Merredin Uniting Church

Greeting in the lovely name of Jesus…

Because a lot of our men are at the Mighty Men Conference in Perth this weekend, the services today at Merredin and Mukinbudin are given over to the ladies. And welcome to the Church of Christ congregation who are joining the service in  Mukinbudin.

I recently received some literature from the Frontier Services and was deeply moved by the amazing work that they do in the Outback and in the “not so out” Outback. Four things struck me in particular – the work in Aboriginal Communities, work amongst migrants, the crisis of mental illness in rural Australia and the Work Parties who gather to repair and restore church buildings in small communities. Frontier Services asked us to have a special service sometime to focus on their work which is often not very high on the agenda of the church. With this in mind, it is appropriate that Sal Marais leads our service today. I was asking people about their dreams recently and it came to light that Sal would really like to teach  Aboriginal children on a station. She wants to go to the   frontier, so who better to lead the service today!

But going back to the things that struck me. There is a wonderful article in Frontier News titled “One is the loneliest number”. It details the problem of  depression when one lives in an isolated community. And I can understand that. When you live inside your head and your only conversation is with yourself, it is easy to sink into depression. The article details the valuable  contribution of the Patrol Minister who brings companionship into the isolation. We as a Christian community can also play a vital role in this regard. I read of the Men’s Shed movement and I see its value in helping men who find themselves “alone in the midst of the crowd”. It’s a brilliant concept. Connected to this is our plan to start a Men’s Group in Merredin on March 10^th. Getting  together for an hour of fun and barbeque (with a beer or two perhaps) and then some input on God, life and relationships. More about that later.

Another helpful article was about the Work Party movement. Men and women who give up two weeks or more in some outback town to refurbish the churches. They take their caravan (if they have one) and enjoy the travel to some place 500 or more km’s away. They make good friends and bring a bit of new life into the community. A wonderful idea.

Enjoy the service and may the Lord be with you.

Rev David de Kock

Text: Philippians 1:12-20

Last week, we saw that we should have –

• A heart of confidence in God (believing that He can fulfil His promises)

• A heart of compassion for people (believing that God loves them as much as He loves us), and

• A heart of concern for the growth of the Kingdom of God (believing that God’s intention is that none should perish but that all should come to faith in Him).

Today we are going to look at the great Possibilities which the Gospel gives us when we commit to its Priority and see it as the Purpose and Pattern for our life.

In Philippians 1:12, Paul tells us that “what has happened to him has really served to advance the gospel”.

Oh Yes? Listen to what happened to him … (2 Corinthians 12:23-27)

He was imprisoned, flogged, exposed to death.
Five times he received forty lashes minus one.
Three times he was beaten with rods,
Three times shipwrecked, a day and a night on the open sea.
Constantly on the move,
In danger from rivers, bandits and his own countrymen.
In danger from the Gentiles,
in danger in the city,
in danger at sea, and in danger from false brothers.
He laboured and toiled, went without sleep, went hungry and thirsty, and was cold and naked.

And he says, “I want you to know that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel….

And indeed, the advancement of the gospel is our purpose too … it is God’s commission to us – Follow me and make disciples.

The Gospel offers us the great Possibility to do this in any and every circumstance. Follow me and make disciples…

In verse 14, Paul say, “Because of my chains” – because of, not despite: There is a huge difference.

“Despite my chains” implies that I am not constrained by them. I am bound up but despite that I pushed ahead. It is by sheer human effort that I can achieve in my circumstances.

“Because of my chains” tells us that the chains are the very reason why Paul and his colleagues “have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.” Paul used his circumstances to share the gospel – he made the most of every opportunity!

I believe that this means that we can find great possibilities for the Gospel just where we are. Paul was in chains and in prison but he saw that as opportunity to speak the word even more courageously. He did not think that he had to get out of the situation before he could do that! There was no “if only” or “when I” in his planning. He did what he could, right where he was.

We must speak and live the Gospel right where we are, in our situation.

“Where you are” is not a hindrance, but an opportunity.

Your unchurched friends are not a liability but an opportunity. Your family who have drifted away from Jesus are not to be mourned over, but to be prayed over. Your difficult circumstances are a challenge to live in faith.

The power of the gospel flows out of our confidence in God and our love for His people – as we heard last week.

We hesitate because we often fear ridicule, unpopularity, and social isolation if we are too vocal or demonstrative about our trust in God. But if we really trust God then the place we are is the place where God wants us to be and we must use the possibilities in that place to share faith and the good news. God has put us there for that very reason.

One of our goals this year, indeed, our primary goal is to serve 42 (10) people outside the congregation this year for the sake of the gospel. I believe that each of us can use our situation to do that quite easily. A friend, a neighbour, a colleague – we are connected to them in our life and we are, in a sense, therefore also obligated to share our faith with them – just as Paul was able to use his far more complicated situation of being chained to the guards in the dungeon.

How do we do this?

Well, we need first of all to recognize the Priority of the Gospel message. Paul says, “The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.”

The priority is that Christ is preached. In Paul’s case he sometimes saw the gospel preached out of envy and rivalry, even selfish ambition; he said that the motive did not matter.

In our case we might feel inadequate to share our faith, we might be hesitant because we fear stumbling over the sharing of our faith despite its roots deep within us, but all that matters is that Christ is preached.

It is better to do the right thing even if it is done badly. It is better to do the right thing than to do nothing at all. It is better to do the right thing even if the motives are mixed or wrong. And the right thing is that Christ is preached.

Our priority is to be so convinced of our salvation in Christ that we are no longer hesitant to share our own hope with others, especially the ones we love.

When we preach Christ we are not simply preaching values, or another good way to live, we are preaching the very essence of life …

– God made us to live in relationship with Him, Adam sinned and we became separated from Him by default, our life lost its purpose and meaning – then Christ came, and through His atoning death, He gave us our life back, in all its fullness, with all its promise and potential.

And so Paul says in verse 21, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” He did not fear death and neither should we – death is not a threat but the culmination of life, and it bring us into the presence of the One who desires that we can see Him and know Him and walk with Him in glory.

But Paul did see Purpose in life, specifically, in his case, that his readers’ joy in Christ Jesus would overflow on account of him.

And I do not think that our purpose is much different. Because of our faith and hope in Christ Jesus, joy should be our benchmark. Our spirits must be lifted up. Our hope is sure, our destiny is secure.

As Paul tells us in Romans 8 – “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We are safe in God’s love for us, nothing can ever threaten that, nothing at all! And that is cause for joy.

The purpose of our life is to live in this joy, and to be absolutely content, fearing no threat nor disaster.

The Westminister Cathechism has, as its first statement of our faith, “The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” This is our chief purpose, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

And that must affect the Pattern of our life.

Not just to speak the gospel, or even just to believe it, but to live it.

If we believe it, it must shape our lives.

And to be quite blunt, if you believe the extraordinary claims of the gospel then you have no option but to live according to its extraordinary promise – that the God who spoke the universe into being is madly in love with you, and has shaped a destiny for you which involves a personal relationship with Him within the community of His people.

So, says Paul, “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ … stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way.”

The great Possibility of the Gospel is realized when we, BECAUSE of our situation and circumstances are able to preach Christ as a Priority, to make the joy of Christ the Purpose of our life and to Pattern our lives so that we conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel.

And the outcome will be that not only will our own lives be content, but others will know that contentedness themselves.

May the joy of the Lord be your strength.

Rev David de Kock

Good morning to you all!

This is going to be a busy week – starting today! Four services today and then gathering steam to the Mighty Men’s Conference in Perth beginning on Friday. I will be going down on Thursday to attend a Ministry Supervision Meeting in the afternoon and the Ministers Pneuma Breakfast on   Friday morning. The Supervision Meeting is an experiment in the        Presbytery where six ministers have been selected to share insights in ministry together – the joyful days and the hard times. This will be our  second meeting and I am already gaining great benefit from the balance of new thinking, experience and academics in the group.

We are continuing today with our series in the Letter to the Philippians. Last week our focus was that we should have Confidence in God;      Compassion for people and Concern for Christian growth. This week we move on to Philippians 1:12-30. The points follow on from last week’s  concern for Christian growth. And this fits neatly with our own goal to reach out to others this year (42 in Merredin; 15 in Muka, 10 in Bruce Rock and 5 in Southern Cross).

If we want to reach out we need to know the great Possibilities that come with the Gospel. We need to understand the Gospel’s Priority and its   Purpose and the message of the Gospel needs to become a Pattern for our life.

The Kingdom of God does not grow simply because the church opens the doors on Sunday. No, the Kingdom grows because Christ Followers are everywhere and everyday living the Gospel in a way that attracts others to Jesus. By the example of our lives lived in an attractive way, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel, other people are drawn to its Good News. As someone once said, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and, if  necessary, use words.”

Tonight we will be showing the video of the Mighty Men’s Conference held in South Africa – it’s a documentary presentation by Angus Buchan of his vision. You will see the setting up of the biggest tent in the world and how it proved to be too small for the conference. I really encourage you to come along (and to bring something for shared tea). If you need a lift please call me and I will fetch you and deliver you home afterwards.

Rev David de Kock

I heard recently that while the percentage of people who currently reach the age of 100 is about 5% of the population, nearly 50% of those who are now teenagers will live beyond a hundred years. There’s no doubt that our life span is increasing. We’re all likely to live longer than our parents or grandparents. That then raises the question, “Will our lives be worth living?”
Paul never thought that the prolonging of life was a great advantage. In fact the opposite: he saw death as bringing a far greater reward than anything in this life. Yet at the same time, he saw that Jesus Christ had made this life eminently worth living. There is an amazing sense of joy overflowing through the pages of this letter, even though it’s written from a goal cell as Paul awaits trial and possible execution over false charges brought against him by his opponents. He wants his readers to enjoy life in Christ, despite their external circumstances, to grow in their knowledge of him, and in holiness, and in the fruit of righteousness.

Our focus today is on the new heart that Christ brings into our life.

• A Heart of confidence
• A heart of compassion, and
• A Heart of concern for Christian growth

Let me tell you the story of Alma and Steve. They were a couple from England who had settled in South Africa, in Benoni, in fact. They were not married to each other. Steve had never married and Alma was widowed with 3 boys in their late twenties. Steve and Alma had a daughter of their own – she was 4 years old.

They owned a pet shop specializing in aquarium fish. Alma also grew medicinal herbs on their small holding and operated as a kind of medicine woman in the area.

One day Alma walked into the school hall where we were having a church service. She had a kind of glum look on her face, and smelled of tobacco smoke and human sweat. Her hair was untidy and her clothes needed a good wash.

She didn’t have a clue about church. She didn’t know when to sit and when to stand. She was uncomfortable singing – and we sang a lot, and with gusto. But she listened with deep intent to the sermon. After the service she shot out before anyone could talk to her.

The next week she was back and again she left in a hurry. This carried on for a couple of weeks, then she brought Steve with her and the little girl went to Sunday school. They stayed afterwards and she pounced on me. “Tell me more about this God stuff” she said. We went to her house and after scooting the 7 huge Alsatians off the lounge furniture and gingerly taking my seat amidst the mounds of dog hair and an overpowering doggy smell, we began to talk.

To cut a long story short, their life, like their personal hygiene, garden and house, was in a mess. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. They were in huge financial difficulties. Although the house and car was paid off and they had thousands of valuable tropical fish – they had barely enough money from their shop takings to buy dog food, cigarettes and bread – in that order.

I spoke to them about Jesus and the Christian life. They hung onto every word – they had never heard it before.

In the end they gave their lives to Jesus, were baptized in their swimming pool (once it had been cleaned) and were rid of the demons that had come into their life through their involvement in an occultic organisation.

It was the most amazing transformation that I had ever seen. They cleaned themselves up, tidied their garden and house and seemed to have permanent smiles on their faces. And, oh yes, they also got married and little Emma was baptized.

It was an extraordinary display of God’s power. We can have A Heart of confidence in the power of God to change lives.

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he greets the church in the customary way and tells them of his thankfulness to God for their life as Christians. He says: “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.”

The founding of the Church in Philippi is a great story of God’s power at work. Paul and Silas, with Timothy and Luke tagging along, came to Philippi after Paul had seen a vision of a man of Macedonia begging them to come and help them. Philippi was a Roman colony, perched in the mountain pass that linked Asia and Europe, so it was quite a strategic city. But because it was primarily a Roman colony there was no synagogue there. So on the Sabbath they went outside the city to the river where they thought there might have been a place of prayer. There they found a group of women gathered, one of them being Lydia, a wealthy merchant woman from Thyatira, who was a worshipper of God. We’re told in Acts 16 that the Lord opened her heart to the message of the gospel and she became a Christian. She then invited them to her house, and effectively began the first Church there in Philippi. So here was a wealthy Greek woman who became one of the first Church planters. But then as they started moving around the city, a slave girl began to follow them. She had an evil spirit by which she predicted the future. She wasn’t your modern day fortune teller. She really could tell the future. And she started following Paul and the rest around shouting out “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you how to be saved.” Well, eventually Paul got so sick of this that he turned around and commanded the evil spirit to come out of her. And she was healed. So there was now a rich merchant woman and a slave girl who had been touched by the gospel.
But then the owners of the slave girl, who’d been charging people to have their fortunes told started a riot and had Paul and Silas arrested for throwing the city into an uproar and for advocating customs unlawful for Romans to accept or practice. So Paul and Silas were thrown into prison.

Well, in prison with their feet in stocks, they began praying and singing hymns to God. They’d seen God’s power change the direction of Lydia’s life, they’d seen the slave girl freed from her bondage to an evil spirit and, like Steve and Alma, nothing was going to stop them praising God, not even being chained up in a dungeon. But there was more of God’s power at work for them to experience. As they were singing an earthquake began to shake the very foundations of their prison. The doors flew open and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer was about to commit suicide rather than risk being thrown into jail in the place of his escaped charges, but Paul chose to stay and help him, rather than escape and take his freedom. The response of the jailer was immediate: “What must I do to be saved?” Paul told him “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, along with your whole household.” And so he and his whole family were baptized. So the Church in Philippi had begun, with a rich merchant woman, a poor slave and a middle class prison officer who all experienced the power of God in different but equally effective ways.
So as Paul writes to the Philippians he can say with great assurance: “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” He remembers the way God’s work in them began, in the changed lives, the changed hearts of those first few believers, and he continues to have confidence that God will bring the work he began in them to a conclusion on the day when Christ returns.

Before Steve and Alma became Christians they had no concept of the love of God. They hadn’t known anything of the work of Jesus Christ. But God touched their heart in a real and decisive way. They came to discover that God has the power to change lives. It was a real privilege for me to see it happen. It was exciting to see them coming to know Christ in a real and personal way. And it was all due to the work of God in their life changing them and making them new.
That’s the sort of experience that Paul is looking back on as he writes of his confidence that God will bring his work in them to its completion.

This new life also creates in us A heart of compassion

The experience Paul had in sharing the gospel with the church in Philippi left him with a deep affection for them, and vice versa. He says “I long for you with the affection of Christ Jesus.” Paul was no softie. He was as tough as anything when it came to facing opposition to the gospel. In fact in Philippi, when the authorities released him, he didn’t just walk away as you or I might have. No, he pointed out to them that he and Silas were both Roman citizens who had been publicly beaten without trial, quite illegally, and demanded what amounted to a public apology from the magistrates. So he could be tough when the occasion warranted it. But he also had a softer side – he showed affection for this church.  
Jesus also was hard when it came to those who refused to listen to God speaking through him. Some of the harshest words in the New Testament in fact appear on the lips of Jesus. But he also loved those he came to save with a life-giving love. Paul exhorts us to have the mind of Christ in the way we relate to others, but he shows us here right at the start that he has that mindset himself.
He longs for them with the compassion, or affection, of Christ Jesus. And what is it he longs for? That their love “may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” He wants their love to overflow the way his love for them is overflowing.

This isn’t some gushy, sentimental sort of love. The love he’s talking about overflows with knowledge and insight.

A knowledge of God perhaps. A knowledge born out of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. A knowledge that, ultimately, comes from God’s Holy Spirit. A knowledge of what pleases God.

And how do we find on that knowledge? By being students of God’s word so we grow in our grasp of the truth, in our grasp of the gospel. But it is also a knowledge of humanity. Of the weaknesses and foibles of our fellow Christians.

A knowledge that helps us to empathise with one another, to make allowances for the failings of our fellow mortals. A knowledge of what might be helpful to another person in a given situation.

That seems to be the idea behind the word insight. Insight is that faculty which allows our love to be directed in a way that’s right for a particular situation, or for a particular person. Insight allows us to see through the obvious or the superficial to the deeper significance of what’s below the surface, to get to the root of the matter, so we can know how to act in the most loving way. Again this is something the Holy Spirit gives us as we ask him for it.

Finally then, this new life gives us a Heart of concern for Christian growth

Paul’s prayer is that their love would overflow in knowledge and insight in both the personal and global sphere.
It’s personal because his aim is that they might each be found to be pure and blameless in the day of Christ. That their overflowing love for God will result in lives that are kept pure and without sin. But it’s also global, because the result of such purity of life will be that they’ll reap a great harvest of righteousness.

It seems to me that when Paul talks about a harvest of righteousness, he’s looking beyond our personal righteousness, to the righteousness that will spring up in the hearts of others who see us and are drawn to the gospel like a moth to a flame. It’s as though the love we show becomes a seed that’s planted in the hearts of those around us.
It’s like a contagious disease. The sort of life he’s talking about, you see … a life characterised by love overflowing in knowledge and insight and purity and righteousness, is a very attractive thing. People love being near people whose character exhibits that sort of love. Just think how effective we’d be in spreading the gospel if our whole life was characterised by that sort of love!

Do you ever pray that sort of prayer for the people of Merredin? Do you ever pray that sort of prayer for me, or the other leaders of the congregation? Let me suggest that it would be a great thing to pray every day for those named on the front cover of the Newsletter. And for those named on the Joys and Concerns page and for those celebrating birthdays and wedding anniversaries and for the two families that we pray for anyway each week.

Pray that their love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help them determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ they may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
Paul prays with confidence and joy because he knows that in the end, it’s God who determines our future, not our outward circumstances or the various schemes of human beings. He knows that our place in God’s family has come about by God’s grace alone and that God’s grace is sufficient to keep us there, that God can be trusted to see us through. He prays out of the love he has for them, that the same love, the love of Christ would flow out of their hearts and fill them to overflowing. And he prays in confidence because he knows that the harvest of righteousness that he’s asking for itself comes through Jesus Christ by the grace of God. 
We too are recipients of God’s saving grace. Each one of us is here because God has worked a miracle in our lives. None of us would have chosen Christ if God hadn’t first chosen us.
So let Paul’s prayer be ours as well: that our love would overflow in knowledge and full insight so we’d be able to determine what’s best, so we might be found pure and blameless in the day of Christ and so our lives might bear a harvest of righteousness, not only in our own lives but in the lives of those we influence by our love, for the glory and praise of God.

Today is Valentine’s Day. Valentine was a Christian martyr. He was imprisoned for refusing to deny his love for Jesus and eventually he was        sentenced to death. Specifically he continued to conduct Christian marriages against the orders of Emperor Claudius II who had felt that young men were simply getting married to avoid serving in the Roman Army. He died on February 14^th 269AD having been clubbed to death and beheaded, leaving a note to the jailer’s daughter – a child with whom he had shared his love for Christ. She had become his last friend … he signed the note, “from your Valentine.”

This is very different to the romantic love that has become attached to    Valentine’s Day since Miss Esther Howland of Colorado in the USA sent the first Valentines Day card to her lover in the 1800’s. In a sense this   became an americanisation of the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia. In early Rome boys and girls were kept strictly apart but on the Festival of Juno – the Roman Queen of goddesses, all the girls put their names in a jar and the boys drew them out and the couple so drawn were partners for the duration of the festival of Lupercalia. The idea was one of a short term romantic liaison – very different to Valentine’s concern for the sanctity of marriage.

So today, use the moment to celebrate your spouse. It is so easy for us to feel as if the love has grown cold, and the relationship has become boring, but from that’s not true. We have just drifted into taking each other for granted. Do something different today to show that your love is still as real as ever!

Please note that there will be NO SNAC meeting tonight. We decided last week to meet on the 1^st & 3^rd Sundays when I don’t go to Southern Cross. Next Sunday we will show the Mighty Men Video.

Be reminded that the Men’s Breakfast is on Saturday and the Parish Council meet will also meet on Saturday at the church.

From this week I will be in the church office on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings from 8.30am to 1pm. Once a month I will be in Bruce Rock on a Tuesday but I will give notice of that. Please feel free to make an appointment. My contact number at any time is 9041 1117.

God bless
Rev David de Kock