Disney's Enchanted/Love/1 John 4:7-12 - 14th December 2008, St Mary's Luton

Disney's Enchanted is billed as a modern day fairy tale. We meet Giselle in her homeland of Andalasia, she's your typical Disney princess-to-be waiting for her Prince to come. The only problem is her prince has an evil step-mother called Queen Narissa, who has been distracting him with Troll capturing duties for the last few years. Finally they meet, Giselle falls, having been inches from the trolls grasp, into Prince Edwards lap. And he declares “We shall be married in the morning!”. Of course Queen Narissa has something up her sleeve to stop that, and pushes Giselle, in full wedding attire, down a well. When Giselle lands she finds herself in Times Square, New York. There she falls on Robert and his daughter Morgan. In this clip we see Robert and Giselle talking about their opposite realities.

CLIP 41:25-50:10

Now I know I'm exactly two months early for St Valentines day, but tonight I wanted to talk about Love. Disney knows a lot about love, the corporation seems to have a monopoly on the romanticised version of Love. Pretty much every Disney character you come across is in love, whether its with someone who loves them back, or something unrequited, or just in love with themselves. They all manage to find themselves in Love. Fortunately for us tonight, Enchanted, as modern day as it seems to be, still has a hint of the classic love story, from the days of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Boy meets girl, boy helps girl, boy and girl fall in love and live happily ever after.

Love in this sense is lovely, it's nice, its possibly a little bit sacrificial, one of the themes in this movie tells us, True Love's Kiss will conquer all. Nothing can take away from the power of True Love's Kiss, not even a last minute ploy by evil. According to legend “True Love's Kiss” only needs to happen once and then we've found our true love, the one.

Before we go too far into all this lovey-dovey stuff, I feel I have to mention the fact that Enchanted has it's own cynical character. Robert doesn't believe in romantic love, he's not at all spontaneous and is quite seriously dismisses Giselle at the beginning of our clip when he thinks her approach has lost him a massive amount of money. Love, of course, isn't just for girlie girls and it's not for the faint at heart either. If you are cynical about Love, I pray that God will start to show you something of what He knows of Love.

How do we know that He loves Us? We're going to hear our Bible reading now.

Bible Passage: 1 John 4:7-12

To echo a brilliant song, how do I know He loves me? This passage says that “God sent his only Son into the world that we might live through him”. That's the good news, that's the gospel. How do I know that God loves me? He sent his son, to die on a cross to save my life, but not just my life, my family's and my friends. Lillie talked last week about how we personalise our gospel, but we have to remember that God sent his only son so that “whoever believes in him will not die, but have eternal life”. Maybe the cross is your True Love's Kiss when it comes to God, maybe you have found your one.

That's great and all, but I think there's more. Look around at creation, God created a fairytale to begin with, and he asked who is going to appreciate my creation? So he created man, someone in his own image. Don't you think it's funny that we create something and then invite some one similar to us to enjoy our creation too! He had created perfection in the Garden of Eden, a fairytale land. We have to have got this idea of perfection from some where, what about the ultimate perfectionist God? Everything in the garden of Eden worked in balance, just like a fairytale. I was travelling home from the Youthwork Conference with Gill and we were talking about the sunset, something that still happens every single day. It was beautiful. I think we can see God's love through creation. The gospel is a show of God's love for us, it's one symbol. But we are constantly reminded of everything he's done for us in creating earth. We should be looking for God's love in the places which we least expect it. Is that your True Love's Kiss, this are just two examples, there are many more. How does your God show that he loves you? As the song says “He'll find his own way to tell you with the little things he'll do”. That's how you'll know, he's your love.

If you are cynical about Love, I pray that God will show you His love in the little ways. You have to allow God to show you his love.

Another line in the song is “don't treat her like a mind reader”. I think we can do this to God some times, though for our own benefit I think we need to tell God how much we love him and to show our love as well. We often come before God knowing that he knows our inmost being, but by speaking those feelings out we can start to have a conversation with God about how we are doing and how we are being.

So how do we show God that we love him? An author called Gary Chapman writes about the way in which humans show love to one another. These are known as our Love Languages. And there are five. There is Words of Affirmation, Gifts, Acts of Service, Quality Time and Physical Touch. The idea of Chapman's book is that you identify your own love language and the ones of those around you. We can experience love in each of the ways, but we all have a primary love language. At the Youthwork Conference retreat day we used the image of a tree to help us reflect. We, of course, began with the roots. As we were sitting at dinner one person said 'I don't really understand the roots thing, it wasn't explained very well' We had been asked what nourishes us. I rephrased it as, 'what are the things in your week which you cannot go with out?' This helped him a little bit, and then he got out his knitting. How do you answer this question? If you are having a bad week, what have you missed out on? This should give you a hint as to what your love language is.

These love languages translate when talking about our relationship with God. Jesus says in Matthew 25 “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” The doing in this passage is all acts of service. Feeding the hungry and looking after the sick. I think this would apply to all of the love languages, we show our love for God in the way we treat others. We speak our own love language a lot, but we don't speak other's naturally. To help others feel loved we need to show them love in the way they need to be loved. This is how we show our love for God.

So there are now only 11 days till Christmas. So how do we show our love to others because God love us. Do we take time writing our Christmas cards and letter with full of encouraging words to the recipient, rather than just telling them about our year. Do we send a little gift to every one on our street, or do we buy an ethical gift. Do we open up our home, or work over Christmas without grumbling. Do we just demand people time, time for them to get away, have a cup of tea. What can we do to best show our love over Christmas?

If you are cynical about love, maybe you haven't discovered how you give and receive love.

How do we know that God loves us? Creation, the Cross, the bible. God shows us his love in many ways. He'll show you in the little ways. And he loves us each in a unique way, tailored just for us.
My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

How do we share our love at Christmas? We do the things which God has asked us to do, we don't hide away, we share the story of the greatest love of all. And we let our light shine.

Love Beyond Reason - John Ortberg

"Love Beyond Reason" is well written and with some very clear thought processes Ortberg puts across the point that though we are 'rag dolls' he has many reasons to love us for all we are and will be.

Ortberg paints a picture very well, he is a story teller. He weaves in Bible passages and illustrations from day-to-day things to help us to explore a God who loves us in the midst of our humanness. He is an encourager, allowing you to discover a loving God for yourself and to enjoy the dicovery with him.

Ultimately we see the love of God in the cross, and to be content and feeling safe in that love, not hiding away or moaning.

I think the last chapter ended quite abruptly, but on a great note about God's glory. God definitely had his hand in me reading this book, our theme this christmas is glory, i'm talking about Love soon and Zaccheaus' story popped up twice in one day. Lots to reflect and contemplate on.

words

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Well Trained - 1 Tim 4:7-8

Hi everybody, how are we feeling now that we are half way through the week? We've learnt quite a lot already. We know for sure that we are running, but not aimlessly, we have our reward in Jesus and what he has done for us on the cross.

These verses in the letter to a lovely young man called Timothy are based around the idea that Tim is in leadership and he has come up against some opposition. The guy who is writing to him is called Paul, he refers to Tim as a 'true son', so we can guess that Paul was getting on a bit and we know that he has had a lot of experience when it comes to dealing with people who are against him, in fact in Paul's earlier life he was known as the bad guy, the one causing trouble for the Christian's, his story is in Acts chapter 9.

So back to tonight's theme, the idea of being 'well trained'. Let have a look at these two verses again.

1 Tim 4v7-8 reads something like this:

Stay clear of silly stories that get dressed up as religion. Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gym are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever. (The Message)

I think that the perspective the Message puts on these verses helps us to understand a little bit more, but there are still some things I'm not too happy about. The German version of this uses the word TWADDLE to describe the silly stories. I think twaddle is a much better word, 'avoid the twaddle that goes around'. We can pretty much see when some one is talking utter rubbish, or lying, or making stuff up. You just have to use your head, or someone else's head. You, like me, might be really gullible, you'd fall for anything. If the people around you are constantly trying to trick you they probably aren't very good friends, and it might be a good idea to start avoiding them.

You might be sitting there thinking, Karen that is so easy for you to say! What do I do? How do I do that? I think we all have to make mistakes. Like the first time you are told they've removed gullible from the dictionary and replaced it with a picture of you! We need to quickly learn what is right and what is wrong.

This is where the training part comes in, the second part of verse 7 says

“rather train yourself to be godly”

again, I don't think this is really what Paul meant. Like the athletes who have trained to take part in the Olympics, they did not do their training alone. Here I think 'train yourself' does not mean that we should discard everyone else and be alone, I think our training might look something like this clip from Cars (from 40mins33sec – 43:40).

In this clip we've seen the main character Lightning McQueen taking on a challenge set by Doc Hudson. Later on Doc gives some advice on how to make the corner “if you're going hard enough left, you'll find yourself turning right” We see Lightning test out this advice while he's still in Radiator Springs, and then this happens (clip 1hr37mins – 1:38)

Lightning has learnt so much more than how to drift on dirt, he went from being a one man team to team player in the space of a week. One of the best things about Doc's coaching was that it was in context, it was relevant to Lightning's life.

When I look back at my life I can see some key coaching moments where people and situations have helped my Christian life in leaps and bounds. One of those moments was when I was with a couple friends called Jude and Jeff, sitting in the car outside another friends house and Jeff just started praying out loud. Sadly this was a bit of a revelation to me, and praying had come out of church and the bedtime routine and sprung into life. I don't remember at all what Jeff said, but it was a definite coaching moment.

We all need these kinds of people in our lives. The ones who coach us, encourage us and help us to be more like Jesus. We cannot constantly be by ourselves all the time and expect to be well trained and more godly. This is something we can do daily, we can be surrounded by people who are godly, and it's not necessarily older people who are more godly. So think for a second who are the coaches in your life? Who are the people which give you advice and encourage you, this might be in something formal like mentoring, or something less formal, like a Christian teacher at school, a youth worker, or your Christian friends. They don't have to know they are coaching you, but you might take their advice a little more seriously than other's.

Also we have someone who has been with us from day one. Our own personal trainer who knows what is good for us, what will keep us trim and which parts of our spiritual lives are flabby! This is the Holy Spirit. If you've never heard of the Holy Spirit before that's fine, he/she/it is what we know as one of the three with God and Jesus. It has been around since the beginning of time, and during the Old Testament the Holy Spirit helped a select few people to be better. When Jesus left earth, the Holy Spirit became available to all of us, even here and now. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to train us, there is absolutely no point in having a personal trainer and ignoring the advice they give or trying to make our own way through all the equipment in the gym. This personal trainer is with us wherever we go and what ever situation we are in. However it does take a while to get into a way of thinking like an athlete does. You have to want to be trained, making alive decisions about your life (picture of fishes going against the flow), not just going with the flow. But without the Holy Spirit we run the risk of running a pointless race.

So what do we train in? I know that naturally I am not a musician, it would take a lot of time an effort for me to play an instrument, but naturally I'm quite good with words, and speaking in public. I know that these are the things that I need to train in to become better, taking on challenges and broadening my skills in talking, like I'm doing now. What are you naturally good at? Are you good at sports, or music, or drawing? Where does your talent lie? There is a video clip of Tiger Woods playing golf at aged 2, he continued to train at age 8 he was winning amateur tournaments, and at 21 he was world no 1! That's a pretty extreme example. But do you catch my drift? When we are all naturally talented at something, we can train in that and be doing it for God all the time. That doesn't mean you have to work for church when you grow up, but you can with the Holy Spirit's help, work every thing you do for God. Please believe people when they tell you that you are good at something. Let's be encouraging each other this week in the good things.

TIM AND VERITY STORY

Let's head back to the passage for a minute, we've talked about avoiding the old wives' tales and myths, but what stories can we believe and what is the measuring stick for them? It's something that we all own, but rarely use, it's a gift that we have been given which sits on the shelf at home. It is of course the bible. It's a shame that we have all the resources in the world of the word of God, yet we read those rather than the actual Bible. It has some really good things which can inform us on life,

how about Proverbs 16: 18 Pride will destroy a man, a proud attitude leads to ruin.

or

1 Samuel 4:18 When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backwards on his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. Don't lean back on your chair!

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart

Pretty much the word of God is very important, but we tend to ignore it thinking that the stories are old and irrelevant. If we continue to do this, we will have nothing to stand with when we come up against the old wives tales and myths.

So how do we get the word of God in to our lives more than it is at this exact moment? A fun thing about the bible is that it has been around for years and people are always writing songs about it, so even before you know the bible, you might know some of the songs. FIND SONGS AND VERSES TO MATCH. Then you just have to add the reference at the end...

If you learn easier with pictures, there are some really good videos and story books which can help. Make sure though, that you always go back to the bible to check your facts.

But there is no one way to get the Bible into your head and etched on to your heart. We all have our own ways. You might be a morning person, up at the first sign of sunshine reading your bible and praising God for all the glories of creation. You might hit your peak around midday, so take a bible into school and have a read over lunch time. Or you might be a night owl, and reading the bible before you sleep is the only way to get it in to your brain. Ask the leaders in your group, or your youth leader what they do to get the bible into their lives. They will be able to give you some pointers. But again don't worry if you are not a bible scholar, or if it takes a while for you to get going. God made you, he knows all about you and knows the plans he has for you.

These verses finish by saying about the promise godly training has for the present and the future, however you might not get to the future if you don't do the thing which is of some value, and that's the physical training. Now I am definitely not the fittest person in this room, and I'm not about to find out how unfit I really am, but there were times in the bible where physical training was key to the continuation of the story. If you think of all the things Joseph went through to become the Pharaoh's right hand man. He wasn't the fittest amongst his brothers, but after they chucked him in a pit, you can imagine he'd wished he'd done a bit more training. Then once he's in Egypt, he finds himself in a situation where he has to literally run away. If he wasn't physical fit he wouldn't have been able to run away, and instead of being accused of adultery with Potiphar's wife he might have been caught in the action, and killed. End of story!

Another fine example of physical training is the disciples and early Christians, they wondered from place to place, granted that they did walk every where anyway, but if they hadn't have then the story of Jesus may never have spread.

Today our physical training is of some value, we need to be fit to run away from situations of temptation, or to stand and fight for what is right. I think Paul's warning us against vanity, if you spend all your days on yourself, how are you helping other people? If we are lazy in our physical lives, how will that reflect on our spiritual lives? You don't have to be an Olympian, but you do need to be able to race.

So lets start the training, keep going with the training, allowing others to coach us, and trying out the things which we are challenged about. Verses 9-12 say this “You can count on this. Take it to heart. This is why we've thrown ourselves into this venture so totally. We're banking on the living God, Saviour of all men and women, especially believers. Get the word out. Teach all these things. And don't let anyone put you down because you're young. Teach believers with your life: by word, by love, by faith, by integrity”. Having the bible and the Holy Spirit to be part of our lives so that our spiritual training stays on track.

Boy anointed to be king - 20th July 2008

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Good morning and welcome to the very beginning of our summer series about a guy called David.

You join us right at the start of the story of David's amazing life as someone who's heart was exactly in time with God's. This is quite a long story and there are lots of event's in David's life which we will cover over the summer, some you will know well, other's might surprise you a little bit.

So lets set the scene a little, you are not getting off lightly this morning, I want you to take part in scene setting.

The people of Israel – that's you guys – had asked God for a King, they had had enough of the Judges that came before, so they insisted “We want a king, We want a king”. There was a man called Samuel who was in toucch with God and he said that if the people of Israel choose a king they would regret it, but they ignored Samuel and said “we want a king, we want a king”.

Eventually Saul was placed as King over Israel. He was actually a good king, and defeated a people called the Ammonites in a brilliant military manoeuvre.

Saul's disobedience didn't make God very happy, much like when you refuse to tidy your room, and your mum makes that face, you know you're in trouble then! God is in the process of chucking Saul out and sends Samuel on a journey to find the next king of Israel.

There is a man named Jesse who lives in the little town of Bethlehem. Which you may have heard of before... some one called Jesus was born there on Christmas day! Anyway, one day Samuel came to see Jesse, and they took part in some of the Jewish rituals of the day and then began the procession of Jesse's son's to Samuel to see which one would be the next king.

First we had Eliab, the bible says that Eliab was tall and handsome. Do we have any tall and handsome men around this morning? Brilliant, very tall very handsome... what do we think are Eliab's chances of becoming King? In the bible it says that Samuel thought that Eliab was perfect for the job, he certainly looked it.

God had a different plan, he tells Samuel that he shouldn't look at the outside, but that God looks at the heart. That's what is key to this part of the bible. This story is always picked up on because of the phrase “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”.

Even with the latest technology we can only look at the physical heart, the one which pumps blood around our bodies, but the heart which we are talking about is how we feel and who we are at our innermost being, who we are when no one is looking.

The story continues and we meet Abinadab and Shammah, there is not description of these two, but they are not the right either. Jesse is so sure of his son's that he sends the next four in front of Samuel. They are not even named in the bible. Samuel has seen seven boys and he hasn't got the go ahead from God yet. He asks Jesse if there are any more, because God isn't the kind of person to send an old man all the way to the little town of Bethlehem to come away with nothing.

Jesse remembers that his youngest is out in the fields looking after the sheep. Samuel says that they will not sit at the dinner table until the youngest has arrived, (get Jordan up) and when he eventually does God says to Samuel

“Up on your feet! Anoint him! This is the one.”

Samuel obliges, pours olive oil over him, and the boy David is anointed to become king in front of his seven older brothers. Anointing simply means “to be dedicated to the service of God”, nothing too huge then.

That is the end of the first part of the story. Can you imagine going from Shepherd boy to king in one day? David probably thought he was being called in to tidy his room, or to have dinner, but nope! He finished the day as the next king of Israel.

I want to go back to the bit about our hearts. We are here today to thank God for Phoebe and Kyle, we remember that God looks into our hearts, he sees who we are, past our words, clothes and actions, right into the very heart of us. And even when He does He loves us. I'm going to come back and talk about that in a minute, now we are going to do the thanksgiving.

SHORT BREAK

We believe that the old stories are still relevant to us today and will have an impact on us wherever we are, whatever we are doing. This story of David helps us to understand the way that God looks at us today.

We live in a world full of first impressions, and people who listen to what we say and wear, more than what we do or how we really act. We put people who have done seemingly nothing in the lime light and praise them, we also put intellectual power at the top of the hierarchy and think that the 'experts of the world' will be able to answer all our questions, in which case our own intelligence is belittled.

This is not the whole truth. Here is a story that proves it, God chose the least of the least. A person who was 'just' a shepherd boy. Nothing of importance, his father actually had to be prompted to call him in from the fields.

God regularly calls the people who's hearts are in the right place. And the jobs which they do are very important to the church.

You should never think you are 'just' a person, and that God would never choose you... that's not how it works. The bible says that we are equal in the eyes of God.

Church around us is a great way of seeing this. We have the littlest of children healing people, seeing pictures and speaking God's words without so much of a blink of the eye. Then we have an amazing set of young people who are supporting each other through tough times and enjoying the good times together. And lots of things for adults to support each other, families getting together to have BBQ's and hang out, and an amazing set of grandparents who are such a blessing to the wider church!

Everyone can be used by God, and David's story will encourage us as we hear it over the summer. He's not perfect, but God still knows him and wanted him to be king even though he was just a shepherd boy.

Five Love Languages - Gary Chapman

I decided to turn my hand to reviewing books - alongside everything else I seem to be doing (or maybe I just want to rant about this one book, we'll see how long it lasts).


Dr Chapman had some success with the predecessor to this particular book, it was called "The Five Love Languages. How to express heartfelt commitment to your mate", it has since expanded to a few different streams including, children, teenagers, singles and a mens edition.

I fall into just one of these categories, at the moment I am single.

Chapman does a fantastic job of identifying the different kinds of single adults there are, including divorced and widowed. He also is quite convinced by the five love languages he has identified;
Words of Affirmation
Gifts
Acts of Service
Quality Time
Physical Touch

The book itself is written in an 'easy to read' way with stories to highlight each point he feels needs to be addressed. This is great if you are drawn in by personal stories and can cope with the same structure of chapter at least five times.

The point that this book makes time and time again is "identify your own love language and that of those around you", if "we begin to speak each others love language" life will be easier. Fantastic, if only it was that simple.

I'm not saying that he's got a bad point, but I am saying that he comes across as a bit of a know-it-all. A man who has a solution to every relational problem you will ever come across, whether its with a new spouse, a room mate, or parents you just don't get. That solution, "go away and read my book".

I know if he relayed, in detail, every conversation he had the book would be ten times longer, but we don't get a little disclaimer that says 'oh, by the way I cut some of the conversations to get to the point I am trying to make', so he comes across as a know-it-all.

He also doesn't draw many conclusions, and leaves with a set of questions and a discover your love language quiz. By the way it's not a scientific quiz at all and the questions are pretty obvious, it just helps to clarify your love language (if you didn't guess it by the fifth question!). If you can't be bothered to buy the book, google "five love languages", find the website and take the painfully obvious test.

I'm happy to buy into the love languages thing, but at the end of the day once you know a person quite well you'd speak their love language naturally. Yes it's that obvious! Good on Gary Chapman for helping us put words to the way we want to be loved.

Wrestling in Prayer - 10th Feb 2008

Based on 1 Kings 18 v 41-46 and James 5 v 13-18


Good morning… how is every one this morning?
This morning we are looking at ‘wrestling in prayer’ - a title that assumes from the outset that we are already praying. Whether you are praying all the time or not, or that you just pray when you feel you need it the most, I am almost certain that something happens when we pray.

As James is writing his letter, he leaves behind a lot of instructions, guidance points, and ties it in with an example of a story that the Jewish people in the congregation would understand. He uses Elijah as a reference point, almost telling the story as if it were legend or fairy tale. But he knows that the people who are hearing this letter either know the story or will lean to a person near them and ask ‘what’s he talking about’.

So what was he talking about?? James’ instructions answer three questions I think we all have about prayer. When should we pray? How should we pray? And Why should we pray?

With James’ help I’m going to try and answer these questions and put them into a language we’ll understand.

When should we pray?

Pray in all circumstances. It’s not only James’ that says this in verses 13-14, but it happens that there are 365 mentions of prayer or prayed in the bible (NIV). 1 Thessalonians 5 v 17 say’s ’pray all the time’. Throughout history people are praying, keep it up!

How should we pray?

James is speaking to church as he knows it, he’s suggesting the ideal way to pray in the context of church. If you are in trouble or happy it seems that you are on your own! But if you are sick, you can tag-team it. Which reminds me of WWF wrestling when I was about ten, if a wrestler was hurt they could tag their team mates to take over. Good tag teaming creates a winning situation.

It’s all there, but I want to pick up on one thing I think that is important. Tag teaming involves strategic planning, talking to each other. Find a group you can team with and “confess your sins to one another”. As much as the Holy Spirit can give us hints as to what to pray, there’s nothing like good old fashion talking it out to help clear up any issues.

Elijah petitioned with God about the rain, he kept praying. We live in an instant society where we have phones we can carry and wireless internet. There is no patience for God. We are supposed to be different to society, requesting, petitioning and staying on God’s case isn’t a bad thing. We have to expect the unexpected when dealing with God, and in today’s society patience is unexpected.

Why should we pray?

Simply because things happen when we do. We have to be willing to fight to see the results. Wrestling is an active word, there is nothing passive about prayer. We have to enter into prayer, an attitude, we are called to pray. References to prayer include doing words, adjectives.

Prayer is powerful, Elijah knows that. And that power is available to us wherever we are.

One question James didn’t answer how can I stop sounding like a Muppet when I pray out loud?
I think this is something I can help with. Use words you know how to use, there is nothing worse than a person who shows off in prayer, Jesus, Matthew 6. Also don’t be afraid to keep your eyes open to see what’s going on, or keep you more focussed. I know I’m not the only one in the room who falls asleep during prayer.

So that is what we are going to do…
Can you please get into small groups, and if you have children and young people around you make sure that they get to pray.

Gather round those who aren’t well, pray for the things you need prayer for. Make sure you share before you pray.

And when we come back together we are going to pray how Jesus taught us.