We’ve had a bit of a break in the podcasts over the last few weeks.
All of the delayed podcasts have now been added.
There are some great messages that deserve a listen.
Personally, I’m still in catch-up mode, but having listened to it I think that Andrew Gardner’s message on “What if I can’t forgive” is one that everyone should make a special effort to listen to.
Anyone else notice that there has been a bit of a theme to the Sunday Talks over the last few weeks?
Sometimes we go through seasons when the underlying theme for Sunday talks is planned, at others we leave it open to the Holy Spirit to move the people bringing the talk. This time it’s a bit of both. Ian Higginbotham has planned for a while to do a set of three talks on relationships: making, maintaining and ending. We’ve had two so far:
These are both excellent practical talks about how we interact with people on a day-by-day basis. But beyond Ian’s planned talks we’ve also been asked to think again about our attitude towards relationships in the evening in messages from Mark Sleet and Paul Jackson:
Sometimes I, for one, can get wrapped up in the programme of things, the activity, the doing. These talks remind us of the things that are important to God, and God is a God of relationship.
God is love.
1 John 4:16
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.
Working on the technical side of things means that I see all sorts of things when we meet on a Sunday morning – I notice problems, things that shouldn’t be the way they are, gremlins. If we were there for a performance this would be a problem, but we aren’t there for a performance we are there as a family to meet our father. I try to imagine our meeting a bit like an old time gathering around the fire, there’s no TV so everyone brings a song, or a poem, or a story. While the event is entertaining, it’s real purpose is to bind everyone together and cement everyone into the family. It’s about the relationships.
We should take note of the themes in the Bible that reoccur, and you can’t read far in the Bible without coming across a section on relationships – people to people, people to God, God to people.
When God repeats a theme to a body of people we should, likewise, sit up and listen.
What is God saying to you about the relationships that you keep?
Taking the challenge from Paul Jackson – what would it mean for you to lead a one-plus-one life?
It’s only Saturday and I already know what the preacher is planning to preach on tomorrow morning – how? Because it’s Sue’s (my wife) turn to preach tomorrow.
When you see someone preparing a sermon you start to realise the amount of effort that they put into it. It’s not as simple as just chucking some words down and hoping that it’s what God wants you to say.
There are times at work when I could present for an hour without needing any preparation, I know my subject and I know what needs to be said in a given context. Preaching isn’t like that, preaching is about hearing something from God and bringing that.
Even when we are doing a series I know that the preachers are all trying to bring the thing that they believe God would want them to say.
There’s a challenge in this preparation to those of us who are going to sit and listen. If this person is going to say something that God wants to be said; is that the way in which we listen to it. I am sure that if I knew that God had sent a special envoy to say something specifically to me I would take full attention of what they have to say. Is that the way we treat the preachers?
Jonah was given a message to bring to Nineveh. He hated the people from Nineveh, and with good reason, they were awful. But God had a message for them and he wanted Jonah to deliver it.
Jonah ran away, but God had other plans and eventually Jonah was back in Nineveh.
From the accounts in the Bible it doesn’t sound like Jonah was a great orator, he wasn’t funny, he didn’t soften them up with a witty story, he just brought God’s message.
"Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned."
That’s apparently all he said, not that great a sermon really, but it was a message from God and the people heard it and changed.
If you are going to church tomorrow who are you expecting to hear from?
On Sunday evening the rest of the family all needed to be at church early for one reason or another – I didn’t so stayed back.
We’d had friends around for Sunday lunch and had spent all afternoon talking and enjoying the fine English spring weather. This meant that we hadn’t done the washing up, so that was my job while everyone else was out.
About half way through the washing up a started to wash one of the cooking dishes, but instead managed to break it, and in so doing put quite a nasty gash across my thumb.
While trying to stop it bleeding I wondered to myself whether I should just patch it up, or whether a trip to A&E was in order. Knowing that A&E gets busy on a Sunday evening later on I decided that I’d go early, rather than leave it and wait even longer. I’d managed to stop the bleeding enough to enable me to drive, so off I went.
Having checked in I sat in the reception waiting for my turn to see the triage nurse.
As I looked around I wondered about each of my fellow casualties story.
For some it was obvious what they had done, but how did they get that gash on their head.
For other’s it was obvious that alcohol had played a significant part in the story.
For the couple in the corner she’d clearly had something to do with his cut hand, and he wasn’t happy about it.
There was another couple and he was getting more and more frustrated with her lack of understanding of how Sudoku works.
There was the lady who was struggling with stomach pains for more than three days.
I whole mix of society.
There were those who you could tell were well paid and then there was the bearded man who looked like he was carrying all of his earthly belongings.
I couldn’t imagine any of them went to church, or that Jesus was even a consideration in their life – but I heard a sentence in my head over and over again:
“I love these people”
I had my thumb x-rayed and dressed and then drove home wondering…
We used to have to archive our Sunday Talks Podcasts because we were limited on how much disk space we had available, but we no longer have that problem.
The already archived podcasts will be coming back in phases, but this is a manual job so takes some time for each one. If there is a particular podcasts that you would like please contact us and we’ll make it a priority.
For those of you who like statistics we’ve had nearly 47,000 downloads of the Sunday Talks since we’ve been making them available. The downloads go around the world with visitors from over 90 countries.
It’s a privilege to know that we are helping people all over the globe.
For those of you who missed the Men’s Breakfast with David Wilkinson on Science and Creation then it’s available to listen to on the podcasts.
We are sending out the monthly Pastor’s Printout electronically. If you would like to get a copy please add your name and email address on the form in this link. You can also select to receive the Weekly Bulletins this way.
This months Pastor’s Printout looks at:
Sometimes I think that everything I know – everyone else also knows, I’m then surprised when I find out that they don’t. I’ve had a few conversations recently with people who aren’t aware of the Bible Study resources that are available for free online.
I use a number of different bible study resources most days and here are a couple of them:
Bible Gateway is the please I prefer to go to for Bible translations, but also for some of the reference material. I find the commentaries particularly useful. Once upon a time the number of versions of the Bible available online was quite limited – not any more. BibleGateway has 22 different English version and some of them are also available in audio format so you can sit back and listen.
They also have a mobile site for smaller screens, but I tend to use YouVersion for that.
YouVersion is another Bible site. The interface is a bit more modern that BibleGateway, they have 18 different English versions currently. There are some really nice tricks in the interface, I particularly like the ability to show two different texts, with two different versions side by side using the Parallel feature. They have audio versions too.
Their aim is to provide you with all of the facilities you need for Bible study with places to journal, the capability to make notes and provide contributions to a particular passage.
They’ve recently introduced a Reading Plan capability. I’m currently working through a reading plan for the Gospels and really enjoying it. The reading plans allow you to set the duration for your reading and to mark off each sections as you’ve completed it. While it shouldn’t be about marking-off parts of the Bible as read it’s great to be able to track your progress.
I’m a real fan of the mobile applications from YouVersion. My mobile device is a BlackBerry, but they also do an iPhone, Android, Java and plain browser version. Most of the features are available in the mobile version, the benefit is that you can take it with you.
The reading plans are synchronised between the online version and the mobile version which I make use of most days because I prefer to use my BlackBerry for my Bible reading.
What online tools do you find useful?
I was going to try and write a reflection on this weekends services, but someone else has said it better than I ever could.
Some reflections on Psalm 3 – Conquering Fear:
Hi Andrew
I know I’m probably stating the obvious but thought I would send these thoughts.
Absalom and David: How not to deal with anger and the importance of forgiveness.
Absalom was angry because David did nothing to help his sister Tamar after she was raped by his half brother. This anger led Absalom to murder his half brother and plot against David. A good example of how anger can lead to sin and the consequences for Absalom was his death and David, as said last week, was upheld by God because he turned to God in humility and submission.
Absalom allowed his anger to fester, he became bitter and resentful and sought revenge but his revenge did not bring peace and happiness quite the opposite, it gave him grief, misery and ultimately death.
Our way to life is to bring our hurts to the cross to the only one who has the power to heal giving it to God and having a forgiving heart towards those who hurt us and leaving God to "punish" the aggressors as He is the only one who truly knows all sides.
As Absalom allowed resentment to colour his feelings it destroyed his relationship with his father which he was never able to restore.
Absalom’s life is an example of wasted years and broken hearts that can result when communication breaks down within a family and major issues are not dealt with effectively and decisively. It also shows the consequences of allowing anger to turn to bitterness are hurts can never be healed while we harbour resentments.
As you might imagine I find the relationship between David and Absalom and the dysfunctional family of David very powerful but I do feel that it has a clear message of the damage of unforgiveness and the consequences of acting in anger and how destructive anger can be.
Anger has to be expressed safely so it can be used in a constructive manner as Ephesians 4 v26-27 says "Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil"
Circumstances or events can make us angry and we need to find ways to let go of the initial anger so it does not fester to destroy relationships
Again Ephesians 4 v31-32 Get rid of all bitterness rage anger harsh works and slander as well as all types of malicious behaviour. Instead be kind to one another tender hearted forgiving one another just as God through Christ has forgiven you.
Just imagine how different Absalom and David’s relationship could have been if Absalom had been able to communicate effectively with David and David had listened and taken the appropriate action with his half brother and again though we aren’t told much about Tamar no doubt she felt rejected by David’s apathy!!
As you can probably tell David’s family strikes a deep chord in me.
Heather
Two new videos have been made available today by www.helphaitiheal.org highlighting the situation in Haiti and the impact on the Free Methodist Church there:
Please continue to pray and to give.
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