You were formed for God's family - part 3 of current audio series

You were formed for God’s family.

This morning we continue with our series of talks based on Rick Warren’s excellent book – The Purpose Driven Life – which I’d urge you to read because it contains a huge amount of Christian wisdom and insight.

Campbell spoke last week about the first purpose for our lives – which is that ‘You were planned for God’s pleasure.’

And the second purpose for our lives which I’m speaking about today, is that ‘You were formed for God’s family’, and the readings I’ve chosen tie in with this theme.

So, the second purpose for our lives is that God wants a family and he created us to be part of it. God is full of love and he wants to share this love with us.

He loves relationships and he created human beings so that we can enjoy a relationship with him and with each other as members of his family.

We become members of this family when we put our faith in Jesus. God becomes our father and we become his children.

Someone asked at the third Sunday service a few weeks ago - about whether all humans were children of God.

Well the answer is that all humans are created by God – but we only become children of God through putting our faith in Jesus, and by being born again into it.

As Rick Warren says, ‘We become part of the human family by our first birth – but we become members of God’s family by our second birth.’

When we have truly repented and put our faith in Jesus, as today’s gospel reading shows - other believers become our brothers and sisters.

The church is the family of God – and it is composed of people from all nations and denominations – who truly believe that Jesus is the son of God. So, when we become Christians we should start to view fellow believers as members of our new spiritual family and we should do our best to love them.

Rick Warren says, “because God is love, the most important lesson he wants us to learn is how to love … Of course God wants us to love everyone, but he is particularly concerned that we learn to love others in his family.”

And this isn’t always easy. Just as with our earthly families, our Christian brothers and sisters can sometimes be frustrating or annoying or even hostile.

What I find helpful if I struggle to get on with another Christian is to consciously try and remember that Jesus died for that person and that they are incredibly precious to him.

And therefore, by doing my best to love them – I am pleasing God.

I think a large part of getting on with other people – but particularly with fellow Christians - is to do with demonstrating the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our own lives.

In other words, being loving, patient, kind, gentle and self-controlled ourselves. And humility is also very important.

As Paul says to the Philippians – “in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.”

If we have a tendency to be unfriendly, impatient, judgmental and proud and to always think we know best, it will make it much more difficult for us to form loving relationships with fellow believers.

I have a theory that some people have hard edges and some people have soft edges. It’s easy for people with soft edges to form friendships, but the only way to get along with someone with a hard edge is for other people to accommodate that hard edge by their own soft edge.

So, having a humble attitude and being willing to acknowledge our own shortcomings is key to loving one another.

As Jesus said; “How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.”

But as Rick Warren points out God doesn’t just want us to be friendly, he wants us to from close and caring friendships and to share our Christian lives together, to experience ‘fellowship’ as the bible calls it.

Real fellowship is much more than turning up at church on a Sunday and chatting over a cup of tea. Real fellowship is about sharing our lives and what’s going on in them with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

It’s about being real and honest and open and not afraid to ask for prayer or help when we need it – because we feel secure in the relationships we have with one another.

It’s about trusting our Christian brothers and sisters enough to be able to share our hurts, our concerns, our failures, our weaknesses, our doubts and our fears and being really honest with each other in the sight of God.

And like-wise its then loving and caring for and praying for and practically helping our fellow believers as they share with us. Seeking to build them up and encourage them in their faith.

Fellowship is about authentic caring and not being afraid to bring things that are troubling us into the light of Christ – where they can be dealt with through action and prayer and loving advice and counsel.

Jesus said; “where two or three are gathered together in my name I am there among them.” So, when we meet with fellow believers and share our lives and study his word together, Jesus is present with us in a special way.

We can also experience fellowship as we pray together with Jesus in our midst – not being afraid to share the prayers of our hearts – because we’ll often find the same prayers are on the hearts of our Christian brothers and sisters.

And as Rick Warren says, the best way to experience real Christian fellowship is in small groups where we can regularly meet together and really get to know each other.

This is why bible study or home groups are so important. They are not just about studying God’s word but they are a place where we can build relationships with fellow believers and where we can encourage one another and get the help and support and prayer we need, as we seek to walk with God through life.

Geese fly in small groups in a V formation. Firstly, this conserves their energy. Each bird flies slightly above the bird in front of him, resulting in a reduction of wind resistance.

And the birds take turns being in the front, falling back when they get tired. In this way, a small group of geese can fly for a long time before they stop for a rest. Whereas a solitary goose would run out of energy much sooner.

Like Geese, as Christians we need each other’s encouragement and support to live the Christian life.

Rick Warren makes the point that to live in real fellowship with our Christian brothers and sisters requires absolute commitment. We need to develop the habit of meeting together and to make this a priority in our lives.

He says, ‘real fellowship isn’t built on convenience – I’ll meet when it suits me; its built on conviction - I need to meet for my spiritual health.’

Fellowship is crucial to the health of any church. Without it we live solitary, unhealthy and stunted Christian lives.

We struggle silently in private and look to God to meet our needs directly - whereas more often than not God will meet our needs through fellowship and the community of our fellow believers.

And God’s spirit flows much more freely and abundantly where we there is real fellowship and love between Christians.

His love flows through the connections we have with each other. His love flows through the relationships we have with each other.

Where our relationships and connections are broken or unformed, his love struggles to flow.

In Church on Sundays a lot of us can wear masks – and act as if everything is rosy. We don’t share or open up with fellow believers. We don’t like to ask for help or prayer because we don’t want to appear weak or needy or vulnerable.

Our relationships with other Christians therefore, tend to be superficial and because we don’t enjoy real fellowship, we struggle to experience God’s love and to receive his help.

In her book ‘Unexpected Healing’ Jennifer Rees Larcombe tells of an occasion when she was going to speak to a group of women in Mayfield I think it was. And when she saw these women they all looked so together and smart and neat and self-assured.

And she thought ‘Lord, what can I possibly offer these women?’

And then God showed her how he saw these women – and she saw through their masks and their make up to all the pain and hurt and desperate need in their lives.

The same is true of course for men. We don’t want to appear weak or needy – but wearing a mask not only keeps others from knowing and loving and helping us – but also keeps God at arm’s length – because he lives in and works through our Christian brothers and sisters.

Fellowship is also crucial because as Christians – as believers we are part of Christs body – which is what our new Testament Reading is about.

And just as a human body needs arms and legs and eyes and teeth and hands and internal organs to function – so we desperately need each other if we are to function as God’s church both here in Brenchley and in the wider world.

Every single Christian has a vital part to play in keeping the whole body healthy and functioning as it should.

Nicky Gumbel points out that as humans we have over 600 muscles in our bodies – but we need them all. He gives the example of Usain Bolt running in Jamaican relay team in the 4 x 100 metre finals at the recent Athletics World Championships in London.

As he ran, just one of his muscles – his hamstring - gave up, and his whole body ground to a halt and he couldn’t finish the race.

And it wasn’t just him – the whole Jamaican relay team failed to win a medal - just because one muscle stopped working.

If you’re sitting here today and you’re a Christian you have a vital role to play in strengthening and building up the Church and in Jesus’ great commission to make disciples of all nations.

You are unique – no one can do your job – and you are needed. Your role matters.

And we discover the role we are called to play through offering ourselves to God in service and through prayer, but also through fellowship and interaction with other believers.

We may feel called to do something but we’ll only find out if we’re right when we actually step out in faith and do it.

We’ll only find we really have a gift for hospitality as we invite people to our homes or host events.

We will only find we have a gift for healing as we offer to lay hands on someone and pray for them.

We will only find we have a gift for working with young people if we get involved with a youth or children’s group.

We will only find if we can preach if we actually try it.

So, the family needs you. We all need ‘you’ or as a church - we won’t be as healthy or as effective as we should.

So, to tie up what I want to say this morning, God created us to be a member of his family – the church – both to share his love with that family and to experience his love through that family.

As Christians we are all brothers and sisters in Christ – and we should treat each other according.

But more than this we should make meeting together an absolute priority in our lives – because this is the major way we will grow in our faith and experience God’s love and help and guidance and encouragement.

God lives in our fellow believers and his spirit flows and works through our relationships – as we seek to bless and encourage and help one another.

God has created us to be a body of believers and we all need each other to play our part in the life of this body – or we won’t be as effective a Church as we should be – and God’s love and life-saving gospel message won’t impact the world as he intends.

In the name of the living God. Amen.

The importance of God’s word - 3rd Sunday in September

The importance of God’s word - 3rd Sunday in September

Jesus prays in this morning’s gospel reading from John chapter 17 that as Christians we may all be one so that the world may believe in him.

In other words, he prays that we may be united, as a united Church is a great witness to a world that is full of division and conflict.

Part of this unity comes from having the same spirit - the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Truth living in us. And when the Holy Spirit comes to live in us - he then leads and guides us into the truth.

And then hopefully, as Christians, although we may have differences of opinion over some minor areas of doctrine – we should be united in our belief in the core truths of Christianity as outlined in the Creed for instance.

But how do we know what to believe and how do we know what is true and what isn’t?

Well the answer is that we find the truth in God’s word - the bible. As Jesus says in verse 17 - ‘Father Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.’

God’s word is the truth. It tells us all we need to know about God and about life and death and eternity – and it is utterly reliable – because as Paul says in our other reading from 2 Timothy –  it is inspired by God.

The bible was written down by human beings but they were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as they wrote it – and as such the bible is exactly as God wants it to be.

One of my university lecturers told me that truth was relative – but he was wrong.

Truth is absolute. God either exists and he created the world – or he doesn’t exist and the world somehow came out of nothing by chance.

And Jesus was either God made flesh or he was a fraud and a liar.

As CS Lewis said; A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You must make your choice.

In the old days builders used to use a plumb line to check if walls they’d built were straight. If the wall lined up with the plumb line they knew it was straight. If it didn’t, it meant the wall was crooked.

Like-wise if we’re not sure if something is true or not we can line it up with the what the bible teaches – and this will tell us. If something doesn’t line up with what the bible teaches then we know it is untrue.

For instance, before I became a Christian I used to believe in reincarnation. But the bible doesn’t mention re-incarnation, and we are told in Hebrews chapter 9, that each person is destined to die once and then face judgement – so now I don’t believe in reincarnation – because it doesn’t line up with what the bible teaches.

The bible isn’t just another book. It is God’s written and living word to us. So, we should approach it with reverence and awe – because we are reading the words of our creator.

And we should approach it with humility. It is not for us to sit in judgement on God’s word and dismiss bits we don’t like or don’t agree with.

We become Christians as we submit our lives to Christ and the only way we can grow as Christians is if we then submit our minds to God’s word and allow it to teach, rebuke, correct and train us as Paul puts it.

The bible of course is split into the Old and New Testaments. And the word Testament means a will? Hence we speak of someone’s last will and testament. Well, when Jesus died on the cross for us he left us an inheritance in the pages of the bible.

As God’s children we are heirs to this inheritance and spiritual riches are waiting for us to appropriate within its pages.

Many of these spiritual riches concern our new identity as a children of God.

Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We will be transformed as people as we take on board who we are in Christ and as we start to realise how much God loves us.

As we read and take in what God says about us and what Jesus’ death has secured for us and made us, it should transform the way we see ourselves, and it should motivate us to want to share God’s love with those around us.

You see as Christians we have a completely new identity in Christ Jesus.

As Paul says in his letter to the Romans – ‘if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.’

We used to be cut off from God and unforgiven but that person is now dead and we have been re-born as completely new people in God’s eyes.

The new person is a child of God. He or she has been adopted into God’s family. He or she has crossed over from death to life and from darkness to light. He or she has been set free from condemnation and judgement.

This new person has the Holy Spirit living in them. As Christians therefore, we carry God’s presence around in us wherever we go. The new person has been forgiven and redeemed. The new person is bound for heaven.

None of this was true of the old person we used to be.

As we start to see ourselves as God sees us, and as we start to understand the amazing implications of the cross in our lives, it should motivate us to love God and to want to share what we have found with others.

And the bible equips us to serve God. We find for instance that God has given us authority over evil spirits. Jesus says in Luke chapter 10; “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.”

As we submit ourselves to God’s authority, so we are delegated by God to use that authority to rebuke the devil – and see him depart not just from our own lives but the lives of others.

The bible is also the main way by which God speaks to us – sometimes to rebuke or correct us – but mostly to encourage and guide us.

Sometimes we may be reading a bible passage and some of the words will really make an impression on us or speak to our situation – and we know in our spirits that God is talking to us.

For instance several years ago, I had a lump under my right arm removed. After God’s intervention – it was benign – but this event rattled me and I became worried about my health.

A few months after my operation – after I got home from Church one Sunday I felt that God wanted me to read psalm 42 – so I did.

And God spoke to me and encouraged me through the words of this Psalm. He told me that he would protect me and preserve my life – that he wouldn’t abandon me to the power of my enemies, and that when I was sick he would restore me to health.

God also gives us revelation as we read the bible. What do I mean by this? Simply that God reveals things to us that we didn’t know or understand before.

When I was in my teens I went up into the French Alps with my family and I saw this beautiful mountain lake with absolutely crystal-clear water.

And as I looked into the water closely I could see things hidden under the surface. And the bible is a bit like this lake.

As we look into it and study it and think about it – sometimes we’ll see something new that we hadn’t noticed or understood before and it will become clear to us.

I remember for instance reading John chapter 6 verse 21 which comes immediately after Jesus has been walking on the water. This verse simply says; “Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.”

I’d read this several times before and thought nothing much of it– but as I read it this time, I suddenly knew for sure in my spirit that this was a miracle and that the boat with Jesus and the disciples in had instantly reached the shore where they were heading.

And of course, we read of the same thing happening with the apostle Philip in Acts chapter 8 where we are told; “the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more ... But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.”

So, I know now for sure that God can miraculously transport people from one place to another if he so wishes.

The bible also tells us what is coming in the future. There is a lot of future prophecy particularly in the books of Daniel and Revelation but also scattered throughout the Old and New Testaments.

For instance, in Matthew chapter 24 and 25 Jesus teaches about the end times and his second coming. And in his letters to the Thessalonians, Paul also tells us about not just Jesus coming to collect the Church – but also the coming of the Antichrist – the lawless one – who Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth when he comes again.

And just as we see Old Testament prophecies fulfilled precisely and exactly by Jesus – so we can be sure that future prophecy too is utterly reliable – because it has been revealed to the bible’s writers by God – and God already sees and knows the future.

So, to tie up what I want to say this morning – the bible is absolutely fundamental and critical for our lives as Christians. We become Christians as we receive the Holy Spirit but then we grow and discover our identity as Christians – only as we read the bible.

God can speak to us through the bible in many ways – to encourage us and to reassure us and give us promises about things that concern us.

He can reveal spiritual truths and insights to us. He has revealed the future and everything we need to know about life and death. And he can as Paul says use the bible to teach us, rebuke us, correct us and train us for service.

Ultimately whether we choose to read the bible or not is up to us – but just as it’s a very good idea when we buy a washing machine or a car to read the instruction manual and follow the maker’s instructions – so it’s a very good idea to read our own maker’s instruction manual.

If you’re new to the bible perhaps start by reading the gospels. Alternately there are numerous daily bible reading plans and booklets available and Nicky Gumbel has produced a bible reading app for reading through the bible in one year.

In the name of the living God. Amen.

What on Earth am I here for?

                         

I wonder how often you pause to ask yourself, ’What on earth am I here for?’   I don’t mean - though some of you may well sometimes ask yourselves! – ‘what on earth am I doing here in church this Sunday by Sunday?’ I mean, rather, ‘Is there something I’m missing about the meaning and purpose of life itself?’

Sometimes it takes a sudden shock, or a disconcerting fact, or a challenge to our firmly held ideas about life that hits us and forces us to think about this. Too often of course people shy away from such deep questions because, well, they are simply too busy, too absorbed in the whatever it is they are doing – from making a home to making money: sometimes they shy away from such questions because they are just too scared of what the answers might reveal.

But if you do find yourself caught in one of those sudden, critical moments of wondering what on earth is the meaning and purpose of life (I learnt on my pilgrimage a couple of years ago that the Germans have a special word for it.    I can’t remember what it was but I do remember that it was very, very long and began with ‘Selbst’, which is German for ‘self’) where do you turn to to get your answers? Do you rush to the bookshelf or, these days, to Wikipedia, to consult one of the thousands of self-help books such as Schultz on self-awareness, or Lieberman on the self-conscious or Hinderberg on self- esteem, or perhaps to Carlsberg for those parts the other books can’t reach? Or do you go to your bible, to Jesus, to Paul, to John, and to James to discover the real meaning and purpose of and for your life? Because if you do you will find that they do not start with ‘Selbst’ (self); they start with God, the God who created the world and you and me in his image to inhabit it and to care for it; and has already revealed – He did not leave us to speculate – his answers to why we are here and for what purpose – or purposes.

One of the reasons why we have such trouble in discovering our true meaning and purpose for this life is that we start in the wrong place: we start with self-centered questions such as ’What do I want to be? ‘What should I do with my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focussing on ourselves will never reveal our life’s meaning and purpose. Indeed the main reason why people find it so hard, so challenging, to make any progress in discovering God’s answers is because their thinking is too deeply ingrained with such self- centred questions. Whereas God has actually revealed – if we are prepared to listen to what He has said – His FIVE purposes for our lives which, when taken together, give the real meaning to life and to our lives.

These five purposes are what we are going to be considering over the next few weeks and they start not with us but with God.

God’s very motive for creating us was His love. His love is admittedly difficult to fathom; but it is fundamentally reliable and He proved it supremely by choosing, in one of His forms of being God, to come to us in the person of Jesus. (verse 13 of our Gospel reading) He even gave us the free will to choose either to accept Him or to reject Him (verse 19) because that is the only way that love can work. It’s very messy, I know; but apparently He thought it better to make us in His image and give us free will rather than to create robots or puppets on His strings. And He did so because (verse 16) He wants us to enjoy eternity with Him.

The trouble is that because our minds are so turned in upon ourselves, they need to be (verse 2 of our Epistle to the Romans) ‘transformed’ and actively and willingly ‘renewed’. But how hard it is for God to reach us often because our minds are (verse 2 again) ‘conformed to the pattern of this world’. It is when we come to realise that we were created as a special object of God’s love, that He made us so that He could love us, that we have the fundamental truth on which to build our lives.

One of the many things that first convinced me of the truth of Christianity, of God’s revelation of Himself in the person of Jesus, and the utter integrity of Jesus and the Apostles – fallible human beings though the latter certainly were! – was that they were not themselves trying to profit from their message but, quite the opposite, were even prepared to lose their lives in order that you and I might find the true meaning and purpose of why we are here and for what purpose.

Now you might not find this alone sufficiently convincing proof; but for anyone with any philosophical curiosity or moral conscience it surely ought to prompt them to examine why they were prepared to do so and what their message was. And when we do examine this we discover some very clear and defined yet at the same time tremendously liberating and fulfilling answers that are not just for Christians but for everyone on this earth. Of course, many people will say that they have already discovered meaning and purpose in their families, their careers, their goals, their ambitions, their dreams. But can any of these things really answer the question before us, the question with the uncomfortable habit of nagging, and so often at the most inconvenient of times, especially, for example, when life is all about to end either for ourselves or for those we love? Is what you believe about what happens next based on a sure hope – or, if you are honest, purely on wishful-thinking or, like the atheist philosophers…’Sorry, folks but that’s it’?

Just before we meet the FIVE purposes God has revealed for our lives, those very purposes that give our lives His meaning rather than any we can make up for ourselves, as the likes of Richard Dawkins argues, or, like Sartre, Camus and others, the cold, hopeless assertion that there is no meaning to life, we perhaps need to think about what drives peoples’ lives, because everyone’s life is driven by something.

Some people are driven by guilt, some by fear, some by the need for approval, some by resentment and anger, some by materialism; the list goes on and all of them without exception are ultimately either destructive of themselves or of their relationships or of other people. They all at heart have a preoccupation with the self. It is from these deceptive but innately destructive motivations that God in the person of Jesus came to save us and offer us His loving and gracious purposes to liberate and fulfil us and give meaning to our lives.

Yes, we are products of our pasts but we do not have to be prisoners of it; yes, we can be fired by resentment and anger but we can be healed by Him; yes, we can feel guilty but we can be forgiven by Him; yes, we can allow our personal value to be determined by our personal valuables, or we can find our true value in Him; yes, we can be driven by many deceptive yet destructive things or we can find our meaning and purpose in Him. ‘Come unto me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest: take my ‘yoke’ upon you and you shall find rest for your souls.’ Yes, we can live life as if it is the be all and end all, or we can realise that God invites us to share eternity with Him.

When a person fully comprehends that there is more to life than just the here and now, and realises that this life is just preparation for eternity, things change so much for the better and that person can begin to live differently. It changes everything: our view of ourselves, of others, of our jobs, of our ambitions; it changes our values, our priorities, how we spend our time, our money, everything.

Does it mean I have to give up my career, my goals, my dreams, my ambitions? No, not necessarily so at all. But instead of wanting to be, say, a doctor, an accountant, a teacher, a cook, a mother, it puts in our hearts the desire to be a Christian doctor, a Christian accountant, a Christian teacher, a Christian cook, a Christian mother. Why? Because, again to quote Paul (verse 2), we will be able to ‘test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing, and perfect will’; there will come with this discovery not only a revelation but a motivation to reinterpret for the best how we can live out our lives; not only for our own sakes but for the sake of others and to the praise and glory of the one whom we know to be not just ‘God’ but our Heavenly Father who loves us immeasurably more than we can either conceive of or imagine.

Over the next few weeks (on and off!) we are going to be considering God’s  perfect, perfectly loving, purposes for us. And this is what we shall discover:

That we were:

1.    Planned for God’s Pleasure, that is, a relationship with Him.

2.    Formed for God’s Family, that is, His Church.

3.    Created to become like Christ

4.    Shaped for serving God

5.    Made for a Mission, that is, sharing the truth and good news about Him.

For those of you who are baptised, these talks will help you to remember and apply the promises that were made on your behalf at your baptism. For those of you who have been confirmed, these talks will challenge to reconsider and assess your calling to turn to Christ, follow Him, and to do so unashamedly.

For those of you have been neither baptised nor confirmed I hope that these talks might shed light on the questions you have and help you to perceive what God has revealed about the meaning and purpose of life and of your life.

We have as usual provided some study questions on today’s readings so that you can give this profound, challenging, but very exciting issue some more thought and prayer during this week.

I decided to have an extra reading from the Psalms this week because it reminds us that it all starts not with ourselves but with Him. And it is as we begin to worship in spirit and in truth as Jesus commanded, that what God  reveals to us through His word will begin to make more and more sense.

Psalm 145: 1 - 8                      Romans 12: 1 – 5:                     John 3: 11 - 21