Sunday Services
Text of the sermon for studying at home Rom.8,14-17 / Acts 2,1-21 Pentecost 5 June 2022
“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
Dear friends If any evidence were needed that the event of Pentecost is of first importance for the Christian life and hope, it is here in what Paul says: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.” “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.” The coming of the Holy Spirit is one in importance with everything Jesus does in the Gospels, it’s what it all leads to – as Jesus himself pointed out to his disciples in his parting words to them, when he told them to wait for the power to be sent to them from the Father. But it is seen also at the beginning of John’s gospel, where the significance of Christ’s coming and work is put like this: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (Jn.1,12) And the witness of John the Baptist about Jesus made the connection to the Holy Spirit clear: “he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” (Mt.3,11) What happened at Pentecost, then, was and is no less definitive for the Christian faith and for the church than is any aspect of Jesus Christ’s life, word and work. The word used in Acts 2 to describe the activity of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is telling – it’s the word “to fill”: “it filled the whole house where they were sitting” in verse 2, and then in verse 4: “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” But to fill is to supply a new content! But let us ask: What happens in such filling? What of the content that is being supplied? It is instructive here to note that the people filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost were mocked by onlookers who explained what they saw by saying: “They are filled with new wine!” In other words they said: “Look at them, no longer themselves, drunk, no longer with it, and it’s only 9 o’clock in the morning! Which means they are going to be of no use to anyone for the rest of the day!” Surely this is what Peter described when he explained what was happening. “They are not drunk. They are less their old selves, yes, but they are truer selves; they are useless, but only because they are in fact becoming useful.” Dear friends, bearing these important truths about the Holy Spirit and about the place that being filled with Holy Spirit has for the life of faith and of the church, let us remember the promise that “all who call on the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2,21). Let us call on him who became poor to make us rich, died to give us life and promised to send the Holy Spirit to those who believe in him. AMEN
29th May 2022 Isaiah 54, 10: “‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the LORD, who has compassion on you.”
Dear friends In preparing for confirmation I put a series of pictures before Lizzie and asked her to choose one which she would then receive as a present on this occasion. Her choice, however, had to be justified. She had to say why she chose what she did, what “message” the picture conveyed to her in terms of the faith and the truth of God’s Word we had been looking at over the past year. The picture she chose is one of mountains and hills, above them the sky and at the foot of them a number of buildings which include a church. What, indeed, is the foundation upon which we build our lives? And what is the foundation we can and must build upon if it is to yield life, and not the loss of it? Yet here is another foundation, God has laid it and faith builds upon it. And what faith builds upon it is life, even life everlasting. This foundation makes the life that is built on it a thing of truth and love, because it imparts its own characteristics on to the build: It is the steadfast love of God (grace) and is the peace of God. What faith builds on this foundation? And to what faith are these words said: “my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you”? It is faith in Jesus Christ, for in him we encounter God’s steadfast love, see and know the compassion of God towards sinners, going all the way in love and patience to reclaim those who believe from all the ways in which they build and have built their lives away from God, away from his love, light and truth, and to establish them on new ways, giving them freedom to do his will; in him we see and know the peace of God which removes from the scene that is our life all condemnation and separation from God that our sins and death incur. Into this faith you have been baptised. Baptism says: The foundation is there, it is there before all else! Build upon it through Jesus Christ and in his strength, listening to his voice and sharing in the faith and life of his people (the fullness of his body). The foundation upon which by faith you stand will carry and hold you and sustain you. And the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Jesus Christ. AMEN
Acts 16, 9-15 22 May 2022
Dear friends A friend once gave me an intriguing book – it was unlike anything I had ever read, unlike anything I went on to read after it and unlike anything I shall choose to read in the future. It was a collection of short writings/pieces – vignettes, snippets of life-scenes -, but all without a discernible theme or themes (which is why you could not call them stories!). It was an amusing read (I think I found it amusing!), but it left no impression. How could it? There was nothing to wrap your thoughts around,… .The only impression I did take away was how empty or irrelevant and utterly insipid a thing becomes when it is sanitised of a theme or any variation on a theme or when no theme is discernible. And here’s the thing I want to draw attention to: that the church has a theme, and one that is proper to it. A church found without its theme it is like Peter Pan’s shadow when it is apart from its master. It is by its theme that the church’s essence (=what it is) becomes recognisable and is really present. The church’s theme is mission, specifically, as we saw over the past few Sundays, God’s mission through Jesus Christ: God’s mission to make good on his promise to help us in Jesus Christ, his life, death and resurrection and his ongoing presence as the exalted Lord. As Jesus said to his disciples after his resurrection (incidentally: for their forward planning!): “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (Jn.20,21-23) Or again: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt.28,18-20) The church’s theme is mission. And it is in the church’s missionary activities, like variations on a theme, that the church is in tune with its theme. This theme must be discernible. I remember the words of a professor who made this point very succinctly, by saying: “A church that does not carry out its commission ( = does not sound its theme) is effectively de-commissioning itself”, echoing Jesus’ warning about salt becoming saltless and therefore pointless. What we are looking at here is a missionary activity of the early church. And we learn some vital clues about how the church’s theme is carried on. Two things need to be highlighted, for the fact that both of them show what drives a church to remain true to its theme. The other thing to be highlighted with regard to the church’s missionary activity appears in what is said of Lydia. Gathering by the river, presumably for prayer, a group of women were joined by Paul and his friends, who sat down and spoke to them. In the course of Paul’s preaching, it is said of one of the women who heard, Lydia, that “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.” This woman came to faith and was baptised, even with all her household. But this is not just interesting, it reveals a deep truth at the heart of all missionary activity: that faith in Jesus – the goal of the church’s missionary activity, the help the heart calls for – is God’s work, is his doing, is by an act of divine revelation. Paul was not at liberty to mould the message to suit the tastes and inclinations of those who would not receive the Gospel, nor indeed (!) the tastes and inclinations of those who he would have thought might receive it; nor to change or otherwise doctor the word of Christ. He was not at liberty; and neither is the church, unless it abandons its theme that is mission and faith. Dear friends, when we know, as we must, of the closedness of the heart to the things of God, we must pray for its opening and for the gift of the Holy Spirit, we must give it the food that is God’s word and ask for the freedom to speak God’s word boldly and clearly and to hear it humbly. And what we thus receive that we can then also give. So the church’s missionary activities shall stay on its God-given theme. AMEN
Acts 9, 1-6 1 May 2022 Dear friends Saul was utterly exasperated, belly full of anger, about the fact that there were Christians, people ‘of the Way’ so-called. The fact that he readily received the letters from the Jerusalem leadership enabling him to persecute those Christians, shows that they were just as exasperated and angry. Why? Well, they were exceedingly frustrated that things had not gone to plan. The crucifixion of Jesus which they had instigated had been meant to put an end to the whole Jesus movement (as they saw it), not as a seed-bed for people who now followed in his way or followed him as the Way, and who said that he was alive! They did not expect that Jesus’ death could have such an effect. However, if this was now the situation, had not Jesus pointed to it before his death when he said to the disciples: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”? (Jn.12,24) Was not his resurrection from the dead the proof and manner of this? Saul couldn’t see this, not until it happened to him. And we’re speaking of what happened to him as his conversion – the event when his eyes (those of faith!) were opened and Christ crucified and risen as God’s word to him became something hugely significant and consequential. How significant? So significant that he came to write this: “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” (Phil.3,7-9) How consequential? So consequential it must rank as a first-order event on the map of history. Certainly Europe would not have had the history and development it had as far as the influence of Christianity is concerned without Paul’s conversion and the way it led him on. How did it come about? At the centre, it is an encounter with Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, revealing to him three things, all of which made for the significance it came to have for him. Dear friends, the conversion of Paul, such as it was, through the encounter with Jesus Christ was an event that made the cross and resurrection of Jesus, made judgement and grace significant and consequential. In fact, it was the event to do that! And it is as true to say that every conversion is significant and consequential as it is to say that every faith that is significant and consequential is the fruit of a conversion. You will all know that there are countries and legal systems that have Anti-conversion Laws in operation, laws which seek to prevent the presence and growth of the ‘people of the Way’. It is rightly seen that it is through conversion that Christ comes to be significant and consequential in people’s lives. Without conversion Christian faith is not to be feared, it is not significant nor consequential; with conversion faith is dangerous, because it is both significant and consequential in that Christ becomes Lord (“my Lord and my God” – Thomas), grace becomes the gift of life and the ruling and principle source of hope and strength and righteous living, and serving God (not man) becomes the way – God comes to have His Way. A man once recounted being in the company of a minister who agonised mournfully over the fruitlessness of his ministry. This was the minister, as it turned out, among whose very sparse flock one Sunday sat a young man who came to faith through what he heard, encountered the living Christ through the word that preached him in judgment and grace – his name was George Muller (of Bristol orphanages fame; who never asked anyone for a penny, but lived by faith). One conversion, but with significance and consequence. Dear friends, conversion is not to be blended out but sought. Because it is encounter with the living Christ through his word by the Spirit, by which faith becomes significant and consequential, because it pulls us off our own way unto his. AMEN
Jn.20,19-31 Sunday 24th April 2022 Dear friends It seems to me that what Thomas is doing when he refuses to believe the testimony of Jesus’ resurrection is not so much that he is doubting, but that he is objecting – objecting to having to see Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross as anything other than the end. When Jesus overcomes this objection, he does it in just this way, demonstrating to Thomas that there is more than a legacy, that he is indeed the one that was crucified. Now, that this realisation was not meant for Thomas only as a private insight, but was meant for all the disciples, is made clear by the fact that Jesus at his appearance “showed them his hands and his side”. Which he did, so that they should realise, and we too. So let us ask, dear friends: Why does he want his disciples to realise this? Why does he remind them of his cross just as he is convincing them of his resurrection? The answer is: because it is key to understanding what he, as the risen One, says to his disciples regarding what comes next. And given that the church has a particular purpose – and it is good to wonder what that is – these words are of vital importance, for the church then as well as now. He says: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” What does he mean? Perhaps it is useful to say what he does not mean. Jesus is not saying: “I have done my bit, now it is over to you; go and figure out, with help from the Holy Spirit, how I might be sending you.” Were we to think so, Jesus would say to us what he says to Thomas: “Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Paul understood this sending as well as any of the other apostles when he said, 1Cor.2,2: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Or to the Galatians, Gal.3,1: “It was before our eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” Or again when he says, 1Cor.1,18: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Jesus’ words by which he puts to the disciples what they are sent to do are clear and concise, and they are given in a way that will make what they do an act of God like the cross was an act of God: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” It is by the forgiveness of sins, to be proclaimed by the disciples and to be proclaimed by the church, that God saves from death, sets life right with Himself, making it fit for purpose, fit for glorifying Him and enjoying Him forever. Dear friends, the apostles certainly went on to do what they were sent to do, and it brought into being the church. And the church it brought into being was not just any church, it was one that sought to obey God because it saw in such obedience the fruit of faith: freedom from sin as the effect of the word of the cross. But here the cross of Christ has become insignificant and the sending of the church is not what mainly it ought to be. But the disciples were sent to forgive sins in the power of the Holy Spirit, thus applying the power and wisdom of God (!), because of the significance of Christ’s cross, which lay in the fact that he bore the punishment for our sin and overcame the penalty for sin that is death for our justification through his resurrection from the dead. Dear friends, Jesus said on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!” Surely this prayer, offered with his own life, was heard. And forgiveness in his name since then and now is offered to all who believe, so that instead of not knowing what we are doing, in that we sin while thinking that we’re not, we may knowingly and with repentance turn to Christ and in him find grace and life, a living Saviour. AMEN
Sunday 30th January 2022, 4th Sunday after Epiphany , Garvald and Morham, Haddington West Church ‘On hearing’ You must be renewed in mind and spirit, and put on the new nature created in God’s likeness. – Eph.4,23-24
Collect: Living God, in Christ you make all things new. Transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives show forth your glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
1 When to our world the Saviour came, 2 That good physician! night and day 3 His praises then were heard and sung 4 Of long ago: yet living still, 5 Those wounded hands are still the same, 6 Then grant us, Lord, in this our day, 7 Make us Your hands! for Christ to live, Words by Timothy Dudley-Smith Lk.4,21-30 ‘Jesus in Nazareth’ Dear friends What do you do when you are somewhere with other people, conversing and chatting, or waiting and minding your own business, perhaps just standing and wondering, and you hear the words: “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention, please!”? Most likely, you stop your conversation, you put down your book, you lower your glass if you are in the middle of drinking, you might shift your position a bit and strive mentally to rise above any noise still left in the room: because you are getting yourself ready to hear the announcement about to be made (the announcement presumably which will tell you what you are there for!). Well, it’s what we have here, in this passage of Jesus’ visit in Nazareth. His actions and words draw attention (like a voice saying over a tannoy: “Can I have your attention!”), and people ready themselves not to miss what’s coming next. But while we may readily understand that situation in such terms, it’s important we understand the spiritual significance of it: that the preaching of the gospel, because it is the witness to Jesus Christ and his ministry, is just such an announcement – that it is one for which we ought to stop our own conversations (!) because it opens up the one that tells us what we are here for, because it is the one which comes with the word of God who says “Can I have your attention please!”, which all ought to hear who have ears to hear. You may ask, what reason do I have for saying this? Well, it’s here in the Word of God: in the extraordinary (because spiritually all-enlightening!) statement Jesus makes in v.20 - as the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him -: ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ For, do you notice what Jesus is saying here? He is saying that the fulfilment of all that scripture says about the way in which Jesus is your concern according to God’s will, stands in your hearing; that the fulfilment of his ministry to you - your redemption, stands in your hearing; that the fulfilment of God’s saving word that is Jesus Christ, stands in your hearing. The Word of God through this passage speaks to us of the vital matter that is hearing. Indeed, it is so vital that without hearing, if we look for real fruit of the ministry of Jesus, this ministry might as well almost not be happening (and the preaching of the gospel might as well almost not be happening, might as well almost be replaced by many another thing). In fact, Mark does tell us in his Gospel expressly that when he was in Nazareth, Jesus “could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few people who were ill and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith” (Mk.6). We understand the importance of asking: What then of this hearing that makes God’s Word come true / come through according to its promise, for those that hear? At first it seems the people in Nazareth do hear. “He speaks well”, they say, “It is a pleasure to listen to him” “Yes, isn’t he great?” Yet there is something in their hearing that does not hear! And it’s this circumstance that Jesus brings to light. And how the mood changes when he does! What seemed to be embrace turns out to be no more than a light cover over a rage that is ready to kill. So we ask: what is this hearing that does not hear? [In biblical terms: What is it about our hearing that makes Jesus say repeatedly, ‘He who has ears, let him hear’?] The key is in the question the people in Nazareth ask themselves and one another, ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son? Aren’t his brothers and sisters here among us? Isn’t he of us? It is a rhetorical question, and therefore not one that is open to who Jesus is, to who is speaking, not open to what the weight of his word might actually be. In fact, their question is designed to size Jesus down to their own size. Are these attitudes prevalent in us, in our church? This must appear in our encounter of the truth of Jesus Christ through Scripture. In the examples he gives, Jesus colourfully draws attention to this and also to the fact that God’s Word is fulfilled both in judgment and salvation. The Word of God when it was withheld in judgment from Israel to show it that it was hearing without believing and believing without hearing, was sent to the widow in Zarephath, surely as a witness to the people of God; when this widow heard the words the prophet spoke to her she not only heard but also believed (she went and did what was asked of her) and she was saved; and it was sent to Naaman the Syrian who believed what he was told back in Syria and then, after doubting at first, heard the word of the prophet and listened and was saved. Dear friends, Jesus was not got rid of on that day in Nazareth, because there was more for him to do. He had to make a way for God to reach the hearing-impaired and heal them. He was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, to judgment and plague, to reclaim them for God’s purpose for them of love and truth. This way led him to be rejected and crucified and to his resurrection from the dead. But he thus became the fulfilment of God’s plan to save the lost and reclaim them from sin and death, for life and fellowship with Him, as He had announced through the prophets.
Lord God, by your Word we understand that all that is was made through your Word. By your Word, in those who hear, this your Word works your will. Your Word has become flesh in Jesus and has made you known. Glory by to you and praise for all your Word makes known and brings into being. In your mercy let your Word be received in us richly, make it known to us through your Spirit who guides into all truth. Let not your Word be to us judgment such that we hear your Word but do not believe, or believe in you but do not hear your Word. Out of our own we do not hear your Word. But you give ears to hear and you give understanding, and from you we seek it – to the praise and glory of your name. Amen
- take time to pray before God, in the name of Jesus Christ and with thanksgiving, all the concerns He has laid upon your heart
‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen
May the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ shine in your hearts, transform your lives, and brighten the world. And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you. AMEN
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