Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[Modified transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], May 2020]

What made the Good News of Jesus Christ so infectious? Why did the Christian church grow so quickly? Can we recapture that infectious faith?

I don’t know about you but I’ve been watching the daily updates from the government about coronavirus and just checking to see how things are going on. They’ve been talking a lot about an ‘R’ number. Now probably before the outbreak most of you didn’t know what an R number referred to but it’s the effective reproduction rate of a virus. The way it works is it measures how infectious a virus is if it’s R-1 then that means one person can infect one other person with the virus and if the value is over R-1 then what you’ll get is an exponential growth of a virus. It will spread quicker and quicker and more and more people will get infected with the virus. If it’s less than 1 then it’ll slow down, it will gradually decline, the virus will hopefully eventually die out. Fortunately at the moment, due to a lock-down, we’ve managed to get the R value of COVID-19 down to less than 1 so we’re seeing a slowdown in the rates of infection.

^01:21 Now I’ve been reading with some friends through the book of Acts in the New Testament in the Bible. It tells a story of those first few years of the church and how it grew rapidly in the Middle East and beyond, in the Roman Empire and even further than that. At the beginning of Acts we find the disciples emerging from hiding after the death of Jesus, full of the excitement of Jesus’s resurrection and also full of the Holy Spirit. In Acts chapter 2 we find Peter, one of disciples, telling everyone who could hear about the good news of Jesus Christ. After he told them this, three thousand people believed and gave their life to Jesus Christ.

^02:18 Now that is highly infectious, that is an R number of 3,000 where one person spread the good news of Jesus Christ to 3,000 other people. To give you an idea, COVID might get an R value, if left unchecked, of between two and two and a half so the good news of Jesus Christ was massively infectious. All those 3,000 people who came from all over the known world to Jerusalem for the Pentecost festival then went home and told people about Jesus. It spread more and more and quicker and quicker, and no wonder Christianity spread so quickly in the known world.

^03:01 Why was this story about Jesus Christ so infectious? Well, Jesus sums it up at the beginning of his ministry with these words “The Lord’s Spirit has come to me because he has chosen me to tell the good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to announce freedom for prisoners, to give sight to the blind, to free everyone who suffers” (Luke 4 v18). Unsurprisingly, it was massively good news for people that the life and Ministry of Jesus Christ had made a difference and that, through his death and resurrection, Jesus had freed us from suffering caused by our slavery to sin, the consequences of which would be death

^04:07 In the Western world in recent years we kind of built up an immunity to the good news of Jesus Christ. It no longer seems to have it’s impact, it’s no longer as infectious. In fact, it’s R number has been lurking below 1; we’ve seen a church which is in decline, we’re seeing less interest in Jesus and Christianity. Yet my hope and my prayer at this time when so much has changed and so many of our foundations have been shaken is that people once again will become susceptible to the good news of Jesus Christ; that they will start to be open to the fact that Jesus really is good news, and that through online church services, conversation with friends and family and by Christians letting their light shine, that people will start to hear the good news of Jesus Christ and realise it is just as good news now as it was 2,000 years ago

[1]YouTube link: Spreading the Good News
Bible references: Luke 4 v18

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[Modified transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], April 2020]

Is trust really trust unless there is uncertainty? Another mid week refection from Martin’s dog walk.

I took my first funeral this week, at least my first one since the lock-down and it was a pretty strange affair. You can imagine the whole chapel empty of chairs apart from the ten they had put out for the maximum 10 mourners that could attend a funeral. It was indeed strange but it was good to still be able to remember the life of someone who had died. The family had requested that we look at a particular passage during the service from John chapter 14 where Jesus talks to his disciples about his father’s house. His father’s house has many rooms, he’s going to go away there but come back and fetch the disciples after preparing a room for them. The passage starts with these words from Jesus where he says to his disciples “Do not let your hearts be troubled; trust in God, trust also in me”.

^01:26 Probably the disciples thought “well, yeah, of course we trust you Jesus” because Jesus had been their friend and their mentor and their teacher for a number of years now. Jesus had done some extraordinary things, Jesus had never let them down, Jesus was special, Jesus was good, Jesus was kind, Jesus was loving, of course they trusted Jesus. But then Jesus goes on to share some rather strange things with them when he talked about having to go away, having to leave them and he seems to suggest that things are not going to go quite according to plan – at least not to the disciples’ plan. There will be some times when they would not understand what on earth was going on, there will be possibly some struggle.

^02:27 You see, trust isn’t really trust until it’s put in a place where it’s going to be tested. Trust is a fairly empty gesture if there’s no reason why you wouldn’t trust someone. Perhaps for the disciples, their trust in Jesus was truly tested when they were put in the time of difficulty, of trial, of danger, of uncertainty at a time when they just didn’t have a clue what was going on and everything had not gone according for their plan.

^03:08 We’re in a situation where maybe in the past I quite happily said “yeah, God I trust you, Jesus I trust you” but now you find yourself in a place where you have more questions than you have answers. Maybe you find yourself in a place of uncertainty where the future looks uncertain, the present looks bleak and you are in a time of anxiety and anguish – mental anguish, physical anguish, spiritual anguish. That’s when the question coming from Jesus “Do you trust God and do you trust me?” is a really important question because trust isn’t trust unless you’re willing to say ‘Yes’ when everything seems wrong.

^04:14 In the Bible there is a book called Proverbs and basically it’s a book of pearls of wisdom given from a father to his son. Probably one of the most famous of these pearls of wisdom is found towards the beginning of Proverbs in chapter 3 verses 5 to 6. This is what it says “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight”. Do you trust him? Do you trust God? Are you willing to acknowledge him even when your heart is breaking, even when you don’t understand, even when you have so many unanswered questions? Are you willing to say “Look God, you’ve never failed me in the past – people have, even Church has, but you have not therefore I say now and I state that I trust you“.

“I trust you God, I trust you Lord Jesus. I submit all of my ways to you, I make you the Lord of my heart and Lord God, I just pray that you will make my paths straight, that Lord God you do have a plan for me, a plan not to harm me, but to prosper me so, Lord God, I trust in you.”

[1] YouTube link: Do I Trust God?
Bible references: Proverbs 3 v5-6, John 14

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[This Reflection was published in the weekly news bulletin of Horley Baptist Church, 26/Apr/2020]

Martin recently preached online about Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and he wondered if any of us had experienced a storm at sea. I thought at the time of one occasion when this happened to Barbara and myself, and the amazing thing is that it happened on the Sea of Galilee.

We were drifting in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. The crew had stopped the engine so that we could read together the well known Bible passages about Jesus stilling the storm, and also about Him walking on the water during a storm. I looked at the calm, blue water and found it hard to imagine a storm there. We sang some songs and ended with, “Be still, for the power of the Lord is moving in this place”. Suddenly a powerful wind hit the sea, and within seconds waves broke over the side of the boat. Several of us were drenched from head to foot. The engine was quickly started and we travelled through the waves to our destination but the crew were worried that we would be swept against the jetty. They decided that it would be best to go all the way back through the storm to the more sheltered town of Tiberias, where we were able to get off the tossing boat with great difficulty.

During our journey back across the sea to Tiberias, I looked at my friends. Some appeared very worried about the storm and others were obviously nauseous. Normally I would have been worried too, but on this occasion I loved every moment of the storm! Firstly, instead of worrying, I was excited that the words from the Bible that we had read were true. “Without warning, a furious storm came upon the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat”, (Matthew 8:24), and on the other occasion, “Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind he was afraid and beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord save me”” (Matthew 14:29-30). Secondly, and even more importantly, I didn’t worry as the boat rolled from side to side because I was filled with a tremendous sense of the presence of the Lord, and a calm assurance that He was in control.

At the present time we are facing a sudden, powerful storm that no one expected. Many have suffered through terrible illness, thousands of others are grieving through the loss of loved ones, NHS staff and care workers are struggling to treat those people who are seriously affected by the virus, and even the rest of us are finding problems with the lockdown.

In a song that we sing, the chorus has these words, “Oh no, You never let go, through the calm and through the storm”. Most of us have never experienced a storm like this in our lives and there may come a time when we begin to sink; but we can cry out to Jesus to save us. We can have a calm assurance that He takes hold of us just as He did with Peter. By faith we can hold on to Him too, but He is the one Who never lets go of us. “I will never leave you nor forsake you”. (Joshua 1:5)
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[Modified transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], April 2020]

What would you do if you felt anxious and unable to cope with life’s pressures and uncertainties? Do you know that Jesus is offering you a hand up? What will you do about it?

If you go into Spurgeon’s College in south London – the college that I trained at – you can see this beautiful stained glass window which consists of a picture of a hand grasping the cross and under it are the words in Latin ‘Teneo et Teneor’. Now I’m not expecting you to be a Latin scholar (I had to look it up on Google) but it basically means to hold and be held, and these were words that were popularised by Spurgeon in the 19th century and he chose it as the motto for his Bible College.

^00:45 When I was reflecting on that particular phrase I was reminded of a story about Jesus; you can find in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 14. Jesus has just fed 5,000 people by performing an amazing miracle and he sends his disciples off to cross the lake in their boats while he dismisses the crowd. He tells the disciples “look just get on with it, get on the boat, go across the Sea of Galilee. I’ll meet with you later and I’ll sort these crowds out”. As they disappear off he then goes up the mountainside to pray and night falls. I don’t know what happened but the disciples are still on the lake in the early hours of the morning, about three o’clock in the morning, before dawn. They’re still in the middle of the lake, there’s a storm that’s been whipped up, the waves are crashing round and the wind is blowing. They’re starting to panic, they’re pretty scared and it’s at that point Jesus appears walking on the water. Now remember, the disciples were scared anyway and they’re even more scared now because what appears to be a ghost is walking across the water towards them.

^02:08 He shouts to the disciples “Don’t be afraid, calm down, you’re okay” and you can imagine Peter thinking “wait a minute, I know that voice” and he calls out “Lord Jesus if it’s you, tell me to come”. Then Jesus says “okay, come on over then.” I don’t think I would have done it but Peter steps out of the boat into the stormy sea and starts to walk to Jesus. It’s at that point when he looks around and realises what he has done and that the waters are raging and the wind is blowing and it’s dark and he can’t see properly – he starts to sink.

^02:47 We’re in a pretty big storm at the moment. I heard it described as a perfect storm, we’re in the dark and we do not know when the dawn is going to come. We are in a storm where life’s foundations have been knocked out from under us and we don’t know how to respond. You could possibly say in the situation where you are that you are going to sink. Or are you going to swim? We like to say that, don’t we, are you going to sink or are you going to swim? I don’t know how to swim in these waters where the familiar foundations of life are gone. I’m not trained for this and if I rely on my own strength, if I rely on those things which have always been so secure in the past, if I rely on those things the reality is that I am going to sink

^03:34 When Peter starts to sink that’s when Jesus reaches down to him and grabs hold of him and pulls him up out of the water. Was Peter right to be scared? Yes, because he’s human, he was in the middle of a storm, it was dark, it was scary. Should you be scared and anxious about what’s going on here at the moment? Yes, of course you should, but don’t stay in the water, don’t find yourself sinking. Grab hold of the hands that Jesus is offering to you. How are you going to respond to that hand? Are you going to ignore it, are you going to just allow yourself to sink further and further into the waters that threatened to consume you? Are you going to try desperately to swim, to do things the way you’ve always done them, to do things in your own strength or are you going to grab that hand and cling onto it for dear life
I hold and am held.

[1] YouTube link: Sink or Swim?
Bible references: Matthew ch14.

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These thoughts have been inspired by the Prayer and Fasting meditations that members of Horley Baptist Church considered during February 2020. Here, we look at the passage suggested for Friday 14th February:
Acts 7:57-8:3; 9:1-22

Ananias – a small cog in the greater gear-train of the establishment of God’s Church on earth but, as with most systems, the small cogs are equally essential to the functioning of the whole enterprise. Cogs in a system have no power of their own; their job is to transfer a driving force to somewhere where it can have an effect. A small cog spins faster than larger ones and is often hidden behind them but without it the more prominent cogs could not make their own contribution to the final outcome.

How do we feel about being ‘little cogs’? Do we feel that we are working harder than our colleagues yet our effort is achieving very little? Unnoticed? Maybe. Essential? Certainly!

Some have criticised Ananias for questioning God’s instruction but I prefer to think of his response as confirming the vision. Unlike Moses in Monday’s reading when he gave a string of excuses, Ananias’s single question can be seen as an assessment of the situation prior to carrying out the instruction without further procrastination. This act of faith has preserved Ananias’s name throughout church history.

There is a parallel here with our thoughts about Gideon earlier this week. Both Gideon and Ananias took a little time to confirm what they understood as God’s will. Taking time to pause and think is applicable to many aspects of our lives; the Bible has a word for it – “Selah”^[1]. In both cases the short period of confirmation quickly gave way to obedience.

In the wider context of our passage it is easy to overlook the role that Ananias played. In recounting these events later, Paul describes Ananias as “a devout observer of the law and highly respected”^[2]. In other words, he was ready for service. Are we ready to be engaged in God’s grand scheme even though it means being just a small part of the eventual outcome?
 
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[1] “Use Selah to take a pause to think about what the Scripture says” from Christianity.com
[2] Acts 22:12
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