A Re-charge
A RE-CHARGE Trinity
Acts 20:17-38 8.12.19
From 1980 to 1987 our Sunday home was at Peel High School. The 350 Sundays there, have been followed by 1200 Sundays and other times here in Carinya. In February we plan to move to a new home, a fulltime home.
Two weeks ago Warwick listed some biblical doctrines for which we have stood across all that time. Not to change them. But to remember what is still going to matter in our next stage.
Last Sunday Ross urged us to be prepared to change a lot of other things as we move – to be flexible for the sake of telling the gospel and for blessing to us as a family.
Will our move to Craigends Lane be good? We won’t be able to know that by July, because you can’t do a lot that is valuable in six months but we might be able to measure it by 2030. I can tell you what I hope we’ll be saying then:
- Wasn’t it a great move in 2020 to get out more boldly and visibly into Tamworth and run up the flag of Jesus in a culture that pretends Jesus has no place in life. We were able to say that we are not going to be intimidated by the culture into silence, or into the backblocks.
How good it has been across 10 years to be able to speak his truth into a world where there is no truth, but where people long in their hearts for something that is truly true, and real and to have been able to show more visibly how people live and love when they live under his flag.
- Secondly, I hope we will be saying that being out there together, and looking more like what many people expect a church to be, made us much bolder personally. “Yes, my church believes that Jesus belongs at the centre of life.” “Yes, it was worth the cost to put the building there, because we want people to know that Jesus is so wonderful.” “Yes, that’s my church; I’d love for you to come along with me.”
I think we may be surprised at the way that this new move will help us, out there, where we live most of our lives.
- Thirdly, I hope we’ll be saying how good it has been that so many people have gotten mixed up with us … at Playgroup, Rock, parenting sessions and social days; at special-interest events, and as some have made a new start and just start coming to church.
In 1 Corinthians 14 there is the lovely picture of a man who comes into a church family, and what he sees and hears is so compelling that it knocks the socks off him. He falls down on the floor, bowing before the Living God, saying “God is really among you”.
Yes, I know that has happened plenty of times already but wouldn’t it be wonderful if from here on it happened more and more?
What might we say after 10 years in our new home?
- How good it has been more publicly and boldly to run up the flag of the Lord Jesus Christ.
- How much the move to Craigends Lane has made us personally bolder and more engaged with people out there.
- Look at the huge numbers who have gotten mixed up with us.
On Thursday, I was talking to one of the men working on our new building. He married recently, and I asked him how it had gone. He told me that his wedding day was hard work with all the bits and pieces he had to organise. On the day his wife was teary, and as he tried to work out how to pay for all the drink being consumed, he was teary.
He was a little surprised when I said that I thought that compared to being married, getting married was a breeze.
I wasn’t playing down his wedding. Marriage vows are really important but being married is the bigger deal by far and it is the harder part, for almost everyone who marries.
Our first Sunday in the new building is planned for February 23. A few hitches? Possibly and not many tears, I trust. The harder part follows. Being fixed on sound doctrine and at the same time being flexible … using the building for good and not being run by it … running up the flag of Jesus openly and boldly in a bad culture.
That’s not going to be easy. Can we do all that?
Yes, because of 2 great blessings:
- THE LIVING WORD OF GOD
Acts 20 tells us that Paul is meeting for the last time with a group of men he loves. They are the elders of the church at Ephesus. As he runs through details of his own ministry, he is giving them a pattern they must follow in theirs. What they must teach. How and why and when they must do it. How they must care for the whole church at Ephesus, even if they suffer because of it.
It’s a huge ask and a big task. Can they do it? What will they need? What tools will Paul give them?
Look at verse 32 “Now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”
We could say that “The word of his grace” is “the word that conveys grace”. How are gracious changes going to come in the lives of these men and those they care for? By the Holy Scriptures.
If this Book is a manual, they will know what God wants them to do. If it’s only a manual, it’s still all down to them to get things right but what if it is more than a manual? What if the words of the Bible are so powerful they actually do what they command? Like when God SAID “Let there be light and there was light”? Or when Jesus SAID to the dead girl “Arise”, and she did? What if there is life in these words that change the people who read them?
Paul has been mentor to these local church elders from Ephesus, but this is the last time they’ll see him. Who directs, corrects and equips them from here on? The “word of God’s grace” does. Words that create light, and make dead people live.
Some Christians say that what we need for the future is more of the Holy Spirit. Less Bible and more moving experiences. As though we move past bare words into higher feelings but that is completely wrong.
Is that what Paul meant when he wrote to the Ephesians and urged them to “be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns … giving thanks always ...” (Eph 4:18-21).
Listen to how he put it when he wrote to the Colossians “Let the word of God dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another … singing psalms and hymns … with thankfulness …” (Col 3:16)
Well, which is it? Do good ministries and thankful hearts happen when you are filled with the Spirit or when the word of God dwells in you richly? They are two ways of saying the same thing. If you are filled with the Spirit, then the word of God will dwell in you richly … if the word of God dwells in you richly, you are filled with the Spirit.
How so? Because Word and Spirit work together. The words in God’s book are inspired by the Holy Spirit … and made effective by him. Where he truly is, the Word of God is.
Can we do well in a day of new opportunity for us as church? Yes. By the changing power of the Word of God.
Is it enough to equip us and energise us to make a difference in a pagan culture? Yes. To give life to people who have never read it, and heal their lives? Yes. To make us faithful and flexible? Yes.
God the Holy Spirit is with us in power and grace … in and by the Word of God. Yes – we can do it because of the active and living word of God in Holy Scripture.
Saying that the Bible is central, foundational and absolutely necessary, is not to say that it is the only thing we need.
May I mention one of the other things which will enable us to be to the praise of Jesus in the next stage of our life together:
- THE ACTIVE CHURCH OF GOD
Are we going to need good and godly elders for our next stage as a church? Sure we are. Are we going to need people in all kinds of other formal roles making the church work well? Of course.
Are we going to need you if we are to be strongly for Jesus over the next 10 or 20 years? Sure we are. God is not wasteful – he has given you to us all for a good purpose. If you didn’t have a part to play, you wouldn’t be here.
It’s always been about more than church leaders. When Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus he said “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” (4:15,16)
It is as each and every part does its bit, that we grow to maturity … that we stay faithful to God’s truth and flexible for his gospel … that we make the difference a church is meant to make.
Give me 10 years and I will never be able to do what some of you can do. Of course, you may not be able to do some of what I can do but that’s the beauty of it. Becoming and being what Jesus wants us to be is in every sense a team effort.
Some of us will be pushing in the scrum, others of us will be hovering, waiting to make a sprint; some of us will kick goals and others of us will be keeping the team fit, well-equipped and on the field. When someone scores, he won’t run away from the team as though it was a one-man effort. It is a team effort.
Jesus has given us all to one another. As we pull in the same direction towards the same goal, by the grace of God we can get there.
A few Sundays back I stopped to watch as:
- people set up the orchestra and practised
- others set up the PAC, the information table and microphones
- some people welcomed visitors in the foyer and in here
- and others cared for and taught our children in creche and Skids
- I saw some primary aged children singing their hearts out, people leading us in prayer, and a man preaching a great sermon
- and a couple of teenage guys befriend and stick with a young guy visiting for a few weeks
- I saw people speaking deeply into the lives of some others.
- and others providing and serving morning tea
- and still others packing up and sweeping up after us.
That was just a Sunday. I can only imagine what happened between then and the next Sunday, as people prayed hard, spoke the gospel, tracked down someone who was away, and did a hundred other deeds of love and mercy.
Alongside all that have been the most generous financial gifts that sustain our ministry here, care for people in great need and build the new building.
Put it all together, and it’s a huge team effort – humbling and exciting for any of us to be part of and the outcome is not nothing.
Can we make a big difference in the name of Jesus over the next 10 years? Individually, not so much. As a team, where each of us play our part, you bet we can.
We are in drought, and the economy is hardly booming. Is now the time to be committing to bankrolling a new building, and taking on all the opportunities that are going to come with it?
Brothers and sisters, there has never been a better time.
- Jesus is as supreme today as he has ever been, and remains worthy or all our telling and showing.
- The culture has perhaps never been darker, which means the light is only going to shine brighter.
- People have rarely been so ignorant of Jesus, which means we get a fresh start with so many.
The wrong time? It’s a day of great opportunity.
Are we up to it? Can we do it? By the Living Word of God to change us, and the church of God to display that change, we’ve never been better equipped.
Let’s commit to doing whatever it takes to be faithful and flexible, to make a difference for the glory and honour of Jesus.