Merredin Uniting Church

Ezekiel 37:15-28

Hebrews 13:1-8

John 17:20-26

The Lord said to the prophet Ezekiel:

Take a stick of wood and write on it: “Belonging to Judah.”

Then take another piece of wood and write in it: “Belonging to Ephraim” and join them together.

In order to understand this, we need to know something of the history of God’s people.

After the death of King Solomon around 1000BC, the Kingdom which David had established divided into two – the Southern Kingdom of Judah, and the Northern Kingdom of Israel, or Ephraim.

It was a period during which there was much confusion about their relationship  with God – the Northern Kingdom lost their way completely despite such heavy weight prophets as Elijah and Elisha. The ten tribes which formed the Northern Kingdom ended up exiled in Assyria. The Southern Kingdom waxed and waned in their relationship with God until eventually God judged them and they were exiled in Babylon for 70 years.

But God’s promise was of unity; one nation under one king who would be a descendent of David. At that time, God promised, He would make His dwelling place with them and He would be their God and they would be His people.

God’s desire is for unity – one people under His Lordship. Indeed Jesus’ prayer in John 17 was a prayer for a unity amongst Christ-followers so that they would be one even as the Father and the Son are one.

Thirty four years ago, the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational Churches in Australia entered into union, seeking just such a oneness under the Lordship of Christ. We have come a long way – few people in the Uniting Church today identify themselves as Methodists or Presbyterians or Congregationalists. However, such unity needs also to recognise the Lordship of Christ over us, and I believe that we are still on a journey to understanding that.

If we are to pick up the idea of the First Third Ministry in our own Synod, we are, in a sense, still in the first third of life. We are the foundation for the future. What we do today, in our growing understanding of the Christlike life, will determine where the church will be in the future. It is a powerful and sobering concept. And it is a challenge. A challenge for each Christ follower, every day; and for the church continuously.

What will we do? How will we lay the foundation for the generations to come? How will we live so that there is no confusion about our relationship with God?

It is in embracing the Lordship of Christ over all creation and over the church that brings God to make His dwelling place with us so that He is our God and we are His people.

This has been much on my mind as I have begun to prepare for our Planning Day on July 16th. We have talked about it as Elders and we have proposed and discarded many thoughts in the process.

We must ask ourselves how we can do church better.

How can we truly be the church which Jesus wants us to be?

How can we express our love for God with all our heart and mind and spirit?

How can we love our neighbours as Christ has loved us?

How can we reach out with the Good News in order to make disciples of all nations?

In the Introduction to his book entitled “Working the Angles – the shape of Pastoral Integrity”, Eugene Peterson presents us with a trigonometric solution.

Look at this triangle. What do you see?

Most people see the lines which form the shape.

A lot of our thinking about church is like that. The lines represent the “doing” things of church. So when we think about church we think preaching – the Sunday Service; we think teaching – Bible Studies; we think Administration – the finances, rules and church membership. These are the lines of the triangle, but it is not these things which bring God amongst us.

As Peterson points out  the triangle is not shaped by the lines, but by the angles.

One way then, of doing church better, is not to look at the “doing” things – the preaching, teaching and administration; but to examine the “being” things – how we are shaped by prayer, by the Scriptures and by spiritual direction.

It is the Scriptures (the first angle) which introduce us to God and His ways.

It is our prayer life (the second angle) which creates conversation and relationship with God and it is spiritual direction (or assistance from a mature Christ follower) (the third angle) which guides us to live our lives right with God.

It is these “being” things which create the shape of who we are as Christ followers and ultimately who we are as the body of Christ.

As we begin to think about the Planning Day on July 16th, we need to think about how we can do church better by being better Christ followers. Not simply in focussing on the worship services, or Bible Studies, Men’s Meetings, KYB, Muckaround and so on; but in grasping the underlying essence of why we do these things.

There is a direct correlation between the angle in our diagram and the side opposite it, but because our focus tends to be mostly on the line we tend to overlook this.

We can see easily how the Scripture angle and Teaching line match each other. There is a fairly close accord between the Prayer angle and the Preaching line (particularly if we recognise that Preaching is an embracing term for the worship service).

However, it is the correlation between the Spiritual Direction angle and the Administration line which we miss. As I said earlier, Administration includes such things as finances, the rules and regulations of church life (and life as a whole), church membership, time keeping and the general ethos of congregational life. But this is not really the church – these things can happen in any business. These things were never the focus of Jesus’ teaching except in a dismissive kind of way.

Spiritual Direction takes place when two or more people agree to give their full attention to what God is doing in their lives and to respond  in faith. We actually do a surprising amount of Spiritual Direction in our lives anyway, though we don’t always recognise it as such. Perhaps two things are missing – first, we don’t always give our full attention to what God is doing, and second, we don’t always respond in faith.

Our GodTalk Testimony time is a form of Spiritual Direction, so is counselling, pastoral visits and often even apparently casual conversation amongst believers. So is Preaching and Teaching.

The question is how can we do church better by focussing on the angles, rather than the lines – on the “being” rather than on the “doing”.

My thoughts are that this will happen when each person sees themselves, not as a “ministered to” but as a “minister”. In a sense this happens when each person recognises that he or she is a Spiritual Director who is able to discern God’s ways through the study of the Scriptures and a life of prayer.

Lets look briefly now at the reading from Hebrews to see how easy this is. Here are six spiritual direction guidelines:

Keep on loving each other

Do not forget to entertain strangers

Remember those who are in prison

Honour your marriage

Keep your lives free from the love of money

Remember those who shared faith with you

These are more than rules, they are life choices. They deal primarily with relationships rather than actions. They connect to each other, they are good, and every single one has its root in the teaching of Scripture.

This is what it means to “be” a Christ follower for these are the things which Jesus taught.

His focus was not on attending church, going to Bible Study or Mens Group, or membership rolls or the income statement but in living a life which trusted God; loved Him, loved neighbours and shared good news.

These are the kind of things which we teach to our children and grandchildren and which we need to encourage in one another.

In preparation for our Planning Day on July 16th I might not have been very specific about how we can do church better, but I really do not want to be specific. I want you to pray and think about how we might do church better. What does the Lord say to you? How can we bring our hearts to do what God wants?

It was the 34th Anniversary of the Uniting Church in Australia last Wednesday. Without a doubt this was a milestone achievement in the life of God’s Church and it has had positive reverberations around the world. It was certainly a model for the Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa which has tried for many years to forge a similar union with the Anglican, Methodist and Congregational Churches. While this has still not yet materialized the four denominations have an agreement that every new congregation established will be a United congregation of all four partners. Two branches of the Presbyterian Church (The Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of South Africa) did unite in 1997 to become the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa using the UCA Basis of Union as its model.

As we will see from the Scriptures today, God does seek a union of His people. He delights when we are together under the Lordship of Christ rather than separated by forms of government or minor doctrinal differences. One of things which I have really appreciated about the Uniting Church, and particularly the congregations in our Parish, is the way in which we do seek to work with other denominations for the cause of Christ. Undoubtedly we still have a long way to go but as long as Christ is our centre we are journeying in the right direction.

I will be away for most of this week at the Fresh Expressions Conference in Perth and will be bringing Luke Williams back with me on Friday. He will spend two weeks with us gaining insight into the rural ministry and hopefully bringing with him new insights (fresh expressions!) for doing church in this setting.

Connected to this is our Parish Planning Day on Saturday July 16th. I hope that everyone across the Parish will try to make it. It will be a morning only “ideas” session. We are trying to avoid setting an agenda in the hope that each person will come along, having prayerfully considered how we could “do church better” in our context. This by no means implies that we must change everything, or even anything.

It is instead an opportunity for us to put our communal head together as we think through ways in which we might truly be the church which Jesus wants us to be. If I were to summarise His expectation it would be that we honor Him (Love God), live relationally with one another (loving our neighbour) and reach out to the world with the Good News. There are many ways in which we could do that and I hope that we will look beyond the “doing” into the “being”. Eugene Peterson says that one of the problems with the ministry is that we see our work like the lines of a triangle – preaching, teaching and administration – the “doing” stuff. However, the shape of the triangle is determined not by the lines but by the angles – and the angles are prayer, Scripture and spiritual direction. We should focus on the angles! Instead we focus on the worship services, group meetings and finances. Of course there is an interconnectedness between the lines and the angles but it is the angles which give shape to the triangle.

Could I ask you to begin to think along these lines for the July 16th Planning Day? How can we best love God, love one another and reach out to the world? How can we bring our hearts to do what God wants?

In the service this morning we will be welcoming Elaine VanZwam into membership. Elaine has worshipped with us for quite a while and has connected with a number of people in the congregation – especially with Gerhard Seymour! She has a background in the Grace Communion International (formerly the Worldwide Church of God). Grace Communion had a new beginning in the 1990’s when the leaders rejected the teaching of Herbert Armstrong and embraced the New Testament teachings and were accepted into mainline Christianity. It was a traumatic time in which tens of thousands of members left. But those who remained (a remnant) accepted the doctrine of the Trinity and were baptised in Name of the Triune God. There is no Grace Communion in Merredin and Elaine has felt very comfortable in this congregation. She has now decided to officially join up.

(Further good news is that Gerhard and Elaine have also decided to marry in September).

We are hosting the Merredin United in Prayer meeting this Thursday at 7pm. It would be great if you could come along.

Today is Trinity Sunday and Kevin will be addressing the Tri-unity of our God this morning. This is such a difficult subject: we want to be able to define everything and everyone according to our terms and within our worldview. God is beyond that – how do you ever define that which was before anything else, through whom everything else came into being and has its existence? Quite clearly we have to move into the realm of faith, to believe without necessarily understanding. And faith itself is a difficult concept anyway. I can say that I believe in myself, but really what I am saying is that I know the limits of my capabilities. Believing in God is more than that – I cannot even begin to comprehend the limits of God’s capability; if there are any limits to Him. Perhaps its better to say that in my limited understanding I must believe that there is a Creator, or Originator, or Father of everything. That which He created has limits but He Himself must be beyond any limitations. What I do know about Him is that there is a historically proven record that He has been revealed in Jesus Christ – the second person of the Trinity. Jesus’ Message is one which has impacted our reality in most amazing ways. Not only did He live that Message but He gave His life so that the Message could not be misunderstood. The Message tells of God’s amazing love towards us and for us. It is a Message which says that while we have failed to live in a loving relationship with God and each other, He has not turned against us. Instead He has revealed the way of His love for us and His intention to continue to love us until we grasp fully that He has no limits, either in His control over the destiny of absolutely everything or in His absolute love for us.

Coming to faith for each one of us begins as a tentative step into embracing that love and an attempt to understand something about what our purpose might be. Ultimately humankind was uniquely created for relationship with God and with one another. Whether we believe that or not, it is the driving force of our whole being – it draws us into marriage, into families and into friendships. We don’t always do too well in our relationships but very, very few people want to stop having relationships. If our relationships fail, it is usually because someone in the relationship becomes more driven by self than by love and concern for others. Jesus showed us the other way. He showed that relationships can be healed when someone, even the hurting one, is prepared to put self aside in favor of restoring the relationship.

We hurt God by our sin – it is a rejection of His ways. Nonetheless He came in Jesus and laid down His life so that the sin might be washed away and the relationship between us and God could be restored. And more than that! He gave us His Spirit so that we could be empowered to continue to know His love, to be reminded continually of the way of grace and to continually be offered an opportunity to begin again in our relationship with God and with each other. This is the Gospel and it is brought to us by the Triune God.

Acts 2:1-21

John 20:19-23

The word “ Pentecost” designates the 50th day after Passover, which was a Feast Day for the Jews. Also known as the Feast of Weeks or Feast of Harvest.

It was on this day, in the Book of Acts, that the Holy Spirit was poured out on 120 Followers of Christ who were gathered in an Upper Room in Jerusalem. It was on this day that the Church was born in a blaze of glory.

A little while back I read that “The average Christian And The average Church are bogged down somewhere between Calvary and Pentecost. They have been to Calvary for salvation, but they have not been to Pentecost for power.

If Bethlehem means “God with us” and Calvary means “God for us” then Pentecost must mean “God in us”.

The average Christian today is much like the Ephesians believers when the Apostle Paul came to them in Acts 19 and asked them – “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They replied that they didn’t even know that there was a Holy Spirit. Many Christians do not understand the role of the Holy Spirit and they have therefore not appropriated the power of the Holy Spirit in their own personal life.

We need somehow to recapture the power, which was experienced in such a mighty way when the church met together in the upper room on the day of Pentecost.

The Church today is missing the real power and fire which comes from God and so we try to produce our own fire works. We are like auxiliary power supplies, battery operated so when the real power goes out we can switch on our own power supply. We are living in the day of programs, propaganda, pep talks and promotions, trying to duplicate what God, the Holy Spirit did on the day of Pentecost when the fire fell and the wind blew. These are the days of Pentecostal substitutes. We create a storm of our own wind. We whip our own flames and our own fire, but we lack the reality and the warmth of the real thing.

My heart is always hungry for the power of Pentecost.

I want ALL God that has for the Church and Christians today!!!

So, I want to talk today about Pentecost, Not a Denomination. Not Pentecostalism as such. But about the special promise of the Father.

Harvest is at the heart of Pentecost – for the Jews it was the celebration of harvest. Pentecost is about the power to live as a Christian and to reach out in that power to people who do not yet know Christ.

The Promise of Pentecost

In Peter’s sermon in Acts, in response to the question about what they should do in response to this outpouring of the Spirit,  he said, “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. The Promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

In effect he said this outpouring of the Spirit is not a special blessing for a special few in a special age. IT IS FOR ALL those who have truly repented and believed the Gospel. It is for all who have found forgiveness of their sins in the name of Jesus.

The real question is not whether as a Christian you have a right to the gift of the Holy Spirit, but whether you have claimed that right and availed yourself of the Promise.

Peter said the promise is for you –to all who were hearing his voice, and for your children, the next generation, and for all who are afar off – that’s throughout the ages, even until today – to you and to me. For all whom the Lord shall call – that means for everyone who follows Christ.

Since God is still calling people to salvation, THE PROMISE IS STILL FOR US NOW!!!

There is an experience after Salvation, called the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. Everyone who comes to Christ does have the Holy Spirit. When someone is saved, the Holy Spirit puts him into the Body of Christ – they are saved. But its like the pilot flame in a gas geyser – it is there, ready to fire up the burners but you need to switch on the burners by turning on the tap.

Its not a “feel-good” experience, it is necessary power in order to know and to walk easily in the ways of God. It is the power necessary to enable us to reach out to the world which is so often disillusioned with itself, and even with the stone cold Church.

In my studies for the ministry, my lecturer in Systematic Theology told us that “There is an experience subsequent to salvation, called the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, you need it and don’t you dare go out and preach without it!”

What was the Promise?

It was the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh, both men and women. On the Day of Pentecost, when the crowd was amazed because of the miracle of tongues, they asked what was going on.

Peter answered saying this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”

Who made the Promise?

God the Father made the Promise. In Acts 2:33 we read, “Exalted to the right hand of God, He (Jesus) has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. And in Acts 1:4 Jesus said to the disciples, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard Me speak about.”

And in Luke 24:49, our Lord said, “I will send the Promise of My Father upon you; but wait in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”

The promise becomes real for us when we ask God to fill us with the Spirit. Jesus said in Luke 11:13 that we should ask for it. “How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ASK Him.”

The Promise Fulfilled.

Ten days after Jesus ascended into Heaven He sent the promise of the Father and those who had obeyed and waited in the Upper Room were filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter, in his sermon declared, “This is it!” This is the fulfillment of the promise!

The Book of Acts tells us also that Mary, the mother of Jesus, the disciples, and other women and men received this promise of the Father.

Acts Chapter 8 tells about a revival in Samaria where Philip preached and many believed and were baptized. Later the Apostles laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 9 Saul of Tarsus got saved, three days later Ananias laid hands on him and prayed for him to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

In Acts 10 the whole household of Cornelius sat and listened as Peter preached the Gospel unto them. While he was preaching, “the Holy Spirit fell on them as they heard the Word.”

In Acts 19, Paul found certain disciples in Ephesus who didn’t know anything about the Holy Spirit. Paul laid hands on them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Today is another celebration of Pentecost, but we can ask the Father any day to fill us with His Spirit.

When I first became a Christ follower, I tried really hard to live the life which God seemed to expect of me. I read the Bible, I prayed, I talked to people about Jesus – I seemed to be doing all these things with no results. The Bible was confusing, my praying seemed one sided and no-one really seemed interested in Jesus.

Then I heard a sermon, not too different from this one. It seemed to me that something (or someone) was missing from my life. I went home that evening and asked God to fill me with the Holy Spirit. There wasn’t anyone around, I didn’t respond to an altar call, no-one told me what to say.

I simply said to God that something was missing in my life and could He please fill me with the Holy Spirit.

There were no bells and whistles, no angel trumpets, nothing – I just went to sleep. But when I woke up, things WERE different. My life seemed more whole, more complete. Reading the Bible and praying became exciting and I seemed to understand what was going on, and I could remember things which I had read.

So – no altar call. I will pray, but you go home today and ask God to fill you with His Spirit. Pentecost marked also the birthday of the Church, let today be a new day for you too.

Today is the Feast of Pentecost. For the Jews it was a Harvest Celebration – Israel being in the Northern Hemisphere! It was a time when farmers had finished the harvest and came into town (Jerusalem) to celebrate and to bring their tithe offerings to the Temple.

For Christians it has become the birthday of the Church for this is also the celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A hundred and twenty believers were gathered in the Upper Room wondering what was going to happen next. Jesus had been crucified; then they had met Him in the resurrection and they had farewelled Him on Ascension Day, just 10 days previously. I guess they were feeling pretty much alone and seeking comfort for each other in prayer as tens of thousands of farmers began to gather in the town below them. The crowd were celebrating but they were themselves unsure about whether they should go out and join them or continue to wait in the Upper Room as Jesus had instructed them.

And then came the sound of a mighty wind and tongues of fire came down, separating and settling on each of them individually. Can you imagine what that must have been like? They had waited for this – well, for something at least … they were not quite sure what. Jesus had said that they should wait for the promise of the Father, whatever that meant. This was it! And then they burst forth into song and prayer in languages which they did not even know, praising and glorifying God – hearts full of thanksgiving, now certain that they were being launched on an adventure which would take them to the ends of the earth with the good news about Jesus, hope for mankind and a wonderful eternal destiny.

This was the day the church was born – empowered by the Holy Spirit for generations to come, the church would become the Body of Christ on the earth – moulding lives, healing the sick, giving purpose and direction to every human being on the planet. Commissioned and empowered by the Holy Spirit there would be no stopping the spread of this good news.

Over the ages, the testimony of the church has waxed and waned, but it has never died. The mark of Christ and the teaching of the good news is to be seen everywhere, we cannot get away from it. It might well be that less than a third of the world’s population claim to be Christian but that is still at least twice as many as Islam and three times more than there are atheists or Hindus. But more than that, the moral standards of the modern world are founded on the teaching of Jesus and have been adopted by cultures, religions and governments everywhere, even if they don’t acknowledge Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

How did this happen? How did the teaching of Christ become so entrenched in our world? It started on the Day of Pentecost, when the first Christians were endued with power from on high, when they received the Holy Spirit, the Promise of the Father. Jesus had spoken of this, told the first believers to wait for it and when the Holy Spirit came down and filled them they took hold of the Promise with the whole fibre of their being. No power, no government, no threat or disgrace would hold them back. They died for what they believed and they went to the ends of the earth to proclaim Jesus: His message, His death and resurrection and the salvation of all mankind.

What has happened now? It seems that the church merely ticks over, there are little spurts of fire here and there but by and large the embers are cold. Or are they? Perhaps its only in our neck of the woods. China has 90 million Christians on fire for God. Almost every person in South Korea is a believer. The African Church is flourishing.

Someone once said that there are three generations in the world – the grandparents who believe the Bible and practice its morality. Then the parent generation who have turned away from the Bible and from church but who still hold on to the morality even if they don’t really know why. Then there is the child generation who, without even a tenuous link to Biblical teaching have even dumped the morality and their lives have become anarchistic and empty. But praise God that out of the emptiness the world finds the foundation in God again. I believe that we are at such a point in the affluent nations again today – here in Australia, in England and in Europe we are beginning to see signs of renewal as people seek a new Pentecost, a new infilling of the Holy Spirit which is the Promise of the Father.

Let today be a day of new beginnings too – a harvest day in your life. Ask the Father to fill you with the Holy Spirit, to build your faith and power to live the life of Christ to the utmost.