Covid-19: What Is God Doing?

I’m John Lambert and I’ve been a church leader in Eaglescliffe and Long Newton over the last 12 years. We've totally loved our time here and it’ll be a massive wrench for us to move on, but it is a step of obedience we feel we must take as the Lord calls us to whatever he has prepared for us in the future. Next Sunday, 7 June, will be our last day here.

I want to share with you a few words about what I think God might be doing at this time of coronavirus and how I think it might impact the church and the nation going forward.

Some Christians say that this is a sign of God's displeasure and judgement over our society. Make no mistake, there is a lot for God to be unhappy about in his world.

But Amos 3 says “surely the Lord brings no disaster without revealing his plan to the prophets”. I heard no word last year from anyone with a recognised prophetic ministry announcing a global pandemic, so I don’t think we can attribute this to God's wrath boiling over.

Others say that this is a wake-up call from God. I think there is a lot in that. The impact on humanity has been very bad, but the impact on the worldwide ecosystem has been spectacularly good. We have all had time to reassess our values - to focus on what is really important. For the church, we have been forced to live by what we always say; that church is not the building.

Still others say that God has created for us a unique opportunity for mission. Some online Alpha courses have had twice the number of people than were signed up before. The stats for people viewing online services like this one are impressive; far more than would be in church physically.

The church has taken a lead in community support for example with foodbank ministry. The UK Blessing has had almost 3,000,000 views on YouTube. I am hearing of people who say that when this is over, they are going to try church. I’ve already heard of people coming to faith in Christ during lockdown.

I couldn’t help but notice that the height of the pandemic in the UK was at Easter - when God turns death to life. Nerds like me also noticed that the peak was on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13. This, if you don’t know, was a spacecraft stricken by an explosion in a critical oxygen tank, over 200,000 miles from Earth, in which three astronauts seemed to be doomed without a hope of surviving.

Photo of Earth taken from Apollo 13

But, with everyone predicting disaster, one NASA flight director stood up and said, “With respect, gentlemen, I believe this is going to be our finest hour.” It was. That moon landing mission to explore the Fra Mauro highlands was lost but miraculously, against all odds, all three men got home safely to Earth.

I believe for the church in Teesside there is no doubt we will suffer some loss this year. And this is so for the church everywhere. There is going to be pain. There will be tears. This is going to be a long season of testing. Some good people have died, and gone to be with the Lord before we expected them to. It’s not over yet. More may join them.

Some churches that lack strength and resilience may become unviable and have to close. If, as seems likely, we go into recession that will affect all of us including our capacity for evangelism and mission. We need to be realistic; this is not going to be nice.

But I think overall that this is a time, not of ruination, but of pruning. And this is my prayer, really. Jesus said in John 15 that God cuts off branches in a vine that bear no fruit, and he even prunes back good, strong, healthy branches so that they can be even more fruitful. He said that we are those branches. What is ineffective and unfruitful will go. What is healthy will be trimmed back to become more effective still. That is where I believe this is all going.

In a time of so much uncertainty and fear, this is an opportunity of a lifetime for us to be confident in the power of the gospel to save. No one looks back at Apollo 13 as a disaster now. It was absolutely NASA's finest hour. This can be ours too. This is our time.

The Lord bless you and keep you.

Short online talk, Teesside Churches Together, 31 May 2020

Sharing Faith - Act of Witness (Matthew 5.13-16)

Introduction

This is the last in our series on sharing faith. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and that it’s helped you, along with the weekly testimonies, to have a bit more confidence in talking to others about your story and about the Lord.

Essentially, sharing faith is not that hard. As someone once said, “Sometimes the best evangelism is simply telling someone you’re a Christian and then not being a complete jerk.” Anyone can do that, even me.

Today, to conclude this series, we’re thinking about sharing faith as an act of witness. Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 5.13-16.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Jesus makes it clear here that he wants a church that is distinctive from the communities around it. Jesus expects us, and commissions us, to stand out.

Salt of the Earth

But if you ask anybody what salt is for, you will tend to get two answers.

In fact, this week I asked five people what they thought salt is most useful for and I got two answers. We use it for seasoning and preserving.

Salt is used to make food taste more interesting, but the biggest complaint from teenagers about church is probably that “it’s boring.”

Listen, if somebody landed at Galilee airport in the first century, got into a taxi and said to the driver, “Drive me to where the action is,” every driver would have put their foot on the gas and headed straight for wherever Jesus was.

I rarely use the word “unforgivable” because God can forgive anything. But a movement founded by the most intoxicating, most wonderful, most electrifying figure who ever walked the earth letting itself go to the point that it has a reputation for being dull is almost unforgivable. It is unacceptable.

You are the salt of the earth. You have not been given a mission to make what is exciting boring.

  

Salt adds flavour to unappetising food, but it also stops it going off. Cured meat, like Parma ham, which has had coarse salt rubbed into it, can keep virtually forever.

When Jesus talks about salt, he means that the world is decaying. It is going rotten; it’s on its way to purifying and stinking. Jesus does not think that the world is basically OK, and that Christians can make it nicer. Jesus doesn’t think that the world needs improving. He thinks it needs saving.

It was a Christian, William Wilberforce, who fought tirelessly to abolish the slave trade in this country. It was a Christian, Martin Luther King, who achieved the outlawing of racist segregation in the USA 50 years ago. 60% of AIDS relief programmes in Africa are run by churches. As are the vast majority of foodbanks in the U.K. You are the salt of the earth.

But, even though Jesus would have watched his mother Mary using it in the kitchen so possibly had seasoning and preserving in mind when he talked about salt, he was probably thinking of two other uses.

In Luke’s 14.34, Jesus’ words about salt are expanded slightly, and the fuller version says this;

“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure heap; it is thrown out.”

Jesus is talking about two other properties of salt; ones you might not guess. He actually meant salt as a fertiliser (for the soil) and as an antiseptic (for the manure heap). That’s why Jesus used the expression “salt of the earth” and not salt of the kitchen.

What they called salt in New Testament times was not this, it was in fact, an unrefined, coarse mixture you still find today on the shores of the Dead Sea. It’s rich in sodium chloride, but it also contains potash and other minerals.

You have to dilute it a bit but, when you do, it is excellent for the soil and it favours the strong growth of healthy crops. But if you dilute it too much, it loses its properties, and it becomes useless. That’s what Jesus meant when he said “if salt loses its saltiness.”

Jesus calls you “the salt of the earth” because he calls you to be in the growth business, actively promoting the increase of his government and peace.

Many of the parables are about growth; the yeast, the mustard seed, the sower, the wheat and the tares... Colossians 1 says, “All over the world the gospel is bearing fruit and growing… and we pray… that you may bear fruit in every good work.”

So, are you growing? Are you fruitful? Are you a giver? Are you joyful? Are you helping faith grow around you? Are you an encourager? Are you a catalyst for love and good works?

Have you ever had to fill in one of those forms in hospital which asks what religion you are? What should you write? We don’t tend to talk about Church of England or Catholic as our religion, do we? In fact, we don’t feel comfortable with the word religion at all. We tend to identify as Christians basically, but there’s never a box to tick for that, is there?

My advice (which I got from a friend called Andy Griffiths) is this: check the hospital website for photos of the chaplaincy team and have a look at their faces. Then, either write down the religion of the one who looks most likely to cheer you up in the Lord, or better still, the one who most looks like he needs witnessing to! Be salt of the earth in hospital.

So salt is useful for seasoning, preserving, fertilizing… and sanitizing. It was an antiseptic. “If salt loses its saltiness… it is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure heap” said Jesus.

There were no drains in those days. So people threw salt on the dung hill, downwind from the village and it fumigated it, to keep away flies and rats.

The gospel and the power of Christian love can decontaminate even the most destructive and evil environment.

In February last year, Brenton Winn, a homeless 23-year-old drug addict, broke into and vandalised Central Baptist Church in Conway, Arkansas, causing $100,000 worth of damage. He destroyed everything in sight at the church, smashing laptops, cameras and various other pieces of expensive electrical equipment. He also painted a racial slur on the wall and set fire to the church's family centre.

The pastor Don Chandler said, “I really don't know what would possess a person to do this.” Following his arrest, Winn faced a long list of criminal charges. But Pastor Chandler spoke to prosecutors and requested the man be shown grace and forgiveness rather than be prosecuted.

He said, “You can't preach something for 50 years without practicing it. Had we not shown some grace to him, everything we've talked about would have gone by the wayside. It was simply the right thing to do. This was a young man who had made some mistakes. He was on drugs and alcohol when he did what he did. But he was redeemable.”

The judge considered the pastor's request and offered Winn a choice; to spend the next 20 years in prison, or to voluntarily attend a 12-month Christian rehab and recovery programme.

He chose the latter, and during that time, he accepted Jesus as his Saviour and Lord. Six months after he had broken into and vandalised this church, Brenton Winn returned there to be baptised and publicly dedicate his life to the Lord.

His testimony: “My life was nothing but chaos, suicide attempts and brokenness. But as I'm starting to understand how God works, I've realized I didn't pick the church that night. God picked me.”

Salt is a disinfectant. Jesus wants to cleanse all that is putrid – he wants to use us. “You are the salt of the earth.”

Salt seasons, preserves, promotes growth and disinfects. Salt also melts snow, but I’m sure Jesus wasn’t thinking of that.

But finally, salt irritates. If you apply salt to your skin it chafes, it stings. Real, living Christianity sometimes rubs this world up the wrong way. Seriously.

Jesus annoyed stuffy, religious people like the Pharisees. He wound up snidey intellectuals like the Sadducees. He rubbed opinionated windbags like Herod up the wrong way. Jesus was loved by the common people and he was a friend of sinners but he didn’t half tick off the establishment!

I’m not advocating gratuitous offence but sometimes following Jesus means ruffling feathers sometimes, being a bit of an irritant.

John Ortberg, in his book Soul Keeper, describes a conversation a friend of his had in a restaurant one time. He was reading his Bible to prepare a sermon when a young woman looked over and said, “Why are you reading that?”

He looks back at her and says, (this is an exact quote), “Because I don’t feel like going to hell when I die.” That’s salt as an irritant, right there!

She is a confident, articulate atheist and she says, “There is no such thing as heaven or hell.”

“Why do you say that?” he says.

She says, “Everybody knows that when you die, your candle goes out. That’s it!”

He says, “You mean to tell me there is no afterlife?”

“No.”

“So that means you must be able to just live as you please?”

“That’s right.”

“Like, there is no judgement day or anything?”

“Right.”

He says, “Well, that’s fascinating to me. Where did you hear that?”

She says, “I read it somewhere.”

“Can you give me the name of the book?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Can you give me the name of the author of the book?”

“I forgot his name.”

“Well, did the author write any other books?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it possible that your author changed his or her mind two years after they wrote this particular book and then wrote another one that said there is a heaven and hell? Is that possible?”

“It’s possible but not likely.”

He says, “Alright, let me get this straight. You are rolling the dice on your eternity predicated on what someone you don’t even know wrote in a book you can’t even recall the title of. Have I got that straight?”

She looks back. “That’s right.”

He says, “You know what I think? I think you have merely created a belief that protects your chosen lifestyle. I think you made it up, because it is very discomforting to think of a heaven. It is very disturbing to think of a hell. It is very unnerving to face a holy God on the day of reckoning. I think you made it all up.”

That’s salt as an irritant.

Light of the World

Jesus also says “You are the light of the world.” I want you to be visible; don’t hide away. A lamp on a stand, a city on a hill. God expects his church to be a beacon in its community. An invisible church is as useful to God as a pocket torch with a flat battery.

John Stott says, “If a house is dark at night, there is no sense in blaming the house for its darkness. That is what happens when the sun goes down. The question is, where is the light? Similarly, if society becomes corrupt (like a dark night) there is no sense in blaming society for its corruption. That is what happens when human evil is unchecked and unrestrained. The question to ask is: where is the church?”

Being light in a dark world does not mean self-righteous Christians tutting and wagging their fingers. It’s not our light, our innate goodness shining out of every orifice; it’s the light of Christ’s love radiating through us.

Here’s a question; how much of what we read about Jesus in the gospels situates him outside a religious building? If you were to put a percentage on it, what would you say? What proportion of the gospels show Jesus outside a synagogue or temple or holy shrine? 50%? 75%? 90%? The answer is over 95%.

Jesus said in v16 “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

When you do random acts of kindness, in Jesus’ name, you find so often that God opened up doors to engage with people spiritually.

Here’s an example: a few years ago now, a man came into the centre at church. If memory serves, he was the grandfather of one of the toddlers who use the building on Thursdays and Fridays. Anyway, he was grumbling about his back pain. The easiest thing in the world would have been a bit of tea and sympathy and to say, “Ah, well I hope you’ll feel better soon.”

I think it was Sandra who said to him “Well, would you like us to pray now that God will heal you?” She laid hands on him, (Do you know, I’m not even sure if she waited for his answer!) She asked God to take away the pain. “Ooh,” said the man, “You know what, I can feel heat on my back as you pray.” By the time she said “Amen” the pain had all but gone. He phoned up later to say, “It’s still better, it’s amazing.”

God doesn’t do amazing things every time I step out in faith and pray. He doesn’t even do amazing things every time Sandra steps out in faith and prays. I so, so wish he did. But that’s his business. I just know that I am called to be salt and light.

I was talking to a Christian in his mid-twenties once and I asked him how he met his girlfriend. It wasn’t in a church context; it was at work. But he knew she was a Christian. She wasn’t wearing a cross necklace, she didn’t have a sticker on her car. She didn’t hum Amazing Grace as she photocopied her papers, or draw attention to her Bible at coffee break.

He just saw something in her that so reminded him of Jesus that he guessed she must be a Christian, and he guessed right. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” 

Ending

Sharing faith as a witness. Can you hear God’s voice calling you to be like salt; bringing a taste of heaven to your neighbourhood and sanitizing all that is foul? Can you hear Jesus saying, “You, yes you, are the salt of the earth”?

Is he speaking to you about being visible as a Christian? “Nobody sticks a lamp under a bowl” he says. Is your light hidden away?

Is it time to shine more brightly, to speak out, to take a risk, to go for it, to be a beacon? When are you going to shine like you know you want to? Can you hear Jesus saying to you today, “You are the light of the world”?

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached via video link at All Saints’ Preston on Tees, 31 May 2020

Pruning and Abiding (John 15.1-5)

Today is our wedding anniversary. On this day, 28 May in 1983, Kathie and I pledged to have and hold each other for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until we are separated by death.

It poured with rain all day but we didn’t care; we were young, free and in love, and very excited about the day, going on honeymoon, discovering sexual intimacy, and then setting up home in London.

I hardly need to add that those vows have been more of a challenge for Kathie to keep over the years than they have been for me. We have had to work at our marriage like any couple, but God has always been there when we turned to him for help.

One of the readings at our wedding was from John 15 where Jesus says this: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful... No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me... You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

John 15 is packed with amazing truths and I could talk for hours on it, but I’ve only got about a few minutes, so I’ll just highlight two things, briefly and simply.

Firstly, God uses pain, disappointment and affliction in our lives to grow good things. This is what Jesus means when he says God cuts and severs branches of a vine for greater fruitfulness. We aren’t that familiar with viticulture in the UK, but we do know about pruning roses. You can cut back a rosebush in winter to almost nothing and wonder if you have perhaps gone too far as you look in dismay at the sorry stump you have just reduced your rose bush to, but in the summer, you will invariably see spectacular results if you dared to be ruthless.

Where vine branches produce little or no fruit, only leaves, they drain sap away from the fruit, the grapes stay small and green, and the whole thing becomes little more than a decorative plant.

If you want large, juicy clusters of sweet grapes in September you’ve got to radically trim back healthy branches and lop off leafy branches altogether in January.

Unquestionably, the periods in my life of greatest pain, greatest despondency, have also been the times, looking back, that resulted in the most prolific spiritual growth. People want a hassle-free life and easy pleasure but the Bible says it’s those who sow in tears that reap in joy. Having to wait and wait, longing for prayers to be answered developed patience.

Secondly, God won’t settle for superficial; being a Christian is not just assenting to a creed or attending church, it’s living deeply in Christ.

On our wedding day, Kathie's and my desire for each other was off the scale. We were so excited. I mean, it was steamy, it was intense... But the success of our marriage today is measured by how strong and committed our love is for each other now, not how passionate it was then.

You may have a wonderful testimony of conversion, or I may be able to point to a remarkable experience with God years ago. But what is your testimony today? What is God doing in my life now!

Some Christians in middle or old age take their foot off the gas and coast through life, going through the motions, like a stale marriage where the flame went out years ago. That’s tragic; Hebrews 11 says the great heroes of the Bible were still living by faith (still taking risks) when they died.

This is what Jesus is talking about when he says we must go on abiding in him, as branches are organically connected to a vine. It’s no good me holding a dead branch and saying, “well, I can’t understand it, it was fine last year. It was attached to that lovely healthy tree over there.”

God is always doing a new thing, always turning another corner, always opening another door. What, specifically, are you doing this summer that requires you to take a step of faith?

So those are my two words of encouragement today; words of challenge as well actually. Remember to live deeply in Christ, holding fast to him in faith, and thank God that even the most painful episodes in your life can be transformed by his grace for blessing and fruitfulness.

Let’s pray...



Brief online talk, 28 May 2020

Equipping, Preparing, Restoring, Completing (Ephesians 4.7-12)

Well, today is Ascension Thursday, the day every year when Christians (some anyway) remember Jesus returning to his Father in heaven and telling his disciples to wait for and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit. How many of you knew that it was Ascension today? Perhaps a minority...

But it’s an important event to mark because it sets the tone for what Christian ministry should look like. Perhaps our neglect or lack of awareness about Ascension is one of the reasons the church down the years has so often got it so wrong.

For example, we often talk about “the ministry” or “full-time ministry” meaning church leadership. When we talk in this way, people can easily think that only the pastor, or vicar or (worse still) priest is “the minister” and every other form of Christian service is not really ministry. Wrong!

No, as soon as you come to faith in Christ, you’re in full time ministry. No exceptions. You may not necessarily do it all that well, but that's not the point. The point is that full-time ministry is what you are in. However you serve the Lord, whether it’s in God’s church or in God’s world, that is your ministry and if Jesus is Lord, it's full-time. Every ministry done well and with integrity - hairdresser, road sweeper, teacher, pastor, acrobat, car mechanic - whatever is equally valuable to the Lord if it is done to the glory of God.

Here's another example of how Christians have so often got it wrong. The church, over the years, has tended to adopt a pyramid structure; archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, vicars, curates, everybody else. Wrong again! 

That is not what Jesus set up. He specifically said to not call people 'father' (putting them on a pedestal) and he told us in the strongest terms to avoid dominant, controlling leadership models. 'The rulers of the Gentiles throw their weight around - not so with you.'

Instead, Jesus appointed teams of disciples (life-long learners), with different and complementary spiritual gifts.

Ephesians 4 is read at Ascension services most years; here’s what it says.

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says “When he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.” (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Jesus invested in learners until they were ready to be leaders. He called them apostles, not patriarchs. Apostles are mobile. They are sent from one place to another place to reproduce in the new place what they saw in the place they left, until the place they go to looks like the place they came from.

This is Ascension-shaped ministry. Ascension is about passing on a baton. It’s about one generation transferring a vision, a heritage or worldview to the next one. 

For centuries, the Jews have eaten the Passover meal. Every year, the youngest at the table asks, “Why are we doing this?” And the oldest explains; “Remember where you came from, this is our story. This is who we are.”

In the same way, Paul could say to Timothy, "the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others."

What are we passing on? What are we transmitting to the next generation?

Ephesians 4 doesn’t say that Jesus bequeathed to the world a hierarchical, top-down church. Because he didn’t. It says he gave different ministries with a variety of distinctive gifts. And then it says why. It was to equip the church for works of service.

That word translated “equip” (in Greek it’s katartismos) carries a fascinating range of different meanings. Sometimes in the New Testament, as here, it’s translated “equip.” This is about an apprenticeship culture, helping get other people ready and confident for works of service. 

That word “equip” is the same word that’s used to describe fishermen preparing or cleaning their nets. Peter, Andrew, James and John tended to their nets. They got mangled seaweed and bits of old boots out of them. They repaired the holes where tears had appeared. They untangled the twisted bits of netting that had become matted. They made sure that the nets were pristine and ready for next time.

Making disciples (which every Christian is called to do, not just professional clergy) is about making sure we are all ready to serve.

There is also in this word translated “equip” an aspect of healing or restoring for people who have got damaged in life. Healthy churches rebuild people who have been damaged by life. Good churches are full of individuals who help put broken people together again.

Galatians 6.1 says, “If anyone caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore them [it’s the same word; katartismos] – in a spirit of gentleness.” Equip, prepare, clean, mend, restore… Ascension-shaped ministry is about kindly redirecting people who have got snared up and have gone wrong in life.

Ascension-shaped ministry never says, “you made a right old mess of it last time, you’re finished...” No, the church is about redirection based on spiritual truth... so that hurt people are healed and restored.

Ascension-shaped ministry is about the whole church rebuilding broken people in Jesus’ name. In 2 Corinthians 13 Paul says, “We pray for you that you may be made complete.” It’s that same word again; equipped, ready, restored, prepared, cleaned, complete.

I thank God every Ascension Thursday for the blessed reminder that it’s not all about the vicar. Vicars come and go, as this one will soon, but the church is here to stay. 

The church Jesus came to establish is about everybody using every spiritual gift from the ascended Christ to equip, prepare, restore and make complete – so that the finished article will be a glorious church, a radiant bride, the hope of the world.

Let’s pray…

Brief online talk, 21 May 2020

30 Things I’ve Learned Here

I have been so blessed to lead All Saints’ over the last 12 years; they have been among the happiest of my life. Here are some things I have learned as I reflect on my ministry here.

1. The key to good church leadership is loving God - and letting it show.

2. Prayerless churches slowly die; cover everything in prayer.

3. The secret of good pastoring is loving people; it’s that simple.

4. Remembering people's names says to them, “I care about you.”

5. Everyone, no exceptions, needs affirmation and encouragement.

6. Meaningful fellowship is best expressed in small groups.

7. Don’t worry about church growth; attend to church health and the growth will take care of itself.

8. Take children seriously and make time for them.

9. Evangelism is a process, not an event.

10. People around you who excel at what you do are a blessing, not a threat.

11. Good leadership is about good teams - build them.

12. When casting vision, it’s not enough to say why we need to go there; you need to say with passion why we can’t stay here.

13. People commit and give generously when they see a church is going places.

14. When releasing people in ministry, look for character more than charisma.

15. Enduringly strong churches are built on sound Bible teaching.

16. The best preaching is profound truth that is simply and honestly expressed.

17. Great worship reaches a crescendo around the Lord’s Table.

18. Never stop reading and learning.

19. The anointing of the Holy Spirit does not replace hard work.

20. But hard work is never a substitute for the Holy Spirit.

21. Church is not the building, but good buildings can help you be the church.

22. If you're coasting in ministry move on.

23. You won’t regret banning the Comic Sans font from church communications.

24. Most visitors to church come via the website; keep it attractive and up to date.

25. Newcomers are usually looking for a church where they can make friends.

26. A proper day off every week is essential for ministry health and stamina.

27. Accept praise but give God the glory.

28. You’re not indispensable; God has already appointed his Messiah; it isn’t you.

29. A wife of good character really is more precious than rubies.

30. Integrity is more important to God than success.

Sharing Faith - Act of Encouragement (Hebrews 10.19-25)

Introduction

Three weeks ago, Amy began this spring sermon series, with a talk on telling others about Jesus as an act of vision. Sharing our faith is something we as a church aspire to and plan strategically for.

Then, a week later, Paul got outdoors and reminded us that sharing our faith is an act of proclamation. We have something to confidently but humbly commend to others.

Last week, Kevin said that sharing faith is an act of power. The Holy Spirit inside us gives our simple, faltering words a supernatural edge. Remember that.

Next week, and in a fortnight, we’ll think about sharing our faith as an act of hope and of witness.

All five aspects of faith sharing I’ve just mentioned focus on the impression our testimony makes on others outside the church.

You’re a Christian because someone told you about Jesus. That’s why there’s a church today. There will not be one tomorrow if we all keep our faith private.

Our faith is not something we have the luxury of keeping to ourselves. The Lord has not given us a box to tick in which we can opt out of publicly affirming our allegiance to Christ if we don’t quite fancy it.

Encouragement

But this talk today, just one out of a series of six, is about the effect sharing our faith has on those inside the church. You see, when we listen to what God has done, or is doing, in each other’s lives it stirs us, it lifts us, doesn’t it? Sharing faith is also an act of encouragement.

You like it when someone encourages you. I know you do. Everyone does. We all crave and need encouragement. God has designed us so that we thrive on it. Spiritual encouragement causes us to flourish and grow in our relationship with God.

Let’s constantly talk amongst ourselves about what God is doing; let’s not focus our conversations on what God is not doing.

When you’re encouraged you feel like you can walk through walls. When you’re discouraged you feel like you’d struggle to make your way out of a wet paper bag.

Psalm 78 in the Bible, talks about amazing miracles God did in the past. He divided the Red Sea, he led his people through, he guided them with a cloud by day and fire by night, he split rocks to give them water to drink. Such faith-building, life-enriching stories.

But then the Psalm says this: “The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle; [because] they forgot what God had done, the wonders he had shown them.”

So Israel is going to war, armed to the teeth it says against an attacking enemy – but they become fainthearted and say, “We don’t fancy our chances.” Why? Because they had stopped encouraging each other about how God’s awesome power had broken into their lives before.

Well, this morning, I’m going to try and open up a short passage from the letter to the Hebrews and I’m going to pepper what I say with testimony from my own life and from elsewhere. My prayer is, that by the end of my talk, you will be encouraged and truly motivated to tell God stories in turn.

Cleansed and Allowed In

Let’s dive straight in to Hebrews 10.19-22.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

In Old Testament times, nobody could get near God. The full manifestation of his glorious presence was locked away behind an inner, inner chamber in the temple; the holy of holies. In front of it, hung this thick, tall curtain, which screened off God’s presence from any chance of human contact.

The message was clear. You can’t come in. Nor can I. Nobody can. One small exception. Just one man, from one tribe, once a year, on one specified day, for one reason alone, could approach. It was as if to reinforce the sense that God was so near and yet so far.

But when Jesus’ body was torn to shreds on the cross that curtain, which shut off access from God’s presence, was also ripped in two. God himself tore it. So now, because of Jesus, you can go right in to the most holy place and talk to your Father who loves you.

It says, “our hearts are sprinkled”; that’s theological language but it simply means this: as nails drove into his hands and feet on the cross, Jesus’ spattered blood, removed all the grimy darkness in here and it wipes away every moral stain.

And now, heaven’s door is open. Before, people approached God only tentatively and with fear – and after a lot of thorough ritual washing. But now we can draw near to him confidently and with joy because Jesus has cleaned us up on the inside. God actually invites you into his overwhelmingly holy and awe-inspiring presence. And there’s no need for any sense of dread or panic.

Imagine you’re in London. You want to see the sights, but you don’t know the place so you ask someone the way to Buckingham Palace. They say, “I’ll take you there if you like, I’m going that way and it’s not far.” So off you go.

Minutes later, you arrive. There it is at the end of The Mall.

Your guide can take you as far as the railings, but they need another level of authority entirely to get you through the gates, let alone across the courtyard, let alone in through the door, let alone up the stairs, along the corridor and Slide 8 - heaven forbid - into the presence of Her Majesty in person.

Hebrews is saying here that, likewise, any old priest could take you to the outer gate of God’s presence. But only Jesus can take you all the way into it.

Stories Fire Our Faith

That’s the gospel. It’s the power of God for salvation of all who believe it.

A few months ago, I got an email from Simon Guillebaud’s GLO ministry in Burundi. It was packed with amazing testimonies – I was so encouraged reading it. Here are a few extracts:

Libere, who had never seen a healing miracle, found himself witnessing to a woman who had been paralyzed for three years. He sensed the Lord telling him: “Miracles accompany the preaching of the Word.” So he responded in faith, and commanded the lady to stand up. She stood up immediately and started dancing with joy! Libere said: “Now I believe that God can work with whoever believes regardless of age or denomination. I will spend the rest of my life proclaiming the love of God.”

Bururi province is a resistant area. But one of our teams met a family there whose 7-year-old girl was blind, crippled, and her tongue hung limply outside her mouth, so she was unable to speak. They washed her and prayed for her, whereupon she immediately got her sight back, began speaking, and was able to walk. The whole village ran to see this. Her family and 25 others in the village gave their lives to Christ.

Our team found a vagrant madman under a tree. He couldn’t speak at all. They prayed for him and he was healed, in his right mind, and able to speak. When his family heard he was no longer mad or running naked in the streets, they made a fire to burn all the objects of witchcraft they’d used to try to set him free, at which point they gave their lives to Christ as well.

It’s like reading the Gospels and Acts isn’t it? This is our God. This is what he does. Isn’t that encouraging? It blessed me to read that.

Hebrews 10 goes on to urge us to keep meeting up and think about how we can inspire one another.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

That expression “the hope we profess” is about our personal testimony, our story, the reasons we have for being optimistic about the future; God is good and God is faithful.

When it says, “spur one another on” it literally means to badger, to pester, to be a bit of a nag. The Bible says you can be provocative towards your fellow Christians if the end result is that they feel fired up to follow Jesus with a bit more passion. Has your get-up-and-go got up and left?

Just last week, I a 13 year-old lad, a friend of one of our young people, gave his life to Christ. My heart leapt when I heard that. I remembered the elation, the joy, the feeling brand new of when I first became a Christian.

A day earlier, I was looking at Facebook and I saw a comment on my page from an French-Italian we knew in Paris called Elisa. She wrote, “Thank you to the man God used in 2006 to bring me to know Him!”

Two surprises; 1) I didn’t know she spoke English and 2) I didn’t know that God used me to lead her to Christ. It lifted me. Who can say how many people out there belong to Jesus today because of something they saw in you or something you said and you didn’t even know?

Hebrews was written at the time of the Emperor Nero, and that’s key because Nero clamped down hard on Christianity, making it illegal. But he tolerated Judaism, so many Hebrew Christians were fleeing to the safety of the synagogue. But they only accepted you back there if you publicly renounced Christ.

When it says, “some have given up meeting together”; it wasn’t because they were on the golf course or having visitors for the weekend, it was because they feared for their security and were turning their backs on Jesus for a quiet life.

I hope this lockdown is increasing your yearning for worshipping together in one place. We can’t meet together now in these exceptional times. But when we can meet again, I hope we will savour it and cherish it and not take it for granted. Don’t neglect meeting on Sunday. It’s primarily to focus on the Lord as one but also, it says here, it’s about encouraging one another.

To neglect Christian meetings when they are available is to deny your soul the oxygen of encouragement and support from brothers and sisters who love you. We may face trials, even persecution as these Hebrews did, but that is all the more reason to gather together if we can.

The world has enough discouragers, naysayers, cynics, doom-mongers, critics and pessimists. We are about encouraging one another. Say a word of thanks, show your appreciation, talk about something God has done - it can keep brothers and sisters heads above water.

Ending

As I draw to a close, I want to share something with you, I listened to a Premier Profile podcast this week which was a conversation with Ken Fish; a man who trained with John Wimber, an evangelist with remarkable healing ministry. I commend it to you. Do check it out and listen to it if you get time.

It was one of the most edifying things I have ever heard; one or two stories stood out; but I’m just going to pick one - this is Ken Fish (slightly edited for brevity):

“I remember one time, when we were meeting in the gymnasium at Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills, California. One night, we were all gathered and the place was pretty-well filled, maybe 3 or 4,000 people there.

I was with a bunch of friends; I was in my early 20s. And there was a woman sitting close by me and everybody knew who this woman was because she was one of the most beautiful women in the church (she was married).

But what was interesting was I knew her story; she was afraid of getting married, because she always assumed no one would want to marry her because she was born without ovaries.

I remember that night distinctly, because John said, “Now, the Spirit of God is here and he’s about to move in great power.” And all of a sudden, I looked over at Nancy (that was her name) and she broke out into a sweat. Her clothes were soaked all the way through and she began to vibrate intensely.

Several of us laid our hands on her (her husband was standing there) and the power of God came and this incredible wave of energy came over her body.

At the end of that prayer time, she said, “I feel fatter inside” and of course she went to the doctor and got some confirmation and she had had ovaries created in her body that didn’t exist [before].

Now, that’s a miracle, that’s a full-on miracle, and she went on and had four children and they’ve gone on and had children of their own.”

End of quote. I’ve seen God heal on occasion; nothing like that, but backs, shoulders, migraines, tinnitus, partial deafness, and infertility (though as far as I know, the ovaries were already present) …

I’ve told you before about the most extraordinary miracle I’ve personally witnessed; a cockney named Arthur from North London, bent over with chronic spondylosis, only able to walk slowly and painfully.

A day after being prayed for in the name of Jesus I visited him and, with a glint in his eye, he said, “Watch this John.” And he ran up and down the stairs like an excited child. I said, “What’s happened to you?” “Jesus ‘as ‘ealed me, ain’t ‘e? Praise ver Lord.”

I can see it in my mind and I can remember the wonder, the fear of the Lord that came over me. It nourishes my faith every time I think of it.

Every person who has a story of amazing signs and wonders might have five - even ten - stories of heartbreak when God says no. If we’re going to go after the things of the Spirit, we're going to witness incredible victories and bewildering, heart-breaking defeats.

But I want to encourage you to keep praying, keep persevering, keep believing, and do not settle for less. Let’s do that and may All Saints’ forever be a place where one generation tells of the marvellous works of the Lord to another to everyone’s great encouragement.

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached via video link at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 17 May 2020