Lee Street Church
Notes of Meeting 14th November 2021
Worship led by Ken Cowell
Matthew 1.20-21 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Recently I heard a man’s testimony of becoming a Christian. He had no background of Christianity but studied mythology and philosophy to find life’s meaning. Whilst studying at college he heard that his mother and two sisters had become Christians and his brother who was an atheist was going to church. He didn’t know anything about Jesus and he couldn’t understand how a man who lived 2000 years ago could change people’s lives today but that’s what had happened to his family. One day as he was desperately searching for life’s meaning he broke down in tears in a car park and trusted Jesus even though he didn’t know much about him except that he was so different from others that he changed people’s lives. He wrote a book about his testimony and it’s called “The Genius of Jesus”. A genius is someone with a rare skill or ability that influences others. We say Einstein is a mathematical genius. It is usually only in one area, like science, art or music. Jesus is a genius in every area. It even began when he was born with the virgin birth. It had never happened before and it will never happen again. He was a genius at his birth. It tells us that this baby called Jesus would become very special and change the world.
SONG: 298 Jesus, name above all names
SONG: 877 Jesus, what a beautiful name
Prayer
John 13. 3-5 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so, he got up from a meal, took of his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. There’s a famous saying: “power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” In history we have seen the more power a person has over people his sense of morality lessens so that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Here we read that Jesus has been given absolute power by his Father. What does he do with it? Does he make his subjects into slaves? No, he humbles himself, washes their feet to serve them. Jesus is the genius when it comes to serving others. No one else serves like Jesus. Who else is the Servant King?
SONG: 120 From heaven you came
Luke 19.9-10 “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.
Jesus not only came to serve but also seek and save the lost. We were the lost sheep unable to save ourselves, but Jesus came from heaven to seek and rescue us. We see his genius in that he came to seek and save us.
SONG: 897 Lord I lift your name on high. What other ways do we see His genius?
1 Peter 2.22-24 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
We see his genius in His perfect life without sin. It was also seen on the cross when he prayed “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing”. But it is supremely evident in that he not only came to serve but to sacrifice his life on the cross in our place to be punished for our sin. The wonder of the gospel is as one song says “My sins deserve eternal death but Jesus died for me.” We see his genius that he chose the cross to save us.
SONG: 1661 You chose the cross
Acts 2. 32-33 “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and poured out what you now see and hear”.
This is the icing on the cake concerning the genius of Jesus. God raised him from the dead and exalted him to his right hand. That sets him apart from all other leaders in any field shows him to be the Saviour of the world. But the genius of Jesus doesn’t finish there for when a person believes in Jesus the risen life of Jesus enters that person so they can say “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me”. We see his genius that he rose from the dead and now lives in us. Hallelujah What a Saviour!
SONG: 551 Thine be the glory
SONG: 164 He is exalted
HE IS EXALTED,
The King is exalted on high,
I will praise Him.
He is exalted,
Forever exalted
And I will praise His name!
He is the Lord,
Forever His truth shall reign.
Heaven and earth
Rejoice in His holy name.
He is exalted,
The King is exalted on high!
Talk by Stephen Neill
Where’s God in Your View of Life?
Reading: Genesis 9:1, Genesis 11:1-4, Acts 2:6
Lessons from The Story of The Tower/city of Babel (gate of the gods)
- A great example of the desire of human beings to exclude God from their lives
- In Genesis 9, after the flood, God told Noah and his son’s to ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’ (verses 1,7)
- But in chapter 11, they decided to organise themselves together in one place and to build a city – a direct challenge to God’s instruction
- The controlling ideas of man revolve around trade, pleasure and security
- The city of Babel was built out of pride and self-sufficiency – the tower was built with brick so it would last for ever
- They made bricks – demonstrating human capacity for learning through observation
- An expression of human defiance against God – they thought they could reach heaven
- But God took notice – He abhors the thought of His creation building a life apart from Him. Indeed, God came down and destroyed Babel and scattered the people
The tragedy of the human race
- What’s wrong with the world today?
- Man’s greatness/ ingenuity has found solutions to many problems
- Edward Denny – vaccinations (small pox)
- COVID vaccine
- Contemporary example of people looking for solutions to global problems– COP26
- But we have never been able to solve the greatest problems facing us
- No peace
- Injustice and corruption
- Man’s inhumanity to man
- The tragedy of man is that he uses his ingenuity and human centric ideas to build life apart from God
- Apart from the Bible, we can only speculate about the trouble we as humans find ourselves in
- The Bible provides a definitive diagnosis as to why our world is so broken
- The problem is that we have a natural inclination to exclude God from our thinking and from our lives
- The tragic results of this way of living are seen in the bloodstained history of the human race and in the global problems that we face today
- More than 120 million people died in wars during the 20th century
Application
- Read Romans 1:28 – the consequences of trying to live life without reference to God
- Confusion
- No real fulfilment
- Where is God in your view of life
Notices
- Wednesday at 7.30pm = Bible Study and prayer time on Zoom
- Saturday 20th Nov - church cleaning 10.00am onwards
- Next Sunday – 10.15am service (incl. Breaking of Bread) – speaker Brian Mills.