Dear friends,
I hope you are keeping well. As we are resuming services in our buildings, the resources below are a copy of what we are sharing in the planned services. These services resources will be posted here fortnightly for the sake of those who aren’t able to gather with us in the building. I hope you find these an encouragement in the riches of grace in Jesus Christ our Lord.
This week, Geoff Nankivell has kindly prepared our service, so our very many thanks to him for his preparation and teaching.
Church at Home
“Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
(1 Cor. 15:57)
Preparation
Heavenly Father, we thank you that we can join together this morning to worship you. We realise that you know our hearts and desires, for nothing’s hidden from you. We ask that by your Holy Spirit you will purify our hearts, help us to love to you more and bring glory to your name through our lives. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Confession
Our first reading this Sunday is Psalm 93:1-5. Please read this, then let's join together in confessing our sins to God:
Almighty God, our heavenly Father,
we have sinned against you and against our neighbour
in thought and word and deed, through negligence,
through weakness, through our own deliberate fault.
We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who died for us,
forgive us all that is past and grant that we may serve you
in newness of life to the glory of your name. Amen.
Prayers
Almighty Lord and everlasting God, we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern both our hearts and bodies in the ways of your laws and the works of your commandments; that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Heavenly Father, our ever-present help in trouble, our fortress and our God: calm the anxious fears of all who turn to you; give strength and healing to those who are sick, and courage and skill to those who care for them; grant wisdom and clarity to those in authority; and humble us all to call upon you that we may be saved not only in this life, but also for that which is to come, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Please continue with your own prayers and the Lord's Prayer.
Hymn
Here is love, vast as the ocean
Reading
Our second and third readings this Sunday are Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 and Romans 8:26-39. Please read these, then let's join together in affirming our faith:
We believe and trust in God the Father, who made the world.
We believe and trust in his Son, Jesus Christ, who redeemed mankind,
We believe and trust in his Holy Spirit, who gives life to the people of God.
This is our faith.
We believe and trust in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Reflection
Paul, as he wrote to the Christians in Rome set out the main truths of the Christian Gospel. In the early chapters of his letter he revealed our sinfulness as ‘There is no one righteous, not even one;’ (3:10); and the fact that God, because He is holy, had to judge sin. But Paul revealed that there is salvation; for we can be made right with God, by grace, through faith by believing on Jesus Christ. (3:22). Therefore, Paul shows us, because we ‘have been justified through faith’ (5:1) we now have new life in Christ by the Holy Spirit. We are no longer under condemnation (8:1), and we can have the assurance that we can never be separated from God. That’s great!
However, we know that we ‘groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to son-ship, the redemption of our bodies’ (8:23). We are saved, because our faith is in Jesus Christ, but we all know that we have various weaknesses. We are still human, therefore we see in verses 26-27 that:
We are Weak and Need help.
There are many times when we’ve all needed help in one way or another.
My wife and I, a few years ago, came back from our holiday, opened the front room door and found water dripping through the ceiling onto the floor – it was not a happy situation! We needed help – so we called in the plumber. If the car breaks down we call the RAC. Why do we call for help? Because we know that we can’t sort those things out without help.
Paul reminds us that there are times when ‘We do not know what to pray for’. Have you ever been there? Some kind of crisis has come and you don’t know how to pray? Well, Paul tells us that ‘the Spirit himself intercedes for us’. God knows our hearts and our needs better than we do. Sometimes we just don’t know what to pray for, or how to pray, because the situation is beyond our understanding. But thankfully God’s Holy Spirit, who lives in us, actually prays ‘for us through wordless groans’ when we’ve come to the end of what we can do – we groan. The Holy Spirit, like the plumber or the RAC man, comes alongside and helps us by interceding in heaven according to ‘the will of God.’. God reminds us in 2 Cor. 12:9 that “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore, we can see that God helps us as we pray; but also in verses 28-30 we can see that God, being sovereign, is working out his purposes in us and for us.
God Works for our good.
When the plumber came to stop the water dripping through our lounge ceiling he had to cut holes in our bedroom floor to find the problem. He found that when the house was built the joints where the water pipes met had never been properly fitted. It was a disaster waiting to happen! Paul tells us that ‘God works for the good of those who love him’. It didn’t seem good when we came home to find water dripping from the ceiling but actually it was – it could have been far worse another time.
Paul reminds us that God works for our good and he has a plan and purpose for us; for you, and for me, and for all of us here. How do we know this? Well, God says:
Firstly: We’ve ‘been called according to his purpose’. We realised we needed Jesus, and we received that message and trusted Jesus as our Saviour. In 2 Timothy 1:9 Paul reminds us that ‘He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace’
Secondly: Paul also shows us that God ‘foreknew’ us. God told the prophet Jeremiah (1:5). ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart’ God knew him, as he has known us, way before he was born.
Thirdly: We see that God’s ordained purpose for us was always that we should ‘be conformed to the image of his son’. We’re shown in 1 Corinthians 2:18 that we are ‘being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory,’ as God, by His Holy Spirit changes us so that we become more like Christ. God has done everything and it was always God’s intention that Jesus would be the ‘firstborn among many brothers and sisters’ who all have God as Father through faith in Jesus Christ. That’s you and me and all other Christians.
Fourthly: Paul tells us that because God has predestined us and called us He has also ‘justified’ us by removing our sin through Chris’s sacrifice for us on the cross; and he has also ‘glorified’ us. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:6-7 that ‘God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.’
Having thought about God’s help and how He has worked for our good Paul goes on in verses 31-36 to show us:
The witness of what God has done.
How are we going to respond to all that God has done for us? Paul states ‘If God is for us, who can be against us?’
‘If’? Paul gives us the proof that God’s on our side!
Firstly: God gave Jesus to die for us. Therefore, He will ‘graciously give us all things’. He will give us everything we need to live godly Christian lives.
Secondly: Who’s going to accuse us of doing wrong? Paul says we can’t be charged because God has already justified us through the death of Jesus. The penalty has already been paid – our sin is covered.
Thirdly: Now, Jesus is seated at the right hand of God the Father and intercedes for us. He knows what we need and he prays so that we are helped to live our Christian lives.
Fourthly: Because of all these things ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? – Can ‘trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword’ separate us from God’s love? The world may not like us, people may be against us, we may be considered irrelevant and out of touch, but God is for us! Therefore, because God’s on our side Paul in verses 37-39 reassures us that:
Through Christ we win
Paul maintains. ‘No’! ‘No, in all these things’ whatever they may be, whatever may happen in our Christian experience, because God is with us and for us ‘we are more than conquerors’. We don’t just manage to scrape through the problems. God enables us to overcome them as we bring them to him and depend upon his help. It’s not because we’re clever; or good at getting out of problems, like calling for the plumber to come and stop the water coming through the ceiling; it’s not because of what we can do. We’re conquerors ‘through him who loved us’. It’s all thanks to God because, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:57, ‘He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’
In fact Paul tells us that he’s ‘convinced’, he’s absolutely certain, that ‘neither death’, which happens to us all and Christ has conquered, ‘nor life’ and all that it throws at us because we are Christians, is going to separate us from God. Paul also tells us that nothing in the spiritual realm can harm us; and as God is eternal, sovereign, and in control of time, nothing in the vastness of His created universe will ever ‘be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus or Lord.’ In Colossians 3 Paul reassures us that ‘your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.’ Our salvation is eternally secured. Through Christ we win!
Heavenly Father, thank you for the victory that Jesus won on the cross for us. Help us to live in the certainty that our salvation is assured and that nothing in all creation can ever separate us from your love. Amen.
Hymn
It is well with my soul
Closing Prayer
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy, to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
(Jude 24-25)