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Listening to your Mum

03/04/2011 By

Bible reading: Luke 1:46-55

46And Mary said,

I’m bursting with God-news;

47I’m dancing the song of my Saviour God.

48God took one good look at me, and look what happened — I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!

What God has done for me will never be forgotten,

49the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.

50His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.

51He bared his arm and showed his strength,

scattered the bluffing braggarts.

52He knocked tyrants off their high horses,

pulled victims out of the mud.

53The starving poor sat down to a banquet;

the callous rich were left out in the cold.

54He embraced his chosen child, Israel;

he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.

55It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

The theme for our lent series is pod-destrian.  Based on those people who are so engrossed in listening to their ipods or mobile phones that they can walk into things or into the path of oncoming traffic.  For the 6 weeks in the Christian calendar known as Lent we’ll be asking the question who or what are you listening to?
Tonight we explore – Listening to you mum
  • Who listens to their mum?
  • Who does not listen to their mum?
  • What phrase do you remember that you mum says or said most often?
  • Can you still hear it?

Windows and mirrors

Around the hall are a number of mirrors and windows with some paper next to them.  All you need to do is follow the simple instructions.

Throwing stones

Everyone needs to pick up a stone.

Now things that don’t tend to mix are windows and stones.

Mirrors and stones don’t tend to mix either.

Things, well, things just seem to get broken very easily.

It is true that the people we grow up with have a profound influence on us.  Some of us even get stuck with looking like our parents for the whole of our life.

I wonder if Jesus looked like his Mum.  I wonder Jesus could still hear the words of his mum when he was 30 years old?  “Jesus put that down”, “Jesus will you listen to me?” “Jesus will you please tidy your room”, “Jesus I love you”, “Jesus how did you do that?”

The reading we had at the start of our presentation tonight is from Jesus’ mum, It was Mary at the start of Luke’s gospel.  We only get a glimpse of what she was like, she drifts in and out of the Gospel story.

But look at what she says in this song;

46And Mary said,

I’m bursting with God-news;

47I’m dancing the song of my Saviour God.

God did something in her life that caused her to be bursting with God-news. She was so excited she was dancing.

It is very easy to throw stones.

It is very easy to throw stones, they can break windows and mirrors.

Stones can disfigure, they could mar the looks we have, the looks we might have inherited from our mum,

They can break the pictures we have

Don’t throw stones.

Give flowers.

Come and put your stones down and pick up a bunch of flowers.

Go and give them to someone today.

Say thank you, forgive someone, tell someone you love them.

Say it with flowers.

Flowers look great in a window.

Flowers look far better reflected in a whole mirror than a broken one.

Mary responded to the God’s voice and what he was doing in her life.  It became a beautiful thing.

God is calling you, how will you respond?

Will you throw stones or give flowers?

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Are you listening to the past?

20/03/2011 By

As I thought about listening to the past it occurred to me that we have two options; we can listen to our previous experiences and act now in what they tell us or we can look for new ways of understanding life and explore what that might bring about.

  • Are you a “last time we did this it didn’t work so it won’t work this time” kind of person?
  • Are you a “it eventually works out OK so I’ll carry on anyway” kind of person?
  • Could you be a “I don’t know how this will work out but I’m willing to give it a try” kind of person?

How much does the past dictate to you what you believe and understand about the future?  I don’t just mean hanging on to bad things from the past, e.g. I’ve been hurt or let down, so it will happen again.  I also mean the good things, e.g. my brother always goes the extra mile, he won’t mind me asking.

What about your walk with God?  Whether you’re just starting out asking questions, or been travelling this road for a long time.  Do you expect kindness and good things because that’s been your experience of God?  Or is it the opposite and God never turns up and just like other experiences of life you have, walking with God has been a bit of disappointment – why should it change?

The past can either be a chain around our ankles, slowing us down or a firm positive foundation on which we rely.  For most of us it’s probably both.  Although at any one given time its probably more one than the other.  Is your past helping or hindering?  And how does it influence your relationship with God?

As we go through this evening you may find yourself thinking about events from the past, positive or negative.  As you do would you write on the paper chains on your chairs a word or two that describes that event.  If you don’t want to actually write it down then please just write your name on the chain.  If you end up with lots with your name, don’t worry!

I’ve asked Philippa to come and share something of her journey.

Testimony – Philippa

Time to listen to what question I needed to ask him and to hear his answer

Bible Reading – Psalm 77

I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens. I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord; my life was an open wound that wouldn’t heal.

When friends said, “Everything will turn out all right,” I didn’t believe a word they said.

I remember God—and shake my head.  I bow my head—then wring my hands.  I’m awake all night—not a wink of sleep; I can’t even say what’s bothering me.  I go over the days one by one, I ponder the years gone by.  I strum my lute all through the night, wondering how to get my life together

Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? Will he never smile again? Is his love worn threadbare?

Has his salvation promise burned out? Has God forgotten his manners? Has he angrily stalked off and left us?  “Just my luck,” I said. “The High God goes out of business just the moment I need him.”

Once again I’ll go over what God has done, lay out on the table the ancient wonders; I’ll ponder all the things you’ve accomplished, and give a long, loving look at your acts.

O God! Your way is holy! No god is Great like God!

You’re the God who makes things happen; you showed everyone what you can do — You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble, rescued the children of Jacob and Joseph.

Psalm 77 was written out of the exiles being in need of God to lead them back to the promised land.  God’s people had followed Moses and finally had arrived at what they had called the promised land.  Its known to us as Jerusalem.  The Hebrew people had settled and made Jerusalem their home and then it had been destroyed by the surrounding super powers at that time.  All that remained was a city in ruins and people deported to many places.  God’s people are now in a place of exile, of displacement and dispersement.  Psalm 77 speaks of a blunt honesty that the worshippers have failed to reach God in prayer and that their attempts to find comfort in the past have failed.

As the verses progress we journey from preoccupation with ourselves to a submission to and reliance on God.  The first verses are “I” based, the second part is “you” based.  The psalm looks at “our past” and moves from a reliance on the past into an understanding that God is free to change, to come and go.  He is not predictable but there is a promise that where he leads he will provide.

This new reliance on a changing and dynamic God relies on the people of God moving away from an “I” based faith of obedience to earn God’s favour to a “you” based faith of where “I” is given up.  Our expectations of God, our limitations of him, our desires for him to act the way we want him to – all of this has to be relinquished.

We can keep circling back held in by our past experiences and our preoccupation with self or we can take the brave step of moving forward with God.

The world we live in encourages us to concentrate on not giving away our “self” or preserving it and feeding it and yet this psalm challenges us to relinquish self; to understand that we live by gift and not by grasp.

Just like Jesus words in Mark 8 35.

For whoever wants to save his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it

Even when we look back on our past experiences of God this can sometimes limit us to what we expect God to do in the future.  Will we live with the dynamic and ever-changing God who can do all things and make all things new?

In our relationships we begin to feel comfortable and relaxed as we get to know people.  We open up more, we share more personal conversations and stories from our past.  We let them see the less “nice” side of us.  And there is a sense in which in our walk with God that this is also true.  But don’t let’s get carried away.  God is not there to be controlled by us, by our needs, by our plans for the future, for how we think things should work out.  Even when we think we are motivated by all the right reasons. God’s way is wholly other, not to be reduced to my needs or my expectations.  He is unpredictable and incomparable.

The challenge is to move from a religion based on obedience and earning God’s love to a fully liberated imaginative religion of awe and amazement and trembling before the Holy One.

Everything is up for grabs in verse 10.

O God! Your way is holy!

No god is great like God!

This is the moment that can go either way, a moment of deciding, to live in the world where God, the Most High can change, free to act; or to retreat back to a safer world where we are at the centre of things and can stay in control.

Response – paper chains and fire

You may  have already written on some paper chains but I’d like to give you the chance to do more if you wish.  Write on them some of the situations or memories of the past that are controlling how you view yourself, others and /or God.  If you prefer, then again just write your name on the chain instead.

Then join them together with anyone else nearby who written on a chain.

We have a decision to make now.  Do you want move forward, to live in the world where God, the Most High can change, be free to act; or are you not ready yet and would prefer to retreat back to a safer world where we are at the centre of things and can stay in control.

If you’d like to move forward, one small step, then I’d like you to join your paper chain up to make a link.  Make a chain if you have more than one.  During the next few slides I would then encourage you to bring your chains out to the front.

Indescribable – Chris Tomlin

Burn the paper chains

We leave the past behind, the good and the bad and wait on you God the indescribable, uncontainable, all powerful, untameable, incomparable, unchangeable, amazing God who sees the depths of my heart and loves me the same.

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Who are you listening to?

13/03/2011 By

The theme for our lent series is pod-destrian.  Based on those people who are so engrossed in listening to their ipods or moibile phones that they can walk into things or into the path of oncoming traffic.  For the next 6 weeks which in the Christian calendar is known as Lent we’ll be asking the question who or what are you listening to ?

Lent is the period of six weeks 40 days (not including Sundays) leading up to Easter, which is  the most important festival in the Christian calendar.  During the 40 days of Lent, Christians remember the time when Jesus went into the desert to fast and pray before beginning his work for God. During this time Jesus was tempted several times by Satan, but was able to resist.  Lent is a time of giving things up. For Christians, it is one way of remembering the time Jesus’ fasted in the desert and is a test of self-discipline.

There are many foods that some Christians do not eat in Lent, such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and milky foods. Some Christians just give up something they really enjoy such as cakes or chocolate.

Lent starts after Pancake Day which traditionally people have used as the last chance to use up the foods that they would not be eating during Lent. Today people often give up chocolate or alcohol.

So this is a time when you might hear people talking about they might give up for Lent.  The idea being that this is a time when some self-discipline and self-control is exercised.  If you like it’s the Christian New Year, its when they make resolutions to be focussed on their journey with God.  People give up chocolate or crisps, watching TV or playing computer games.  The idea is that it’s supposed to be a challenge,  that you would need to be rely on God in order to be able to resist the temptation to give in.

This evening we have heard Joy and Paul share how Keziah’s arrival has been a key part of their journey and the peaks and troughs of that.  The fear and despair as well as the delight and happiness.

In line with our theme for Lent I’d like to ask you – who or what were you listening to as they shared their story?  Were you listening to people who because you know them, you were willing to believe their story, it stirred your emotions, left you thinking how would I have reacted in those circumstances?  Or was it too farfetched and whilst you know Joy and Paul well, its too big a jump for you, so you stopped listening or listened instead to a voice that explained away all that they said?  Either of those or anything in between is perfectly normal.

My challenge to you this Lent is to give up your scepticism or cynicism.  To resist the temptation to explain away all that happened to Joy and Paul as coincidence or fate.  You can go back to that way of thinking as soon as the six weeks of Lent are over.  I’m not asking you to give rational thought or switch your brain off.

I’m just suggesting that for a few weeks you might entertain the idea that God has been at work, that God may have something to say to you too, that God is big enough to handle all of the questions and doubts that you might have.  He’s big enough to handle your indifference too.  Joy and Paul are not alone in the Bridge community.  There are many others here too with stories to tell that seem to suggest that God is at work.  We don’t have all of the answers and it doesn’t always make sense but we are a group of people who in varying degrees have decided to suspend our cynicism, to be willing to explore what seems impossible, to be open to new possibilities.

Joy and Paul’s story tonight is that God has walked with them through a very difficult time, that there have been times when they have had very real doubts and times when they have known for certain that God has been with them.  It has also been a very real and at times hugely difficult time for those of who love and care for them.  What to say?  What to do?  At times we have felt so useless and incapable of finding the right words.  And yet many of us have known God carrying us and walking with us through it.

Joy and Paul were at one time given a very special picture of a pair of hands holding their unborn baby, protecting her from a too early arrival.  This picture has brought great comfort in times of great despair.  And yet here we are today, celebrating Keziah’s arrival.  She has already brought great change to the lives of the Hatfield family and will no doubt continue to do so.

Our story is that God is not distant, that he is interested in each and every one of us.  As Easter approaches it’s a good time to think again about what God achieved.  There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to reach out to us.  At Easter we remember that God actually came to earth as a human being.  He lived among us and knows exactly what its like to be us.  The whole idea of Jesus doing that was so that he can be a role model for what it means to be a human being living in relationship with God.  Joy and Paul’s story this evening demonstrates the power of the Holy spirit at work in ordinary human beings.  This is the same spirit that was at work in the life of Jesus.  We can keep trying to be better people, to be kind and caring and generous or brave and yet if we attempt this purely under our own will power we will always fall short, we will always run out.  God doesn’t want us to have to do all of this on own.  He wants to empower and transform our lives.  When Jesus died on the cross he clearly demonstrated that a human being who has lived their life in partnership with God, who has allowed God’s spirit to be at work in their life, will overcome.  We don’t need to live lives that have no purpose, we don’t have to live lives that trapped by the circumstances we have encountered, we don’t have to live lives that are valued by what we own or what we wear, we don’t have to live lives that are trapped by our past.  God would love for you to feel his love.  Will you give him a chance?

So who are you listening to?  Will you listen to Joy and Paul’s story and think it’s worth considering?  For the next six weeks you could participate in Lent by giving up something.  Will you give up your indifference, your scepticism, your fear, your pride?

When the rain is blowing in your face,
And the whole world is on your case,
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear,
And there is no one there to dry your tears,
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love.

I know you haven’t made your mind up yet,
But I would never do you wrong.
I’ve known it from the moment that we met,
No doubt in my mind where you belong.

I’d go hungry; I’d go black and blue,
I’d go crawling down the avenue.
No, there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love.

The storms are raging on the rolling sea
And on the highway of regret.
Though winds of change are throwing wild and free,
You ain’t seen nothing like me yet.

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true.
Nothing that I wouldn’t do.
Go to the ends of the Earth for you,
To make you feel my love

Bible reading: John 3: 16

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son.  And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.  God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was.  He came to help, to put the world right again.

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