Clinging to the cross

4th December 2011
7pm ETC, St Hugh's


I opened this talk with Ps 145 v3-7, which is the psalm that will be read at my last service 22nd January. I wanted to say goodbye to ETC with this preach about passing on God's word while they have the greatest opportunity... Christmas.

There’s a song written by Tim Hughes which is called “Clinging to the Cross”. When I first heard this song I was immediately struck by the depth of such an easy to say sentence. When I think of the literal interpretation of this, I imagine myself like this. (PPT) Absolutely 100% holding on; as tight as possible; as though I’m on an out of control rollercoaster. And some days that is exactly how my life feels, and I’m sure that we all have that at some point. On those sorts of days, all I can do is hold on to the one thing I know is solid, Jesus.

When life isn’t so hectic, clinging to the cross isn’t so much of a white knuckle ride, more like a gentle reminder every day that God has done something astounding that is for everyone. Jesus dying on the cross means that God is available to us every moment.

It goes much deeper than that too. Clinging to someone or something isn’t something that can be done half-heartedly. The reality is, you only have two hands, so you can cling to a maximum of two things, but to be truly holding on to something you’d ideally need both hands. That way you can be certain to never let it go or slip or run away from you. The more I simply hold on to the cross the more I realise I cannot do this and be distracted by other things, other possessions, they make it too complicated.

Suddenly the thought of doing something simply means that a whole lot of other things have to disappear.

Conditions

“I’ll cling as long as it’s a happy kind of clinging”

Laws

“I’ll cling, but only on Sundays, whilst I’m in worship”

Pride

“I’ll cling so I look ‘holy’ at church”

These are all things I have to let go of in order to cling to the cross simply and without distraction. Not easily done, we all have things which get in the way, but because of the cross we can drop everything else and know that we will still be ok.

I didn’t think that I would be able to get through today without changing it all up a bit and thinking about Christmas. I know that it’s a radical thought to have this time of year! I thought it would be important to mention the upcoming event which everyone enjoys, but we seem to know so little about.

There’s a famous phrase out there, “Christmas maybe here, but it doesn’t make sense without Easter”. Pretty much everyone you know will be celebrating Christmas in some form or another. Whether you are the person who buys all the presents or the one who receives them all, we all have our traditions and created busyness.

Whilst I enjoy the Christmas lights and the presents, we all know that the meaning of Christmas isn’t about how much you can eat, or about whether you’ve got the most presents. It’s really about the tiny baby Jesus, having the biggest impact ever.

Jesus steps down from eternity, gives up all he knows, to become a tiny human being completely dependant upon the Humans who are to be known as his parents. That’s just part of the amazing story of Jesus, one part of the restoration of the relationship between us and God.

Our last value of ETC is ‘Commissioned’. Commissioned means being sent out to share the news that we have. How many conversations do you think you’ll have about Christmas in the next 3 weeks? It’ll be at least one per week. How about rather than exclaiming how much hate there is for this over busy, over used holiday, you begin to spread the hope of the cross, you begin to talk about Easter.

I don’t mean literally, I mean, cling to the cross, cling to the crib. Spend time used for complaining to open up a conversation of hope and coming light. Throughout the bible people are prepared to share stories as opportunities arise, Jesus always used stories, he never missed a chance. Our task is a little different, but we still have perfect opportunities, this time of year is one of them. The bible says this about our task:

1 Peter 3v15 “Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick.”

As the stress of Christmas can over take us, we need to be focussed even more on the task in hand, ready to answer the question 'what are you doing for Christmas?' in a way that truly reflects why we celebrate Christmas.

Discipline of Watching - 14th June 2009

Discipline of Watching
1 Corinthians 10 v 11-13
Sunday 14th June

When we learn together on a Monday night, there is always room for discussion and questions. And whilst I do not pretend to be an expert I think it is really important for us to be able to discuss what we are learning. That's why I also think it is important to have a memory verse. Even if just one part of it sticks, it can become the beginning of something much bigger. The young people have been learning about the gifts of the spirit. We are learning of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-control. And our memory verse today picks up on the last one. With the help of the Holy Spirit, discipline becomes more achieveable. Matthew 26 v 41 Jesus says,“Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation. For the spirit is willing but the body is weak.”

So lets start as we mean to go on: PRAY

We are coming very close to the end of our series on the Discipline of Grace and as always Jesus has the ultimate say on how we should be living our lives. I think as a church we have become more aware that when Jesus talks, not only should we be listening, but we should also take action. It seems that Jesus rarely speaks words of passivity and more of activity. We have the Living Word Of God and an active faith. Bridges picks up on this activeness when it comes to the discipline of watching.

Imagine with me for a moment sitting in a coffee shop, or a canteen, what are you watching? Are you watching the staff, the customers, the passers by out of the window? On Friday I was doing this exact thing. I was watching, taking in lots of different things happening around me. I learnt that if you work in town you get 10% off at Costa! Watching teaches us so much about the world around us. If you've made eye contact with a small child recently you might remember the intensity of their stare, they are taking everything in through their eyes. But Jesus' call is not just to watch the world, but to also 'watch yourself'.

Bridges shares a personal story of late night TV watching to show a way of how we can know our weaknesses and know how the devil might tempt us. So what I would like you to do, is take a few moments, write temptations in the middle of your bit of paper and get down some ideas. We'll have some music playing in the background whilst you do it. Sharing

Gather Sharing on flip chart

These verses in 1 Corinthians remind us that God is with us through all the temptations, and the best thing to do to counteract it is to know where you are strong. The Discipline of watching is about knowing yourself well enough to be wary of temptation and not become comfortable with sin, whilst being free enough to live as God created you to be. 1 Corinthians 10 v 23 sums this up perfectly “Everything is permissible – but not everything is beneficial”. It's up to us to know what is beneficial to us.

We are told not to worry, we could spend our whole lives worrying about falling to temptation that we miss out on some great opportunities. This is where the grace bit comes in, that though God will not test us beyond what we can bear, He will welcome us with open arms when we do fall and say sorry. Because after all we are only human. His grace is sufficient.

We Died to Sin

Our latest sermon series at St Hugh's is based on "The Discipline of Grace" by Jerry Bridges - Here's my input, delivered on 8th March 2009

Well, we spent last week preaching the good news to ourselves, so I hope you've been living in the good news and not the bad news for the past week. I also hope we've been sharing the good news with other people, it's a bit rude to keep good news to yourself!

As Bridges says in his book, the good news doesn't stop there. We know Jesus died on the cross, took on all the sin ever, and we are declared perfect and righteous in God's eyes. Jesus restored our relationship with God and not only we should be eternally grateful for that, but this news should also have a massive effect on the way in which we behave.

The extra great news is that we are free from sin AND free from the dominion of sin. This simply means that we are free from the power that sin has had over us since the day we were born. I don't think I can move on from that point... I'd be a liar if I said I lived with a permanent feeling of freedom from sin. Sometimes I feel like sin is still very much in control of the way I act and behave. It might be much the same for you. To hear and know that you are forgiven and free might be a real struggle, but it's a truth we need to tell ourselves each day, each time we start to doubt who we really are and who we really belong to, we need to be reminded of this amazing gift of grace.

This morning I want to pick up on two really significant things from this: We died to sin and we are alive to God. Pretty simple on the face of it all, but if you will wander with me for a few moments I hope you might find something that will inspire/challenge/remind you of who God is and what He has done for us.

“We died to sin”

The first part of our sentence is a concept I don't have a deep understanding of. There are plenty of phrases out there that wash over me and I don't really grasp what they mean, until you have to sit down with them and tackle them full on. So here goes...

Let's start at the beginning, what is sin? Sin is when we go against God's will for us and the laws he has set.

We need to expand our passage a little bit to understand where Paul is coming from when explaining dying to sin. Verse 5-10 of Romans 6 goes on to talk about how we are united with Christ in life, death and resurrection (coming back to life). This union isn't to be taken lightly. It's like super gluing your fingers to together or attempting to distinguish my right hand from my mobile phone, or as Jesus puts it, like the Vine and the Branches. You cannot see where one begins and the other ends and if you pull them apart it'll hurt (even to the point of death). We are joined with Jesus in everything he has done. When he died on the cross, death and sin were defeated. Jesus died to break the reign of sin. Let's ponder on that a moment. Though we are still sinners, we have a Saviour who was not only able to free us from sin's penalty (death) but also from its dominion. And that's what's so amazing about Grace. The Message version puts it this way: “When it's sin vs grace, grace wins hands down”.

My cousin moved to Milton Keynes from his mum's home in Hadleigh, Essex about 2 years ago. We were chatting about where he thought home was in the early part of his move, he started off with Hadleigh. We talked about how he'd brought his house in MK, worked hard on it, and worked just down the road, yet he still saw home as his Mum's house. I think we can use this as a great illustration to show that in actual fact we often live in a place, but it is not 'home' to us, the same is true with sin. If we live in a place of grace and but still call sin 'home', then we are not truly accepting that we have died to sin. In my own context, I have effectively died to Essex, and now live in Luton. There is no practical way I can live at my parents house, I have to make a home here. We cannot make a home in Sin if we truly believe in all that Jesus has done for us, and the grace we have received because of his actions.

So, in acknowledging our dying to sin, what does this mean for us?

“Alive to God”
We are alive to God. We have been brought out of the darkness, into God's glorious light. We are rescued from death, and like the person who has been 'given a second chance' we should be living as though sin is a threat to our lives, not a death sentence.

Bridges highlights the Vine and Branches example when talking about how our relationship with Jesus can be. You can't tell where one ends and the other begins, closer than friends. Being in Christ and having Christ in you are intertwined, spiritual and alive. The Holy Spirit dwells within us, takes every step with us and knows all that we do. To be alive to God is to live in assurance and hope. To be free to be in relationship with God, and know that HE wants to be in relationship and communication with you.

We can only die once, and in this passage that death is in the past we died to sin, we have been raised into new life with Christ. God sees us in the light of what Jesus has done, alive and well.

“So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep forgiving?”

I recently had a conversation with a young person who was describing how her friends responded when she mentioned that we are forgiven of all the wrong things we do. Her friends said “well, I'll just keep on sinning then, and keep saying sorry”. The friend had the no idea of all the love and grace it takes to forgive someone and not remember their sin. It's almost as though we respond in a selfish way... we don't fully comprehend grace, or unconditional love, and so are irresponsible and reckless with these gifts. Or we treat our forgiveness so lightly that it is diluted beyond being able to grasp the reality of it?

We all still sin, in action at least, though we are not under the reign of sin. We don't come from a place of sin. We have to live in a place which grace allows. And with this overwhelming grace, I don't know about you, but I am compelled to respond. God's unconditional love for each of us doesn't demand a response, but even if we hold on to a little glimpse the Holy Spirit can change us, we will not go on sinning if we understand a small part of God's grace for us.

I grew up in Essex, I have an affinity with people from Essex, but I no longer live there. Essex is not my home, Luton is my home. I'm the same Karen. I have died to what was before and embrace what is new, in doing so I have not lost any part of who I am. And it's the same with Sin and grace. Do we find ourselves answering to something which has no authority over us? Or are we responding to the gift of grace, living in Christ, with Christ in us, freely?

Bridges ends his chapter on this subject with these words: page 77

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.

Pentecost opener

I need one volunteer, just one! We missed out someone when we were singing happy birthday earlier, now I’m sure you know that Pentecost is also known as the birthday of the Church. So you know what’s coming. We’re going to sing happy birthday to each other, as we are the Church! And……… is going to blow out the candles on the cake.

Ok. Now I need all the children… Play musical bumps. There’s a Prize for the winner. Children can stay sitting down.

What else is there at a birthday party? Balloons, food, party poopers etc…

And how long before your birthday happens do you start talking about it, weeks, months? Something very special happens in the run up to the Church’s birthday. A small festival known as Easter, can you believe it Easter was 50(ish) whole days ago! That’s right, you’ve had 50 days since that day where you got all that chocolate, does any one have any chocolate left?

Now the funny thing about Easter is it coincides with a Jewish festival called Passover, and Pentecost coincides with another Jewish Festival called Shavuot. This festival is timed for 7 weeks after Passover, and celebrates the first harvest of spring.

The disciples would have come together to celebrate the festival with Jesus’ words ringing fresh in their ears. Someone must have written it down otherwise we wouldn’t know it today, but you can imagine them chatting about it amongst themselves… or maybe they’d forgotten it totally and had spent the previous ten days just glaring into the sky wondering where Jesus may have gone and why he went there on a cloud.