“We must grow up in every way to Christ, who is the head. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Ephesians 4:15-16)

When we think about Christians and churches growing up into Christ, there are at least four dimensions to that growth.

Each individual believer should be growing UPWARDS to maturity – spiritual Growth

Each fellowship should be growing TOGETHER in community – Organic Growth

But then we should also all be growing OUTWARDS in service and evangelism – Incarnational Growth

And when believers and churches are all growing upwards, together and outwards, then by God’s grace the church will also be growing MORE in numbers – Numerical Growth

Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18 King James Version) Christians cannot build God’s church. Only Jesus can build his church. But there are things Christians can do to cooperate with God and other things which we do which can get in God’s way. So what can we be doing to grow as individual Christians and as a church?

In 1517 a German monk called Martin Luther wrote 95 Theses – 95 statements he believed to be true and important because they summed up the gospel. Luther pinned his 95 Theses on the door of his church and they were the start of the church revolution we call the Reformation which was the beginning of Protestant Christianity. This morning I want to give you just 10 theses – 10 statements about church life which if we take them seriously will revolutionise our church life. 10 things which I believe are vitally important as we think about growing up into Christ individually as Christians and together as a church in discipleship and outreach and pastoral care.

1. Outreach and pastoral care are activities for every Christian.
We miss the point completely if we consider “outreach” or “pastoral care” as as activities which only the minister, or only the Deacons, or only some members of the church are involved in! Outreach and pastoral care should be part of “the normal Christian life” for EVERY believer, just as much as worship and prayer are.
“It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” (Ephesians 4:11-12)

We talked about these verses last year. It is NOT the case that the apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastor-teachers should do all the works of service themselves! The role even of evangelists and especially of pastor-teachers, those who pastor the flock by teaching them, is to prepare and equip ALL God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up!

2. Our principal witness to the world should be our transformed lives
“Evangelism is the overflow of our joyful faith.” (Bishop Lesslie Newbigin)
Our Christian witness is simply our victorious Christian living! Our lives showing the life of Christ shining through us into the darkness. The difference Jesus makes to the things we do and the way we talk and the ways we think about things. That IS our Christian witness. That is our outreach.
Sometimes we think of “witnessing” as some desperately challenging and difficult task. But if we are living our lives according to the Scriptures, if we are living for God instead of for ourselves, then people around us WILL see the difference and WILL want to know about Jesus for themselves.
Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount ,
Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 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. 16 In the same way, let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
In other words, the way we live is our witness to the world. The difference Jesus makes IS our witness – we just need to have the answers ready when people start asking the questions. We thought about this last week from the Book of Acts. God worked in powerful ways, people around asked questions and the first Christians simply replied, “God did that!” “What’s happening?” “What’s all this praising God?” “How was this man healed?” “How did that arch-enemy of the Christians Saul become the apostle to the Gentiles Paul?” “How CAN Jesus be alive again?” Prayers answered. Enemies forgiven. Courageous preaching in the face of cruel persecution. “How is all this possible?” The answer was the same every time. “God did that!”
We may sometimes feel our evangelism is not as successful as we would like. But outreach and witnessing are not impossibly difficult activities which need special “methods” or “techniques”. Outreach is simply living our Christian lives as the light of the world. Witnessing is nothing more than letting our light so shine before men that they give praise to our Father in heaven. “Evangelism is the overflow of our joyful faith.”

3. Pastoral care should be the natural spontaneous expression of our love for each other.
But love for each other comes in obedience to Christ’s command, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34)
Just like witnessing, pastoral care isn’t some incredibly difficult activity which only certain special Christians can do! Pastoral care isn’t something that only the Pastor can do. Pastoral care is what happens when Christians love each other with God’s kind of love. When we care for each other. When we share our everyday lives with each other. When we bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil Christ’s new commandment. Loving each other is his command for EVERY Christian.
1 John 3:14 ¶ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
John is very clear. Somebody who doesn’t love their fellow Christians doesn’t have eternal life!
1 John 4:20 … anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

4. The love Christians have for each other is also our witness to the world.
“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)
So pastoral care and outreach aren’t separate activities. Nobody can say “I’m no good at outreach – I’ll stick to pastoral care.” Nobody can say “I’m better at sharing my faith with folk who aren’t Christians than I am at helping other Christians.” Because pastoral care and outreach are two sides of the same coin – they are both simply expressions of God’s love in action. And that love is the church’s witness to the world.

5. We ALL need to become more effective in living out our faith in our everyday lives.
That means in the community and in our workplace, not just in church on Sunday! Church isn’t about running programmes for pastoral care or programmes for outreach. The church’s task is to equip EVERY CHRISTIAN to play their part in loving each other and sharing their faith every moment of every day, wherever we are, whoever we are with. Sermons can help us. Home Groups and Bible studies can help. Christian books and videos and tapes can help.
Every Christian needs to learn express and share their faith in our everyday lives, in our places of work, in our community, with our neighbours. As WE grow in our faith, then outreach and pastoral care will follow naturally. If our church is weak in outreach or in pastoral care, it may be because some believers are not growing up into Christ as much as they could be!

6. Outreach and pastoral care flow from the spiritual life of the church.
If outreach and pastoral care are not as they should be in any church, these are symptoms of underlying spiritual problems. We all need to be putting God first in our lives, not letting ourselves get distracted by false like gods Money and Entertainment and Celebrity. When God is truly the most important thing for a Christian, that person’s life WILL be transformed in such a way that the world around WILL see the difference.
So the purpose us of gathering together in church is not to escape from the “real world” by a time of “worshipping God”. On the contrary, we meet with each other and with God so that he will equip and sustain us so that we may better worship and serve God throughout our daily lives.

7. We ALL need to move on to a richer experience of the reality of God and to deeper discipleship.
If we are going to grow as a church, then every individual Christian needs to be growing closer to God. None of us should be satisfied with our level of Christian experience. We should all want to grow up into Christ. None of us have got it all. None of us have arrived spiritually. We never will in this life. There’s always more. We’re not perfect yet!
We should all be continually hungering and thirsting for God, seeking first His Kingdom and His righteousness. This is what being a disciple is all about, being a learner, keeping on learning from God and growing up into Christ. The church’s task is to help individuals in the whole pilgrimage of faith, to help us all to grow up to Christian maturity. But each of us needs to WANT to be a disciple! Each of us needs to want to grow up in Christ.

8. Vital factors in spiritual growth include Bible teaching, prayer, faith, making discipes and the working of the Holy Spirit.
Bringing believers to maturity is ultimately God’s work – not ours. It’s all his grace! But at the same time we have to WANT to grow up into Christ and give that challenge of discipleship the time and effort if deserves!
The heart of Victorious Christian Living is Scripture and Prayer.
Jesus said in John 15 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. … 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
We become more like Christ as we allow His words to take root in our hearts and transform us. One of the first sermons I preached here was called “Disciples are Learners.” In that I said, “Most evangelical Christians are educated beyond their obedience.” We know what the Bible says, but we don’t obey it! We don’t allow the Scriptures to shape our lives. We allow the Word of God to inform our minds but we don’t allow it to change our hearts. We need to step out in faith, to commit ourselves to being disciples of Jesus, and to depend on the strength of His Holy Spirit within us.

9. The heart of our church life is our relationships with each other.
The church is a family, not a business. The church is all about friendships, not meetings. That is why hospitality is so important – inviting folk round for a coffee or a lunch or even just for a chat.
The Bible says, 9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. NIV
“Open up your homes to each other.” 1 Peter 4:9 NCV

We need to make the effort to get to make new friends and welcome newcomers. Learn each other’s names. And pray for each other.
And relationships with other people take TIME. Relationships take time. Outreach takes time. Pastoral care takes time. If we want to grow up into Christ this demands time! Each of us has exactly the same amount of time to use – 24 hours a day! The things we choose to spend that time doing reveal where our priorities lie, and what is truly important to us. Loving each other. Sharing our faith. Worship and prayer and fellowship and learning from the Bible. If these things are important to us we will want to give time to them!

10. Our relationships with each other spring from our relationships with God in prayer.
So we are back to talking about prayer! It’s God who helps us to love each other. It’s God who gives us the strength to love this needy world for which Christ died. We are so often scared of showing God’s kind of love, we are scared of being hurt, we are scared that other people will demand more of us than we have the capacity to give. And it’s God who loves us so much who helps us to love others as His perfect love casts out all our fears.
So all of our outreach and all of our pastoral care are rooted deep in God, nourished by His love for us and by His Spirit living in us. Our strength to love grows as our relationship with God grows, as we get to know God better through prayer. Learning to pray isn’t about learning how to make the kind of requests God will answer. Learning to pray is about deepening our relationship with God so we know Him and trust him more and more. Prayer isn’t a useful tool to help us in our Christian service. In Richard Foster’s words, “Prayer is nothing more than an ongoing and growing love relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Prayer is the most exciting adventure any of us can imagine. And if we want to grow up into Christ, prayer is the Key! Praying together at prayer meetings. Getting together to pray in twos and threes. Praying privately by ourselves. Starting next Sunday we are holding a week of Prayer and Fasting, with a morning of prayer here at the church the following Saturday. Because prayer is essential!

So there we are – 10 theses on Growing up into Christ – on Outreach and Pastoral care and prayer. 10 statements for you to reflect on and take to heart in this new year. 10 statements which God could use to revolutionise our lives and our church – if we let him!

1. Outreach and pastoral care are activities for every Christian
2. Our principal witness to the world should be our transformed lives:
“Evangelism is the overflow of our joyful faith.”
3. Pastoral care should be the natural spontaneous expression of our love for each other
4. The love Christians have for each other is also our witness to the world
5. We ALL need to become more effective in living out our faith in our everyday lives
6. Outreach and pastoral care flow from the spiritual life of the church
7. We ALL need to move on to a richer experience of the reality of God and to deeper discipleship
8. Vital factors in spiritual growth include Bible teaching, prayer, faith, making disciples and the working of the Holy Spirit
9. The heart of our church life is our relationships with each other
10. Our relationships with each other spring from our relationships with God in prayer

When I was a student I used to help take groups of primary school children from the inner city of Manchester just ten miles out of town for a week of camping near a farm. When I was their age we used to drive out to a farm and visit the animals so I was surprised that it was the first time some of those city children had ever seen cows, except perhaps on television. Some of the children would not be convinced that the milk they drink actually comes from cows, and does not somehow form in bottles.
Harvest Festivals keep us in touch with the real world. It is good to be reminded of the part that farmers have in providing the food we all eat. It is too easy to assume that beans grow in endless supply in tin cans. This morning, I want to suggest THREE reasons why Harvest festivals are still important for us!

1. BE GRATEFUL FOR GOD’S BLESSINGS
What’s your favourite kind of food? Curry, steak, rice, noodles, pasta, pizza, burgers, or what about good old fish and chips? Chinese, Indian, Italian, French, English, we really are spoilt for choice! Just think of all the different varieties of cheeses, and the weird and wonderful fruit freely available at the supermarket. Even “our daily bread” comes in so many different shapes and flavours. On holiday abroad we love fresh baguettes and brioches and pain chocolats and croissants! Plain croissant, almond croissant and of course all kinds of savoury croissants too!
It is so easy to take God’s good gifts to us for granted – not only our food but homes and our clothing homes, and all the luxuries of life we enjoy while millions are dying without even the necessities. We forget that these things only come to us as gifts of God’s grace. We praise the Lord as Creator of the world, but often forget that He is also its Sustainer. Without the continuing activity of Almighty God, upholding His creation in love, we would all instantly cease to exist.
Harvest gives us an ideal opportunity to pause for a while to give thanks for the countless blessings we receive from the Lord, not least on our dinner plates every day. The Coronavirus crisis has confronted us with panic buying and supermarkets running out of the essentials. This should remind us of the challenges many millions of people around the world face in getting enough to eat every day of their lives. When so many are living on a meagre and monotonous diet, we can choose between more foods than we can name or pronounce. This week let’s remember the presence of God our Sustainer by thanking God in a silent prayer each time we eat a different kind of food? That could easily turn into a hundred prayers by the end of the week!
Let us also be grateful for work, for transport, and for medical care, and many other blessings we enjoy in everyday life that we can so easily take for granted. Due to Coronavirus many people have lost their jobs, and very many more are now facing that prospect. Transport has changed dramatically. Doctors and hospitals have been overrun and many people have had vital treatments delayed or cancelled. All these problems are returning as the number of Covid cases is rising so fast. Let us pause to reflect that millions of people across many countries face these kinds of challenges every day.
We live in a world of “instant everything”. All we need and want is readily available on a basis of live now, pay later. We hear people complaining because they can’t get a seat in their favourite coffee shop or stay in the pub until midnight. It can be so easy to take for granted the luxuries of life, never mind the necessities. Harvest Festivals are important because they help us to be truly thankful for “our daily bread” and for all the other material blessings we enjoy which countless millions in the world do not.
Count your blessings one by one
when dawn appears and day has just begun.
They will light your heart with happiness,
make each hour bright and bring you gladness
Count your blessings one by one,
when twilight falls and toil of day is done.
And in sweet dreams they’ll come again to you,
if you will count your blessings each day through
Count your blessings while you may;
the big or small, whichever comes your way.
For then you’ll find this world a place of love,
if you will count your blessings from above.

2. REMEMBER OTHERS LESS FORTUNATE THAN OURSELVES
When the Apostles in Jerusalem met Paul they gave him only one simple instruction. “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.” (Galatians 2:9-10)
It is good to take time to remember the poor people around the world, and some people in our own town, who face a daily struggle to afford or to obtain food to eat. We all need a deeper awareness of our dependence on the goodness of God, and our gratitude to Him, for the quality of life we enjoy every day. Harvest time is about celebrating the generosity and the faithfulness of God to us.
But at the same time we should remember that every night one thousand million people, one billion people in the world go to bed hungry. That is more than 150 times the population of Great Britain. Thousands are starving today because of drought or flood or crop failure or all kinds of diseases which are caused by an inadequate diet. And because of underlying health problems, all of those disadvantaged people are more vulnerable to Coronavirus than most people in England are.
There is poverty in this county of course. Many pensioners are finding it hard to manage. Millions of people are caught in the debt trap, paying so much in interest they can never pay back any of the capital. Others are in the benefits trap, where they struggle on inadequate benefits since their income would be even lower if they did get a job. They would then lose rent rebate and have to pay so much for childcare. Some others, including teenagers, will be sleeping rough on the streets tonight. And these problems are going to multiply as more businesses fail and more shops and restaurants close and more people lose their jobs.
But in comparison to many countries of the world, even the poorest here are rich. Few in Britan are starving and none need be. We often take for granted the medical care available to everyone here which is so much better than most of the world enjoy. Compared to most places around the earth, Chelmsford is a very safe, comfortable, war-free, and wealthy place to live.
There was a Letter from a Christian in MALAWI (to Third Way (May 2000 p 7).
“If you consider everything that the Bible says about wealth as a whole, the conclusion that most Western Christians are far richer than God would have them be is inescapable. And make no mistake, all the most destitute in England would be considered materially rich in Malawi, no matter how impoverished spiritually, socially and emotionally they may be. …..
Living at the level of affluence of the west is an act of gross selfishness and cruelty. To be rich as westerners are is selfish because the lifestyle of the West is built and sustained by exploiting the poor and the helpless.”
Some strong words there. Our Harvest Thanksgiving calls us to a fresh appreciation of all these blessings which we enjoy which so many peoples and nations do not. As we give thanks to God for His goodness to us we are challenged to careful stewardship of all that He has entrusted to us, to “learn to live more simply so others might simply live.” As we receive God’s love, it stirs us to generous sacrificial giving in return.
In the Book of Esther chapter 9, Mordecai wrote to all the Jews “ 21 that they should celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar 22 as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote to them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.”
Celebrate by giving gifts to the poor. For practical reasons we are not organising a church Harvest Thankoffering this year. But it may be that you will want to give yourself to those less blessed than we are. Perhaps to CHESS, the Churches Homelessness Emergency Support Scheme, or to Chelmsford Food Bank. Perhaps looking abroad you might want to support the Arise Project at Kaniki in Zambia. Or you may have other charities you would want to give to at this time as an expression of gratitude to God for all His goodness to us.
Counting our blessings, remembering others who have so little when we have so much.

3. THE SPIRITUAL MESSAGES OF HARVEST
Do you remember a few years ago there was a TV advert for a certain brand of chocolate biscuit where a young girl charges round the world collecting all the ingredients, the wheat, the sugar canes, the cocoa beans? If nothing else, at the time it certainly helped some people to realise that Chocolate Digestives don’t grow on trees, at least not ready-baked and wrapped up in plastic. But it also raises other questions for children who like to find out how the world they live in really works.
`Where did the wheat come from, Mummy?” `From seeds, dear.’
`What about the sugar canes? `And the cocoa plants?’ `Why, they all come from seeds, of course.’
When they are still young, children are told how the farmer plants seeds. Then when the plants are grown and the crops are ready it is time for the harvest. Every autumn we celebrate that process with our Harvest Festivals.
`But, Mummy. Mummy, where did the seeds come from?’ `From the crops of course.’
`But where did the crops come from?’ `From the seeds.’
`So which came first, Mummy, the seed or the crops?
`Which came first, Mummy, the chicken or the egg?’
`If you don’t want that biscuit I’ll eat it for you!’
When children ask awkward questions, they are often told that they are too young to understand (which really means their parents don’t know). And somehow as they get older they become too inhibited to ask such unanswerable `childish’ questions as `Which came first?’ or `How did everything begin?’. Which is a pity, because these are among the most important questions in the world.
The seed carries the life of the new plant. But the plants produce the seeds. So how did the whole process start? Scientists still have no answer to that mystery. How did life begin? What (or Who?) made plants originally begin to grow, or animals, or people?
In our Harvest Festivals we celebrate the God who sustains the universe and sends the sunshine and the rain to make the crops grow so that we can enjoy an abundance of exciting varieties of foods. But the process of the harvest also raises ultimate questions about our very existence. At Harvest-time, we give thanks to God who created all life in the first place, including you and me.
And then, the process of Harvest itself is a parable with a deep spiritual meaning. For there is a principle at work at Harvest-time which is at once simple and profound. We can call it “the seed principle”. It was summarised in some words of Jesus which are often overlooked.
“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24)
Here is the principle which farmers and gardeners know well. It is only through the lifelessness and apparent death of the seed or the bulb through the winter that new life can come in the spring. We must sacrifice the grain this year if we want a crop next year. We see the same pattern in the butterfly, which emerges to new life only through the death of the caterpillar into the chrysalis. In so many ways the world of nature demonstrates this principle, “through death to life”. In it is revealed part of God’s pattern of working in His world and His design for our living too.
For Jesus, the seed principle was expressed in his self-sacrifice on the cross. It was only because of his death that his resurrection life can come to us also. For us the same principle reminds us of Jesus’s teaching that it is only by dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
We live in a world which devalues self-sacrifice and rewards selfishness, where success is measured by how much we can get and not by how much we give. Harvest-time embodies the seed principle, “through death to life”, and challenges us to live by it too.
Count your blessings. Remember other people less fortunate than we are. And listen to the spiritual messages Harvest brings – remember our Creator, remember the Poor, remember the Seed Principle and remember Jesus our Saviour!

Micah 6: He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Here in the prophet Micah we find a wonderful summary of what Christian living is all about. In weeks to come we are going to study the first and second parts of God’s command – to act justly and to love mercy. In particular we will be thinking about what it means to act justly in all kinds of practical issues, from international justice to social action, from debt relief to fair trade, and what it means to adopt an ethical lifestyle. But before we come to these practical outworkings of our Christian faith, we should not forget the context and the climax of the verse.
God calls us all to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Walking with God. That is the life Adam and Eve enjoyed in Eden before they rebelled against the only commandment God had given them. Genesis tells us that God is Almighty and eternal, beyond time and before time and outside time, That Creator God who is good and pure made everything from nothing and to begin with everything He created was good too; it was very good! God created human beings and placed them in Eden The word “Eden” means ’delight’ and ’pleasure’ and that is exactly what God intended for Mankind. In Eden, God provided Humankind with everything necessary for his happiness and well-being. Physically, he had abundant food and drink. For his heart, God gave man a companion so as not to be alone. For his spirit, God gave him purpose and responsibility of caring for creation and becoming a creator too. God also surrounded Man with beauty. And to satisfy their souls, the greatest privilege God gave to human beings created in God’s image was the ability and opportunity to walk and talk with His Maker, each day, like good friends.
Genesis 38 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”
God is a God of relationships. The whole purpose of creation was so that human beings could walk with God and have a relationship with God. God was walking in the garden. Enjoying the beauties of all He had created. But in the garden specifically because He wanted to walk with Adam and Eve – the crown of his creation. That was why human beings were created – to enjoy relationship with their Creator. How wonderful that must have been like! For Adam and Eve to walk in the Garden side by side with the Living God. To talk face to face with God. That was what God intended for human beings – and the Bible tells us about just a few since who have had that amazing experience.
Genesis 5:22 Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. ,,, 24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.(Genesis 6:9)
Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.
Enoch, Noah, Abraham walked with God. And of Moses it was said he TALKED with God, face to face.
Ex 33:10 10 Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshipped, each at the entrance to his tent. 11 The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.
Numbers 12:6 “When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. 7 But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house.8 With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD.
God walking and talking with human beings. That is why he created us, in his own image. If we want to know a bit about what God is like we can look at ourselves, as human beings created in God’s image. We are created for relationships. Relationships with the rest of Creation, relationships with the animals, relationships between man and wife created to complement each other, relationships with God.
Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD) wrote, “You awaken us to delight in your praise; for you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Human beings were designed to have a walking talking relationship with Almighty God. That was God’s purpose for his chosen and redeemed people Israel.
Leviticus 26:9 “ ‘I will look on you with favour and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. …11 I will put my dwelling-place among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.
God walking among human beings. He is our God – we are His people. That is what it means to be truly human. The Westminster Catechism reminds us that the Chief End of Man, our destiny as human beings is, “To Glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” God created us for a relationship with Himself. And the good news is that one day we will all enjoy that relationship. We will be even closer to God than Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. That is the wonderful promise we have received in Christ, the promise we heard about before Christmas in the Book of Revelation – that one day all of God’s people will see God face to face and walk with Him.
REVELATION 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Revelation 22:3 The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
This privilege of seeing God face to face and walking with Him is God’s gift to us through Jesus who came to share the relationship the Son of God has with the Father even with us. We thought about that last week when we heard the words Jesus spoke to Mary on the morning of His resurrection.
“I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17)
As we said last week, Jesus came to share with us the relationship He has with His Father. In the Gospels we find God referred to as Father with different frequency. 4 instances in Mark, 44 in Matthew, 15 in Luke, and 109 in John. An even more remarkable variation appears if one considers only the occurrences of the absolute form, “the Father”: once in Mark, twice in Matthew, three times in Luke, seventy-three times in John. It is almost always only Jesus who calls God Father or the Father or my Father. In John only Jesus is “the Son”. Yet Jesus comes to share with us that relationship He has with the Father.
John 17 20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me.
“just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us” “one as we are one: I in them and you in me.”
Knowing God as our Father and knowing that I am His child. Jim Packer wrote, “You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.”
–J.I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973/1993), 201-202
Knowing God as our Father. That is what eternal life is all about – knowing God and knowing Jesus – a relationship which not even death can take away! And we can enjoy that eternal life in all its fulness very simply. By walking humbly with our God.
But what does it mean? To walk humbly with our God?
Some commentators and preachers take the view that this phrase simply sums up what the first and second parts of the saying command. We will be walking with our God when we are acting justly and loving mercy. And it is certainly true that we cannot be walking with God if we are acting unjustly and neglecting mercy and lovingkindness. But I believe this third phrase is about more than simply obeying the commandments. I think walking with God includes much more than God pointing us on the right path. When Ruth and I go for a walk together we don’t just follow the same path. We enjoy being together and sharing the experience by talking together.
So “walking humbly with our God” will surely involve communication with God. And not just once a day and twice on Sundays but all the time. Turning to the Bible to listen to God speaking to us. And then praying any time, any place, anywhere, praying without ceasing. In the words of Brother Lawrence, Practising the Presence of God throughout the day. God does not just send us out by ourselves to act justly and love mercy. God invites us to walk in love with Him every step of the way.
There is a danger that Christians can be too busy getting on with living life to fit God in. We can even be too busy doing God’s work in the church or too busy reaching out to witness to the world to fit God in. Most Christians need to give much more of our attention to walking with God. I don’t have the exact quote but I remember hearing some challenging words from a letter written by the evangelist and preacher David Watson shortly before he died. He said something like this.
“I have loved the Lord’s work more than I have loved the Lord Himself.”
“I have loved the Lord’s people more than I have loved the Lord Himself.”
“I have loved the Lord’s word more than I have loved the Lord Himself.”

And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
I have quote before these words of the seventeenth- century Roman Catholic Frenchman Francois Fenelon.
“Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them, talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself and to others.
If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject… People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back, neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration they say just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved conversation with God.”

Familiar, unreserved conversation with God. That is “walking humbly with our God”.

MICAH 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

“In general we must hold that whenever any religious controversy arises, which either a council or ecclesiastical tribunal behooves to decide; whenever a minister is to be chosen; whenever, in short any matter of difficulty and great importance is under consideration: on the other hand, when manifestations of the divine anger appear, as pestilence, war, and famine, the sacred and salutary custom of all ages has been for pastors to exhort the people to public fasting and extraordinary prayer.”
(John Calvin, Institutes, IV, 12, 14)

What is fasting?
Fasting is deliberately abstaining from food for religious purposes. It is not dieting. A ‘normal’ fast involves continuing to drink water but not eating foods. An ‘absolute’ fast, neither eating nor drinking, is very rare in the Bible. For some Christians fasting means replacing normal meals with lighter foods or much smaller portions. For others it means missing meals altogether. Many spend the time which would have been used for preparing and eating the meal in prayer. Others continue with their usual activities using the pangs of hunger as prompts to prayer. Some medical conditions (e.g. diabetes) prevent such abstinence, but doctors generally agree that missing occasional meals can actually be beneficial to health.

Why fast?
Because our Lord Jesus Christ did! So also did Moses, David, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, Anna, Paul and many more. Committed Jews in Jesus’ time fasted twice a week and at the end of the First Century this was the common pattern in the Church too. Fasting has always been a part of Roman Catholic spirituality. Among great Protestants Luther and Calvin fasted. Wesley urged Methodists to fast every Wednesday and Friday, and wouldn’t ordain anyone to Ministry who didn’t fast twice a week! Many Christians in many denominations today testify to the great value of fasting. It has special value in helping us to hear God’s voice and discover His will, in the area of spiritual warfare, and as part of intercessory prayer.
Fasting in the Old Testament
Fasting was a spontaneous expression of strong feeling and emotion: a way of saying to God, ‘I really care about this.’ It is a simple act of sacrifice which shows God we really do care and we really mean business in prayer.
Fasting in preparation to meet with God or to consult God:
Then the Israelites, all the people, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the LORD. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the LORD. And the Israelites enquired of the LORD. (Judges 20:26-27)
Fasting to show sincere repentance. For example, the nation of Nineveh in Jonah 3:6-10, and also:
Then Samuel said, “Assemble all Israel at Mizpah and I will intercede with the LORD for you.” When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the LORD.” (1 Samuel 7:5-6)
Fasting accompanying prayer, especially intercession. See e.g. David in 2 Samuel 12:15-22, and also:
When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. (Nehemiah 1:4)

Fasting in the New Testament
Some people wrongly suggest that fasting is a part of Old Testament Law which does not apply to us as Christian. Quite the reverse. In the New Testament it was simply assumed that both Jews and Christians would fast. Jesus Himself fasted in the desert. One of the temptations was to break His fast.
In the Sermon on the Mount after the sections on the Lord’s prayer and on giving to the poor, Jesus teaches about fasting in parallel. Jesus clearly implies that all three will be a regular part of the life of a disciple: prayer, giving, fasting. Note that Jesus says ‘WHEN you fast’, not ‘IF you fast’!
When you fast, do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:16-18)
Jesus’s disciples did not fast while He was with them, but Jesus specifically taught them that one day, when He is not with them (i.e. NOW) his followers WILL fast (Matthew 9:14-15).
The early church often fasted, especially when they were praying about important matters, seeking guidance and commissioning.
In the church at Antioch …. While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. (Acts 13:1-3)

The benefits of fasting
Fasting in the Bible is not a commandment required for salvation but it is assumed that all disciples WILL fast from time to time as a helpful spiritual practice. Fasting must always be directed towards God and not to impress other people. in Celebration of Discipline Richard Foster comments
“Fasting must forever center on God. It must be God-initiated and God-ordained…Fasting reminds us that we are sustained by ‘every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ (Matthew 4:4) … Therefore, in experiences of fasting we are not so much abstaining from food as we are feasting on the word of God. Fasting is feasting!”
Fasting, like praying and giving, is a legitimate spiritual discipline to be practiced in private between a Christian and the Lord. How often we practice it is not prescribed, because that too is between the believer and Christ. When we desire to seek God’s face more than we want dinner, that will be the proper time to fast. Spending time in Prayer and Fasting will be a sacrificial physical and bodily expression of our commitment to worshipping and witnessing together. It will focus our thinking and praying, as well as offering an opportunity for those who do not already practise fasting to discover the value of this helpful spiritual discipline.
Normally fasting involves not eating but still drinking water. It is not helpful to have a large meal as the last meal before the fast, or to over-eat to make up afterwards. For those unaccustomed to hunger, frequently sipping water or fruit juice can be very helpful. Unless there are medical reasons why you should not, as part of our Week of Prayer and Fasting you may care to join in one of the following:
Day-time fasting
From breakfast to tea-time, missing out lunch and snacks during that day and only drinking water.
A 24 hour fast
From tea-time to tea-time, missing or reducing the size of breakfast and lunch on that day .
A 36 hour fast
from tea-time to breakfast, missing or reducing the size of all meals on one day.
Jim Packer wrote, “In Scripture we see several purposes for fasting. It’s a way of sharing that we depend on God alone and draw all our strength and resources from him; it’s a way of focusing totally on him when seeking his guidance and help, and of showing that you really are in earnest in your quest; it’s also, at times, an expression of sorrow and deep repentance, something that a person or community will do in order to acknowledge failure before God and seek his mercy.”
Packer continues, “We tend to think of fasting as going without food. But we can fast from anything. If we love music and decide to miss a concert in order to spend time with God, that is fasting. It is helpful to think of the parallel of human friendship. When friends need to be together, they will cancel all other activities in order to make that possible. There’s nothing magical about fasting. It’s just one way of telling God that your priority at that moment is to be alone with him, sorting out whatever is necessary, and you have canceled the meal, party, concert, or whatever else you had planned to do in order to fulfill that priority.”

W.I.I.F.M. ?

Yahoo search gives 268,000 sites using that acronym, that group of initials!

W.I.I.F.M.

Do a search for the phrase it represents and you find more than two and a half MILLION web pages with that exact phrase! It is a phrase which is so popular because it is at the heart of modern sales and marketing techniques. WIIFM.

What’s in if for me? What is the benefit to me for taking the action you suggest? In marketing, “This is a fundamental element of persuasion and influence. When you can communicate a “benefit” to the target that is of more interest than his/her current situation then action/movement in the desired direction will result.”

“What’s in it for me?” Marketing is a strategy that is user centered. It is all about YOU, the most important element of the marketing plan. Satisfy the end user. Give the end-user and experience that they enjoy and they will tell others about that unique experience, therefore leveraging the most elusive form of marketing, “word of mouth”.
Get people to start a conversation about you…you want them to be asking you, “What’s in it for me?”
“One thing I think a lot of us think when we stumble upon something in life is: what’s in it for me? Not because we are extremely selfish. But we spend all day, every day in our bodies and our lives. So I think it’s pretty natural that you think about your own life, problems and challenges a bit more than you think about other people or things. … So what’s in it for me?”

Erwin W. Lutzer wrote this.
Whenever we are faced with a crucial decision, our generation has been taught to ask, What’s in it for me? Will it give me pleasure? Profit? Security? Fulfillment? We are not necessarily opposed to God; we just fit him in wherever he is able to help us. The idea that our wills should be subjected to his control, even when our personal ambitions are at stake, is not easy to accept. We can assent mentally to God’s control, but in practice, we might still spend our lives pleasing ourselves.
The truth is that there are many questions as Christians we should continually ask in life – but “what’s in it for me?” is not one of them!

I started thinking about this topic a few years ago while we were enjoying a very special holiday in America. Two experiences really struck me. The first was visiting a pretty typical American Christian book shop. The second was watching bits of the different channels of “God TV”.

The Christian Book Shop was big. Getting on for the size of Marks and Spencers in Brentwood. Of course it wasn’t all books! Maybe two thirds of the shop was what I am told in the trade is called “holy hardware”. Everything from artwork to clothing – some very interesting ties which I decided I would never dare to wear, and even some very holy socks. All kinds of decorations and trinkets, including most inspiringly a pleasingly large section dedicated to gifts you might want to give your pastor. There was a huge section of Christian music and also another of Christian teaching DVDs to buy and a vast choice of different Bibles – well hopefully the same Bible but in a bewildering variety of translations and bindings. And then there were the books.

What depressed me among the books were the limited range of authors and titles given the size of the shop. But more than that. There were small sections for Bible Study and Theology and serious thinking. But there were much larger sections on Self Improvement. 101 ways to make my life better. In the American consumer culture I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was disappointed at just how many books they were selling to Christians to answer the basic questions, “How can I be a successful Christian?” “How can I be a more happy Christian?” “What can I get out of being a Christian?” “What’s in it for me?”

It is depressing to see that it is exactly those authors whose books clog up the tiny religion sections of bookshops like Smiths and Waterstones in this country. Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen among others. Not the excellent British Christian authors like Tom Wright or John Stott or even Nicky Gumbel, but American celebrity authors whose books are bestsellers because they pander to that desire to find out “what’s in it for me?”

Then in America I was much less surprised but equally disappointed to see that the same question was at the heart of all the “God TV” programmes I watched bits of. Some of these were national broadcasts, some just local to the county we were in from the Baptist Church just down the road. But time and again the theme was the same. “How can I get God to answer my prayers?” “What can I do to get God to bless me?” What’s in it for me?
Most disappointing. I was not surprised that finding the answers very often involved sending a totally freewill gift to the evangelist or pastor or church.

I know we live in a consumer culture with its twin pillars of personal choice and satisfaction guaranteed. I know we are moving into a postmodern culture where the unholy trinity of “Me, myself and I” reign supreme. But I had hoped for better in the United States where one third of the population are evangelical Christians. I had hoped for better in the deep south Bible belt. But in the end the “public face” of American Christianity in its television and its books seemed to me just as obsessed as the world around is with the fundamental question, “What’s in it for me?”

All this self-obsession seems totally opposite to the life Jesus calls his disciples to live. It seems totally opposite to the attitude the apostle Paul had as he explained it in his farewell address to the Elders of the Church at Ephesus in Acts 20.

19 I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews. 20 You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house.
22 “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. 23 I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. 24 However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.

What’s in it for me? For Paul it was the plots of the Jews severely testing him. An exhausting programme of teaching in public and in private. Prison and hardships waiting in Jerusalem which would certainly end in death. Paul goes on,

Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears….. 33 I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. 34 You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. 35 In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

It is more blessed to give than to receive. The ninth beatitude – the words of Jesus Himself! Throughout Scripture Jesus puts the primary focus on the joy of giving, not on the return. He offers us the supreme example of what it means to give: He gave His life for us–knowing there was nothing we could give Him in return. God wants us to express His heart. That means we won’t be asking all the time, “What’s in it for me?” We won’t be asking, “What can I get?” but “What can I give?”

It is more blessed to give than to receive. Mt 10:8 Freely you have received, freely give.

We live in a world that is shaped by getting. A world enslaved to consumerism and ruled by greed. If we want to break free from the chains of materialism, we need prayer and generous, sacrificial giving. We need to learn how to give freely as we have freely received.
Richard J. Foster, Money, Sex & Power: “Giving with glad and generous hearts has a way of routing out the tough old miser within us. Even the poor need to know that they can give. Just the very act of letting go of money, or some other treasure, does something within us. It destroys the demon greed.”

Lu 14:12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbours; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta
“God loves a cheerful giver. He who gives cheerfully, gives better. … We impatiently await God’s paradise, but we have in our hands the power to be in paradise right here and now. Being happy with God means this: to love as He loves, to help as He helps, to give as He gives, to serve as He serves.”

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Sadly there is a way in which this truth is distorted by some Christian teachers. They teach that we should give to God so that God will give to us in return. “What’s in it for me?” They teach that the more you give to God the more God will bless you. This wrong idea is at the heart of what may prove to be the greatest danger to the Christian faith in the world today. Because the fastest growing religion in the continent of Africa is not Islam. But nor is it Christianity. The fastest growing religion in Africa is a variation of Pentecostalism which is as dangerous as it is unbiblical. It is what is known as the “prosperity gospel.” It is the mistaken and wrong teaching that if you are a Christian God will always give you health, wealth and success, just as long as you have enough faith. The prosperity gospel. Visiting Tanzania this summer we saw again so many cars in Africa, just like in America, displaying bumper stickers like “Unstoppable Achiever,” “With Jesus I Will Always Win,” and “Your Success Is Determined by Your Faith,” Distressing! There were an impressive number of Christian books in the bookshop at Nairobi airport – but they were all by these health wealth and prosperity authors. Health, wealth and success – the prosperity gospel. Spreading like wildfire all over Africa and now gaining in popularity even in England. You will have heard some of their slogans. “Say it; do it; receive it; tell it.” “Name it and claim it” “Healing in the atonement”. “You believe you receive”. “What I confess, I possess” . Pat Roberston’s “Law of reciprocity” – you give to God and he’ll give back to you”, and Benny Hinn. It worries me that if you don’t know what I am talking about you will hear this kind of teaching on Premier Christian Radio, “Name it and claim it!”

This is not the true gospel! The blessings being promised are NOT the blessings God promises to Christian believers? Very often the prosperity gospel takes Old Testament promises about the material blessings which the nation of Israel was going to enjoy in the promised land, and applies those promises out of context to the lives of individual Christians. But worse than that, promises of health wealth and success encourage people to come to God for what they get from him – to seek the gifts instead of the Giver. When the blessings don’t come as the evangelist has promised, many folk then fall away from faith, or just as bad, are overwhelmed by guilt that they have “failed” to have enough faith.

Christians are meant follow Jesus Christ. Our Lord’s life was not filled with happiness and success but rather with suffering
4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Here is our pattern for Christian living. The sacrifice of the cross. There is no space here for asking, “what’s in it for me?”

And remember the experience of the Apostle Paul, and indeed of the apostles who were martyred for testifying about Jesus and preaching the Good News of the Resurrection.
2 Corinthians 11 23 I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27 I have laboured and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.

That is what it cost the Apostle Paul to follow Jesus. Not a life obsessed with the question, “What’s in it for me?” That’s not a question Esther asked when she went as a missionary to rural Zambia more than 40 years ago. That is not a question missionaries ask when they answer God’s call to serve overseas. It is not a question you ask when a person answers the call to train to become a minister, or throws themselves into Christian service as full-time youth workers or evangelists. When any of us gives our lives over to God, we give up any right to ask, “What’s in it for me?” We can only trust God and say, “Your will be done”.

What’s in it for me?” That’s irrelevant. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

This is why harvest time is so important. It teaches us to be grateful for all the good things God gives us so richly to enjoy. And this is why Communion is important. Every time we break the bread and share the cup, it reminds us of everything that Christ gave up for us. Jesus never asked, “what’s in it for me?” Instead He taught us all, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

PRAYER:- Prayer of Richard of Chichester:

Lord give us the grace to serve you as you deserve
To give and not to count the cost
To toil and not to seek for rest
To fight and not to heed the wounds
To labour and not to ask for any reward
Except that of knowing that we are doing your will.

2 Corinthians 9:7 says this. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
So how can we become cheerful givers? To begin with we need to recognise one important truth.
EVERYTHING WE HAVE BELONGS TO GOD
Psalm 24 1 The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; 2 for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.
“The Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” Everything that exists belongs to God. Because He made it! He made everything and He made human beings. We belong to God. And absolutely everything which we say belongs to us actually belongs to God.
Everything we have belongs to God because He created it. And that is true for every human being on the earth. But as Christians God has another claim on our lives. Not only did He create us but He has also redeemed us through Jesus Christ. Out of the generosity of His amazing grace, God has forgiven our sins and given us a brand new life. Eternal life which not even death can take away from us. God has saved Christians and made us to be his children. So God has this double claim on our lives and on all our possessions – not only as Creator but also as Saviour!
Everything we have comes from God. God has an absolute right to decide what we should do with anything and everything which we say belongs to us but in fact belongs to God. And this transforms our giving. There is a prayer I often use to dedicate our offerings.
Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Everything we have comes from you,
And of your own do we give you.
In other words, whenever we give anything to God we are only giving back to Him things he gave us in the first place. We are only giving back to God things which belong to Him anyway.
We may think we own a house. But in reality God owns the house and lets us live in it. We may think we own a car. But the truth is that God owns the car and He just lets us drive it. All our money, all our possessions, belong to God. He entrusts them into our care to look after and to use and to enjoy. But if God wants us to give any of these possessions back to Him, that is His right. And if God wants us to give any of these possessions away to somebody else, then it is God’s right to tell us to do so.
Jesus told a number of parables to remind people that there is more to life than money and possessions and that ultimately everything that we have comes from God.
Luke 12 …. “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
Everything we have comes from God. God gives. And God takes away. That is a lesson we all need to learn. Hopefully we do not have to go through dreadful experiences of losing everything to recognise that truth. Hopefully we can learn from the experiences of others. Job was very successful and very rich. But God allowed the devil to take absolutely everything he had away from Job. As an example for us all, Job did not blame God. Instead he responded with these words.
Job 1:21 ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.’
Sometimes we only give grudgingly or reluctantly. The first step in becoming a joyful giver is to recognise that everything we have belongs to God anyway. So we aren’t giving away anything which is ours to keep. We are just giving back to God what we have been borrowing from Him all along. All things come from you and of your own do we give you. Then there is another truth which will help us to become joyful givers.
ALL OUR GIVING IS GIVING TO GOD
To show you what I mean, let’s think about our giving to the church. Running the church costs money. The building needs maintaining. The gas and electricity and water bills need paying. You kindly and generously choose to spend money supporting your minister. The activities we run cost money. And some of the money we give is just passed on directly to other very worthwhile causes like Baptist Home Mission and Baptist World Mission.
But it is important to recognise that when we give money to support the church, that is actually giving money to God. God gave us the money in the first place and we are simply handing it on where He directs us, so that God’s work can be done and His Kingdom come. So the question to ask should not be, how much does the church need? Rather we should be asking, how much does God want us to give? Can you see the difference? Not – how much does the church need? But – how much does God want me to give? Because we are not so much giving to the church as we are giving to God.
That is why for our Thankoffering today we are not talking about how much extra giving the church will need to balance our books this year. We are not talking about building projects, although we continue to prayerfully consider ways to improve the toilet facilities and the kitchen here. The focus of our giving is on God Himself. We are giving to God. All our giving is giving to God!
The same principle applies to other good causes we support. They might be Christian works like CHESS or Food Bank or some specific missionaries we are linked with. They might be other worthy causes like charity appeals following all kinds of disasters or wars, or towards research to cure illnesses, or long-term development projects. In everything we give, we should not just be responding to the needs of the good cause we are giving to support. We should be focusing on God and giving to God. There is a danger that how much we give or which good causes we give to is swayed by emotional appeals for particular needs. But instead of that, for Christians, what we really need to think and pray about is which good causes God wants us to give to. Because ultimately all our giving is giving to God.
And the reason we give to God is out of gratitude for all He has given us. The Old Testament gives us some guidelines about giving to God. How much should we give? The simple principle is that we should give in proportion to what we have received.
Deut 16:10, 16-17 10 Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the LORD your God has given you. ….
16 Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed: 17 Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.
Giving in proportion to the blessings God has given us is a very important and helpful principle. It encourages us to consider just how much God actually has given us. “Count your blessings, name them one by one.” The more grateful we are, the more we will express that gratitude in giving to God. And God has blessed each one of us in SO MANY ways. We can start by listing the material blessings we enjoy but so easily take for granted. Our food. Our clothing. Our warm and comfortable homes. All the luxuries of life we enjoy while millions are dying without the necessities. We sometimes forget that these things only come to us as gifts of God’s grace. God is Creator AND Sustainer of the world Without the continuing activity of Almighty God, upholding His creation in love, we would all instantly cease to exist.
1 Timothy 6:17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. NIV
God gives us so many material blessings, so many good things so richly to enjoy, but on top of all that, so many spiritual blessings as well. God is our Saviour. He has bought us back to Himself at the cost of His only Son Jesus Christ. The first chapter of Ephesians gives us a catalogue of so many blessings we should be grateful for.
We have received EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING EPH 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
We have been ADOPTED AS GOD’S CHILDREN In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
God has REDEEMED us – He has BOUGHT US BACK 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. RICHES of GOD’s GRACE LAVISHED on us!
All these blessings are guaranteed by the HOLY SPIRIT Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
What a wonderful inheritance! So many blessings now, and the certainty that this is only a foretaste, the appetiser of all the blessings waiting for us in heaven!
God has done so much for us! And God continues to do so much for us! But if we don’t make an effort to show God how grateful we are, we can end up taking His love and grace for granted. How can we show our love and appreciation and gratitude for all God’s blessings? If we really understand how much God loves us, we will want to show our love for him! And one way of showing how grateful we are to God is by what we give back to Him. As Jesus said, “Freely you have received, freely give.” We give to the church and to Christian work because that helps us to remember just how much God has done for us!
So how much we give is not a response to the needs of the church or the good causes. How much we give is a response to how much God has blessed us. How much we are grateful to God!
The prophet Malachi gives a solemn warning to those who are stingy in their giving. To people who are not grateful to God and hold back what God wants them to give,
MALACHI 3 6 “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me.

So Malachi is saying that people who do not give what they should to God are actually robbing God of what He is worthy of and what He is entitled too and what is rightfully his. God will withdraw his blessing from those who do not give as generously as they should. But then comes a wonderful promise for those who do honour God in their offerings.

10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the LORD Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.
So if we hold back in our offerings we can lose God’s blessing. But if we do honour God in our offerings his blessings will be overflowing!
And this brings us to the heart of the matter.
GOD LOVES A CHEERFUL GIVER
When we stop to think about all that God has done for us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, we will want to give cheerfully and generously. When we really appreciate all the good things God has given us so richly to enjoy we will be truly thankful and that will make us into cheerful givers.
2 Corinthians 9 talks about a collection which Paul is taking up to relieve the poverty of the church in Jerusalem. He is urging the Corinthian Christians to have their offering ready when he arrives. But will you notice, he doesn’t say anything at all about the sufferings of the Jerusalem Christians, although they were starving. The focus is not on the good cause. The focus is entirely on God. And all of their giving is an expression of thanksgiving to God Himself. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
There is another important principle which Paul wants the Corinthians to remember.
6 Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
This is not some health wealth and prosperity gospel. Paul is not suggesting that the way to be successful is to give generously. But he is reminding us that we should not expect God to bless us if we are too selfish to bless other people. And on the other hand, God will always give us what we need to do His will. Not necessarily everything we might want, but certainly what we will need! God will bless us – but nor for our own benefit but he will bless us to enable us to be generous to others.

8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written:
‘They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures for ever.’

It is good to be generous. Especially to give generously to meet the needs of the poor. Everything we have comes from God. It is God who gives us what we need to enable us not to be selfish but to be generous.
10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
Everything we have comes from God. Everything we have belongs to God. And all our giving is giving to God. So for our ThankOffering Gift Day today.
7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

The General Election two years ago produced a result which surprised everybody. When the pollsters were predicting a very tight election and quite possibly a minority or coalition government, the clear victory for the Conservative Party was unexpected. Then last year the outcome of the vote on Britain’s membership of the European Union came as a great surprise, particularly to the people who had argued in favour of Brexit. For many months the new Prime Minister Theresa May promised that there would be no General Election until 2020. But now, here we are. In ten days the country will once again be choosing our next government. Here in Chelmsford things are particularly exciting because we are certain to have our first new Member of Parliament for 30 years as Sir Simon Burns will not be contesting the seat.
This time the pollsters and most commentators agree on what they predict the national outcome is likely to be. Most people are expecting the Conservative Party to increase its majority. But then over the last few years in Britain, and in America and across Europe, the polls and the pundits have been more wrong than right. So who knows?
Should Christians vote Labour, conservative, Liberal democrat, UKIP, Green, Monster Raving Loony party? It’s no surprise that the Bible gives us no specific answer to that question. Modern-style democracy had not been invented in the time of Moses or of Jesus. I believe there are at least two things we should have in mind as we consider who we should vote for – the people and the policies. Let’s begin by thinking about the PEOPLE. The Bible does not talk at all about political parties but it does have a lot to say about RULERS.
Specifically it tells us that there are marks of character which rulers need.
In the history of Israel their first King Saul had been a disaster and God had rejected him So God sent the prophet Samuel to anoint a new King. And we know the story of how the visit unfolded as Samuel was introduced one by one to the sons of Jesse.
1 Samuel 16 6 When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.”
7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
God looks at the heart. We may choose our politicians by all sorts of criteria. Appearance. Accent. Background. Education. Experience. But God does not look at the things man looks at. God looks at the heart, at personality and at character. So what should we be looking for in our politicians – those elected to represent us?

A SERVANT HEART
The mother of James and John asked Jesus to promise that they would sit in the top positions at his right and left hand in glory. Jesus said to all the disciples,
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Our leaders are called “Public servants”. They are elected to serve us, the people, not their own interests. God looks at the heart! Who are these people actually serving?

WISDOM
God appeared to King Solomon in a dream, and Solomon asked God.
1 Kings 3: 9 … give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.
10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.
Our leaders need wisdom. Not necessarily great intelligence, although that would be an asset. But the wisdom to choose the right priorities, see the bigger pictures, and make the right decisions.
The Book of Proverbs says this,
Proverbs 8:12 “I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence; I possess knowledge and discretion. … 14 Counsel and sound judgment are mine; I have understanding and power
15 By me kings reign and rulers make laws that are just;
16 by me princes govern, and all nobles who rule on earth.
God looks at the heart – who amongst our politicians is truly wise? More than in any election I can remember, this time lots of attention is being given to the Leaders of the main parties. As we consider those individuals we need to think about their character. Are they honest? Can we trust them? Are they wise? Do they have a servant heart?
We think about the PEOPLE. But then we will also want to consider the POLICIES advocated by the different political parties and the individual candidates. How will the stated policies of the different parties influence who we vote for? All the major parties have some candidates who are openly Christian believers. So we should recognise that it is possible for Christians to vote with integrity for any of the major parties. There are some very helpful online articles posted by Christians who are supporting each of the main parties. I’ve put the web address of the blog on our Notice Sheet and I’ve printed a few copies of those articles in case you don’t use the internet. None of the parties or the candidates takes an explicitly Christian stand. Each party takes what we might possibly agree is “the Christian line” on some of the issues and directly opposes the Christian line on other issues. So at best we could end up trying to balance which issues are the most important for our vote.
A quote from an article on the BBC News website sums up how many people actually feel about politics and elections. A voter in Australia said she feels “powerless” and frustrated at having to choose “usually between a number of highly incompetent morons. You’re forced to weigh up who is the lesser evil in the grand scheme of things,” she says. “Bearing in mind that election promises are often broken and you can totally be wrong with what you thought was that lesser evil.” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39784404)
Some good points there. It was the possibly the most popular politician ever, Jim Hacker M.P. in “Yes Minister”, who said that manifesto promises don’t count anyway – everybody knows that nobody actually intends to keep them. But we should still pay close attention to these policies and manifesto promises.
I believe the Bible gives us important Christian principles which we can apply to discover God’s will about any specific issues, and we will want to see for ourselves how the politicians match up to God’s standards in these and other areas. Here are two principles which the Bible makes clear that God very much cares about.

The principle of JUSTICE – FAIRNESS
God is a God of Justice. The God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the holy and righteous God. He cares passionately about justice. God cares that people treat each other fairly.
(The LORD) is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. (Deuteronomy 32:3-4)
The LORD reigns for ever; he has established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice. The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. (Psalm 9:7-9)
God is a God of justice. And God expects his people to care about justice too. Christians have always been at the forefront of the battles for social justice. Abolishing slavery. Racial justice. Gender equality. Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults. God says in Amos 5:24 let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!
God demands fairness. And God demands that leaders of nations work for true justice.
Proverbs 282 When a country is rebellious, it has many rulers, but a man of understanding and knowledge maintains order.
3 A ruler who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain that leaves no crops.
4 Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law resist them.
5 Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it fully.
God looks at the heart – do our politicians truly work for justice?

The principle of COMPASSION – CARE FOR THE POOR AND NEEDY –
Let us remember just how much God cares about the poor and marginalized. I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy. (Psalm 140:12)

As well as caring for justice for all men and women and children, God has a particular interest in specific groups of people. There is a triad which we find mentioned no less than 18 times in the Old Testament, “the alien, the fatherless and the widow”

For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)
Aliens. Outsiders. People who don’t belong. People who don’t quite fit in. These are the kinds of people God really cares about. It was Bishop of Liverpool David Sheppard who in his book in 1983 drew the attention of the churches to God’s “Bias to the poor”. We find this principle throughout the Old Testament and especially also in Luke’s Gospel. God has a special care for the poor and the marginalised and the oppressed. Remember the words of the Magnificat, which may Christians use in their worship every week.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:52-53)
Remember God’s blessings promised to the poor and the woes on those who are rich and well fed in the Sermon on the Plain in Luke chapter 6. God still calls his people to show the same care He does for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, the outsiders, the refugees, anybody marginalised by society.
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter. (Isaiah 53:6-7)
God cares for the poor and needy and he expects the leaders of nations to show that same compassion for the weak and defenceless in the community. Too many politicians are only concerned with what they can achieve for their supporters, for their kinds of people. In recent years it is true that the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer. God looks at the heart – how much do our politicians really care about ALL sectors of society – the aliens, the fatherless, the widows? God looks for compassion!
Isaiah 10 Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

Two general principles – justice and compassion. Then there are specific issues to think about. Here is my list of ten areas of policy which Christians ought to be concerned about, although of course there are others as well. Which of these are the most important when we are considering who to vote for in June? Which should be our priority? Are any of them “deal-breakers”? So important that we would not vote for a party which took a position in opposition to our understanding of that issue? Here are my ten topics, in no particular order.
1. The economy – Pensions, taxation, council tax, tackling poverty and especially child poverty, Universal Credit and the Impact on those on benefits and particularly the Personal Independence Payments.
2. Education – the squeeze on school budgets, the false god of choice and the issue of selective schools. And this time, the issue of Student Grants.
3. Europe – how we structure trade and border arrangements with the European Union and the rest of the world in the light of Brexit.
4. Also in the light of Brexit, issues of Migration, Immigration and asylum,
5. Ethical issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia.
6. Health issues, The future of the National Health Service with its continuing underfunding.
7. Housing and affordable housing, development in South-East, Transport, The Environment.
8. International development, International security and threat of terrorism,
9. Criminal justice. Racial justice, equality.
10. Secularisation and the marginalisation of Christians and other Faith Communities.
So many issues. So many questions – so many different answers from the different political parties and candidates. Which matter most to us and to our families? Which matter most to God?
I want to finish on one more issue of voting which is particularly relevant to our situation in Chelmsford where one party has historically had a massive majority and last time gained more votes than all the other parties put together. In order to keep out a party they don’t want, some people choose to vote for the party which polls tell them stands the best chance of defeating that party which they really, really don’t want. This is called “tactical voting.” Is it morally right to cast your precious vote for a candidate or party you don’t actually support, in the hope that by electing them you will keep out a party you like even less? Tactical voting is also called strategic voting, or, interestingly, “insincere voting”, because the voter is “supporting another candidate more strongly than his or her sincere preference, in order to prevent an undesirable outcome.”
What’s wrong with that, you may ask, as long as the party I really don’t want doesn’t get elected? Well, firstly, obviously, to cast a tactical vote you may end up needing to support a party which has policies you don’t actually believe in, or even think are wrong. Two consequences of that are that afterwards that party you voted for may claim that they have significantly more support nationally than they actually do. And they may equally claim that the policies they promoted are more popular than actually they are. Tactical voting may well not succeed in keeping out the party you don’t want out anyway. But looking beyond the election, tactical voting may also give the analysts wrong impressions about support for parties or policies. That may not be such a good thing. So, should Christians consider voting tactically? I don’t know the answer to that – but I think it’s a good question which not many people are asking.
God looks at the heart. He looks for a servant heart. He looks for wisdom. And when it comes to specific policies, God looks for justice and He looks for compassion. So who do we vote for? That your responsibility to decide. We all need to find out for ourselves what the candidates and the different parties think and believe from what they have written or said about themselves. When we vote let us bear in mind – God looks at the heart!

We come this morning to the Eighth and Ninth of the ten commandments: Exodus 20:15-16 “You shall not steal.” “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.”
These two belong together under the one heading of honesty – no lying, no stealing.
Stealing is dishonesty in our dealings with property. Lying is dishonesty in our use of words. God expects Christians to be scrupulously honest both in the things that we do and in the things that we say. It’s all about integrity. No stealing. No lying.

One day in London a vicar noticed a group of boys standing around a small stray dog. “What are you doing, boys?” He asked.
“Telling lies,” said one of the boys. “The one who tells the biggest lie gets to keep the dog.”
The vicar was shocked. “Why, when I was your age,” he said, “I never ever thought of telling a lie.”
The boys looked at one another, and their faces fell. Finally one of them shrugged and said,
“I guess he wins the dog.”

There was a time when vicars and ministers were known for their honesty and integrity. Indeed there have been periods in history when Christians, more than any other groups of people, have enjoyed a reputation for honesty, for always telling the truth and never lying or stealing. And so it should be. Because our God cares about honesty and dishonesty and truth and falsehood and God does not like lying or stealing. No lying. No stealing. The words TRUTH and TRUE appear more than 500 times in the Bible!!! And the Bible speaks more than 150 time about honesty & dishonesty and being honest.

There is a relatively new word which I can remember from when it entered our language in 1982 back when I was teaching people about computers. The word is WYSIWYG and it stands for “what you see is what you get.” In computing it means that what you see on your computer screen is exactly what will appear on your printer. But you can apply that word to people as well. WYSIWYG people are those rare individuals who are exactly what they appear to be, no more and no less. They are completely open and honest without a trace of deception. What you see is what you get. GOD wants us to be WYSIWYG Christians.

Or, to use a different word, God calls us to be TRANSPARENT CHRISTIANS, transparent people, transparently honest, with nothing hidden, nothing concealed, no trace of deceit or dishonesty. No stealing. No lying. Transparent Christians.

We start by reminding ourselves that Our lives are TRANSPARENT TO GOD

God sent the prophet Samuel to anoint the next king of Israel from among the sons of Jesse. Samuel thought he knew how to recognise God’s chosen one, but God had other ideas.
1 Samuel 16:6 When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the LORD’s anointed stands here before the LORD.” 7 But the LORD said to Samuel, `Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

God knows us inside out. God looks into our innermost thoughts. God looks at the heart!
Psalm 139:1 ¶ Lord, you have examined me and you know me. 2 You know everything I do; from far away you understand all my thoughts. 3 You see me, whether I am working or resting; you know all my actions. 4 Even before I speak, you already know what I will say. GNB

So there is no point in deceit – we can’t deceive God. You can fool some of the people all of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool God any of the time, not ever. What a man is on his knees before God is exactly what he is – no more, no less.

Ps 51:6 Sincerity and truth are what you require; fill my mind with your wisdom. (GNB)

God demands truth and sincerity. The word sincere comes from two Latin words – sine and cera, meaning “without wax.” Years ago, a potter would often put his stamp on a pot or vase with the words sine cera. This meant that to his knowledge there was no flaw in that work. If a potter had cracked the vessel, he would carefully patch the flawed vase or bowl or statuette by filling in the crack with wax. Then he would glaze it over and sell it at a much lower price. But only flawless pieces of pottery would be given the stamp, sine cera, “without wax,” and they would be worth much more because of that.

God is transforming Christians to be sincere, without hidden flaws, no imperfections, no pretending to be what we are not, no putting on a show. We can’t hide anything from God! And God demands that we present the same face to the whole world that we present to Him. God wants us to be, in front of our friends and family, God wants us to be in front of our neighbours and work colleagues, the same people that we are on our knees before Him. WYSIWYG people. Transparent people.

JESUS TAKE ME AS I AM, I can come no other way.
Take me deeper into You, Make my flesh life melt away.
Make me like a precious stone, Crystal clear and finely honed,
Life of Jesus shining through, Giving glory back to You.

The life of Jesus can only shine through us when we are entirely honest and open and sincere. If there is any pretence, any concealment, above all any dishonesty, then the people around us won’t be able to see Jesus in his glory – only us and all our imperfections.

So our lives must be TRANSPARENT TO THE WORLD

Back in May in our evening services we had a series of discussions on everyday Christian living and the first of those was entitled “Integrity: white lies and speed limits.” We thought about whether it is every acceptable for Christians to tell a lie. Ephesians 4:15 commands us to speak the truth in love. There may be occasions when it may seem that love constrains us to tell a “white lie”, to bend the truth, or conceal the truth, because speaking the truth might lead to great harm. The classic question in the Second World War, from the book The Hiding Place where a Nazi soldier asked Corrie Ten Boom, went something like this. “Do you have a secret room where you are hiding the Jews we want to arrest?” We considered that in such extreme circumstances it could be justified to tell a lie in order to save an innocent person’s life. But in our lives, that would be a very rare exception. If a Christian ever finds himself or herself speaking words which are not true, we will always do so with deep regret, recognising that the lesser evil of a lie to prevent a greater evil or hurt is nevertheless a lie! In every normal situation, Christians will always want to tell the truth. No lying.

In everyday life there are many embarrassing questions. The child who asks, “do you like this picture I have drawn?” or the wife who wants to know, “do you like my new dress / new hairdo?” Or what about the classic Christmas question – “how did you like the present I gave you?” “Oh yes, that orange tie with pink spots, most … tasteful”. In such situations it is so tempting to and so easy to give a little white lie. But there is a slippery slope there. We should remember that VERY few occasions are really a matter of life and death. In every normal situation Christians will want to tell the truth. No lying.

I came across a revealing phrase. “A certain politician didn’t lie, he just stretched the truth until the elastic snapped!” We should remember that every time we bend the truth or are economical with the truth, even if we are doing so out of love or with the best of motives, we are going against the letter and the spirit of Scripture. Do not bear false witness. No lying!

Matthew 5:33 “You have also heard that people were told in the past, `Do not break your promise, but do what you have vowed to the Lord to do.’ 34 But now I tell you: do not use any vow when you make a promise. Do not swear by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 nor by earth, for it is the resting place for his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 Do not even swear by your head, because you cannot make a single hair white or black. 37 Simply let your `Yes’ be `Yes’, and your `No’, `No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Jesus challenges us to be known as people who can be trusted in everything we say, and equally in everything we do. To be known and to stand out in society as “truth-tellers.” Too often people will tell lies to get out of trouble, or to impress other people, without giving their lies a second thought. And Christians can so easily and so often fall into this trap as well. But we should NOT slip into telling lies (not even little ones, not even so-called little white lies) just to get ourselves of difficult situations.

“What harm will just one little white lie do?” we think to ourselves. Somebody once asked the great ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle what could a man gain by telling a lie? Aristotle replied, “Never to be trusted when he speaks the truth.”

If people can’t trust what we say is true in day-to-day life, why should they trust us when we claim to know the truth which can sets them free? Why should they believe the gospel we proclaim if they can’t believe other things we tell them because they know we have lied to them? Christians really need to be known as trustworthy and honest people.

We live in a world which considers honesty and integrity less important than popularity and success. Truth has become a very elastic thing. There is a famous quote ascribed both to Groucho Marx and to Sam Goldwyn, although in the interests of accuracy I have to reveal that nobody actually knows who it was who first said it. The quote goes,
“The most important thing is honesty. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” That is the way the world thinks, certainly salesmen and politicians. But God thinks differently. The eighth and ninth commandments are very clear. No stealing No lying. Sadly, very many people only care about the unwritten 11th commandment, “Thou shalt not get caught!”
For Christians, our honesty should be transparent in our everyday lives. This should show in our attitudes to work and our attitudes to money. No stealing. Our honesty will be evident when we don’t use the office phone for personal calls if there isn’t a procedure for paying for personal calls, even if everybody else is doing that! Our honesty will show itself in our Tax returns. I heard about a letter one man sent to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

“Dear Inland Revenue
Enclosed you will find a check for £150. I cheated on my income tax return last year. But now I have become a Christian I have not been able to sleep ever since. If I still have trouble sleeping I will send you the rest.
Sincerely, A Tax Payer”

No stealing. No lying. As Christians, our lives should be shining examples of honesty and integrity and trustworthiness. Transparent Christians. WYSIWYG Christians.

Chuck Swindoll wrote, “Honesty has a beautiful and refreshing simplicity about it. No ulterior motives. No hidden meanings. An absence of hypocrisy, duplicity, political games, and verbal superficiality. As honesty and real integrity characterize our lives, there will be no need to manipulate others.”

Part of this integrity is doing what you said you would do. It means keeping your promises. It means faithfulness to marriage promises. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. The seventh commandment is just the application of the eighth and ninth commandments to marriage. In the same way, integrity means keeping the promises we make to children and friends and church.

And another important part of being honest and trustworthy is keeping confidences. When somebody tells us some piece of information, then unless they specifically tell us we can pass it on to others we have a solemn obligation to keep that piece of information to ourselves. The safe thing to do is to assume that everything anybody tells us is shared in confidence, unless they give us permission to tell others. Christians are not always as good as we should be at keeping confidences. Some people use a deceptive phrase like, “I’m just sharing this for prayer.” That is just an excuse for gossip. That should not happen. WYSIWYG Christians and Transparent Christians are people who can always be trusted not to gossip to others what we have been told in confidence.

Of course there is nothing surprising in what I am saying. We all agree that integrity is important, that keeping promises and keeping confidences and sincerity and honesty are all important. In our everyday lives, we need to remember that God doesn’t care so much about what we SAY is right or wrong in theory. What God cares about is what we actually DO in practice. So how can we grow in honesty and develop our integrity?

We need to become TRANSPARENT TO OTHER CHRISTIANS
– transparently honest, nothing hidden, no deceit, nothing concealed, no trace of deceit and dishonesty.

Mark Twain once said that the church is a place where a nice respectable person stands in front of other nice, respectable people and urges them to be nicer and more respectable. If that is all church is for us, we are completely missing the point.

Church should be the place, or rather, the people who are the church should be the family where we learn to be completely honest with each other. Where we learn to open our lives and be vulnerable with each other. Where we learn to trust each other. God has given us each other so that we can practice being sincere and honest with each other –so we can learn integrity, openness, honesty, and vulnerability. Church is the community where we learn to be WYSIWYG Christians by watching WYSIWYG Christians. We become transparent Christians ourselves by sharing our lives with other transparent Christians. Like so many things – honesty and integrity are “better caught than taught”

We need to learn how to be genuine with each other. To learn how to be honest about our weaknesses and our failings with each other. We need to come to the point where we can be completely open without being scared that other Christians will kick us when we are down, and without being scared that other Christians will exploit our weaknesses and judge us or reject us. And in all of this, confidentiality is key. We need to be able to trust that the things we say will not be blabbed to other people we would never tell.

James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

In some other churches the priest has the role of defining for the people what is right or wrong, and how serious a sin is, by the ritual of receiving Confession. We Baptists don’t necessarily have a forum for discussing everyday ethical and moral issues. Perhaps there would be a valuable place in our church life for Confession and Absolution and for services of Reconciliation.

Eph 4:25 No more lying, then! Everyone must tell the truth to his fellow-believer, because we are all members together in the body of Christ. GNB

No lying. No stealing. Our lives are transparent before God. We need lives which are transparent to the world. And we must begin by letting our lives become transparent to other Christians. WYSIWYG Christians!

But are any of us brave enough to do it??????

JESUS TAKE ME AS I AM, I can come no other way.
Take me deeper into You, Make my flesh life melt away.
Make me like a precious stone, Crystal clear and finely honed,
Life of Jesus shining through, Giving glory back to You.

There is a legend you may have heard which says that when we get to heaven people will be rewarded according to how they have lived in this life with differing forms of transport. When a certain vicar arrived at the pearly gates he was given a bicycle identical to the bicycle he had ridden around his parish all his life. But as soon as he got inside the he saw a man driving around heaven in the poshest Rolls Royce you can imagine. The vicar cycled over to the nearest angel and complained.
“How is it that I am still riding this bicycle when that man is driving a Rolls Royce?
“That’s easy,” the angel explained. “When you were doing your job and preaching your sermons, people fell asleep. That man was a taxi driver. When he was doing his job, people didn’t just stay awake. They prayed!”

A month ago we were thinking about what it means to work for eternity – to do things in this life which will last forever. The apostle Paul spells out more of what this might mean when he writes to the Corinthians.
8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labour.

There will be rewards God will give in heaven to those who have served Him here on earth. We do not know what form those rewards will take – but they are waiting for those who have served God faithfully in the strength he supplies. The rewards are for every believer who has helped build up the body of Christ, the spiritual Temple where the Holy Spirit dwells.
9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Each and every one of us have a part to play in God’s field and God’s building.
10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11 For no-one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.

Building with gold and silver. Many of the things we do only last a few seconds or a few minutes. Most of what we do will only last this lifetime. But Paul is saying here that there are things we can do in this life which will endure into eternity. Words and actions which will have eternal value and significance. Building with silver and gold.

Last month we thought about three kinds of things we can be doing which will last forever – faith, hope and love. Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:13. Most of the things we do in this life will not last into eternity. But one day we will see God face to face and we will know God as God knows us. And on that day when imperfection has disappeared in the perfection of heaven, three things will endure. Three things will last forever – faith, hope, and love.

So we thought about what it means to live by faith. Trusting in God to guide us and lead us.
Proverbs 3 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

We also thought about our Christian hope. Whatever suffering or trials or even persecution Christians may experience in this life, we have God’s wonderful promise of the happy certainty of heaven! An inheritance which can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for us.

We live by faith, we live in hope, and also we love God and we love other Christians and we love our neighbours because God has first loved us with a love which has no limits and a love which will never let us go. Faith, hope and love are three things which will last forever. Because we are not working for time – we are working for eternity.

This morning I want to suggest four other things which we need to be doing if we are serious about working for eternity. But before that I want to say a bit more about love. In particular,
BROTHERLY LOVE and GOOD SAMARITAN LOVE

We last month about what it means in practice to love other people as God loves us. And as well as showing God’s kind of love to other believers, we need to be showing that love to our neighbours and even strangers as well. The Early Church preached the Good News of Jesus. They healed the sick and drove out demons in Jesus’s name. But at the same time those first Christians were also meeting people’s needs and loving their neighbours! They brought people to Jesus by announcing the good news and also by being Good Samaritans – by showing God’s kind of sacrificial love to complete strangers. Preach the gospel. Love your neighbour. By THIS will all men know you are my disciples – by the love you show! The same kind of sacrificial love as Jesus expressed for us dying for us on the cross. Loving each other in ways like that. Loving your neighbour as you love yourself. Loving strangers. Being good Samaritans!

God doesn’t call us to like our neighbours but to LOVE our neighbours. Love isn’t a feeling – it’s a command to practical action! To put our neighbours’ needs at the same level as your needs. If their family are hungry and your family are hungry you share the food you have. That is Good Samaritan love. If they or their family are sick and your family are sick you share the medicine you have. If they have nowhere to sleep you find them somewhere to sleep. That is Good Samaritan love. If they need to travel and you are able to help them travel, you help them travel. That is Good Samaritan love. If their child is lost and your child is lost – you search for both children and not just your own. That is Good Samaritan love. If they are in debt and you have money you help them with money. If they face a problem you help them sort out their problem – however long that takes, however much it may cost you in time and energy and heartache and money. Because that is Good Samaritan love. That is loving your neighbour as you love yourself! And not just our friends but even our enemies because Jesus teaches us to love our enemies just as much as we love our own families.

The parable of the good Samaritan is so memorable it has given us not one but two phrases which have entered into our language. The first is the example to follow, the “Good Samaritan”, the person who goes out of his way to help out. But the second phrase is the opposite, an example to avoid, “Passing by on the other side”. The priest and the Levite who both go out of their way to AVOID helping out. Are we Good Samaritans? Are we known to be the kind of people who help out? Or are we the kind of people who close our eyes to the needs of others and just pass by on the other side?
EVANGELISM – planting the seed like Paul did

Romans 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

1 Corinthians 9:16 Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. 18 What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.

The Good News of Jesus Christ is not an offer. It’s not an invitation. It’s not a debate. The true gospel is simply an announcement that Jesu Christ has come, that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. And that announcement is so earth-shattering that it demands a response from every one of us who hears it. Repent and believe!

This was the apostle Paul’s announcement in Athens:
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31)

The world is full of problems. The credit crunch and the crisis in the world economy, as well as the growing threat of terrorism, are causing many people to rethink their lives and their priorities. The false gods of Money and Entertainment and Shopping are empty. People are realising that their treasures on earth are being eaten away by the moths and the rust and the thieves are breaking in and stealing the wealth and possessions so many have relied on and even worshipped. Very many people are more ready to hear about spiritual things – true treasures in heaven. We must be busy taking every opportunity to proclaim the gospel with boldness!

BUILDING UP DISCIPLES – watering the seed like Apollos did

Colossians 1:28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. 29 To this end I labour, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

1 Thess 2:6 As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, 7 but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. 8 We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. 9 Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.
10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

When we build up other Christians we are laying up treasures in heaven. Especially when we care for new Christians and young Christians and build them up in the faith. Brotherly love and Good Samaritan love. Preaching the gospel. Building up disciples. In all these things, if we want to be building with gold and silver, we must be

RELYING ON GOD’s STRENGTH

9 For we are God’s fellow-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

So what does it mean to be God’s fellow workers?
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. ONLY GOD GIVES THE GROWTH

I am the true vine, says Jesus. Without me you can do nothing!

Zechariah 4:6 `Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.
NOT BY MIGHT collective strength, to armies or forces or warriors or fighting men. In anything God calls us to do for him if we put our trust in MIGHT, we will be wasting our time. Not by might of NUMBERS Not by might of MONEY. Not by might of GOOD PREMISES. Not by might of NEW TECHNOLOGY. Not by might of LOTS of ACTIVITIES. NOT BY MIGHT – says the Lord Almighty. He is the ALL MIGHTY God. In comparison to His great might, all our human resources count for nothing at all!

NOT BY POWER the strength of individual men and women. We must not put our trust in our own power or our own efforts. All our skills and abilities count for absolutely nothing! NOT by power of training or experience or human wisdom or hard work.

Not by might nor by power, BUT BY MY SPIRIT says the Lord Almighty

If people are going to be saved, God is going to do it. Not us, in our strength, by our efforts, but God must do it. By the power of His Holy Spirit. Our part is to make sure we are available to God and ready to obey Him when He wants to use us, and that we don’t get in God’s way by trying to do His work for Him! God gives us Power from on High. Power to be witnesses for Jesus. The power of the Holy Spirit. The dynamo and the dynamite of God the Holy Spirit at work in OUR lives, which can accomplish so much more than we can ever ask for or even imagine. Serving in God’s strength for God’s glory – so God gets the credit – not us! Relying on God.

Working for eternity – building with gold and silver. No surprises in those four ways and none in the fifth,

PRAYER

Paul’s own example of prayer for the churches he has planted and the people he cared about so much! We get to know God through prayer. Prayer isn’t just a useful tool to help us in our Christian service. In Richard Foster’s words, “Prayer is nothing more than an ongoing and growing love relationship with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Prayer is the heart of our relationship with God. But then our evangelism and our disciple-building and our loving should also be the topics of our urgent praying.

Eph 6:18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

We must pray to draw near to God, to listen to God and to ask God to move mountains.
“We must write prayer again into the lifestyle of our churches; meaningful prayer, urgent prayer, repentant prayer, constant prayer, Spirit-led prayer, even sacrificial prayer!” Eric Westwood Baptist Union President

I make no apologies for repeating that quote to you. I will keep on repeating it – until we do it! Write prayer again into the lifestyle of our churches!

BROTHERLY LOVE and GOOD SAMARITAN LOVE
EVANGELISM
BUILDING UP DISCIPLES
RELYING ON GOD’S STRENGTH
PRAYER

12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.

We aren’t working for time. We’re working for eternity!

Becoming a Church Member

“The church” is not a building, nor an organisation, but people! The Bible calls the church “The Body of Christ,” made up of all Christians in every age. Anybody who has eternal life is a member of this universal church. The church is the Family of all who have God as their Father.
But the Bible also uses the word “church” to refer to a local group of Christians meeting in a particular place. A true Christian will want to show he or she is a part of the universal church by belonging to a local church. Being a Christian but not belonging to any church would be like trying to be a football player without being part of a team!

We misunderstand what “church membership” means if we think of it in the much weaker and more remote meaning of membership used in organisations and clubs. Being a “member” of the church is like being a “family member” or “member of an orchestra” or “member of a football team”. Membership is not about status but participation.

Christians express their faith in several ways. As part of their discipleship, believers should plan to worship every week. Meaningful worship and regular Bible teaching are vital to the spiritual health of every believer. Communion especially is an expression of belonging as well as the greatest opportunity to receive the blessing of God, and it is good to plan to receive Communion at least once a month. Housebound members may take Communion at home at their request.

The principal occasions for fellowship and pastoral care are the midweek Home Groups and prayer meetings. Christians should expect to play an active part in such groups unless this is totally impractical. Corporate prayer is at the heart of the life of any church, and the church is more of a family in these smaller gatherings than it can be in larger meetings.

Christians are ambassadors for Christ and also for the church. Each of us should be active and enthusiastic in sharing our faith with neighbours and friends. Most Christians would also expect to find a practical or pastoral task which is their sphere of service within their local church, and would want to give as generously as they are able to support Christian work.

The Church Membership List

Every Christian who is taking an active part in the life of North Springfield Baptist Church in the kinds of ways listed above, as far as they are able, already belongs to the church. In Bible terms all are valued members of the church. But as well as a spiritual body, North Springfield Baptist Church is also a human organisation and a legal entity. And for these purposes the church, like all other Baptist churches, is obliged to have a formal list of members. In church business when we refer to “Church Membership” we actually have to be concerned with that group of people whose names are on the church Membership List.

Some denominations organise themselves so the church is an institution with an identity of its own. Someone can still “belong” to such an organisation, perhaps after infant baptism or confirmation, even if they never participate in worship or other activities. But the Bible leads Baptist Churches to believe that any local church should be a “gathered” community of individuals who themselves must be active Christians, joined together by their commitment to each other. Each local church is only the sum of its members, with no hierarchy of Bishops or Moderators above it. So each Baptist congregation operates entirely independently to manage its activities as God may direct.

In Baptist churches important decisions are not made by the minister or elders or deacons alone, but by the whole church. So the Church Meeting decides everything, from the kinds of services the church has, to how to maintain the premises, to choosing a new minister. In order to ensure that it is only active Christians who are committed to the church who share in this decision making, all Baptist churches operate a Membership List.

Leaders of church activities can only be appointed from among the people who are on the Membership List because only they have the legal authority to act on behalf of the church. Equally, only people on the Membership List of the Church can make decisions about how the church money is spent.
Ideally the Church Membership List will include all the Christians who are actively involved in the life of the church, so they all can share in the decisions and play a full part in all activities. Most Baptist churches do have a number of committed Christians who have not yet “joined the church” in the formal sense of being added to the Membership List. Some may have come from churches which organise themselves differently and may not understand how “Church Membership” in Baptist churches works. Others may have been with us for many years and (we hope) feel entirely at home and feel that they already belong to the church.

Applying to join the Church Membership List is a very simple process. People wishing to become “a church member” initially approach the Minister (or in his absence the Church Secretary). If the person is a new Christian or has not belonged to a Baptist church before, they may have further discussions to make sure they understand the meaning of belonging to the church. Two existing members are then appointed as `Visitors’. Their task is to get to know the person applying for membership, both to welcome them and to confirm that they are genuine believers. At the next Church Members Meeting the Minister and the Visitors jointly recommend the prospective Member to the church. The existing members then make a decision to allow the person to join the Membership List and the new Member is welcomed into the Church at the next convenient Communion Service.

The Meaning of Church Membership

Being a Christian is not just a private and personal thing. Our Christian lives should not normally be lived out in isolation but in the fellowship of the church. The church is the community of disciples. If we want to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ we will express our discipleship by belonging to a church.
“The church” is not a building. The church is not an organisation. The church is a group of people! The Bible says the church is “The Body of Christ”, made up of all Christians in every age. Even if they never meet up with any other Christians, anybody who has eternal life IS a member of this invisible universal church. The church is the Family made up of everybody who has a personal relationship with God as their Father.

But the Bible also uses the word “church” to refer to a local group of Christians meeting in a particular place, a local congregation. All true Christians will want to show they belong to the universal church by playing their part in a local church. Being a Christian but not belonging to any local church really would be like trying to be a football player without being part of a team!

We can easily misunderstand the ideas of “belonging to a church” or “church membership” if we think of it in the weak remote sense of membership you find used in some secular organisations and clubs. Some people treat being a member of a church just like being a member of the RAC or the AA – pay your subscriptions once a year and you can call the church out to help as often as you like. But belonging to a church is much more like being a member of a family or a member of an orchestra or a member of a football team. Belonging to a church is not a matter of privileges but of participation. It’s not about what we can receive but what we can give and what we can accomplish together.

We are all different in the time and energy we are able to devote to church life. But every Christian who is taking an active part as far as they are able in the worship and fellowship and witness of north Springfield Baptist Church belongs to this church. Even if your name is not yet on the membership list, even if you are not formally a member of that human legal organisation called north Springfield Baptist Church, we hope you feel at home here. If you are playing your part in the life of the church then you belong to the church. In Bible terms all Christians are members of that part of Christ’s body which meets here, all are valued members of the church. That’s the way it should be in God’s perfect plan. That’s the way it needs to be!

Billy Graham said, “Christians are like coals in a fire. When they cling together, they keep the flame burning brightly; when they separate, they die out.” We need each other as Christians – we need the church!

Belonging to any church brings us many blessings. There are the blessings of sharing in the church’s worship and fellowship and witness. There are the blessings of receiving teaching and pastoral care.
But belonging to a church also implies commitment to the church and its activities by loyal attendance (not only on Sundays!) and by giving time, talents and financial support to that church. True belonging brings both blessings and obligations. The list below helps us think through what our obligations are if we belong to a church.

Responsibilities of Belonging to the Church

1. To follow Jesus Christ wholeheartedly, open to His encouragement, leading and discipline through His church.
(Matthew 18:15-18)
We all need other Christians to help us in our discipleship, to encourage us but also to challenge us and steer us in the right direction sometimes.

2. To seek to grow in Christian discipleship day by day in your relationship with God, in personal holiness and in understanding of the faith. (Micah 6:8.)
The Bible and the Holy Spirit can teach us individually about Jesus, but God’s plan is that we should learn from other Christians. We all need the church to teach us through sermons, Bible Studies, Home Groups and other meetings. A Christian who wants to grow will look for Bible teaching mid-week, not just once a week on Sundays. We have much to learn too about faith from the experiences of other Christians.

3. To seek to witness by words and lifestyle to all that Jesus Christ has done and is doing in your life.
(Matthew 28:18-20 , Acts 1:8.)
Christians are ambassadors for Christ and also for the church. Each of us should be active and enthusiastic in sharing our faith with neighbours and friends in any ways we possibly can.

4. To be as regular as possible at worship (especially communion), church meetings and other church events.
(Hebrews 10:24-25)
There are a number of ways in which Christians should express their faith. Meaningful worship and regular Bible teaching are vital to the spiritual health of every believer. Sharing regularly in praise and prayer with other believers can be one of the most uplifting experiences in the Christian life. Communion especially is an expression of belonging as well as the greatest opportunity to receive the blessing of God. It’s good to plan to receive Communion at least once a month, but Christians should also surely plan to be at worship every week. The issue here is not taste or convenience but discipleship.

5. To pray faithfully for the life and work of the church and for World Mission. (Matthew 18:19-20)
Prayer is at the heart of the Christian life. Some members of the fellowship may find it difficult or impossible to attend meetings, or even to get to services. For a variety of very good reasons, at different stages of life, some Christians are not be available to play an active part in the church in any areas of service or witness. But EVERY Christian can support the church in prayer, and almost all could arrange to meet with one or two others, say in a prayer triplet, on a regular basis to pray for the life and work of the church. Praying together is at the heart of the life of any church.

6. To play a loving and loyal part in the fellowship, caring for others, sharing freely and bearing each other’s burdens. (Acts 2:42-47, Galatians 6:1-2)
The principal occasions for fellowship and pastoral care are the midweek Home Groups and Prayer Meetings. The church is more of a family in these smaller gatherings than it can be in larger meetings.
As members of God’s family we can share our Christian lives with brothers and sisters. We can share our joys and sorrows, questions and doubts, needs and problems, with others and we can all be used by God to help each other grow as Christians. As we share our lives together, care for others and bear one another’s burdens, so we obey Christ’s New Commandment to love one another as He loved us (John 13:34-35). So we should make time to get to know other Christians and talk, study and pray in small informal groups so that we can grow together. For most Christians belonging to a HOME GROUP will be very important.

7. To serve God in practical ways in the church and in the world using the skills, abilities and spiritual gifts He has given. (Romans 12:4-8)
Most Christians would also expect to find a practical or pastoral task which is their sphere of service within their local church and we discover our ways of serving God through the church. It is here that our spiritual gifts can be recognised and developed. We can learn to serve God and the church best in a loving atmosphere with the help and guidance of older Christians.

8. To give sacrificially to God to support the church and Christian work. (2 Corinthians 8:2-4, 7)

“The New Testament does not envisage solitary religion; some kind of regular assembly for worship and instruction is everywhere taken for granted. So we must be regular practicing members of the church. Of course we differ in temperament. Some (like you—and me) find it more natural to approach God in solitude; but we must go to church as well. For the church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities, but the body of Christ, in which all members, however different (and he rejoices in their differences and by no means wishes to iron them out) must share the common life, complementing and helping one another precisely by their differences.” (C. S. Lewis)

If you would be interested in joining the Membership List of North Springfield Baptist Church do please speak to Rev Peter Thomas