Worship led by Brian Legg
Hebrew 4: 14 – 16
“Come boldly to the throne of our gracious God” – no fear, He wants us to come.
Our first song reminds us that Christ IS still reigning – Saviour, Master, King. It’s before that we come to bring our worship today.
Song: 62 Christ triumphant
Prayer
It’s good to be reminded that Christ IS reigning – despite what we see in the world around.
We live in an increasingly trouble-torn, tumultuous world – wars, dire forecasts of national and individual economic and physical disasters. We should become more and more aware of the frailty of man, as we see and hear the news of other people’s sufferings.
Sometimes it’s good to turn off the news, and just get on with our own lives for once. It is of course good just to come away on the Lord’s day, and to spend an hour or so focusing our minds on the Lord our unchanging God who knows all about our troubled world.
Colossians 3: 1 -2
We come together to worship the Lord, and to encourage one another and to give support to those going maybe through hard times.
As we bring our individual praises to God, I believe the Lord would say to each of us, in the words of
Song 40 “Be still for the presence of the Lord is here, to bring healing and encouragement to you , in your own circumstances today.
I guess one thing we all crave is PEACE. We often link peace with quiet – the absence of sound or noise. Remember how quiet it was when Gatwick virtually shut down during Covid?. You might define peace as what you enjoy when the grand-children have gone home. But peace can more sensibly be defined as a “state of tranquillity or quiet; an agreement to end hostilities; a state of security and order within a community”. On a personal level, peace is freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions.
Mankind sadly fell out of fellowship with his creator back in the days of Adam and Eve, and ever since there has been a barrier between man and God.
Thankfully, God took the initiative and sent Jesus to make peace between God and man .
Col 1: 19 – 20 (read) – “by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross”.
But before He went to the cross, Jesus promised to give His disciples PEACE.
John 14: 27 (read)
Let’s remain seated for our next song, an old one, which speaks so clearly about the peace which Jesus gives to us.
SONG 977 Peace, perfect peace (Tune as Hymns of Faith)
Yes, a promise from the Lord - but do we want it? Sometimes we just need to turn to the Lord in faith, asking Him to give us what we need most.
The next song seeks to express our desire for God to give us joy, peace and love, and the strength to carry on day by day.
Song: 728 Give me oil in my lamp
We began thinking a little about our troubled world. There is of course only one real solution, and that’s in Christ Jesus. Sadly, the world and its leaders have for the most part turned their backs on the One who can help them solve the world’s problems. We know that only Jesus is the hope of the nations.
SONG: 1385 Jesus, hope of the nations.
We know Jesus is the only real hope we have. But how do we make the world outside aware of Him? Sadly, the world at large chooses to go about its business in total ignorance of its creator, believing it knows better, and can manage irs own affairs without reference to what God thinks.
God in His grace has however called you and I to be his witnesses – we’ve come to know Him by faith, and his call to us is to serve Him by shewing forth His love day by day to those around us. The Jesus – living in us – displayed in our service for others day by day.
Song: 381 – Make me a channel of your peace.
May we each not only experience God’s gift of peace, but may we display it to others day by day.
Breaking of Bread – led by Ken Cowell
SONG: 229 I’m accepted, I’m forgiven
John 3. 16-17 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
We are always amazed at some of the mighty things that God has done. We can think of creation, the awesome miracles he has done, the work of redemption on the cross, and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We praise God for his greatness in doing those things.
We can also praise God for some of the things that he hasn’t done. He has never changed. He has never lied. He has never forsaken us. He has never broken his promises. We read of another thing that God didn’t do, for which we can praise Him. He didn’t send His Son into the world to condemn the world. All the world should be condemned because all have sinned and the wages of sin is death. We should be condemned for our sin and guilt. But instead of condemning us he sent his Son to save us by dying on the cross and paying the penalty for our sin. Why did God do that? It was because he loved us as it says in verse 16. How much God must have loved us to do that.
Because Jesus took our punishment there is now no condemnation for us. Instead, our sins have been forgiven and we have salvation. Salvation is much more than being saved from sin’s judgement. Being forgiven we now receive all the blessings of salvation. I enter God’s family and now call God my Father and can pray to him. I have God’s Presence with me, His Peace within me and His Power and Provision for me. The Holy Spirit comes live in me and becomes my Helper. I live to love, follow, walk, serve Jesus, and become transformed into his likeness whilst here on earth.
But that isn’t the end of salvation for when he returns, I will receive a gloriously new body like his and spend eternity with him. I will enter God’s eternal kingdom with a new heaven and new earth, where there will be no more sickness, pain, suffering, tears, sorrow, sin and death. That’s what it means to be saved. That is why God sent his Son to die for us and Jesus why give his life for us. Let’s give thanks now for such a great salvation.
Sharing of Bread and Wine.
Brian’s Talk
I want today to just look at something we can all do as we seek to emulate the early church that we read about in Acts.
Some of you may have noticed a small box on your lefthand side on top of the bookcase as you come into the church. It is labelled “Offerings” and is there to receive whatever financial offerings people wish to give towards the work of the Church.
We don’t want to embarrass people, especially any visitors, by passing an offering bag or plate around during the service. I would also add that most of the Church’s income comes through gift-aided donations paid directly by generous donors directly into our bank account.
In 2 weeks’ time, we will share with you the church accounts for the past year – so you will be made aware of where the money you and others so generously give goes to in the course of a year.
There are of course many bills to pay to enable us to meet together in safety and comfort each week – insurance, auditor’s fees, electricity, telephone, and for maintenance of our grounds, to name just a few. But I don’t want to focus on those matters today.
Besides meeting our appreciable running costs, we are able each year to pass on about 15% or more of our income to support the work of Christian mission – be it in the UK or overseas. And that is what I do want to focus on today.
Providing support for fellow Christian brothers and sisters is of course seeking to replicate what went on in the early church as it grew rapidly in Jerusalem. Read Acts 4:32 – 35.
And later in the accounts we have of Paul’s visits to Asia Minor, we find the newly established churches there being willing to donate money to support the church back in Jerusalem that was suffering so much at the hands of the Romans.
So it is I believe our responsibility to seek to help others as we are able. The Lord has provided so graciously for all our needs ever since this building was put up in 1964, so we’ve each year been able to support the work of others.
Today I just want to share with you a few things about some of the people we do support. I guess we all get inundated with requests from very worthwhile charities for our support – particularly around Christmas. Choosing who to support, and which ones to bin can be hard. As a church, we similarly get many requests to support very worth-while Mission work in the UK and overseas. But we clearly can’t support them all.
You will find literature out in the stand in the foyer from some who we support regularly, and from others too. Please do grab some of these, so you can find out more about the work they do for the Lord day by day.
Picking out a few to talk about briefly today hasn’t been easy, because it means leaving out the other 4 or 5 that we also support.
The largest benefactors from our available funds are quite rightly Jon and Clare Skipper, who with their family are serving the Lord in Castelldefels, near Barcelona. Clare is of course Tessa’s daughter, and had been a member of this church for many tears. They moved to Spain initially to work in the University in Barcelona, and subsequently took up their current role at IBSTE bible college, training young Spanish believers to go on to take up leadership roles in Spanish evangelical churches. They live by faith, with support from us and other UK churches, their family and friends.
Their latest Prayer Letter is on display at the back of the church. Jon writes in it about the provision of a car for the next year or so, and about having to cut back on some of his activities. They both live very active lives, as well as bringing up their 3 children – Timothy (now at university), Miriam, and Carys. They very much appreciate our support for them – in our prayers, and in practical financial support. Whilst we support them with a monthly payment, I know they also very much appreciate top-up gifts from friends, as Spain is not a cheap place to live.
Moving on, we give limited financial support to a number of Christian mission organisations. Among them is
Barnabas aid
We’ve been supporting the work of Barnabas for a number of years. You are I hope aware of their food.gives programme – we collect your donations of wholemeal flour, chickpeas, rice, salt, and lentil in this box – when it is full, we send it off by DHL to Swindon, where it gets put into a giant warehouse with hundreds of other boxes; when they’ve got enough to fill a giant shipping container, it gets sent off to Ukraine, Eritrea, Kenya, or other countries where Christians are in dire need of basic food to keep themselves alive. Barnabas mission is for Christians to be able to support their brothers and sisters in the Lord in other lands; they do so by sending food aid, and by supporting projects in third-world countries where communities get together to develop food production locally.
Barnabas is also active in seeking to raise the issue of persecution of believers in many nations, making the world at large aware of the injustice of their treatment.
We are sent a monthly magazine and prayer requests for their work – please take one home, and discover more about their work worldwide. And if you could add a packet to your shopping. It would help fill up this box, and remember there are plenty more in the garage! So much for Barnabas.
I’d like to move on to several organisations who are directly involved in various aspects of making the Bible available around the world. Firstly then,
Lifewords
This used to be known as the Scripture Gift Mission and is well known for putting the bible into the hands of people worldwide. Their bi-monthly magazine, available in the foyer, is called “Interact”.
I’ll read what they say about themselves:
“Lifewords exists because the Bible is for everyone. We want people everywhere to experience it as good news for their lives, and for the world.
The Bible’s life words transform lives. Lives of street children in India. Lives of East African teenagers. Lives of people in rural Indonesia. Lives of Instagrammers in the UK. We’re dedicated to helping people discover good news that changes the world.
We believe that cost shouldn’t be a barrier to people finding a way into the Bible, so Lifewords resources and programmes are freely available, wherever you are in the world, thanks to the generosity of people like you – individuals, churches, and Trusts.”
We know for ourselves how reading the Bible changes lives – so we are glad to be able to support the valuable work that Lifewords does in making the Word freely available.
While we’re thinking about bibles production and distribution, we should also mention the Bible Society They say this about themselves:
“We believe the Bible is God's gift to the world. We want everyone to discover its message for themselves.
Because of that, we translate the Bible and make it accessible in people's heart languages. We bring it into public spaces where its voice can be heard, for instance through the National Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast or The Pitch film fund. We tell its stories, for instance through the Open the Book programme with primary-age children. We encourage people who've never thought the Bible was for them to explore it for themselves and see life through a different lens.”
The Bible Society send us their magazine “Word in Action” – take a copy one month to get up to date with the work of the mission.
Continuing to think about Bibles, we need to remember that there are still many hundreds of tribes around the world that do not have the scriptures to read in their own language. Imagine if the only bible we had was written in Welsh – I don’t think we would get far into reading it! This brings me on to the work of the Wycliffe Bible Translators. They tell us that 1.5 billion people are still waiting for the Bible in the language they know best. Their teams of translators are still busy working with tribes-people in many countries to make the Bible available in the people’s own language. I hope you will agree that this is a very worthwhile Mission to support. I have personally been interested in their work ever since about 1960, when I used to mend their 16mm films which were widely used by churches to learn about their translation work. Again, Wycliffe send us a bi-monthly magazine available for you to read.
Just 3 other organisations I’d like to mention briefly - firstly
Tear Fund
Tearfund is a Christian charity which partners with churches in more than 50 of the world’s poorest countries. They tackle poverty and injustice through sustainable development, by responding to disasters and challenging injustice, and believe an end to extreme poverty is possible.
Thousands of people needlessly suffer and die every day because of poverty. But that’s not God’s plan for the world. And God is calling you – all of us – to reach out to people in greatest need. Tearfund partner with local churches and organisations who have a crucial role to play in the places worst affected by poverty.
Tearfund send weekly prayer requests – one for this week says:
“In Bangladesh, Tearfund’s partners are shining God’s light and bringing hope to communities as they walk the path out of poverty. Solar lights, better sanitation and opportunities to earn money – these are just some of the ways families are walking towards a brighter future. This week, pray for people in Bangladesh on this journey and our partners who walk alongside them.”
We support Tear Fund, particularly around Harvest Time.
Then there is MAF – Mission Aviation Fellowship.
You may have seen in the news this week an item about a 102-year old gentleman flying a world-war 2 Spitfire over southern England. He is Jack Hemmings, who took his Miles Gemini aircraft to Africa in 1948, and as a result initiated what is now MAF.
Their vision is “to see isolated people changed by the love of Chrisy”
They say this: “We are Mission Aviation Fellowship – or MAF – a Christian mission organisation that uses planes to overcome barriers. Our pilots and personnel deliver relief workers, doctors, pastors, school books, food, medicines – everything that can only be safely and speedily transported by air.
With an MAF plane taking off or landing every six minutes, it’s a massive undertaking, and costs a small fortune. So the need is huge.
Now last, but not least, there is one smaller charity I’d like to mention – Friends Reaching Out. They are based just down the road in a minister’s home in Horsham from which they support the work of a children’s home and school in Uganda. You can read about their work in the Prayer Letter on the wall at the back.
In conclusion, I hope you will agree with us that all the organisations that I’ve talked about this morning are well worthy of our support. Like most charities, they are struggling to carry out their work with income becoming harder to obtain from donors who themselves are hit by cost of living pressures. They all need our donations as well as our prayers.
I’ll close by reading the words of Jesus in Matthew 25: 21 – 40 – speaking to his followers not long before he was to be crucified, he said: (read)
“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me”.
By supporting as we do the people we’ve talked about today, and others – we seek to respond to Jesus call for us to serve Him and show our love for Him, in response to his love for us.
SONG: 520 Tell out my soul
Notices
- Our service at 10.15am next Sunday will include another study in our Alpha course.
- Reminder – our Annual Church Meeting will be on 25th February at 12 noon.
- Reminder – World Day of Prayer is on Friday 1st March. Horley meeting is at 11.15am at the Methodist Chuch.