What are you hoping for this Christmas?

[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 13/Dec/2020]

Maybe it’s that special gift that you’ve been wanting for so long. Maybe it’s the joy of giving gifts to others that excites you. For many it’s not about the gifts, but more about time off from work to relax and see family and friends – those few days when we leave all the usual chores, we slow down and put our feet up, or go for long walks, and notice perhaps for the first time in ages; how beautiful nature is, how healing it is when we let it invade our lives and our senses.

I think this year, like no other, we are more desperate than ever to be with loved ones, and to know that they are healthy and happy, and perhaps our “hope” is that next year, the vaccine will be our saviour, Covid will become a thing of the past, and Brexit will no longer be the headache that it seems to be right now!

Hope is so important, because without it, we feel ‘hopeless’, ‘without hope’. If you Google ‘hope’, you find many descriptions of the word, and how having it in our lives makes such a difference, including “to expect with confidence” and “to cherish a desire with anticipation”. Whereas ‘hopeless’ doesn’t just infer the absence of hope, but goes much deeper and is aligned with words such as despairing, despondent, desperate and sad. And when we feel like that, hope’s friend ‘cynicism’ moves in too, bringing warnings to “not get your hopes up“.

But as Christians, we do not set our hope on the hope that the world offers, which often seems fickle, fragile and uncertain. The hope we have as Christians is solid and firm, so much more than just optimism, and we only have to open our Bibles to find that hope is central to the message of the gospel. So how do we live and walk in that hope? How do we share that hope with others? I love how Dutch Catholic priest, professor, writer and theologian, Henri Nouwen, described it before he went to be with the Lord:

“When we live with hope we do not get tangled up with concerns for how our wishes will be fulfilled. So, too, our prayers are not directed toward the gift but toward the One who gives it. Ultimately, it is not a question of having a wish come true but of expressing an unlimited faith in the giver of all good things … Hope is based on the premise that the other gives only what is good. Hope includes an openness by which you wait for the promise to come through, even though you never know when, where, or how this might happen.”

In other words, our hope is not in hope itself, but in the Source of that hope.

So, this Christmas, and as we go into 2021, let us be filled with hope from the Giver of all good gifts – the One who was, and is, the ultimate gift to you, to me, and to our world; Jesus Christ, OUR HOPE!

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
[Hebrews 10 v23]

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Contributor: Lesley Edwards
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Can I find Joy in my Life?

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube[1], December 2020]

The Bible seems to suggest that followers of Jesus should be filled with joy – that they should be happy all the time! Is that possible or even realistic? Should Christians have permanent grins on their faces?

See, in the Bible it talks about the followers of Jesus being full of an inexpressible joy, that somehow being a follower of Jesus Christ makes you more joyful than anyone else. In fact James – that’s Jesus’s brother – wrote in his letter that can you should consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds. I mean, that’s just crazy, isn’t it? That regardless of what is going on in your life, particularly if you’re going through difficult times, that you should be joyful about it. Does that mean that as Christians we should walk around with a big smile on our face all the time? Is it wrong to be sad?

[01:03] Joy is defined as being happy. That is what joy is and happiness, well it’s an emotion and I don’t have really any control over my emotions. I can’t decide to be happy despite sad circumstances any more than I can decide not to be scared if I get chased by a big bear (not that’s ever happened). I mean, can God really expect me to live a life full of joy?

[01:30] Perhaps the answer can be found if we carry on reading those verses from James. In James chapter one verse two it says “Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds” but it continues in verse three “because you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance”. See, I think one of the key factors to living a joyful life is the knowledge that God is in control, that God has our best interests at heart and through the trials that we may face in life actually there’s an opportunity there for God to shape us, to refine us, to make us better reflect his image, to mature into a Christ-like person.

[02:27] I mean that’s okay, I can perhaps intellectualize the need to feel joyful, maybe I could have a debate with myself and win the argument that this is all for my own good, but in reality I still can’t feel joy even if intellectually I can argue that I should.

[02:48] Well, that’s where actually the Holy Spirit steps in. In Galatians it tells us that the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the fruit of having God living within us by his Holy Spirit is love and joy amongst many other things. That actually one of the symptoms, the side effects, of welcoming Jesus into our hearts and being filled with the Holy Spirit is that we gain joy. Actually we have the emotion of joy, it’s not just an intellectual thing but through the Holy Spirit, through the gifts of God, we can change our emotional state. As our spirit, our soul, partners with God’s spirits then we can have a deep joy, a happiness despite our circumstance.

[03:47] Does that mean I’m walking around happy all the time? No it’s not about that superficial external happiness, it’s not about feeling jolly all the time, but actually I think it’s linked to a security in our future, our hope for the future through Jesus, our faith, that is going to happen and therefore a happiness, a joy, that regardless of what life may throw at me I am secure and safe in my Father’s arms.

[1] YouTube link: Advent Episode 3 – Can I Find Joy In My Life?
Bible references: James ch 1 v2-3, Galatians ch 5 v22

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Make Yourself at Home

[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during December 2020]

As I started to pray about this reflection a strange thought came to mind – “Mince pies are like flat-pack furniture”. Seriously? I was not thinking about either of those commodities at the time so from where did the thought come? How can anyone make anything of spiritual benefit out of a statement like that?

It did not go away: “Mince pies are like flat-pack furniture”. Ok; I used to make up statistics for a major local authority and should be able to demonstrate the credibility of the most unlikely statements, so let’s try.

Mince pies and flat-pack furniture are both made primarily from specified formulae of ingredients, rolled to a certain thickness and cut to shape. They are decorated, either with a glaze or a laminate, then packaged in cardboard boxes. They both look attractive when new but age badly. Both items are susceptible to water damage and neither travels well, especially when sent 1,600 miles in the back of a truck. You would not enjoy the taste of flat-pack furniture and the same could be said of some mince pies.

Flat-pack furniture represents settling down, making yourself a home. Mince pies are made from crops that have been grown and harvested; flour, fruit, spices. These activities require time and a positive attitude to one’s circumstances. An Old Testament prophet had this advice:

“This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.’” [Jeremiah 9 v5]

In modern parlance, the message is “For you the good old days have gone, this is your new normality, make it work for you”.

History tells us that God did not abandon His people; many people did well in their new situation and in due course He re-established them back in their land. Indeed, some have suggested that the ‘Three Kings’ who came to worship the baby Jesus were descendants of those who had prospered in Babylon.

Maybe that’s the message for us too – our circumstances may not be of our liking but this is where we’re at. God will not abandon us and we continue to have good reason to worship the newborn king.

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Contributor: Steve Humphreys
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It’s in the Net

[This is one in a series of mid-week Reflections published by Horley Baptist Church during December 2020]

A few days ago, when I started to think about this reflection, I discovered that we had no internet connection. In the context of these reflections, it meant that I did not have access to the online tools that often help with their preparation. Having said that, there was something strangely satisfying in picking up a well-worn but somewhat dusty Bible, and reading the text as St Paul wrote it! Maybe we should do it more often.

It transpired that a couple of ‘entrepreneurs’ had thought that the copper core from 400 metres of cable could provide a nice Christmas bonus. To their disappointment, and the disruption of service to a substantial area of the county, the cable was a fibre-optic one and had no value beyond its intended purpose.

Of course, the value of that cable was not in its physical structure but in its function. Especially in this year of ‘online this, that and the other’, the significance of the missing link becomes painfully apparent. The data that it carries are used by emergency services, hospitals, clinics, and many public bodies, not to mention students studying online and the many people working remotely.

In Luke chapter 5 we read that Simon the fisherman and his partners had a problem with their net connections. After an unproductive night without a catch, his encounter with Jesus resulted in there being so many fish that their nets began to break. Not only that, but their boats began to sink. By compromising the tools of their trade, was Jesus indicating that that phase of their lives was over?

Like those fishermen of old who depended on their nets, many people today depend on a different form of net. We have become to rely on it in ways that just a year ago might have been regarded as science fiction. A short interruption can have life-changing consequences.

Would an encounter with Jesus challenge your lifestyle? Are you afraid of the consequences? Simon and his colleagues accepted the challenge that Jesus gave them; He changed them and then they went on to change the world.
Fancy a challenge? He is online right now.

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Think Not Just of Presents, But of His Presence this Christmas

[This reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 06/Dec/2020]

The sermon series for the last few weeks have been on forgiveness. Rubbing people up the wrong way comes naturally to just about all of us and I’m sure you know some people who seem to have a particular gift in this area. I joined the Connect in Faith meeting on Zoom yesterday and one of the comments made was that it is hard enough to forgive your enemy for something they’ve done wrong, but perhaps even harder to forgive a friend, because the sense of betrayal goes even deeper.

Let’s examine the relationship between us and God. He creates the most beautiful garden in the world, gives us charge over it and we then decide we know better than him and disobey him. Not long after, Cain murders his brother Abel, and we go on to excel at all manner of rebellion and evil. Genesis 6 verses 5-6 state that “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.”

Think of children making a racket upstairs, and their mum says: “If you don’t stop that noise, I’m coming up and you won’t like it when I do …” Well, we had pushed and pushed and now, God was coming to earth. It wasn’t quite what we were expecting though. Eugene Petersen’s rendering of John 1:v14 says that “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood.” It captures in one short sentence what Christians believe happened – Jesus Christ came into the world as a human being and we celebrate this at Christmas.

Having described what happened, it is helpful to think about why. On different occasions, Jesus explained this to his disciples and others who were listening. He said he had come: “to preach the Message of good news to the poor, … to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the burdened and battered free, to announce, ‘This is God’s year to act!’ ” Jesus mentions again in that famous verse John 3:16, that “God sent His one and only Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but should have everlasting life.” Perhaps less well known however, is John 3: 17, which states that: “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” In Luke 19, where we read about the story of Zacchaeus, Jesus says in verse 10, that he came “to seek and to save those who are lost“.

It is comforting to know that long before we knew that we were lost, or that we needed help, God had made provision for our salvation. We had broken his heart, but when Jesus came down to live with us, it was to show us that God was not intent on condemning us for going astray, but rather that he wanted to forgive us and reconcile us to him. To wipe the slate clean, to embrace us in His arms, if only we would, like the prodigal son, come back home. There is something about Christmas time that lifts the spirits. For many, it is the presents, the commercialism, the thought of meeting up with family and friends to celebrate. These are all laudable, but sometimes leave us with a hollow feeling on Boxing day when it’s all over. Perhaps this year, our joy should come from the realisation that we matter so much to God, and Christmas time should remind us again that He cares and as Jeremiah says, His faithful love never ends, His mercies never end and they are new every morning.

That’s something that will last even after Boxing day.

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Advent 2, Faith: What am I Certain of?

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube[1], December 2020]

If faith is being 100% certain of something, I think I may have a problem, because I struggle to be that sure, and my life is full of ways in which I demonstrate a lack of faith. Am I condemned by this?

I don’t know what you have 100 percent confidence in, you are completely sure, you have full faith in it. See, I don’t think there’s anything I’m completely 100 percent confident and assured about, and even if maybe for a period I am, I know that possibly in the future I won’t be. So what about God, what about our faith in Jesus? Are you 100 percent confident and assured about that?

[00:56] See, in Hebrews chapter 11 the writer of Hebrews defines what faith is. He says it is confidence in what we hope for, an assurance of what we do not see, and during this advent period, we’re looking at each week at a different topic. Last week we looked at hope and this week we’re looking at faith. Hope last week was this idea that we hope, we have a sure and certain hope that Jesus Christ will come again, this time not as a baby but as a king, as a conqueror, as a lord of all who will put all things right.

[01:36] But it seems that the writer of Hebrews is saying that faith is the confidence that we have in that hope, the confidence we have in Jesus Christ that despite all outward appearances, despite things to the contrary, despite the things that we can see or not see, we have 100 percent confidence and assurance in Jesus Christ that God is at work moving in our midst even when we don’t see it. So do you have that sort of faith, that 100 percent assurance in Jesus and God working in your life because I’m not convinced that I have. Sometimes I wonder if God is in control, sometimes I wonder if God is there at all and so often I live my life as a practical atheist, living and making decisions as if God isn’t even involved or interested. So with that in mind, I find this verse in Hebrews really quite condemning because I don’t think I’ve got a faith like that.

[02:49] Now the writer of Hebrews then goes on to list a whole load of heroes of the faith, people who demonstrated in their actions and the way they lived their life the faith that they had, the trust that they had, that assurance, that confidence in God. But it’s really interesting because when I look at the list of characters, when I look at their stories in more detail, when I read about them in the Old Testament, I realized that actually they’re not quite as 100 assured as the writer of Hebrews would suggest.

[03:30] I mean, Abraham and Sarah they were promised a son in their advanced years and Sarah laughed at the idea and then she managed to persuade her husband Abraham to get the slave girl pregnant, and Moses, I mean he was asked by God to rescue the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt and Moses did it but he said ‘No!’ so many times so God ended up getting angry with him, putting his foot down. Rahab, I mean she was a prostitute who just looked kindly upon a couple of clients. Samson, I mean he gave up his birthright by sleeping with the enemy. I mean when you put these real people under the microscope they’re hardly enormously inspiring heroes of the faith.

[04:26] When we look at the small aspects of their life, they’re not heroes of faith at all, and yet maybe what the writer of the Hebrews is doing is panning back, looking at their life in its entirety, looking at how their actions and their efforts and the way they trusted God made an enormous difference. It meant that things were done that were virtually impossible and that their life fitted into God’s bigger picture.

[05:01] So perhaps we should be a little more forgiving when we look at our life in detail, when we look at all those different little ways in which we let God down, the ways in which our faith is not 100 percent because actually what we want to do, like the author of Hebrews, is pan back. We want to live a life that overall is a journey of faith, that overall we have been able to do things for God that we could never have done in our own strength, that our life is full of little steps and big steps in the right direction, steps of faith where God uses us as part of his bigger plan even when we don’t see it.

[1] YouTube link: Advent 2, Faith: What am I Certain of?
Bible references: Hebrews ch 11

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