Merredin Uniting Church

Hello all, here is the latest newsletter – Newsletter 29 August 2010

It has really been great to have Chris Walker to speak with us about being a relevant church this weekend. I trust that you have been inspired and invigorated about your part in the Bride of Christ. And I pray that we as a congregation of God’s people will become truly relevant in our community and within the wider communion of the Church. Thank you, Chris, and thank you also for the word which you will bring this morning on the faithfulness of God.

At the prayer meeting on Wednesday we were praying about yesterday’s Seminar and about revival in God’s church. During that time, I had a picture form in my mind about the present state of the Lord’s Church—undoubtedly inspired from Dr Paul Brand’s book, “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made”. If we are theBride of Christ, how must we look to Him now—wounded, downtrodden, sidelined, unclean? Why would He still care about us? Well, the truth is that God is faithful to His promise (haven’t I been saying that for the past few weeks!) and He does still care, and He still has an expectation for us to continue to be who we are meant to be. And the Church being relevant in our time is about how we do this—we are still the Body of Christ, Jesus still has expectations of us and at the core of those expectations are that we love God with all our heart and soul and spirit and that we love others (including our enemies!) as Jesus has loved us. We serve a faithful God who honours His promises, as His Bride we must be faithful to Him.

Speaking of brides and husbands, George and Val Tengvall will be celebrating 60 years of marriage on Tuesday—that’s a really good innings! Well done both of you. In an age where faithfulness in relationships is taken far too lightly, you have set an example for all of us. Thank you for doing that. Your faithfulness toGod, to your family, to your friends and to each other has been amazing. I (and no doubt others) have been privileged to glimpse into your life through photographs and personal observation. Yes, life has no always been easy and as the years pass so we do tend to overlook the troubled times, but you havepressed on regardless through your unwavering faith in God and trust in His provision for you. May the Lord continue to bless you and your family. (Here’s a tip … never stop telling your stories to your family. Only now am I beginning to appreciate the wonderful stories which my grandfather shared with me when I was still a very young boy. And I am beginning to really appreciate my heritage.)

There are a couple of new and exciting events on the “What’s Up” page of the newsletter. First the Merredin congregation BBQ and Bonfire at the Higgins’ on Sunday evening September 12th. We do sometimes tend to forget that Christians can also have fun (and lots of it!). Love to see you there! Next is the Merredin Congregation Garage Sale on October 9th at the church. The men are going to be running the Garage Sale and the ladies will be doing …. Well, whatever it is that ladies do. I’m sure that whatever it is, it will be beautiful and tasty. Margie and I are really excited about Tegan and Quinten joining us. They will arrive on October 1st and spend some time in Merredin before Tegan starts her Midwifery Bridging Course in Perth. Quinten already has one temporary volunteer job lined up to rewire a car in Merredin. Anyone else needing autoelectric work? He’s was trained at Mercedes Benz so he should be OK(and, of course, he was allowed to marry our daughter!!!)

Love you
David

Hello all,

The Barefoot Café is now open. If you are in town at lunchtime why not bring your lunch to the church enjoy an hour of fellowship & tea with your mates.

There will be “Table Tennis, Talking & Tucker”. It is a great chance for some fellowship, have a break from work and to have some fun!

Hope to see you there on weekdays!

God’s Richest Blessings

Hello all, here is the latest church newsletter – Newsletter 22 August 2010

Audio Version: http://sermon.net/daviddekock

When God is with us, it changes our lives fairly dramatically. First, as we have seen in the case of the Philippian jailer, it creates the situation that people want to be with us. They want what we’ve got. They are attracted to who we are when God is with us.
Then we saw that His Presence with us is a covenant promise – a promise that God will never break. Moses held God to this promise when the Lord was angry with the people in the Exodus, after they had made the golden calf. Jesus also confirmed that promise by saying that He would never leave us nor forsake us. God’s Presence with us is the mark of our identity.
Last week, as we examined the meaning of “David’s fallen tent” first mentioned b y the prophet Amos and to which James referred in the Council of Jerusalem, we saw that God really wants to be with us. His heart is that there be no barriers, no walls, no special “holy places” – where ever we are, and He is, will be the holy place.

So today I want to ask the question.
Can we simply presume upon the presence of God with us?
No, we can’t.
Yes, it is true that God wants to be present with everybody but He is holy and He cannot entertain any unrighteousness in His Presence. And because of original sin – the sin of Adam; because of the invasion of sin into every aspect of life; because of the ongoing temptation of the devil (and our easy submission to that temptation) – we find ourselves separated from God.
God cannot be with us in this state of our being. The world, the flesh and the devil conspire to keep us separated from God.
But God Himself, made it possible for us to return to righteousness through the atoning death of Jesus. He paid the price for our sin, by His blood, we are forgiven and healed. We can contribute nothing to what Jesus has done other than acceptance of that redemption.
And herein lies a big problem.
We say: Jesus died for my sins, therefore I am saved, and then we go on to live our lives just as we please.

We cannot do that if we have accepted the atoning sacrifice of Christ. We have been bought at a price, we have been ransomed and my full and undiluted acceptance of my hard bought freedom is crucial to the Presence of God in my life.

Just listen to God’s response to Solomon’s prayer for the blessing of the Temple … it’s the second part of the response (the one we don’t read). The first part is really good – God says that if we pray then he will hear us and respond from heaven. Wonderful good news but now listen to the second part….
2 Chronicles 7:19-22
“But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 21 And though this temple is now so imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ 22 People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why he brought all this disaster on them.’”

Solomon had prayed only for blessings, he had not included in his prayer any consequences for when Israel failed to live up to God’s requirement.
But for God there is always a consequence for disobedience – and that consequence is separation. “I will uproot Israel from my land; I will reject the Temple” (and that, by the way, was the mark of God’s Presence).

There are conditions for God’s Presence with us. Its not a set of rules but a way of life. Or perhaps I should say, a new way of life.

Within all the Sunday School stories that we remember from our childhood; in our daily reading of God’s Word, this is the base line message. God wants to bring us to a new way of life – He wants us to begin again.
We can’t just change our lives, give up bad habits or follow New Year resolutions. We have to start all over – from a new beginning.
Jesus made that so clear to Nicodemus in John 3 and yet, even as a Bible Scholar, he struggled at first to understand it. We have to be born again, we have to have a fresh start.
Jesus spoke about being born of water and the Spirit – born of water is not baptism, it is birth into this world. We are all born of water (except I suppose, if you have a caesarian birth). The waters break and the baby is born into this world, but to enter into God’s Kingdom, into the place of God’s Presence we must be born again – of the Spirit.
John 3:5-7
Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’

Flesh gives birth to flesh – the first birth, the birth by water; but Spirit gives birth to spirit – born again of the Spirit of God.

Our struggle is, that after being born of water (into this world) we end up finding ourselves contaminated by the sin which is inherent in it. In order to find ourselves in God’s Presence we must be born again of the Spirit (as Jesus puts it) or filled with the Spirit (as Luke describes it) or we must receive the gift of the Spirit (as Peter says in his sermon on the day of Pentecost.)

After preaching that sermon, which simply told the story of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ and which ended by saying that Jesus was both Lord and Christ, the people were cut to the heart and wanted to know what they should do.
Acts 2:37-47
37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Verse 38 – Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

At the heart of our response to God’s love must be repentance, and with it comes salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the born-again life which Jesus spoke about to Nicodemus; it is the life in which we know the Presence of God with us because we are forgiven.

So what is repentance? I described it just a few weeks ago – it is a realization that I am on the wrong road: That the path which I am following is leading to destruction. I have to get back on the right road. I have to follow the way of Jesus. And its more than just a direction, it’s a way of life – its no wonder that the earliest followers of Jesus called themselves “the Way”. They were following a new way, they were headed in a new direction.

When I come to repentance, I must strip off my fancy clothes which are hiding my reality. Underneath my “Superman” outfit is the real me. I desperately need God in my life, I need Him to be near me, I need Him to give me life and purpose. I need Him to help me understand, I need His Presence, or I am lost.
And every time I kneel humbled before God in repentance
(for it needs to happen often), He puts His arms around me and hugs me. Like the father of the Prodigal Son, He already has a new robe for me, a ring for my finger and a fatted calf to celebrate.
And then He brings me into community of forgiven sinners and we break bread together and we share our stories and our blessings.

When the Spirit comes it is not only a spiritual and emotional high – this can happen: the Presence of God with us will bring what Martin Lloyd Jones called “An unspeakable joy”. We may even speak in tongues, because we need another language to express our praise, and we may be so overwhelmed by the Presence of God that we can no longer stand up. These experiences are all described in the Bible as associated with the infilling of the Spirit.
But something else also happens when the Presence of God comes upon us. And this is of more long lasting tenure. In the Old Testament, and even in the Gospels, we read of the Spirit coming only upon certain people and/or for a limited purpose, but from Pentecost on we have something entirely different. Each person coming to God in repentance is filled with the Spirit and the Presence of the Lord remains as long as they maintain the relationship and keep their lives pure.
The very first Christian believers called this “The Way” – they were living in the Way of Christ, following Him and trusting Him in every aspect of life and faith. And it was not kept up by following the ritual of the Jews – it really was a new way of living.

When the Spirit came they found themselves in community – a group of forgiven sinners – filled with awe at the Presence of God with them.
They met together and shared together, they broke bread together and they all had glad and sincere hearts. And they enjoyed the favor of the people.

Something dramatic happened!
Old grievances fell away, hurt feelings were mended, a new life began as they repented before the Lord and forgiveness was given by God and from each other.
Their lives began to bear the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

When the Spirit comes our lives are changed.
In the Presence of God we cannot harbor grievances and selfish ambition. Our attention is to the Lord and our love is for each other. Pettiness, strife and dissension falls away in the wake of this newfound purpose.

I believe that one of reasons why this sense of new life and new community seems to fail continuously is because we have tried to make it a once-off event in our life.
If I have been filled with the Spirit, how could I fall away?
The truth is that we are constantly bombarded by “the world, the flesh, and the devil” and our choices are sometimes not good. I am tempted by what the world has to offer, I give in to the desires of the flesh and the devil is forever at my heels.

But confession, repentance, renewal and the infilling of the Spirit are ongoing features of the Christian life. Peter was filled with the Spirit several times in the Book of Acts. These things are intended to be ongoing features of our walk with Jesus.

If sin has a foothold in your life, if you have a grievance, or are harbouring a hurt, if you are at odds with God or another person, confess it to God – ask for forgiveness and don’t walk that way again.

Tags: God with us series