Sermon: Psalm 24 Guess Who?

Has anyone ever played the game ‘Guess Who?’

I tried to find my really old game at my mum and dad’s house, but couldn’t find it... but instead I’ve borrowed my niece’s game - it’s now Guess Who extra, with sounds and lights! Wasn’t like this in my day!

So how does Guess Who work? You have to try to work out which person the other player has picked; asking questions to help you decide - are they a man or a woman; with the people falling if they’re not the right one.

We could have a go at this version of Guess Who, but I’ve a better idea. We’ll do a real life game of Guess Who. I need a contestant... I’ve got the picture of someone from church on my phone, and need you to work out who it is - by asking the questions.

So if everyone would get on their feet (if you’re able) and ___ will ask yes / no questions to try to work out who the person is... [Hilarious opportunity to play guess who in real life...]

Now why did we play some Guess Who this morning? Who is the big word in our reading today. In the Psalm, David is asking: Who?

He starts off by answering the question - who does the earth belong to? And how does he answer it? ‘The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it.’

You know the way if you were to paint a picture, or make a model, or build something out of lego - that is yours. You’ve made it; it’s the same with this earth - God made it, so it is his.

But then from verse 3 we get to the even bigger game of Guess Who than we played this morning - the question is this: ‘Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place?’

In the Old Testament, God owns all the earth, but he chose a special place, the hill of the Lord, the holy place, where the temple would be built. But now, for us, it points us to heaven. The question is, who can go and stand before God in that holy, pure, clean place? Guess Who.

But rather than asking the usual questions male/female; wearing glasses or blond hair; David provides the answers: ‘He who has clean hands and a pure heart.’

First answer: The one who has clean hands. Now, quick inspection, are your hands clean? Did you wash them after you visited the bathroom? In hospital when you’re visiting you have to use the handwash gel to make sure you’re clean; I’ve brought along some hand wash gel... are your hands clean?

Except, he’s not just asking if our hands are clean in this way - he’s also asking if we have done good and right things; if our hands are spotless, or if we have got them dirty by doing bad things...

Now some people might already have ‘sat down’ with the first bit, but what about the second bit? ‘The one who has... a pure heart.’

He’s not asking about how our blood-pumping organ is - rather he is asking about the centre of our being; the person we are - our thoughts and motives... are we always pure in doing what we do?

Here’s a test for a pure heart: if your brother or sister...


Just as in Guess Who, David has made us fall - Guess Who is good enough to climb God’s hill and stand in his holy place? Who can go to heaven because they are good enough? None of us... not you, not me; not anyone.

Yet the Psalm isn’t over; David goes on to talk about receiving blessing from God; of being accepted by God - that those who seek God will find blessing and vindication...

How can this be possible? If we’re all out, if we’re all bad; how can we receive blessing? How can we be accepted?

Suddenly there’s another game of Guess Who which starts in the closing verses. It’s so good it happens twice!

Imagine a city with big gates. Maybe you’ve been in Londonderry at some point and have seen the gates of the city... the cry goes up: ‘Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.’

The question comes from within: ‘Who is this King of glory?’ Twice, they ask the same question, who is this King of glory?

These are the gates of heaven, opening up for the return of the king, the answer to the ‘who’ question:

‘The LORD strong and mighty; the LORD mighty in battle... the LORD Almighty, he is the King of glory.’

The Lord Jesus came down from heaven; down from that holy place, into this world that he made, the world that we have messed up by our sins, and Jesus did what we could not do. For every day of his 33 years, Jesus had clean hands and a pure heart. He committed no sin.

Jesus has received the blessing from God, and shares it with us. It is in and because of Jesus that we can stand with him; that we can be with Jesus in heaven. Now, the answer to the Guess Who: Who will be in heaven? Anyone who trusts in Jesus.

This sermon was preached at the Family Service in Aghavea Parish Church on Sunday 21st April 2013.

Jesus Gives Life

As we work through John's Gospel at SET (St Elizabeth's Teens), the Sunday night youth group, we've come to chapter five. We're introduced to a sad character. A man who has been paralyzed for thirty eight years. That's longer than any of us have lived on earth, although some are closer to it than others! The man lies near a pool in the city of Jerusalem, with lots of other sick people, because they expect a miracle to happen - possibly superstitious - that when bubbles appear in the water then an angel is stirring the water and the first one in will be cured.

Jesus comes along, and asks the man what seems to be a silly question: 'Do you want to be healed?' Well of course he does, after all, he's paralyzed, isn't he? But that's not his answer. He doesn't say yes - instead he gives an answer born of self-pity: 'Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.' I would be healed if I had someone who could help me...

Jesus asks us the same question. Do you want to be healed, forgiven, changed, cleansed? It seems that the man was comfortable as he was, he didn't really want to change. What about us? When Jesus asks the question do we answer yes, or do we cling to what we know? We are paralyzed by our sin, not really living. Jesus rightly urges us to count the cost before making a commitment.

So what does Jesus do next? * Jesus doesn't help the man into the pool when the bubbles come, he just says the word, and the man is healed: 'Get up, take up your bed, and walk.' Jesus' word has power, he just has to say the word and the man's legs work again. Even more interesting is the word that's used: Get up is the same word to rise up, a resurrection word that is used of Lazarus being raised from the dead, and later used of Jesus being raised up. The paralyzed man is having a mini-resurrection, being raised to new life.

The man hasn't walked for thirty-eight years, and he's able to walk away. You'd think everyone would be tremendously happy. But that's not how it is. Some people are cross, because the man is breaking the Sabbath laws by carrying his bed. No joy, just condemnation. The man's response is great: 'The man who healed me, that man said to me, "Take up your bed and walk".' Implication: If he's powerful enough to heal me, then he can jolly well tell me what to do! The Jews don't like it one bit and set out to find out who it was who did this.

Jesus later encounters the man again and warns him not to sin again, in case something worse happens to him. While it's not always appropriate to claim that suffering is a result of personal sin (see John 9), sometimes it is the case. The threat of something worse evokes the threat of eternal punishment in the judgement.

The Jews are hopping mad by now, because Jesus is claiming to be equal to God, by calling God his father. So Jesus talks to them, and says that just like a son goes into the family occupation, carefully watching and learning from his father in an apprenticeship (e.g. carpentry or goldsmith etc), so he does what he sees the Father doing. In John 5 there are two particular things that the Father does which Jesus also does: Gives life (as seen in the healing), and exercises judgement.

21For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. 22 The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. (John 5:21-23)

What Jesus says next pulls these two things together, but before we come to it, I want to tell you about a village I used to live in. Newtownstewart is a small village halfway between Omagh and Strabane. At one time, if you were going from Omagh to Strabane, you had to pass through the village of Newtownstewart. There was no way around it. It's a wee place, twisty corners, narrow roads, pedestrians, traffic. It was a nightmare to get through and took ages and ages. But just as I moved there, they opened a new by-pass. Now, if you're going from Omagh to Strabane, you don't have to get stuck in Newtownstewart. You can speed along the main road, and miss the problem of the village.

Each of us are in the throes of death. We will all some day die. There is no escape. And death leads to judgement, it's what happens: we die and we are judged. And therein lies our problem. We've all done bad things, wrong things, and the outcome of the judgement will be punishment. But Jesus, in John 5:24, says that we can avoid the judgement:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.(John 5:24)

We can bypass judgement by hearing Jesus' words and believing in him, and we immediately pass from death to life! It's the difference between pulling the 'Go to Jail, Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect £200' card in Monopoly and pulling the 'Advance to Go' card in the Chance pile.

The promise of life has been made - Jesus is the one who will judge, and the one who can give life. How can we be sure of it?

In a court case, there are witnesses brought to verify that what is being said is the truth. They testify to what they know. Jesus presents four witnesses to verify what he is saying (even though he doesn't need any witnesses as he always speaks truth):

1. John the Baptist came before Jesus, to prepare the way for him, and he has borne witness to the truth.

2. God the Father, because the very works that Jesus is doing are the things the Father desires, thus showing that the Father is pleased with Jesus, and that the Father sent Jesus into the world.

3. The Scriptures, because the Jews were searching the Scriptures to find life, but all the while they were missing the whole point of them. Yes, the Scriptures point to the life giver, to Jesus, but the Jews refused to come to Jesus to have life, depending instead on their interpretations and law-keeping for their goodness.

4. Moses himself testifies to Jesus. You see, Moses was the giver of the Law, the whole point of the argument being the breaking of the Sabbath. But Jesus says that it is the very Moses on whom they pin their hopes who accuses them, because Moses wrote about Jesus, and points to Jesus.

The Jews that day had no excuse for not believing Jesus - the evidence was right before they eyes, the witnesses were pointing to the truth that Jesus is the judge, and Jesus is the Life-Giver. What excuse will we have if we come before Jesus the Judge? We've been to SET and heard the Gospel many times, we've heard how Jesus is the rescuer who saves us from the penalty our sins deserve. We've probably all got Bibles in our houses, and we've been in RE / RS and Assemblies in School, so have no excuse at all for not believing.

Jesus shows his power by healing the man with his word. Jesus is God, the Son of God. Jesus is the judge, but provides the way of escaping judgement by giving life. At the end of the day you have a simple choice. Life or judgement? It's up to you...

A form of this talk was given at SET in St Elizabeth's Halls on Sunday 25th October 2009.

* One of the joys of teaching the Bible to young people who have never heard it before is that you get refreshingly honest answers based on what they think, not what the answer should be. So some of the guys thought that Jesus would give the man a helping hand into the pool. One guy got it right!

Wimbledon, Here I Come. Not!

A few Sundays ago, I'd heard a guy from church talking about playing tennis with his brother. Ah, I thought, I like tennis, and can play a wee bit. Maybe we should play some day. Despite the fact that it's two or three summers since we played tennis, and my last organised games would have been back when I went to the summer scheme at Dromore Community Centre, about twelve years ago.

So earlier this week, we played some tennis. Or rather, he played some tennis and I struggled. The end result? 6-0 6-0 6-0. The Beatles were wrong. Love is not all you need- some points would be nice! Several times I had the opportunity of winning a game, but my service was letting me down- either too short or too long. Total humiliation, even though Richard tried to help me out with some training tips to improve my serves and returns.

So I won't be booking a place at Wimbledon in the near future. The British hopes won't be carried on these shoulders. But a good hour of exercise, especially running to get the ball all the time! A rematch has been planned for some time in August when we're back from holidays. Somehow I don't rate my chances too highly!

Marketing Failure?

Last week it was reported on the BBC news website that Hamley's the toy shop was pulling out of Victoria Square shopping centre.

This was a big shock to me - not at the loss of another trader from Belfast's newest development, but because I didn't even know it was in Victoria Square in the first place!

The company is claiming that they are ending their association with House of Fraser, and pulling out of having small Hamley's branches within big House of Fraser stores, to instead concentrate on having stand-alone Hamley's stores.

I'm sure I'm not the only person in Northern Ireland that didn't know that there was a Hamley's store in Belfast. In fact, I only realised it was there when I saw a friend's photo of the House of Fraser store on Flickr. Situated on the top floor of House of Fraser, it wasn't somewhere I had ventured, and there didn't appear to be any signs highlighting its existence.

It will be sad to see it go, and perhaps is another sign of the uncertainty of the times, as it leaves in the wake of Zavvi, Crombie, and even possibly French Connection.

Is it simply a marketing failure, by not getting its message out, so that people weren't even aware of its existence? Perhaps. Farewell Hamley's. I'll see you in London!

Guitar Praise

Following on from Sunday School Musical, the latest in the line of Christian copy-cat products is Guitar Praise*. Based on the highly successful console game Guitar Hero, you can play along to all your favourite Rock praise artists. However, it isn't available on the Wii, PS3, Gamecube or Commodore C64. It runs on either Windows or Mac.

With thanks to Scrabo Power for his mention of it. On that page he also writes about Praise Band: The Movie - which tells the story of a traditional church and how it changes when the pastors starts a praise band.

Are these products about changing our culture for the good, or simply promoting the Christian sub-culture bubble which has no impact on wider society? It seems like we may be staying in the salt cellar (or the salt-shaker) rather than being the salt of the world. It seems like we're keeping the light in our wee corner rather than shining it into all the world. How can we impact culture by ignoring and copying it with products only aimed at Christians?

* Following that link will immediately start a very loud sample of one of the songs you can play on Guitar Praise. You have been warned!

Go Faster Dice

For some reason, Monopoly has the reputation of taking hours and hours to play. Even the mention of its name causes a severe reaction within some people. For others, it seems to bring out the very competitive nature lurking within.

To counter the image of extra-long games taking days, weeks, even years to complete, Monopoly have introduced a new feature to quicken games. Now you can play faster with the Speed Die. In addition to the standard white dice, there is a red die in the newer versions. The red die is special, with 1, 2, 3, as well as a picture of a bus, and two pictures of Mr Monopoly (for the 6 sides of the die).



If all 3 dice show the same number, then you can move to any square on the board! If you get the bus, then you can move either the number of squares on one die, the other die, or both dice. If you get Mr Monopoly, then you do your turn as normal (paying rents or whatever), but then automatically move to the next unowned property which you can buy or auction. If all properties are owned, then you must move to the next property on which you can pay rent to another player.

I recently played this way with Stewart, and the properties are all snapped up very quickly. Mr Monopoly kept appearing (given that there's a 1 in 3 chance of him rather than a 1 in 6 chance for the other sides), but it's bad news when Stewart has hotels and you land on the first one with Mr Monopoly ushering you onto the second hotelled property too. In both games I regret to say, I was bankrupt.

Both games, with 2 players were finished in about an hour and a half each, which isn't bad for Monopoly. With more players, perhaps it could be quicker, although it could also get more complicated. All in all, Speed Die Monopoly is well worth it. Thank you Hasbro and Parker!