin with prayer and they end with prayer and that’s good but, could we create a wee bit space in the agenda to pray for the church – and, just to give the elders a heads-up, you can guess what we’ll be doing at the start of our time together of Kirk Session very soon, we’ll be praying.

But I don’t know if you’re aware every Sunday morning, prior to the service, a few people gather for prayer. It was something that was started well before my time, I have no idea who started off, I’m sure someone can tell me. Numbers have dropped a little over time but there’s still some faithful people gathering for prayer each Sunday and so I want to call you to join that time of prayer, to join us at quarter past nine to quarter to quarter past 10 to half past 10 for prayer, to pray for the service, to pray for us as a church, to pray for our wider life as a denomination, and I’d ask please that any and everyone in the building drops all tools, prayer before action, so band, choir, tech, door duty, Sunday School, teas and coffees, whoever it would be, with down tools and if that cuts into your prep time could you come a wee bit earlier. I know that’s cheeky to ask, but it’s just for four weeks. I should have said that for four weeks and you can keep coming of course but for four weeks can we try and make that space between now and Pentecost Sunday on the 5th of June which is when we next share Communion, could we make that space, can we make that commitment and gather for prayer. Because, if you look at the testimony of the church over 2000 years, when these people gather for prayer, change happens and, who knows what that might lead to this great and awesome God, this living Jesus, who breaks into people’s lives and astounds them with His love. Who knows what He’ll do next if we will be a people who pray. So let’s take a moment to pray just now, let us pray:

Lord, very simply, what is of me, just blow it away and help us forget it, but what is of You, take it deep so that our lives change. Help us to be doers of your word rather than just listeners, which is so easy to do. Shape us and change us for Your purposes, for Your glory. And so, we ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen

Building blocks of evangelism

Preached on: Sunday 6th March 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 here22-03-06 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: Colossians 4:2-15
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 what You might say today through Your word.
Holy Spirit, help us to hear the call of God.
Holy Spirit, come with power and deep conviction to change us and shape us, to make us your ambassadors. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I would like to read you a modern-day parable that someone has written and it is called The Life-saving station.

‘On a dangerous sea coast, notorious for shipwrecks, there was a crude little life-saving station. Actually, it was merely a hut, with only one boat but the few members kept a constant watch over the turbulent sea. With little thought for themselves, they would go out day and night, tirelessly searching for those in danger. Many lives were saved by this brave band who faithfully worked as a team in and out of the life-saving station. By and by it became a famous place. Some of those who had been saved, as well as others along the seacoast, wanted to become associated with this little station. They were willing to give their time energy and money in support of its objectives. New boats were purchased, new crews were trained. The station once obscure, crude and virtually insignificant, began to grow. Some of its members were unhappy. The hut was so unattractive and poorly equipped. They felt a more comfortable place should be provided. Emergency cots were replaced with lovely furniture. Rough handmade equipment was discarded and sophisticated systems were installed. The hut, of course, had to be torn down to make room for all this new equipment, furniture and systems. By the time of its completion the life-saving station had become a popular gathering place and its objectives had begun to shift. It was now used as a sort of clubhouse being an attractive building for the public to gather in. Saving lives, feeding the hungry, strengthening the fearful, calming the disturbed these rarely occurred now. Fewer members were interested in braving the sea on life-saving missions so they hired professional lifeboat crews to do this work. The original goal of the station wasn’t all together forgotten however, life-saving motifs still prevailed in the club’s decorations and there was a liturgical lifeboat preserved in the room of sweet memories with soft indirect lighting which helped hide the layer of dust upon the once used vessel. Shipwrecks still occur in those waters but now most of the victims are not saved, every day they drown at sea and so few, so very few, seem to care.’

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with that.

Are we the people in the parable? Are we simply content with our clubhouse and our place in the clubhouse. As we come to share in Communion today and gather around the Lord’s table, do we take just simple comfort from the fact that we’re okay, we are part of His family, we have our place, we have our faith but we maybe have forgotten the wider world Jesus came for.

These are questions we each need to ask of ourselves and of us as a congregation. Have we forgotten or neglected our calling?

I feel quite certain it’s a question Paul would ask of the church in our day given our reading today. Up to this point Paul has been directing the attention of the Colossians upwards to Jesus and inwards to care for one another and to grow in faith, to strengthen that faith. But now he turns outward and he calls the Colossians to turn outward as well and so he writes ‘Pray for us too, that God may open a door for our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should.’ As he begins to turn outward, his instinct is to ask for prayer, and as Paul often does, he leads by example because in the very next verse he goes on to call them to be similarly outward focused ‘Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. When you read the words be wise.’ I wonder what it conjures in your mind ‘Be wise to how you behave towards outsiders.’? We, I think, believe it means to be nice and polite, which I don’t think it does actually mean because in the New Testament wisdom is not about how to live a successful life, it’s not about how to have the good life, it’s not about knowing the answers, it’s not about just being nice and kind or something like that. Having wisdom in the New Testament is about understanding who Jesus is and what God has done and is doing through Jesus. And so, to be wise towards the outside world is to understand the outside world in relation to Jesus and to who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do.

And so, what has Paul already said about Jesus and his letter that would be of importance for the outside world? Well, in chapter one of Colossians he says that if you don’t have faith in Jesus you are alienated from God and an enemy of God and your mind and the only way to be reconciled to God is through Jesus. Or go into chapter 3 and Paul says there that because of sin in the world and in our lives the wrath of God is coming there will be judgment upon our actions.

That is the wider context. And so, although Paul doesn’t talk about an outward focus until chapter four and it’s only a couple of verses and we might be tempted to think ‘Oh, it’s just a wee tag on here’ it’s really not, it’s not an optional extra that slipped Paul’s mind, because he was writing for another purpose. He was writing to ground their faith and strengthen their faith but he can’t help himself in turning outward and remembering that everything he’s written so far has relevance for the outside world and so sharing Jesus is not an optional extra for us, it’s of eternal significance and really he’s just echoing Jesus who said in those verses we quote so often ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ The stakes are high because he goes on to say ‘Whoever believes in him that is in Jesus is not condemned but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only son.’

That is the context of scripture that drives home Paul’s argument that we are to be wise, we have to understand the outside world in relation to Jesus, to who he is and what God has done in and through him, and it’s why Paul goes on to say ‘make the most of every opportunity’ make the most of every opportunity.
I wonder if we are like Archipelas who needed a reminder from Paul, ‘complete the ministry you have received’ he’s told do. We need to be reminded to complete our calling. Our calling to invite people to follow Jesus that they might be saved.

Sharing Jesus with the outside world is not an optional extra. It has eternal significance and if we don’t take that on board, if we don’t try to grow in this some way, somehow, we’re just going to end up like that self-indulgent clubhouse and we’re no longer a life-saving station.

As we come around the Communion table today, let us remember why Jesus actually died, not to make us comfortable, not even to make us nice people, but to save us and to bring salvation for the world, including the world that is outside our doors right now.

Now, let me be honest friends, I’m as poor at this as anybody. I shy away from this as much as the next person, and so, I’m not standing up here as the finished product and not standing up here as an expert in this. I’m simply trying to open up God’s word for us Sunday by Sunday and let him speak. So, it’s not hypocritical for me to say this. I’m preaching as much to me as I am to you, but one of the things I love about God’s word is how He equips us through His word, by the example and the writings of His church. He equips us and so Paul, in his writing, actually gives us building blocks to help us share our faith and I want to briefly touch on four.

He writes ‘devote yourselves to prayer being watchful and thankful and pray for us too.’

Building block number one is prayer. Because, if you’re not praying, you won’t be sharing. Paul’s probably got in mind prayer beyond simple evangelism and mission. I’m sure of that because of what he writes in chapter one. So I’m taking a particular focus here, let’s admit that. But he quickly goes on to talk about evangelism and I think for him evangelism and prayer will be intimately tied because, think this through, as you thank God for what you have received, the grace and mercy you have received, for the love He has shown you, and as you express that thankfulness to God, a passion, a zeal, an excitement arises in you and you’re like ‘I want to share this with others.’ And so, if you’re not in prayer, thanking God for this, you’re probably not very excited and you’re not really want to share it with people. We need to be praying in the place of thankfulness but as we thank God for that we might be like ‘Well, I want to share this.’ and so, we ask him for open doors, as Paul does, and then as we begin to ask for that, when we’re out and about in the community, or we’re talking with people, we’re more mindful of those opportunities. ‘Oh, I could have said something there. Oh, this is where Jesus might be relevant. Oh, I could pray for that person, I could say and pray for that person, because well, there’s a God that I can pray to you. Become more aware of those opportunities, but then we’re going to mess up, aren’t we, we’re going to not take the opportunities at times, we’ll take some and we’ll miss out on others, and so, we go back into prayer and we were saying to God ‘God I didn’t take that opportunity you gave me and I’m sorry I allowed my fear, I allowed my discomfort to hold me back and I didn’t love my neighbor as I loved myself. I was more in love with my comfort and my image and reputation than I was in that person’s welfare.’ And we’ll start to repent of that and as you repent of that it gives you resolve that the next time the opportunity comes you’ll take it.

In a place of prayer we are prepared for evangelism. And so, if you’re not, you won’t be prepared. If you’re not praying for people to come to faith, you won’t be prepared either. So that little card that I’ve left down on the table there, that’s person number one to be thinking of, but maybe add to that one or maybe two others, especially if that person on your card is not a local person. We are called to evangelism, to mission, to sharing the good news with this community, in this place. So, who is that to you. In my own life I have my phone, I have an electronic calendar and I have little reminders that pop up every day. One stream of reminders is around people, family, friends, situations that I want to pray for. And I have family members I’m praying for to come to faith. I’ve got friends that I’m praying to come to faith. I’m going to just about, I’m going to add dads that I’m meeting at the playground that I want to come to faith. I then have a second stream of reminders that I break up my pastoral grouping – so Elders, wee idea for you pastoral grouping leaders – each day pray for a different couple of members from your pastor grouping, and there are members of my pastoral grouping who have spouses that don’t believe and I’m praying for those spouses to come to faith. I’m not saying you have to go to that extreme but who are the two people you’re praying for that are locally not believing in Jesus. The reason I probably rabbit on about this so much is because I am praying for this, it’s there in my consciousness, and you won’t give a jot about this if you’re not praying for this. So, we need to be in the place of prayer.

Building block number two is relationships. Paul says ‘Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders and let your conversation be always full of’ and it goes on. You can’t have a conversation, you can’t name two people, you can’t act towards people you don’t have a relationship with. So, who outside of the church locally do you have relationships with who are you building that relationship with? Maybe a neighbor, maybe a friend, maybe a colleague. But we need to be in relationship. We can’t just be a wee holy huddle and we’re looking who are you building relationships with. Hopefully you are and you can name two people.

Building block number three is when you’ve got those relationships we hopefully have some conversation and he says ‘let your conversation be always full of grace seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone.’ And I think we get a whole list of wild ideas about what this could mean. I think we interpret it through our nice, comfortable, kind of middle class, lens at times. And so, when we read ‘let your conversation be always full of grace’ again we read that as well, be nice, be polite, that kind of ilk of interpretation. But I don’t think that’s what Paul means because let’s remember the context of Paul’s day, he’s writing to a group of people who are ostracized, ridiculed, mocked, even persecuted for their faith. To be a Christian then was in a hostile environment, not necessarily our environment, although it’s getting more hostile, and so, in the context of that time, to be full of grace can mean two things I think. To be forgiving and forbearing when people ridicule you and mock you for following Jesus. They were mocked because they believed in a crucified Messiah. ‘Your God can’t be powerful, he was killed!’ was how it went, and they would have to show grace in their conversation as they forgave and as they bore with that.

But God’s grace also upholds us, upholds our faith so that we believe until the very end. We cling on even in the hard times. That is a work of God’s grace and so I think also that being full of grace in our conversation can be that when you are ridiculed and when people malign your faith and when they say it’s rubbish and nonsense that when you stand there and you kind of take it on the chin but you say ‘I still believe in this Jesus’ and you’re not going to dissuade me and you’re not aggressive about it but you’re just firm and you’re resolved that is you walking in grace and that is powerful in our day.

Paul also goes on to say that conversation should be seasoned with salt and again there’s two dynamics here I think at play. One is that Jesus said that we are ‘to be salt and light’ and in the message translation of that passage in Matthew the author there draws out that we have to bring out the God flavors, the flavors of God’s kingdom. So, that might be at play. But also, in the day, salty conversation was a conversation that was earthed in reality, it was earth in the everyday of living, and to combine those two thoughts together I think what Paul might be getting at is when you get to talk about faith, don’t talk about some highfaluting theology, and don’t talk about the organization of church, talk about how Jesus is real to you, of what He’s done in your life and is doing in your life talk, about your testimony. Bring out God’s flavor from your own life that they might see it, that they might know it. And I think combining all that together helps us to know how to answer everyone because, with this part of the verse, we often think we’ll have to have an answer for every possible question under the sun, every question about science, every question about morality, every question about the Bible, every question about theology. None of us, not even the minister, can answer everyone with all those questions.

But I wonder, as you hold on in faith to Jesus, in that conversation, as you share what Jesus means to you and has done in your life, that is a powerful answer. Because we can debate matters of theology and morality and philosophy, and everybody can come up with their answer but when you share your story, it’s a little bit more difficult to ignore that and to explain it away because your story of faith has power in it. And maybe, that’s what we need to focus more on. What is your story of faith that you can share. And it might not be a whoop-dee-doo story of faith, you might not be in the greatest place of faith right now, you maybe are not in a place of rejoicing, but you know,, in our day in our world, being able to say how you hold on in faith amidst the dark times and the times of suffering and the times when Jesus doesn’t seem as close, that’s powerful. Over lockdown we had multiple testimonies shared on Tuesday, Testimony Tuesday, and so many of them included times of faith in the hard times and they were powerful.

So, what’s the story that you can share in conversation with people?

And the fourth one builds on all this too in the latter bit of Paul’s letter, as he closes off, he lists a whole lot of people. People he ministers and serves with, people that he labors with, and digging into some of their stories there’s two in particular, Mark and Demas that jumped off the page for me, because they’re kind of two sides of the one coin of perseverance with grace.

Mark was a colleague of Paul’s and in Acts chapter 13 we read that we can read there that he deserted Paul he left for some reason, we don’t know why, maybe it was fear, maybe the opposition was too much, we just don’t know, and it hurt Paul, it betrayed his trust and he wouldn’t serve with Mark for a time. But now Colossians is a little later on in the story and Mark is back involved with Paul. Mark is persevering in ministry again and there’s been grace and forgiveness.

Demas is the other side of that in the time of Colossians. He’s serving alongside Paul but by the time of second Timothy Demas is said to have deserted Paul then, he’s went the opposite way, he’s not persevering any longer, he’s not relying on God’s grace.

And in these two examples we see that to be effective in sharing our faith and sharing Jesus with the outside world, we do need to persevere. That might not come easy, it might be the scariest thing about our faith, but we’re called to persevere and when you don’t feel able, when you don’t feel good at this, when you feel weak at this, as I do, then that’s probably the best place to be in, because what does God say to the church in Corinth ‘When you are weak then you are strong’ that ‘his power is made perfect in weakness’. You don’t need to be the finished article, you don’t need to be an expert, but you do need to be committed to this, to make some form of commitment to persevere because, if we don’t if, we don’t complete the calling we have received, we’re just going to become, if we’re not already, and I’m not saying we are, but we could very well easily become, just a self-indulgent clubhouse and forget our call to be a life-saving station. Because, as we gather around this Communion table, it reminds us there are eternal things at play. We often focus on the love of God and forget the other side of that coin – Jesus came to die to save us.

Let us remember the full gospel and give ourselves to being that life-saving station.

I pray it may be so. Amen.

The main thing

Preached on: Sunday 30th January 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 22-01-30 Message PPT slides multi pages.
Bible references: COLOSSIANS 1:24-2:5
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Let us come to God in prayer. Let us pray:
Holy Spirit, be amongst us and open our minds to the word of God.
Come Holy Spirit and open our hearts that we might hear the voice of Father God to us.
Come Holy Spirit with power and deep conviction, for we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

So, 2022 is upon us and nearly a whole month has passed, one twelfth of the year has nearly gone and, for me at least, it’s flying past. Maybe that’s the newborn baby thing of sleep deprivation and the days blurring together; maybe it’s been out of the manse for about half of January because of a beetle infestation; who knows. One or two things, you know, to juggle and deal with. That means my month has just flown by. I wonder how yours has gone? But what is 2022 going to be the year of, do you think? What will 2022 be the year of? The year of getting back to normal? I thought I’d get a bit more of a ‘Yeah’ than that ‘Amen brother!’ And getting rid of these masks, eh? Or is it the year we see the end of the reign of Boris Johnson? I won’t ask you to vote in favor against that one! Is it the year that Russia does invade Ukraine? And what about for the church, us locally, the Church of Scotland nationally? Is this the year when it becomes a bit clearer what the shape of church will be? What buildings are going in the years to come, to be open or closed? Is that going to become a bit clearer?

All of these issues are important and they all have the potential to impact us one way or another but, as I’ve prepared for this week, there’s part of me has wondered – Are some of these, or maybe all of these are, something that can distract us? just consumes us so much that we fail to keep the main thing the main thing? Partly. I’m led to wonder about that because, if you read on in Colossians, and we’ll get to that there in the weeks to come, but in Colossians chapter 4 Paul says he’s a prisoner, he’s in chains. And so, he is in prison, he’s in chains because of his faith and being in prison in those days carried with it the threat of the death penalty. He is facing those circumstances and yet he will not be diverted, he will not be consumed by his circumstances and he will keep the main thing the main thing because he says in verse 25 that he’s become a ‘servant of the church by the commission God gave him’, he has a commission from God and he has real clarity about that commission. He knows he’s to present the word of God in all its fullness; he knows he’s to share the good news, the ‘mystery the gospel’ as he calls it, about Jesus, and by sharing that he hopes to build up the church, so that it remains firm in faith and encouraged in heart. he hopes, by sharing the gospel, that more people, the nations, will come to faith in Jesus and so he is clear about this, he is compelled towards it, and he will not be diverted.

It makes me wonder about us brothers and sisters. Makes me wonder about us, because, we too have a commission, don’t we? This is the beginning of my fourth year with you now and I think every year I think I’ve started with these same verses so we probably should be quite familiar with them by now Jesus says ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.’ We have been given a commission, a commission by God, and it’s a commission that carries eternal significance for the people we know, the people in our lives, the people in this area. We have to go and call them to follow Jesus and, when they respond in faith, to help them grow in faith and become mature followers. Paul would not be diverted from his commission – I wonder are we do we put it off? Or ‘I’ll get to it Scott when things are normal? You know, when I can get rid of the mask, finally I’ll be able to do x, y and z; finally, I’ll be able to give myself to them commission from God.’ Or ‘When (fill in the blank).’ Could be so many other things that we just allow to so consume us, so divert us that we never get round to this commission. I wonder, could this be the year when we learn that little bit more to keep the main thing the main thing?

And it’s a challenge that I will have to face all over again, as I learned to be a dad of two children, and one of them particularly young. It’s a commission, that I feel like I’m still learning to know what it means to be a minister and that keeps changing on me because we have a congregation of about 500 on the roll and that’s going to nearly double in size when, in the years to come, we go into a union with the other churches. What does it even mean to be a minister to that size of congregation? I’m not sure I don’t know, I’m going to have to learn, might have to stop things, might have to start things. I’m having to learn how to keep the main thing the main thing too but, if we commit together in this, then maybe we can encourage and spur one another on, maybe we can learn together to keep the main thing the main thing and I hope there’s a part of you that is rising up and saying ‘Yes, I want to this year!’ It’s a month into the year maybe this is your new year’s resolution, if you didn’t make one, that you want to keep the main thing the main thing but, in all likelihood, I wouldn’t be surprised, if there’s a part of you that’s fighting that, just wants to keep it at a distance, that maybe there’s not even a part of you that wants to say ‘Yes’ because you just feel weighed down, weighed down by weariness, weighed down by disillusionment or fear even, and so there’s this war in you that knows that you should maybe say yes but you just you can’t because of all that the last two years have brought, but maybe because of all that you are facing personally, in work, or in life, or in faith, that it’s sapping your reserves, it’s sapping your hope, and so we just don’t feel able to say yes and it’s so easy to become diverted and you know what is more, on top of all of that, we know that, don’t we, that our commission is costly to follow and put into practice. What Jesus says, it’s going to be costly, we’re going to have to give up time and energy, we’re going to have to give up maybe comfort or money, or maybe even popularity, we might have to stop doing things that we have been doing for a long time, and so, in the face of all, that it’s been natural and understandable for us to not feel able to say yes and to want to just put off that that bit more of 2022.

You know, Paul knew hardship and yet he still pursued his commission. He writes in verse 24 ‘Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body which is the church.’ Paul knew hardship, he knew affliction he knew suffering, and yet, somehow, Paul kept persevering. How was it that this man was able to keep saying yes to God’s commission despite his chains, despite the threat of execution for his faith?

Before we get on to answer that I just want to pause and unpick this verse a little bit because, as we read it we might it might raise questions for us, and we might wonder is Paul saying that the cross is insufficient, that it is lacking something. Is that what Paul means by Christ’s afflictions? And well, the answer is a very clear ‘No!’ No, the cross is not lacking, because Paul, in his letters, never refers to the cross as an affliction. Christ endured and if you look at even just the book of Colossians in chapter 1 verses 21 and 22 and in chapter 2 verses 13 and 14, Paul makes it very clear that what Jesus was to achieve on the cross he did achieve, that you can now be forgiven through Jesus’ death, that on the cross He died so that you could be forgiven and fully reconciled to God, so that you can stand before Almighty God without blemish, free of accusation, and reconciled to your Heavenly Father. That offer is there for every one of us. The cross is not lacking in any way, but what Paul knows is that to be a Christian is more than to attend church. To be a Christian is to do more than simply pray or read the Bible. To be a Christian is to be more than just a good person. A Christian is someone who is united with Jesus, not in an abstract way, but in a very deep spiritual way. When you are a Christian, you are part of the body of Christ, and so Paul knows that, as he suffers, Jesus suffers alongside him; as he suffers to fulfill his commission, Jesus suffers with him; and this is what helps Paul persevere, because he goes on to say in verses 27 and 29 that the mystery the gospel, the good news, he seeks to share with the nations, is that you can know Christ, you can know Jesus in you, not Christ with , not Christ around you, or near you, or above you, but Christ in you, in you, and it’s when Christ becomes that real to you, you then have the hope of glory, the hope that this life with its afflictions, with its hardships, with its suffering, this life isn’t all there is, that there is a spiritual dynamic to life, that there is a hope of a new heaven and a new earth, that there will one day be God’s kingdom in all its fullness. That’s the hope of glory.

but that hope is not as real and tangible if you don’t know Christ in you, if Jesus is just a nice story to you, if Jesus is just a figure from history, or a wise teacher to learn from, you won’t have that glory, that hope of glory, and what is more Paul knows that, as he contends, strenuously contends, Jesus is in him working powerfully. There’s power to help him persevere, there’s power to help him labor, there’s power to help him keep going. I wonder, friends, do you know that power by knowing Jesus, that power that helps you overcome sin, that power that helps you keep going, and keep laboring, in his name, tired though you may be? Friends, to be a Christian is not to know loads of stuff in the Bible, to be a Christian is not to be busy with religion, to be a Christian is not even to come to church, or keep a building open, or keep the organization running, principally, to be a Christian, is to know Jesus personally.

And so, let me ask – Do you know Jesus that way? Is Jesus a reality to you? And, if he’s not, or if Jesus seems distant, maybe this is the year you press into that, maybe this is the year you pursue Jesus in a fresh way? There are so many ways to get to know and journey with Jesus and maybe His invitation for you this year is to get to know Him in a different way. To engage with the scriptures or to engage with prayer in a different way. But to meet with Him. to know Him personally. And so, I’m really excited that this year we’re doing Huddle again and you would have seen that notice in the news sheet that Huddle is a way for us to grow in faith. And do you know that the key question in Huddle is? What is Jesus saying to you? The second key question is – What are you going to do about that? But that is the key question – What is Jesus saying to you? And so, if you want to grow in faith, if you want to be able to answer that question, then why not get involved in Huddle come, and speak to me, I probably again need to know today if that’s something you want to do. because we need to get dates in the diary. So, if you want to grow in faith maybe think about Huddle. Maybe think about getting into the word of God differently this year, somehow. There are so many ways. Or engaging with prayer and praise maybe in a different way. That you might have the hope of glory.

So Paul, he had clarity of commission and he knew Jesus personally and that gave him hope and power for his life and his circumstances but, you know, I think there was one other thing his life, his writings teach us today, one other thing that, if it wasn’t there, his commission still wouldn’t have been fulfilled because I think it’s possible, friends, I think it’s possible to be clear about the commission and you might be able to recite Matthew 28 to me and you might be able to say to me ‘Well Scott, I know Jesus and I have the hope of glory.’ it’s possible to have both of those things and still not fulfill your commission, because there’s something else that Paul had. Paul knew that to fulfill our commission, his commission, our commission, we must invest in the eternal, we must invest in the eternal, the eternal, the spiritual, that relationship with God, that faith which is so intangible, isn’t it, faith is just so intangible and infuriating at times, it’s less concrete than the rest of life and so we give ourselves to work, we give ourselves to whatever it may be, that a new hobby, or another issue, or another, which is so much more concrete than God, and the things of God’s kingdom. I was reminded of this just quite recently I met up with some friends from school 20 years on and there’s a real group of these guy friends that we just keep meeting with and I love seeing them, they’re real brothers to me, and some of them, quite a few of them, are in engineering of one form or another and I get talking to them and they they’re able to tell me all the different ways that they are developing technology and I just sit there amazed and slightly envious that they they’re so concrete in what they’re able to see their job brings about, and then there’s another friend and he’s in education, he’s a high school teacher and he’s able to say the difference he’s making in the lives of young people and he also has some quite funny stories about what goes on at high school at times and we have a good chuckle and again there’s a bit of me that’s like ‘I’m really envious of you that you’re able to see that, and know that it’s much more concrete’ because, when they come to me and say ‘Well, how’s your job going, Scott?’ I haven’t quite found the right answer to that yet because I tell them a little bit of what I’m doing and it’s just blank look, move on, because my job is about the intangibles in life, often it’s about faith and about the kingdom of God, and there are times when it hits the really hard times of life as well, and we don’t know what to say in those times and so we kind of skip quickly on about what Scott does. I investing in the eternal, is hard, it’s intangible, it’s less concrete and so, because of that again, we’re often like ‘Well, I’ll get around to it when I feel like. I’ll get around to it when I don’t have to wear a mask. I’ll get around to it when I’ve got a wee bit more time’ But that wee bit more time never seems to come, because all those more concrete things just seem to press in upon us, and in Paul’s life and in his ministry he displayed loads of ways that he invested in the eternal. He pursued God in prayer and he writes about what he’s praying for the Colossians as he does for all the churches and he invests in the eternal by cherishing the church and you can read how he cherishes the church and he invests in the people of the church but you can see how he invests in eternal by sharing the good news with others that they might come to faith in Jesus as well.

So, friends, what would it look like for us to invest in the eternal in 2022? What would that look like for you to not just invest in what is concrete but to invest in the eternal and invest in faith and then the kingdom of God?

I’ll give you some ideas just from Paul’s own example.

So, I mentioned that he prays. Are we praying for your day, are you praying for this church, in our ministry? You know, we have a Thursday prayer time and it’s online just now because of Covid and, hopefully, that will change one day, but if you have a telephone and I won’t ask you to put up your hand if you’ve got a telephone, because everybody’s probably got a telephone, if you have a telephone, you can join that time of prayer, you don’t need a computer, you don’t need a smartphone or tablet you can simply phone up and listen in and you don’t have to say a word other than maybe ‘Hi’ just to say hi but after that you can be silent the rest of the time, but by listening in, you are praying and you are praying and investing in the eternal. Might this be the year when we see our Thursday time of prayer grow in size again? Because the churches that are thriving across denominations generally are those churches that are coming together for prayer. Might we invest in prayer this year?

Paul’s example also shows that he invests in relationships, he invests both in people outside the church and he invests in people inside the church. So, what would that look like for you? Are you investing in relationships? Are you building relationships with the local community? And how are you building relationships amongst one another? Most of us, if not all of us, are in a Pastoral Grouping. You know, you don’t have to leave it just to your Pastoral Grouping Leader to care for your pastoral grouping. You can work alongside them. You can say to them ‘Hey, I’d be willing to maybe give someone a call or pay someone a visit or send someone a card.’ You can get involved certainly, speak to your Pastoral Grouping leader and we’ll help make it happen, because it doesn’t have to just rest on a small group of people, in fact it can’t, it needs every one of us.

Or what about using your gifts? Rachel prayed for it this morning particularly amongst our work and volunteering with young people. Paul labors and uses his gifts to help others to serve the church. You know, our Junior Boys Brigade section might not run after the summer because we don’t have enough volunteers. Do we want that to stop? Do we want that to have to stop because we don’t have enough volunteers? And so, we have to stop investing in the eternal of those young boys? The only way it’s going to be able to keep running is if people step forward and volunteer and there’s probably any number of other areas of ministry where that’s the case. Could you step forward and volunteer with the Junior Boys Brigade? You don’t have to be the main leader because we have a very able main leader but she cannot do it on her own, we need others to help. Could that be you?

Because we have a commission, a commission from God, a commission that transcends our current pressures and insecurities, the concerns of our day, because it’s a commission to invest in the eternal, to invest in the eternal welfare of others. We have a commission to go make disciples, to call people to follow Jesus, and if we want to see that commission fulfilled in greater measure this year, then we must learn to keep the main thing the main thing and we must do that by having clarity of commission, knowing Christ is in us, and then investing in the eternal. I pray it may be so. Amen.

Midway Mini Message (Tuesday evening)

Preached on: Tuesday 19th January 2021
The sermon text is given below or can be download by clicking on the “PDF” button above. There is no Powerpoint pdf accompanying this message..
Location: Brightons Parish Church

Good evening everybody, welcome to our Midway Mini Message. It’s midway through the month and hopefully it’ll be a mini message but, when preparing for tonight, I had a load of ideas, so I’ll try and keep it as brief as I can!

Tonight, is about helping us engage with the 2021 New Testament Reading Plan. Hopefully many of you have begun to read through this. We’re currently in the book of Mark, the Gospel of Mark, and it’s been encouraging to hear how different people have begun to be engaged with it, forming little groups to support one another even, which is amazing!

But maybe, like other new year’s resolutions at times, you’re beginning to feel “Like okay, halfway through the first month this is becoming hard” and some of the initial enthusiasm is a waning a little bit. Maybe you’re even finding a little bit more difficult than you thought, that you’re reading through, you’re being diligent, but maybe not getting as much as what you hoped you might from it; and my plan, my hope is that tonight, and in future sessions, we might equip you in that, and encourage you through this this year as we read together through the New Testament.

The Psalms remind us that those who dwell, meditate, chew upon the Word of God can know the blessing of God. Psalm 1 says “Blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law, day and night.” That blessedness is not about protection from all perils and hardship, but it does include peace and well-being, includes growth of character, stability, delight, joy, even in the midst of hard and difficult times, and many much is the testimony that I and others could share of the benefit of digging into God’s Word and how, through it, we have met with the living God, and our faith has been sustained, maybe especially in the difficult times.

Now this way of reading scripture, that we’ve begun one chapter a day, is a particular way and it may be quite different from what you’ve ever done before, and many of us have maybe used things like Daily Bread or other resources like that, where someone has prepared things in advance for maybe three or four months and you read a bit, and they’ve got some thoughts to read, or you might use an online reading plan from the Bible app for example. Often it can jot around different parts of the Bible, maybe following a theme hopefully. Some of the reading plans maybe do work systematically through a portion of the Bible and again, though there’s often some people’s thoughts on that and that’s not a bad thing. I’ve used it myself, as you know as I’ve said often, I’ve used the Lectio 365 app a lot last year. Pretty much it was my main source for devotions but this year I thought I’d do something different. Go back to a method I’ve used a lot and invite you to give it a shot and journey with me in this, that we might know more of Jesus and more of the teaching about Jesus, and how we are to live as Christians. And so, we’re focusing there on the New Testament.

There’s a couple of things to bear in mind to try and get the most out of this. I guess, first of all we need to remember what Paul said to young Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16 that “all scripture is god breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training and righteousness” and so, if we approach the Bible in that way, then it will change how we receive things and how we expect things will come more expectant. I think expecting to hear from God and the less nice bits, the less glossy bits, the bits that we think “Oh, it’s just a Sunday School lesson” we might take more heat off it. Might not be, as you’re reading through, the thing that initially jumps off the page that you’re meant to hear. It may be something else and so, just bear that in mind, as you come to it, that you’re coming to God’s Word, that it is from the heart of God and there might be something there, will be something there for you, even in those days where it’s like “I’m just not getting anything”. Maybe in that time especially, is when you see that you have to love your neighbor – Sunday School lesson – “Oh, I know to love my neighbor!” well maybe take some time to think about that and see where God takes you by His Spirit.

So, that this is a method I’ve been using for years. It’s been used by billions of Christians, probably most Christians, probably in other countries who don’t have access to other resources. I assume that this is just the way that they’re doing it, they’re just reading through the scriptures and then learning about God, and then learning what it means to follow Jesus. As they read through, and God is speaking to them, and it’s been used from the day the Church began, it’s just how they’ve been using it and through that their faith has been sustained, has been grown, and I pray it would be the same for us.

You’ve probably already begun to realize that, as you read through chapter by chapter, there’s stuff you don’t understand and it’s the same for me. I’m reading through things I’m not always understanding everything and that’s okay. It’s okay not to understand everything that day, that you can come back to another time, another year, maybe another decade, and maybe at that point it’ll be then that it falls into place for you. So, it’s okay not to understand stuff. I’m not getting everything, I don’t expect you to get everything either, okay and that kind of thing is maybe more for Bible studies or maybe for Sunday preaching, or maybe some more intensive kind of Bible reading routines, that you can use in our benefit, but it’s not this.

Okay, so let’s bear that in mind as we come into it. It’s also worth bearing in mind that we’re going to come across a couple of different genres in the New Testament. So, we’ve got the gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – and they’re very different from the epistles, the letters by the Church fathers like Paul and John and Peter – so, the early apostles. Okay. And it can be helpful just to be aware of that dynamic, that in the Gospels the focus is very much on Jesus, on who He is, what He came to do what He did, and some of the teaching He passed on, and that those Gospels are written for all the Church to read, and know, and apply. The epistles are a bit different – they’re as relevant for all the Church, but in a different way, because they were written to our particular audience, sometimes a particular congregation or a group of congregations. And then we’ve got the Book of Revelation, and we’ll talk about that nearer the end of the year, because that’s a whole other different type of genre. And what you take from the different genres, how you approach the different genres, will be different, and it’s worth remembering that ,and if you’re not familiar with that, or you just want a bit more help, I’ve got two resources for you to consider getting a copy of.
Okay. now if you’re listening back to this message on the telephone we can get either of these resources printed off for you although one will probably be more helpful than the other. The more helpful one and useful for everybody, is the Bible Society resource and they’ve produced online resources, that you can either read online or downloaded and printed off, for each book of the Bible, and each book of the New Testament as well, and so, it gives you a bit of an introduction to the book, it tells you who wrote it, gives you some inspiring quotes from it, it gives you a bit of a structure to maybe help understand. In that way it gives you ideas of what this might mean for you as well as some maybe discussion questions to think about yourself or talk about with others, and I’ll put a link to this resource in the description of this video.

The other resource is by a group of people who come under the title The Bible Project, and most of it, they’ve got a website and a Youtube Channel, and for each book of the bible, as well as loads of other ideas and themes and issues. They’ve produced videos and the videos take you through a bit of a cartoon drawing that they’ve done, and so we can print off this cartoon drawing for people to read but without the commentary it might not mean quite as much. So, we can get that for those that are not on the internet but again, as I say, it might not mean as much without the commentary, and these are five to ten minute introductions.

That was the book of Mark. There’s also the book of Galatians just to give you a very quick overview to remind you what to maybe expect or be having in the back of your mind as you’re reading through. So, the Bible society and The Bible Project really helpful as you come to the scriptures as well as simply knowing that it’s the word of God and approaching it with that kind of heart and disposition.

Now, when you’ve been reading through hopefully you’ve been engaging with the questions and with the prayer stuff because it really needs both for these to be truly meaningful. I think Tim Keller, in his book on prayer, he talks about how prayer and the reading of scripture just have to and should dovetail so closely together and that one needs the other and vice versa, and so, don’t skip on that, don’t approach it in a peripheral way. You’re coming to God, you’re coming to hear from Him as he’s spoken through His word. and use the questions that are there. So, for example, going through the gospel of Mark, I’ve been thinking “What does it show me here of Jesus?” and I’ve just been reminded of His power and the dynamism He carried by the Spirit and that lives changed and there was an expectancy with Jesus, and Have I got that expectancy? Have I kept that expectancy? and that’s, in part, what prompted the message and following prayer time on Sunday, that as I read through the scriptures, that’s what arose in me; as I saw more of the person of Jesus but equally those other questions “Is there a sin to confess? There’s been a couple of, as I’ve read through things, thinking “Oh Lord, I don’t live that way!” or I see something and that how that person responded to you and my life too. “Forgive me Father, forgive me.” Or maybe there’s been a command to follow or something you’ve needed God’s help with. Who knows, maybe what it’s been, but again there will have been things for me and there’s so many thoughts going around our heads just now and in general. Isn’t it so.

One of the other things that I find helpful is to take some notes in a journal. Literally a sentence is all you need to write down, one sentence. Turn it into prayer if you like – I often do that nowadays. Rather than just here’s a thought, I write down a prayer with the thought and with that kind of heart. Or it maybe with the verse that has jumped out to me. And then, at the end of the week, you can, on a Saturday, if you’ve done all your five readings Monday to Friday, on a Saturday you can just take some time to look back over the week and see if you’ve got any more thoughts. Talk to God about it a bit more and then on Sunday you’ve got Church so no need for a reading that day. Yeah?

So, the questions are there to be used. Please don’t just bypass them. I do try to use them. And approach it prayerfully, and, as I say, you’re not looking to understand everything but you’re trying to see “Well, what is God maybe saying to me today, here, now?” You’re looking for what grabs your attention or what strikes your heart or what encourages you, challenges you. But, as I say, there’ll be days, there will be days where you’re reading through and it’s hard work. I have been there myself, and in that day you’re maybe just need to take a pause, maybe say “God I need Your help. I’m not getting anything today.” and maybe it’s coming back to it later in the day, or it could be just seeing if there’s something that sounds a bit dull or bland or the Sunday School lesson “Love your neighbor” and maybe that’s the thing you should dig into because it’s all God’s word, it’s all beneficial, there’s something you can get from it if we seek God’s help and put in a bit effort, at times, as well.

So, I encourage you that and then just take it into prayer and pray about it and think if you approach it that way I think you can get something helpful from it each day.

But I am conscious that there will be things that come up you know like “What does that mean?” or “Does this mean that?” or “Surely no!” or “I’m really confused!” and so, that’s where this idea about having a question and answers session. The idea came up for a questions and answers evening, and so for the 16th of February myself and a couple other ministers from the Braes Churches will get together to record a video to upload for the Tuesday night where we answer some of your questions. Now, to give us enough time to do that and juggle that around everything else, I need your questions in by the 4th of February, which is a Thursday. Get them in. That gives us about a week to do some digging for you, think through some stuff and come prepared and get the recording done. Can’t promise we’ll do every question but we’ll try and do as many as we can. We just don’t know who’s going to get involved because it’s not just Brightons reading this plan, which is really encouraging, it’s also Slammannan and I think we’re sending it out to Blackbraes and Shieldhill, Muriavonside, which is great, as well. So, who knows what will come! So, get your questions in and help us all just to chew things over.

Nevertheless, as I say, the goal in this is not to understand everything, I don’t think anyone has understood all of scripture, and that’s okay, the goal of this primarily is to nurture your relationship with God and so you’re looking for What are You saying to me today, God? What’s the thing that encourages me or challenges me? What’s prompting me to speak and praise You? and sometimes the wonderful thing about this way of reading the scripture is that some days, not all the time, but more often than not, something will come along that maybe just speaks into a situation and that you’re particularly facing. It’s like I needed to hear that and it’s just really striking how God does that and I’ve known a number of seasons where that has been the case.

So, I pray that we get some of those for each of us as well going through this year but especially I pray and hope that as we go through this it’ll grow your faith that you’ll get to know Jesus so much more, you’ll get to see what this is about and the life He calls us to individually and as a Church, and I think, if we support one another, nurture one another, learn from one another, take on board these questions, and approach the Bible as God’s word, with that sense of expectancy, that He will speak to us, He’ll give us something day by day, our daily bread. Man does not live on bread alone but from the very word of God, and I pray that each of us might know that this coming year.

So, thanks for tuning in. I’ve tried to keep it as brief as possible, probably longer than a mini message, but nonetheless I pray it’s of blessing to you.

And so, as you go from , may the blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit be with you this night and forevermore, Amen