Selah2020: Pause and Reflect

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], April 2021]

It’s possible to find meaning and purpose on all sorts of things, but how can I know that it’s authentic and true?

On Sunday in our sermon series ‘alternative facts’, Neil was talking about how we can find fulfilment in life and he gave us a quote from Victor Frankl, an Auschwitz survivor, who says it’s about finding meaning and purpose in our life.

I just want to kind of go into that a little bit deeper, dig a bit deeper into what meaning and purpose is. How do we find it, because we can find meaning and purpose in all sorts of things. We can find meaning and purpose in life through our relationships, you can find meaning and purpose through your job, you can find meaning and purpose in your hobbies, but Victor Frankl goes on to say that actual true meaning and purpose is one that is connected to authenticity, is connected to truth.

That leads me with that question: “How do we know that our meaning and purpose is connected to truth, it’s authentic, it’s real?” I think when I’m thinking about this I thought there’s possibly two ways in which we know that those things that we’re finding mean and purposing in are linked to authenticity.

The first one, I think, is that actually it works, it makes a difference, it makes a positive difference in our life. It adds value, it bears good fruit. In fact Jesus said “You can spot someone who’s false by the fruits that they bear” so is your life bearing good fruits? I think if we have a life that bears good fruit it doesn’t only have a positive impact on our own life, it has a positive impact on the lives of those around us and the relationships that we have. Does the thing that you’re finding meaning and purpose in really make a positive difference to yourself, your relationships, the people around us? Does it actually work?

The second thing, I think, that shows whether it’s true or authentic is that it lasts. It reminds me of an account in John’s gospel when Jesus stops down by a well and starts to have a conversation with a woman that he met there, which wasn’t a very Jewish thing to do particularly because the woman was a Samaritan which was a hated race, I guess, for the Jewish people. He has a conversation with her and he asks for a drink. Then he offers her something called ‘living water’ and he says that if this woman drank this living water she would never be thirsty again.

Now this woman gets a bit confused; she thinks that Jesus is talking about an actual drink. Jesus isn’t, he’s talking about spiritual drink. She said “Well, that’s just great I’d never need to come to this well again” and then Jesus said to her “Well, go and fetch your husband, bring him here” and she said “I haven’t got a husband” and this is where Jesus really gets to the crux of where this woman was finding her sense of meaning and purpose in life, how she was trying to be fulfilled. He says to this woman “You’re right, you haven’t got a husband. In fact you’ve had five husbands and the guy that you’re living with at the moment isn’t even your husband”.

See, this woman was trying to find meaning and purpose and fulfilment in the relationships that she had. Perhaps she was willing to sacrifice anything in order to get those relationships, possibly even going with the wrong men because actually it was more important that she was in a relationship than who she was in relationship with. She was trying to quench her thirst with something that left her after a short time feeling parched and dry.

It’s a bit like Coke really and fizzy drinks. I’d much rather have a can of Coke or a fizzy drink than a glass of water but I know that within half an hour or so I’m going to feel thirsty again. That’s the same with those things in our life that we use to quench our thirst but they’re not authentic; they still leave ourselves after a period of time feeling thirsty dry and parched, they just don’t last.

See, Jesus said to this woman “This living water that I’m offering you life and relationship with me and your heavenly father will mean that you will never be thirsty again”. Actually what Jesus is offering us doesn’t last for five years, 10 years, 20 years, a lifetime on this earth even, but this is something that will last for eternity. Jesus said “I am the way the truth and the life”. Jesus and our relationship with him is meaning, it gives us meaning, it gives us purpose but it’s also true and it’s authentic, it works. It makes a difference in your life and it lasts for eternity.

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you would call yourself a Christian, I want to ask you the question: “Are you still thirsty?” because the danger of being a Christian is that we can find our meaning and purpose in the things that we do, the ministry that we have through our church and the relationships that we find there. In fact, we can become overly protective of our church because we don’t want anything to affect that thing that we put so much importance on.

If we place so much importance on those things then ultimately we’re going to become thirsty again. We’re going to find they are unfulfilling, that they don’t work as they used to because they just don’t last. We’re called to quench our thirst with our relationship with Jesus, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to experience that joy that goes beyond understanding.

So, are you willing to drink of Jesus rather than the sweet attractive but ultimately unfulfilling things that this world offers?

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[1] YouTube link: How can I find true meaning and purpose?
Bible references: John 4
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], April 2021]

The story that humanity has most believed in is that life is better when we are in charge. It’s the oldest Alternative Fact, and we fall for it time and time again. Have you?

On Sunday we started our new teaching series, ‘Alternative Facts’. It’s based on a phrase that was used by the Trump press team a few years ago and the idea being that alternative facts are telling a different story. You may view a situation or occasion like this but we view it like that. You are offering alternative facts. Actually in life we all sign up to, we believe in, alternative facts, a different story about who we are and the world that we live in. For us who are maybe a people of faith it’s about the sort of God that we believe in.

There’s an occasion right in the beginning of the Bible, the first book of the Bible, Genesis, where we hear how God created the universe and the world that we live in, and when you get a couple of chapters in, we’re introduced to a serpent who is called the most crafty of all the creatures created. He goes to the first humans. Adam and Eve, and offers them alternative facts. He goes to them and says to them – to Eve – ‘surely God hasn’t said that you can’t eat of any tree in the garden?’ and Eve corrects him because God had told them that they could eat of any tree in the garden of Eden apart from one tree – the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God said that ‘if you eat of this tree you will die’.

The serpent said ‘Look, you’re not going to die; it’s just that God wants to keep all the power to himself, to keep you little. You don’t need to stay like that. Eat of this tree and you will be like God yourself.’ He offers alternative facts, a different story where God is power-hungry, God is a tyrant, God is a liar, God wants to keep humanity small and ignorant. The thing is, Eve believed the serpent, eats the fruit, passes it on to Adam who also has a try himself.

What we see in Genesis is the downward spiral of the first half of humanity deciding that they are gods; they decide to take control of their own lives, of their own destiny. We see humanity becoming progressively more evil, more separated from their creator, further away from who God intended them to be.

As you read through the Bible in its entirety you see this spiral again and again and again despite maybe a few pin-pricks of light in the Biblical narrative of people who actually had the heart of God, like king David, who actually listened to God, who did what God had asked of them. Actually in the vast majority of cases humanity rejected God, they believed a different story, they signed up to alternative facts and they became the king of their lives.

I heard it said recently that the difference between a convert to Jesus Christ and someone who is a disciple of Jesus Christ is that a disciple has made Jesus king, that Jesus is lord of their lives, that they make their decisions, they choose the direction not on their wants or desires but on what God, what Jesus wants of their life; the place where they are being guided to by God.

That’s a real challenge, isn’t it? Who is king of your life? Who’s in charge, who makes the decisions?. Do you do want you want to do? Do you do what makes you feel right? Do you do those things that are based on the story that you have signed up to? How do you chose what you spend your money on, the job that you take, the places that you live? Is it based on you, or is it based on God’s calling on your life? Do you ever seek to know or understand what God’s calling is on your life.

You see, in that Biblical story of humanity there is one man that didn’t sign up to the alternative story offered by the devil, by Satan, by the serpent, and that man was Jesus, and you can read in the Gospel stories of how just before he started his earthly ministry he goes out to the wilderness and it says that he is tempted, he is tested by the devil. He is sold a different story, he is offered power and authority, he is offered the chance to be his own king, and Jesus says ‘No!’.

Jesus offers us the same opportunity, that same choice to say ‘No’ to Satan, to say ‘No’ to the lies spoken about God and the lies spoken about us, to say ‘No’ to being king of our own lives, in the words of Frank Sinatra, ‘to do it my way’ and instead find out the joy and the fullness of living a life under God’s kingship, God’s rule rather than our own.

What choice have you made, and what choice will you make?

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[1] YouTube link: Who’s In Charge of Your Life?
Bible references: ~
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], April 2021]

Should Good Friday be a time of celebration or mourning? Should our return to ‘normality’ be celebrated or mourned? Do we need time to lament the past year?

It’s Good Friday tomorrow and whilst planning our service myself and Daz had a bit of a conversation about you know ‘what’s the feel of the service? do we go for a kind of a lively celebratory kind of mood or do we go for a sombre reflective mood because the reality is, we are Easter Sunday Christians and therefore we view our faith and review Good Friday through that particular lens. We read the Good Friday story and we know that there is hope, we know that everything’s all right in the end, We know that Jesus is resurrected and we know that Jesus’s death on the cross means life for us. We know what the cross means but does the hope and joy of the Easter Sunday take away the pain and anguish of the Good Friday?

You see, I don’t think it does. I think it’s a really sad and horrific story where Jesus is broken physically completely and that when we hear that story we should recoil in disgust, we should shout out in despair, we should shout at the injustice of it all and perhaps we should be asking ourselves ‘you know, if I was there what would I do? If I was a friend of Jesus would I run away and desert him, even deny him?’ and if I was the crowd would I switch from shouting his praises to instead shouting for his execution.

Perhaps this is why despite the fact that we are Easter Sunday Christians, despite the fact that we know that everything works out in the end, for the last 2,000 years we have spent more time remembering Good Friday than we have remembering Easter Sunday. Through the acts of Communion we remember the death of Jesus Christ, we partake in his blood and his body, and we ask ourselves the question around our own culpability in Jesus’s death, the ways that we have deserted him, the way that we have denied him, the ways in which we have not acted as a true follower of Jesus Christ.

That leads me onto the question: when we finally return to some sense of normality with regard to our church services – potentially this summer, you know – what will the moods be? Would it be lively, would it be a celebration knowing that things are okay again, that we can once again meet together and I’m so looking forward to that time but is there a danger that in having that celebratory mood we can forget the pain and despair of the last year. Perhaps that should be the lens through which we view our return to physical church services, that actually we need to spend time in lament recognizing the distress the pain, the death, the destruction that Covid has caused in the last year.

We ought to recognize that, yes, we’re now returning to some semblance of normality but actually we will never be the same again, and we could perhaps spend time considering the lessons that we have learnt and the ways in which we have changed and the ways in which we must change because this past year has been pretty terrible

Hey thank you so much for tuning in to this midweek message. Do remember to subscribe to our channel and remember that at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning we have our Good Friday service telling the story where we look at the first Good Friday two thousand years ago, and on Easter Sunday it’s really exciting – we have a live service from the church, Neil and Angie will be leading the first bit and then myself and Daz will be doing three baptisms. We’re really excited about that so do join us at half past 10 on Sunday for that.
Thanks for tuning in … ’bye

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[1] YouTube link: Should we Celebrate or Mourn?
Bible references: ~
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], March 2021]

COVID has given us a unique opportunity to pause, take stock, and analyse our lives – do we have the life we’ve always wanted, or is there something missing? Perhaps you are left with the question, what am I looking for, and have I found it?

What are you looking for? What do I mean by that? Well, what are those things in life that you are striving towards; what are those goals that you are seeking to to meet so that when you come to the end of your life you can look back and go “Yes I did it, yes my life was worthwhile, yes I meant something, I did something!”

Perhaps for you it’s family or fame. For me I think it’s success, I want to succeed in all I do. I’m striving towards being successful but the thing is, no matter how hard I strive, no matter how successful I may become it’s never enough. There’s always something else to strive for, there’s always someone who’s more successful than me. So, what are you looking for? Perhaps like the lyrics of the U2 song you still haven’t found what you’re looking for.

See we’ve now come up to our year anniversary of Covid and it’s been a really strange year. For many of us its given us an opportunity to to rethink our life, to look at it in microscopic detail, to take time, and we can see the cracks, we can see the flaws. We can see the good things as well. We can also see the bad things that we want to change. For some of us we’ve realized the importance of family, for others of us we’ve realized that maybe the job that we have isn’t the one for us. It seems for a lot of people it’s the desire to buy a puppy. Perhaps you discover that the life that you have built for yourself, the life that you have pursued and created hasn’t become all that it cracked up to be, maybe the life that promised so much has actually delivered so little.

I love watching Ben Fogle’s ‘New Lives in the Wild’. I remember watching one just a few weeks ago where a couple fought for their dream to have a home on a piece of land and they they fought for years and it seemed time and time again as if that dream wouldn’t be fulfilled, and yet they came to the point where they had won their battles. They had realized their dreams, they had built their home but the wife of the couple said to Ben who was interviewing “You know, we’ve got our dream but we realize that it’s it’s not enough. We feel unfulfilled and all that’s left is all the fighting and now we haven’t got anyone to fight against we’re fighting against each other.” Perhaps you’ve fought for something and actually now you’ve got it you realize it’s just not enough.

This coming Sunday we’re going to be continuing our teaching series ‘Encounters, meeting with Jesus’ and Helen is going to be preaching this Sunday. She’s going to be sharing with us a story of a guy called Zacchaeus. He was successful, he was wealthy, he was a man who had strived and succeeded regardless of any obstacles that came along his way regardless of what anyone else thought of him. He had got everything that he wanted but then he heard that a guy called Jesus was passing through his town and I don’t know exactly what was in Zacchaeus’s mind but there was obviously something not quite right in his life, something that despite his success, despite his wealth, something was missing.

He decided to go out and catch a glimpse of Jesus and he fights the crowd, he climbs a tree and he sees from his position Jesus coming towards him, but the thing is, Jesus saw him too and he didn’t just see him up a tree, he didn’t just see his external appearance. He saw inside him, he saw his truth, he saw the emptiness that was in Zacchaeus that needed filling, that no amount of wealth or success could fill.

You see, Zacchaeus was looking for something but Jesus was looking for him. Perhaps you’re looking for something too and maybe you’re watching these videos because you’re searching. Maybe you wouldn’t admit it to anyone else but perhaps those things that you have attained in life haven’t managed to fill that hole as much as you would have liked and maybe you’re watching this video because you’re searching for something else.

I just want to tell you that this is a two-way thing, this isn’t just you searching but actually Jesus is searching for you too and if you listen to the sermon on Sunday you’ll find that Zacchaeus’s life was transformed completely, and that could be the case for you.

Thank you so much for watching this midweek message. Please like this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and do remember that this is just a bit of an introduction really to our sermon on Sunday. You can watch that on our Sunday service. Helen will be preaching on the story of Zacchaeus but if you don’t want to watch the whole service you can just watch the sermon as well and that’ll be available on Sunday morning.

Thank you for joining us and do remember if you are searching and you do have some questions next month, in a few weeks time, we’ll be starting an Alpha course and I’ll share just to the left or right of me – I’m not sure which – a link to the video about Alpha and if you’re interested do contact us at alpha@horleybaptist.org.uk and we’ll give you the information you need to know to join us in that.
Cheers and look after yourself. ’bye

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[1] YouTube link: What are you looking for?
Bible references: Luke 19 v1-10
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], March 2021]

Is being a follower of Jesus all about doing the right things and not doing the wrong things? Or maybe a preoccupation with external perfection misses the point of what it really means to be a Christian.

Yes, I am in with the chickens again. It’s really annoying, I did go out and walk the dogs this morning and I forgot to take all my recording equipment with me so I’m here because it’s raining again. But I want to talk to you just over the next few minutes about the difference about being right on the outside and being right on the inside

I’ve made a decision a few weeks ago that I’m going to start reading through all four gospels in the space of a month, because I realized that I don’t know Jesus that well. Yes, I dip in and out and read bits of the gospels but actually there’s a real strength in reading the gospels from start to finish. Currently I’m in Matthew and there’s this real battle between Jesus and his teachings, and the teachings of the Jewish authorities, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and everything that they had and what Jesus draws a real parallel between is their outward appearance, a person’s outward appearance, what they do and what they don’t do, and actually what they’re like on the inside.

There’s a bit in Matthew where Jesus lays out his manifesto, I guess. He tries to tell those who are listening as disciples and probably hundreds of other people that have gathered to listen to Jesus as he tries to lay out for them what it is to be a follower of Jesus Christ, what it means to be part of the kingdom of heaven. What’s really striking is that he says that if you want to be part of the kingdom of heaven your righteousness, your being right with God has to be even greater than that of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. That’s a major thing to say because the Pharisees and the Sadducees were obsessed with rule-following.

They did everything they could to follow the rules and to look like they were doing the right thing. In fact, the Pharisees believed if the whole of the Jewish nation managed to keep all of God’s rules for one entire day then God would come back, the Messiah would arrive. See, for the Jewish people and particularly the Pharisees and the Sadducees, outward appearances were everything.

But what Jesus does in what we call the Sermon on the Mount – his manifesto – it says actually what is on the outside is not enough. What you need is an inward change. You may technically be right but that is not enough. I mean if you said to your wife “technically, I didn’t commit adultery” that’s not going to be enough because that’s not a heart change. That says something actually really bad about what is inside your heart: ‘Technically, I didn’t commit adultery’. Jesus is saying that for these Pharisees and these Sadducees, technically they may not be doing the wrong thing but actually what really matters is a change of heart, an inward change, and these Pharisees and these Sadducees just didn’t have it.

I remember when I was a teenager I came up with all these rules and t these his regulations almost like code of honour that I would follow and it was really based upon the teachings I’d received in church, what I thought was right, and yet by the time I reached 20 I’d broken every single one of them. So when I was in my early 20s I just remember saying to God “What is the point? You set this impossible task, you set this example of Jesus which is just unfair, I can’t live up to that, I cannot obey all the rules you are demanding of me. I can’t be holy and perfect like you because I am fallen and sinful”.

What I’ve come to realize is that we don’t need to worry about that. We don’t need to worry about the things that we’re doing right or the things that we’re not doing that are wrong because the reality is if you’re focusing on an external morality then you put the cart before the horse. As a follower of Jesus Christ, what makes the most difference is the gift of the Holy Spirit, that when you welcome Jesus into your heart, that when you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, that God does the work for you. He transforms you from the inside out and what happens when you become a follower of Jesus Christ and you welcome him into your heart is the inside is cleansed and therefore in time you will be amazed how your actions and your words are transformed, dictated not by morality, not by rules and regulations, not by the expectations of others but by the love of God within you. This is why king David in the Psalms he prays to God, he sings to God “Create in me a clean heart o Lord and renew a right spirit within me”.
Are you asking God for those things?

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[1] YouTube link: Do I need to obey a bunch of rules to follow Jesus?
Bible references: Psalm 51 v10, Matthew 5 v20  

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.

[Transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube^[1], March 2021]

Are you the kind of person that believes in anything, or are you sceptical and full of questions?
How should we be with faith in God – naive or questioning?

Hi guys, you find me in the chicken run again. It’s horrible out there, it’s raining, it’s wet and miserable. Yes, I am a fair weather film-maker but I promise you the dogs will get a walk later but thank you for joining me in the chicken run with the chickens and we’re going to carry on our series looking at encounters meeting with Jesus.

^[00:35] A few years ago now I had the great privilege of attending Bible College and that may not seem amazing to some of you but for me it was a dream come true. It gave me three years to spend time studying the Bible, learning about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and all that sort of stuff, and I’m so thankful to all those that enabled me to do that. I got married in my first year and I used to come back from having my lectures – the lectures were very much there, particularly the first year, to unpack what we believed and to dismantle it, to take it down brick by brick so we can then rebuild our faith, and have a real solid understanding standing about what we believe.

^[01:19] I used to go back home after a day at college and discuss with my new wife, Jen, all the things that we’ve been learning about, all the difficult questions and the difficult issues that we were coming across and having to grapple with that really challenged our faith, and I remember Jen saying these words to me which really annoyed me. She said “You need to have a childlike faith”. When I came to all these difficult issues and questions that I needed answers to, she said, “You need to have a childlike faith”.

^[01:52] So, what does that mean? What is a child like faith and is it even possible because there are so many difficulties when it comes to our Christian faith, when it comes to believing in God, so many contradictions, so many historical issues. Surely a childlike faith is to put your hands over your ears and ignore all the difficult questions; maybe it’s to be naive, maybe it’s to be ignorant. Maybe those who have a child like faith are those who are unable to grapple with the hard truths of life. Perhaps childlike faith is a bit like the fact that my kids believe in the tooth fairy and father Christmas. Is it childlike faith like that – it ignores the evidence and just believes in anything.

^[03:04] Maybe that’s not what it means. Maybe having a childlike faith is coming to the realization that we do not have all the answers. Maybe it’s getting to the stage in your faith journey that you’re willing to believe in God and commit yourself to Jesus even though you don’t have all the answers. Despite all the difficulties, despite all the contradictions, having a childlike faith is about saying yes to God, to take his hand and to journey with Him despite any reservations that you might have. Maybe having a child like faith is being comfortable with the mystery of life and God, not needing to have all those answers.

^[03:55] Perhaps most of all what having a child like faith is is realizing that what is most important is knowing that firstly God is in control, secondly God has a plan, thirdly God loves you and fourthly He is welcoming you with open arms. So don’t miss out on the love that God has for you because you are so caught up in the difficulties and the mystery that you can’t see beyond that, and to find yourself sitting on the lap of your heavenly father feeling, experiencing and knowing the love that he has for you.

Hey guys thank you so much for tuning in to me and the chickens and thank you. Do subscribe to our Youtube channel, do please like this video because that will draw other watchers to the video. Do remember that this midweek message is a kind of a forerunner to the sermon that will be shown on our Sunday service at 10:30 this coming Sunday, where we continue our teaching series ‘encounters: meeting with Jesus’. So do join us for our Sunday service, or you can find the sermon separately on our YouTube channel. Thank you so much for joining us, do subscribe and do like. Cheers ’bye

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[1] YouTube link: Do I Need a Child-like Faith?
Bible references: ~
 

Bible quotations: Unless otherwise specified, quotations are taken from the resources of Bible Gateway or Bible Hub, in accordance with the licencing conditions outlined on our Site Policies page.

Bible dates: Where appropriate, the dates given for Biblical events are based on the Bible Timeline resource
and are subject to the constraints defined on the corresponding webpage.