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.

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.

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.

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.

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.