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

We each have a life story and they aren’t always full of joyful episodes.

This week Andrew looked at how we might know real joy from Psalm 18.

I love reading the Psalms, I love the wonderful mix of emotions. They aren’t a set of sickly nice platitudes, they deal with real situations, real struggles, wonderful exaltation, glorious highs and desperate lows.

Personally, it was great to be reminded that joy doesn’t depend upon the situation, it depends upon the person in who you trust.

We’re not having a set series in the evenings this term, we’re just going where the Spirit leads us. Our normal motto for evening services is Worship and Word, it’s a time of worship in which the word of God is allowed the time to speak to us.

This Sunday evening Chris continued his Facing Life’s Giants series looking at the issue of debt.

I’ve just been listening to the radio where an economist was talking about the debt that each household in the UK is carrying around. The numbers are eye-watering.

There are many reasons that people are in debt, some of them self-inflicted, but many are as the result of circumstance or the greed of others.

God doesn’t want us to live in debt – and it’s good to know that He has an answer and the means to redeem our situation. That doesn’t mean that redemption is going to  be easy, sometimes God does change things in the blink of an eye, at other times He wants us to walk a journey with Him.

If you are struggling with debt then there are things that we can do and people who can help you. Don’t struggle alone, reach out to the church office and someone will walk the journey with you.

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and stories so please do leave a comment letting us know what God is doing in your life.

Chris looked at the practical Christian living that the letter to Philemon tackles. The background to this letter is that Paul is writing to his friend Philemon about one of his slaves who ran away and has since become a believer.  A practical issue to which Paul gives practical advice in the name of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit has sometimes been called the Cinderella of the Trinity. Andrew used an encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3 to highlight the importance of the spirit in each and every new birth. Jesus often spoke in parables, but sometimes he spoke in graphic illustrations. When Jesus was talking about birth in spirit he wasn’t using a parable, he was using a graphic illustration where the parallels are deliberate.

For me personally Sunday evening was a significant time. I tend to be involved in some many practical things on a Sunday that sometimes it’s difficult to focus on worship. It was really nice to be in a God place.

A special thank you to everyone who invited a friend or a family member to come along. It’s not always an easy thing to invite someone to come back to something they’ve left.

And a special thank you to everyone who made the decision to come. It’s not always easy to return to something you’ve left.

The theme for Back to Church Sunday was “Come as you are”.  Jesus had a wonderful way of including everyone; rich, poor, old, young, high society, low society. The people of Jesus are instructed to do exactly the same.

There is always a way back with Jesus and I hope that we will always reflect that in the way that we treat people. If your reading this and wondering whether you could return to church, I’d like to encourage you to give it a go, there’s a welcome waiting for you.

Jesus first disciples would have been a perplexing mix to those who would have known them. There is no way that Simon the Zealot would have been in the same room as Matthew the Tax Collector. They were sworn enemies,  Simon as a Zealot would, under normal circumstance, done his utmost to kill Matthew. Perhaps a modern parallel would be for a member of Al Qaeda to be sat in the same room as an American Army Officer.

The Parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15 is just as radical. Those hearing it for the first time wouldn’t have regarded it as a “nice tale”, they would have thought that it was shocking. Chris highlighted the different perspectives to the story this Sunday and did a great job of bringing it to life afresh.

• Three Stories: Chris Drury

(Apologies for the sound quality that makes Chris sound like he’s shouting all of the time, it’s something we are working on).

We’re running a bit of a series at the moment, which hasn’t yet got a name. The ideas for the series came out of some questions that were asked to the men who attend our Men’s Breakfasts.

One of the areas that the men wanted to think about was the Holy Spirit. In much the same was as Ian did last term, Andrew has decided to run a bit of a mini-series on the Holy Spirit. He started this week by looking at the Holy Spirit in Creation.

• The Holy Spirit in Creation: Andrew Gardner

I’m really looking forward to think again about the Holy Spirit, something wonderful happens when we uphold the trinity as Father, Son and Spirit. In our rational world it does me good to realise that there are thing beyond my comprehension, but also to realise that I don’t need to comprehend it to receive the benefit from it. Furthermore, I don’t have to comprehend it in order to be transformed by it.

If you can think of a good name for the new series please let us know.

And finally, if you’ve been wondering where the fourth part in Ian Higginbotham’s mini-series on the Kingdom of God has got to – we are working on it. We had another technical problem which means that the sound quality is very poor. We haven’t concluded what we are going to do yet, but as a last resort Ian has offered to re-record the sermon.

One of the questions was whether anyone was too intelligent to be above temptation to which one of the young people apparently said: “if he isn’t too intelligent there isn’t much hope for the rest of us” (meaning Trevor himself).

The conclusion, of course, is that we all face temptation. And, if we are honest we all give in to them more often than we would like to admit.

We can read the story of Genesis 1 (excellently read by some of the young people) and condemn Adam and Eve for their lack of self-control, but none of us can be sure that we would fair any better put in the same situation.

Here’s a summary of Trevor’s advice for coping with temptation:

• Step 1: Understand God’s safety barriers
• Step 2: Disengage your attention from the temptation
• Step 3: Turn to Jesus
• Step 4: Read God’s word
• Step 5: Trust God to provide spiritual escape routes

Mansell Morgan visited us from Manchester to bring us a different message from 1 Peter 2:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

1 Peter 2

The words that spoke to me were these words:

Make known the greatness of God by knowing His greatness.

It’s very easy to forget who we are and Mansell’s message is a great reminder, but it’s also a great reminder that there is a purpose to being a “chosen people”.

• Temptation: Trevor Crawford
• 1 Peter 2: Mansell Morgan

I’ll return to writing a regular Weekend Reflections post when I’ve been around for one, which should be next week. In the meantime, I’ve just uploaded all of the podcasts for the last three weeks:

• Real Time: Dave Sewell
• Luke 24: Andrew Gardner
• Dealing with Depression: Andrew Gardner
• The Lost Sheep: Dave Bilsborough & The Lost Son: Dave Riley
• Psalm 32: Andrew Gardner
• The Hope for the Nation: Chris Drury

Off you go now and enjoy.

I hope that you all realise that you can also take the podcasts away with you. There’s a few ways of doing it.

If you just want a cope of the MP3 file simply right-click (in Windows) on the “Download” link and select where you want the file to be saved. You select where you want to save the file by selecting “Save Link As” in Firefox or “Save Target As” in Internet Explorer.

You can also subscribe in iTunes by following this link:

I listened to quite a few podcasts in Italy from a number of different church it’s a great way of getting different teaching.

A big thank you to those of you who have responded either through comments or in person; I know others have been blessed by the encouragement so please do keep it up.

This weekend was our Junior Church Prize Giving Sunday. One of the areas where we have been very blessed is in Junior Church, they are a great bunch of leaders and hugely creative in what they do. The annual Prize Giving has become an event where we celebrate that creativity. In recent years we have been treated to a wonderful production taking the whole of the morning service, this year it was the story of Esther. The creative part was to parallel the story of Esther with Star Wars, yes really.

If your idea of a Junior Church play is something that is a bit naff you are on completely the wrong page. The team do a remarkable job from writing all the way through to performing. To quote someone else:

I think the play was by far the best drama I have ever seen done in a Church service. So much fun and humour and yet without comprising the biblical content.

There are some pictures over on Facebook, if you have the right access, I’m sure there will be more later.

It’s a real highlight. Well done team and thank you for all of your hard work it was well worth the effort,

In the evening Andrew looked at some of his life “axioms”. I must admit that I didn’t know what an axiom was so here’s a little definition for you:

Axiom – noun

1. a self-evident truth that requires no proof.

2. a universally accepted principle or rule.

3. Logic, Mathematics. a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it.

Andrew talked about three of his life’s axioms:

Church making is heart breaking; church mending is never ending

The how needs to be as holy as the what and the where

Walk towards people you struggle with

They are profound thoughts and come as words from Andrew’s heart. They are also challenging words. Many people see church as a nice little club where people smile at each other but it’s certainly not that. It’s a wonderful, glorious, frustrating, lovely, amazing, weird, lovely, tearful, refining, holy community of people. If it’s just a club then we are missing the purpose of why Jesus came.

It’s an interesting thought, what are the “self-evident truths” that govern our lives. I’m sure that some of the axioms that I live by need to be challenged because they aren’t really truths at all, but there are another set that are truths and symbolise my life. One of them for me is actually my family’s official motto “as well as I am able”. It would be interesting to make a list and see what the results were. I’ve been trying for the last couple of years to write another axiom into my heart and that is “there is a blessing to be found in everything” and that’s mainly what I write about on my other blog; sometimes you have to live a saying to make it into axiom. I suppose that take me onto another on of my axioms – “the longest distance in the world is from the Head to the Heart”.

• Axioms – sayings which keep me sane: Andrew Gardner

The evening service would have been an interesting listen too, it was, from what I understand, more of a discussion between Andrew Gardner and Chris Drury on questions sent in by people via SMS text message. I always like to see a bit of innovation.

I can, however, comment on the morning service. This week Andrew Gardner looked into the encouraging words of Philippians 4.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4-7

Every time I read this passage the words that speaks to me are “do not be anxious about anything”. I am, by nature, a busy worrier and God has spoken to me about it many many times.

Every time I feel myself getting over-busy or over-anxious (the two things often go together) I remind myself of some things.

I help to lead a programme called Celebrate Recovery and one of the things that we say there is that worry is form of not trusting God enough. If we trusted God enough we wouldn’t be anxious, so we need to trust.

A few years back I read a great book by Bill Hybels called Too Busy Not to Pray, the title of the book comes back to me over-and-over again. Trying to do life in my own strength will only result in more frustration, more busyness and more anxiety.

Sometimes I also remember the words of the poem that Andrew mentioned (once he had remembered it):

Said the robin to the sparrow,
“I should really like to know,
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”

Said the sparrow to the robin,
“Friend I think that it must be,
That they have no Heavenly Father,
Such as cares for you and me.”

~~Unknown Author

I’ve recently had conversations with people that have gone along the lines “how come you’ve got it all together”, the simple answer is that I haven’t and I still need reminding, as Andrew put it, to:

• Stop, don’t keep going make space to pray
• Tell God everything – what is happening, what you feel.
• Thanks God for provision, grace, strength and possibilities
• Ask God to change things but…
• Trust His will, His wisdom, His ways.

We do have a Heavenly Father and He does care for us in abundant love grace and patience.

• Encouraging Prayer: Andrew Gardner.

At the end of the service on of our number felt that God wanted them to share these words:

This is what the LORD says: 
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man, 
who depends on flesh for his strength 
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

He will be like a bush in the wastelands; 
he will not see prosperity when it comes. 
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, 
in a salt land where no one lives.

"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, 
whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water 
that sends out its roots by the stream. 
It does not fear when heat comes; 
its leaves are always green. 
It has no worries in a year of drought 
and never fails to bear fruit."

Jeremiah 17:5-8

I must admit that I’ve never really got my head around the meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven. I’m not saying that I don’t understand it at all, but I’ve always felt that my understanding falls a long way short of what it should be.

My suspicion is that Jesus is looking down on me and feeling a bit like He did with the disciples when he realised that they hadn’t quite got what He was talking about:

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.

When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.

Mark 10

So I was really pleased when I heard the Ian was going to try and explain it a bit for those of us who are a little slow on the uptake. It’s a great talk and well worth a listen:

• The Kingdom of Heaven (1) – The Clash of the kingdoms

I particularly liked Ian’s closing thoughts:

• You are a citizen of a different Kingdom.
• God’s Kingdom is where His will reigns.
• Nothing in your life will stop you from being in His Kingdom.
• It’s deep within God’s character to serve.
• Kingdom’s have all got boundaries.
• Live and work for the long-term

Truly words of hope.

There are times when I’m glad I’m not a preacher. That feeling is particularly acute when the subject means that it doesn’t matter what the preacher says someone will hear them wrongly and someone will be offended.

It seems that it doesn’t matter how you tackle certain subjects an adverse reaction is almost guaranteed from someone – and one of those subjects is giving. Giving is where Andrew took us to on Sunday evening.

I’d like to commend Andrew for tackling this tricky subject in a wonderfully gracious and uplifting way. Mention giving and some people will always assume that you are pointing the finger, but I know that nothing could be further from Andrew’s heart. As he explains – giving is about grace, it’s certainly not about law.

I’ll not say any more for fear of walking into my own minefield.

• Laugh while you are giving!

This Sunday was also our annual church picnic. It was really great to see so many people down at the park. Sue did a little round up afterwards and there was definitely over 190 people there and probably a few more.

Church really isn’t about 10:00am on a Sunday morning or 6:30 on a Sunday evening, it’s about being a community together and the picnic is a great example of that. Perhaps we should do more of them? Anyone?