Sermon: 2 Timothy 3: 1-17 The God-Breathed Bible

I want to ask you a question this evening. What is it the church needs to do in these changing times?

There's no doubt about it that things are changing very rapidly all around us. The past century was one of amazing technology and development. Things are vastly different to when our grandparents were children themselves. Communications, working patterns, education - all are changing. One of my parishioners in Fermanagh turned 99 earlier this year. He would sit and chat about the changes he had seen in his lifetime. One of the biggest for him was moving from ploughing with horses to getting his first tractor. He would still rather have the horses, though.

But think how much has changed even in the last few years. On the lectern sits a wee box, recording my words. Later this week, this sermon will be available to whoever wants to listen in, anywhere in the world. And as for Facebook, video calling, and so much more - it’s incredible. As a news report recently put it, the smartphone in your pocket is more powerful than the NASA computers that put man on the moon.

With all these changes going on, let alone the social changes with proposed new definitions of marriage and relationships, we’re left wondering - should the church be changing its message to fit in with the times?

Some in the emerging/emergent church are saying precisely that. Because things have changed so much, the church needs to change the message it once proclaimed, so that we can fit in better with a new society, enlightened, multicultural, influenced by reason and not superstition.

This evening, though, on Bible Sunday, we come to the apostle Paul writing to a younger church leader, Timothy. Paul knows that he is near the end of his life; he's now in prison again, the time is short, and soon he will be killed for being a Christian. Timothy seems to be shy, fearful, so Paul is writing his last letter to Timothy to encourage him. Here, in chapter 3, he tells Timothy to know two things - know the times, and know the message.

Know the times

Boy Dylan sang in 1964 ‘The times, they are a-changing,’ and yet there's a sense in which things are still the same as ever. We have increased mobility, wealth, possessions, education, and yet things are as they ever were. Sin continues unabated. Paul says that this is the way things are going to be.

Verse 1: ‘But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.’ He then outlines a catalogue of sins, a litany of lawlessness. ‘People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God - having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.’

It all sounds horrible, and yet, we realise that this is what our world is like. All these things are all around us. That’s because we’re in the last days. You see, sometimes we think that the last days are just the last couple of days before Jesus returns. But we are already in the last days. We have been since the resurrection of Jesus. The last days are every day between the first coming of Jesus and his second coming. So this is our world, these are our times.

And alongside these worsening morals, we also have the threat of false teachers. We see them in verses 6-9. They worm their way into households, they gain control over weak-willed women, spreading their false teaching, leading people astray. Jannes and Jambres (8) aren’t named anywhere else in the Bible, but they’re thought to be the magicians of Egypt who opposed Moses, opposing the truth.

So this is the world that Timothy was ministering in, and it’s still the world that we are living in. The last days.

Do you remember the theme song that brought New Labour to power in 1997? The D:Ream song 'Things Can Only Get Better'. Twenty years on, as we reflect on the Labour years under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, we can't really say things have been getting better. Nor have they been getting better under the Conservatives. No matter which government is in charge, they can’t change the hearts of sinful people. Sin will continue. Just look at your newspapers or TV news. This is the world we live in, and Paul calls us to know the times.

Notice the contrast in verse 10 though. Paul is saying that Timothy is to be wise to the times, knowing the world he is working in, but not to copy their example. Instead, he writes 'You, however...' Don't follow the wicked world, but copy Paul's example, his faith, love, patience, conduct and all the rest, including persecution!

It's a strange inclusion, isn't it? Paul promises Timothy that he will face persecution - indeed, everyone who desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. What a promise! Yet it's what we should expect - precisely because we know the times, we know that the world is living in rebellion against its Maker and King, so that if we stand up or stand out for Jesus, then we'll attract some opposition.

Know the times, and be prepared to stand up for Jesus.

Know the message

But as well as recognising the times, Paul also urges Timothy to know the message he has been entrusted with. Again, at the start of verse 14, notice the contrast. 'But as for you...' The evil people will go from bad to worse, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of. Don't change the message - hold firm to the gospel.

Paul reminds Timothy that he has been acquainted with the holy Scriptures since childhood - the scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. The Scriptures are the power of God for salvation, as they point to Jesus. Back in chapter 1, Paul mentioned Timothy's granny Lois, and his mummy Eunice, both of whom were Christians already, and had brought him up to know the Bible (the OT, of course), teaching and training him. Parents and grandparents, here's a call for you to be passing on the faith, teaching your children and grandchildren as you have opportunity.

The Scriptures, ‘All Scripture’, Paul says, are God-breathed. Sometimes we talk about how the Bible is inspired, but here Paul says that the Bible is ‘expired’ - not run out, but breathed out. As I’m speaking here, coming out of my mouth are my words, along with my breath. And God’s breath, his Holy Spirit, inspired the writers of the Scripture to communicate the words of God.

That’s why we can have confidence in the Bible - because it is God’s word. It’s not the invention of someone who wanted something to do one day; it’s not the ravings of strange people; it is the very word of God, breathed out by God.

And the Scriptures are given for a purpose. We see it in the rest of the chapter. In verse 16, there are four things that the Scripture does to us - ‘and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.’

Teaching - The scriptures teach us more about God and about ourselves. They give us information and teach us.

Rebuking - They also rebuke us when we are in the wrong. They might show us how our behaviour is wrong; or show us that what we think about God isn’t right. They rebuke us.

Correcting - They don’t just leave us in the wrong, though, they also correct us. They give us the truth, they correct the errors we might have in our thinking or doing.

Training in righteousness - They show us how to live a righteous life, what God wants of us, and encourage us to do it.

And God gives us the Scriptures (all the Scriptures) v17 ‘so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ God didn’t just give us the Bible to fill our heads with Bible knowledge. The Bible isn’t just there as a source of trivia - to know who Melchizedek is; where Zarephath was; or how many donkeys Job started out with. The Bible is there to teach, rebuke, correct and train us... SO THAT we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

It’s good to read the Bible. But it must be changing us and leading us to live out our faith, by doing good works, against the backdrop of a sin-soaked world. We’re called to know the message, to know the Scriptures and grow in the Scriptures, so that they change us to be more like Jesus.

Our message must not change - we must continue to hold fast and preach the gospel contained in the Scriptures - God's revelation of his Son, the Lord Jesus. How we present the message may change, but not the message itself.

Let's take seriously today Paul's call to know the times we live in, but also to know the message that can turn sinful people into saints; rebels into redeemed people; lost into found.

This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on the evening of Bible Sunday, 29th October 2017.

Sermon: Galatians 3:15 - 4:7 Freedom in Christ

A couple of weeks ago, an Australian court decided that an unsent draft text message was indeed a valid will. A man had died, and his widow had expected to keep everything, but this unsent text message was found on the man’s phone, leaving everything to his brother and nephew. After a long court case, the judge declared the will to be valid, because the man’s intentions were clear. This human covenant had been duly established, so it couldn’t be set aside or added to.

I’m not sure that the law is the same here in Northern Ireland, so don’t be depending on a text message to serve as your last will and testament. So why am I talking about wills and such like? Isn’t it a bit morbid to talk about? Well, no, it’s better to have such things in place. But the reason I’m talking about wills is because that’s what Paul turns to in this part of Galatians.

Last week we saw that Christians receive the Holy Spirit - not by obeying the law (because we can’t do that), but by faith in Jesus. Jesus obeyed the law for us, and redeemed us on the cross, so that we receive the promise given to Abraham, the promise of the Holy Spirit. And now Paul is continuing with his line of reasoning. And, as Jimmy Cricket would say, come here, there’s more... We’ll see that we’re not just justified and left like that - there is even more for us than that.

So Paul introduces the idea of a will in verse 15. He does that to help explain the relationship between the promise given to Abraham and the law given to Moses. Just as a will isn’t set aside or added to once it comes into effect on the person’s death, so in the same way, God’s promise to Abraham isn’t changed or added to. The promise stands throughout the Old Testament period, and isn’t changed even though the law was given 430 years later.

As we saw last week - verse 18 - the inheritance doesn’t depend on the law; it depends on the promise given to Abraham - by God’s grace. But straight away, Paul knows there’ll be some objections. He voices it in verse 19. ‘What, then, was the purpose of the law?’ Why did God bother to give the Old Testament law? What’s the point of it?

He goes on to answer it in verse 19: ‘It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.’ The law was given because of sin - to highlight and flag up our sin. We can’t be saved by the law, but the law shows that we need a Saviour.

We see that in verses 21-22. ‘Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.’

The law shows us that we’re prisoners of sin. The law declares what sin is, and so when we do those very things, then it declares that we are sinners. The law only condemns - but it shows us that we need the Saviour, the Saviour we put our faith in.

In verses 23-25, Paul gives us two pictures of what the law is. In verse 23, the law is a jailer, a prison guard. Perhaps you’ve been on a tour of a prison - Crumlin Road or at the Down County Museum in Downpatrick. You’re put in the cell, and the door is locked. That’s what the law did - it kept us as prisoners, ‘locked up until faith should be revealed.’ There was no other way out; only by believing in Jesus, trusting that his death has paid the sentence, and so we can go free.

In verse 24, Paul says, ‘So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.’ That phrase ‘put in charge’ is the idea of a tutor, nanny or governess, who is in charge of the children to make sure they go to school and do their lessons. Harsh, perhaps, but only has power until the child grows up. Now, paul says, ‘Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.’ We’ve been freed from prison; we’ve been freed from the schoolmaster!

That freedom comes in Christ, and in him, we have a new status and a new relationship. The new status is the one we’ve already seen - justified, declared innocent. But there’s more than that - we also have a new relationship, verse 26: ‘You are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ.’ We’re not just forgiven, we’re also family. We’re not just saved, we’re also sons.

Now, that might sound a bit strange, that we’re all sons. Why not sons and daughters? Well, it’s because in the culture of the time, sorry ladies, only sons inherited. So for the Bible to say that we are all sons means that we all share in the family inheritance, we all receive the blessings that God gives us. We see that radical inclusion in verse 28: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, what your standing is, there is a welcome in Christ Jesus. Jesus, the Son of God, makes us sons of God in him.

As verse 29 says, ‘If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.’ In Christ, we are the seed of Abraham, and our name is in the will, we are heirs according to the promise. So when a will is read, what do you need to do to inherit? Just receive. It has been promised to you. And we receive the blessings God gives to and through Abraham by believing in Jesus.

Now that is an amazing thought - that we are heirs in Christ. But even more amazing, is this - your name was always written in the will from the very beginning. Back in verse 15 we saw that wills aren’t set aside or added to when they’re established. So your name was in the will, included in the promise, when it was to Abraham (and in fact, from before the foundation of the world). It’s not that God is sitting in heaven, pen poised, waiting to add someone’s name in when they believe. No, God has already named his heirs from long ago, your names are already written in heaven, and the promise is yours already.

In 4:1, the heirs were children, back in the prisoner / schoolmaster period of the law. They own the whole estate, they’re going to receive everything, but they’re still subject to guardians and trustees - they’re just like a slave.

Or, to give an up to date example. Now, perish the thought this would happen, but if the Queen, and Prince Charles and Prince William were all to perish, then who would be king? Prince George. But he’s just 4. How could he be king? There would be a Regent appointed, someone to rule on his behalf, until he came of age.

And Paul says it’s the same with us. Until we come to faith, we’re slaves (even though we’re going to be heirs). That’s what used to be the case. ‘But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.’

Now, hopefully you remembered to change your clocks last night, or managed to work out if your phone would automatically change to the right time. Hopefully no one turned up just before 10am thinking it was 11am. It’s the spring time change that’s more dangerous - I’ve had people arriving as the service is ending thinking they’re just on time... But Paul says that at just the right time, when the time had fully come, God sent Jesus - born of a woman (fulfilling the promise to Eve that her seed would come), born under law (fulfilling the law and perfectly obeying it), to redeem those under law.

When we come to faith, it’s as if we are coming of age, entering into our inheritance, receiving the full blessing of heirs and sons. And what is the blessing? It’s the one we saw last week - ‘Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’

We’re not just forgiven, we’re also family. We’re not just saved, we’re also sons. We have the Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus the Son, the Spirit who confirms that we are God’s sons by calling out ‘Abba, Father.’ We have freedom in Christ - no longer slaves, but sons; and because we’re sons, we’re also heirs.

We’ve covered a lot of ground this morning. At times I wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. But God is telling us today that we are named in his will; his blessings are ours, because we’re not just forgiven, we’re his family. We’re not slaves, we’re saved. We’re not just saved, we’re his sons.

This is who you are. So live out of this identity - I am a child of the heavenly Father, redeemed by his Son, and filled with his Spirit, receiving all his blessings, and it can’t be amended or taken away from me.

This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday morning 29th October 2017.

Sermon: Galatians 3: 1-14 Freedom from the Law

In 1936, Dale Carnegie published one of the first self-help books. It contained a series of principles on how to handle and deal with people, how to get on in business and in the home. The title? ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’ The promise is that if you follow these steps, then you’ll succeed by making friends, and influencing people to come round to your way of thinking.

The very first principle is simply this: ‘Don’t criticise, condemn, or complain.’ That’s the first step to winning friends and influencing people. Well, as we open up to Galatians 3, it’s quite clear that Paul hadn’t read How to Win Friends and influence People. Don’t criticise, condemn or complain? ‘You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?’

I’m fairly sure Carnegie wouldn’t advise calling the people you’re trying to influence - fools! But this is to show us how desperate Paul is to bring them back from the brink, to shock them out of their foolishness. If you’re jumping into Galatians for the first time, or if you’re fairly new around here, don’t worry, we’re not in the habit of calling people fools as directly as Paul does here. The reason he does it is because he’s so concerned for the Galatians. Paul had originally planted the church there, but now they were listening to false teachers, who were urging them to observe the law and be circumcised in order to be truly accepted by God.

Paul has already showed them that listening to the false teachers would be dangerous and wrong, now he says that they’re being foolish. They haven’t thought things through. So he’s going to get them to think about their experience of becoming a Christian, and their experience of being a Christian. And so he sets a question before them in verse 2. Here’s what he wants to know: ‘Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?’

In asking the question, he’s saying that they do have the Holy Spirit living and working in them. If you’ve been listening carefully, you’ll have noticed that this is the first time the Spirit is mentioned in Galatians. But it won’t be the last time we hear of the Spirit. In fact, the presence of the Spirit in the Christian is a big deal for Paul, and should be a big deal for us as well. The third person of the Trinity, living and dwelling in us, giving us power to live for God and become more like the Lord Jesus. Over the next few weeks we’ll see more of the Spirit’s work in our lives, but for now, the question is, how did they receive the Spirit? Was it by observing the law, or by believing what they heard? What do you think? (It’s like Who Wants to be a Millionaire - a 50:50 chance of getting it right, or 100% chance if you know what Paul has been saying).

In verse 3, he asks them again are they foolish? After they began with the Spirit, were they now trying to finish off by their own efforts? As if the Holy Spirit is like jump leads when your car battery is flat - just get me going and I’ll be ok by myself after that. They had even suffered because they were Christians, because the Spirit was in them - was that all for nothing now that they were turning their back on the Spirit and trying to do it themselves?

Again Paul asks in verse 5: ‘Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?’

To help them answer the question, he points them to the Old Testament, and to Abraham. ‘Consider Abraham: He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ Abraham (or Abram) was minding his own business, when God called him to follow him. God made promises to him - promises of descendants, and a land, and great blessing. And in Genesis 15, the promise of a son hadn’t yet come about. Abraham was 75 by now, and Sarah his wife was 65. But God told Abraham to go outside, and said that Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as the stars.

Abraham believed the promise, and God credited to him as righteousness. Abraham took God at his word, and God counted Abraham as his friend. And Paul says that as Abraham looked at the stars, he was seeing his children pictured - he was seeing... us. Abraham was the man of faith, and we become his children by believing God’s promise as well.

That’s how the gospel was preached in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ The Gentiles are being justified by faith, we’re being made right with God in the same way that Abraham was - as we believe God’s word and depend on it.

Now, just to make absolutely sure that the Galatians know how they received the Spirit - by faith, not by the law - Paul shows the futility of depending on the law. You’ll notice that in verses 10-13, Paul quotes a bit from the Old Testament in each of those verses. ‘For it is written... because... on the contrary... for it is written.’ Paul’s argument is grounded in the Old Testament to show that it’s by faith, not by observing the law.

If you were to take Dale Carnegie’s principles on how to win friends and influence people, it wouldn’t matter if you only did one or two of them. You can take them or leave them. But with the Old Testament law, their demand was total commitment. Verse 10: ‘All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law’.

When I was studying at the Church of Ireland college, our degree was simply pass or fail. And the pass mark was... 40%. But with the law, the pass mark is 100%. Break any one of the 623 laws, and you’re under the curse. Just think of that - you’ve managed to keep 622 of them, but you fail in just one, and you may as well have broken all of them.

We just can’t do it; we can’t be justified by the law - declared in the right - because, (Hab 2:4) ‘the righteous will live by faith.’ This was the verse that caused Martin Luther to kickstart the Protestant Reformation. He had tried to be the best monk ever, in fact, he said later, ‘If ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery, it was I.’ But in trying to keep the rules of his monastery, he only knew despair, and failure. But when he realised that the righteous will live by faith, his life was transformed.

But the law doesn’t give comfort, only challenge - ‘The man who does these things will live by them’ (Lev 18:5) - to live by the law, you needed to perfectly obey it. but we can’t do that. Rather, we’re all under the curse. We’ve all sinned. We’ve all missed the mark. We can’t do it by ourselves.

We needed someone to do it for us. Someone to take away our curse, by suffering the effects of the curse himself. And that’s what Jesus has done for us - his gracious act of loving us and giving himself for us. We see it in verse 13:

‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”’

To redeem is to buy back. And Jesus redeemed us from the curse, by becoming a curse for us. He had perfectly obeyed the law; he didn’t deserve to die; yet he died so that we could live. He died under the curse of Deuteronomy 21:23 - cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree - the cross. This was the message Paul had portrayed to the Galatians (see verse 1). And the word of the crucified Christ is the message of freedom from the law, freedom from the curse that condemns us, freedom to live.

But Paul says something which might be a bit surprising in verse 14. How would you complete this sentence: Christ died so that ...?

Christ died so that we could be forgiven.
Christ died so that we can go to heaven.
Christ died so that we can have hope / peace / joy.

All those answers are right, and good, and they’re the answers I would have given. But Paul tells us something else that Christ died for in verse 14.

‘He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.’

Now that’s a big sentence. But what Paul says is that through the death of Jesus, Gentiles like you and me can receive the blessing given to Abraham. We can share in Abraham’s blessing through Jesus. And what is that blessing? ‘So that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.’

Paul asked the Galatians how they had received the Spirit - by law, or by believing? It is by faith that we receive the promised Holy Spirit. God’s plan was always that his people would have the Holy Spirit living in them, empowering them to live in God’s way. And through Jesus, the promise given to Abraham is fulfilled in you and me.

As you trust Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit living inside you, helping you to live. It would be entirely foolish to start with the Spirit and then go back to our own efforts. This blessing is for you today - for the first time as you come to Christ and trust him for salvation; - or as you realise what you have already received, but have never experienced.

Thelma Howard died in 1994, just before her 80th birthday. She lived simply, frugally, and when relatives gathered to have her will read, they didn’t expect much. But Thelma had been a housekeeper for the Walt Disney for more than 30 years. She was paid her wages, given free board and lodging, and for Christmas and birthday, she was given bits of paper. She didn’t understand them, but kept them all safely in a box. It turns out they were stocks and shares in Disney. And at the time of her death in 1994, her shares were worth $9.5 million. She had this great resource, yet she never realised, and never used it.

As you trust in Jesus, you are given something even more valuable than Disney shares. You are given the Holy Spirit, living in you, the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham, the outworking of Christ’s redemption. Realise your blessing today, receive your inheritance - given freely as you believe.

This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday morning 22nd October 2017.

Bowlers' Service Sermon: Philippians 3: 4-14 Paul's Aim

Tonight, we gather to give thanks to God for sport, and particularly for the friendship and fellowship we enjoy through the Bowling Club. While I haven’t thrown any bowls here yet, I was first introduced to bowls at the age of 8, when my great-aunt Rebecca brought me along to the Cathedral club in Dromore. I played for about 12 years or so, then took it up again when we moved to Fermanagh, playing for the Aghavea church team. Hopefully I’ll get an opportunity to play in the near future.

As I was preparing for this evening, and thinking about playing bowls, our Bible reading from Philippians came to mind. When you’re playing bowls, you count up, or you keep the score; there is the only thing that counts - being close to the Jack; and there’s the way you aim for it. Score, what counts, and aiming. And those three elements of bowling are the things that the apostle Paul talks about in relation to his life.

So first, let’s think about the score. In a friendly match, or when you’re having a practice night, it doesn’t really matter what the score is. But, this week as the tournament has been progressing, and especially tomorrow night when the finals are being held, the score is very important. It’s how you know who’s winning, who’s succeeding.

And in terms of life, Paul outlines in verses 4-6 the points he has scored, the reasons he had confidence in the flesh. He lists his religious achievements - the things that showed how successful he was. He was circumcised according to the Old Testament law; he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, his parents were Israelites from the tribe of Benjamin. Those things were given to him, but the next ones he chose to pursue - he became a Pharisee, a strict follower of the law; in terms of his zeal, he persecuted the church, because he thought they were false teachers; and as for legalistic righteousness, doing what he could do to obey the law, he was regarded as faultless. For a religious person, this was a high score.

We might also try to score ourselves highly, even if we use different categories - the charity work we do; the help we give to people; our paying in to church; or whatever it is that we might think - that’s in my good book. That's to my credit.

A few months ago, the team I was part of won our section of the Fermanagh Churches League. Section D, mind you, the lowest section on the league - and it wasn’t because of anything I had done. We made it to the playoffs. As our team was playing, I was keeping an eye on the scores on the other mats. And over on the far mat, their scoreboard was ticking over nicely. I was thinking to myself - our rink over there is doing well, that’ll help our overall score. And then I happened to be watching as an end finished, and I realised that it was the other team scoring all those points! The high score I thought we had was actually against us.

And that’s what Paul realised about putting his confidence in the flesh, what he could achieve: ‘But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.’ And on over in verse 8 he says that he considers them ‘rubbish’ - or dung. The things he prized, his high score, he now realises it’s useless, something to be rid of.

And he says that, because he now knows the one thing that counts above everything else; the only thing that matters. On a bowling mat, the only thing that matters is being close to the Jack. Well, the apostle Paul says that the only thing that matters in life is being close to the Lord Jesus. ‘What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.’ Knowing Jesus is the only thing that matters for Paul, the only thing that counts.

And the way he does that isn’t by his own achievements, it’s only by faith in Christ - and receiving a right standing with God. The Lord Jesus is the one who gave himself for you; he came to this earth to rescue you from your sins by dying in your place. He freely offers us his righteousness as we trust him.

Verse 10 summarises what being close to Jesus, being in Jesus, knowing Jesus is all about: ‘I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection of the dead.’

The one thing that counts - knowing Christ, and the power of his resurrection - having the power that raised Jesus from the dead living and working in our lives. And we think - yes, I’d like that. But we stop there. Knowing Christ, and his power, we’ll have some of that. But Paul goes further. To also have the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. As we follow Jesus, knowing him and his power, we may also experience suffering and hardship. But it is in the way of the cross that we experience the resurrection; it is in our own sufferings that we experience the power of Christ and the grace of Christ to keep and sustain us.

This was the thing that mattered in Paul’s life. So what is the thing that matters most in your life? Is it the same? Or are you living for something different?

To get the score, you need to be close to the Jack. And to get close to the Jack, you need to aim. You have to see where you want your bowl to go, forehand or backhand, how tight to the stick, and how much weight. The skip can tell you so much, but it all comes down to your aim.

In verses 12-14, we see what Paul says about his aim in life. He realises that he isn’t there yet; he hasn’t made it yet; but in the meantime, ‘I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.’ And there in verse 13 we see the ‘one thing I do’ - ‘Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.’

When I was learning to drive, I had this bad habit of not turning around when I was reversing. I’d just kind of try to see in the mirrors, but it was more of a keep going till you feel the bump or hear the bang. And my driving instructor gave me some valuable advice - you wouldn’t look out the back window when you’re driving forward, so don’t face forward when you’re reversing. Look the way you’re going.

And that would probably work on the bowling mat too. You wouldn’t try to bowl backwards. So look the way you’re going, and go for it. Forget what lies behind - whatever the score might be; whether yesterday has been good or bad or indifferent, press on today! Strain towards what is ahead. Aim forward towards the goal, and win the prize of the heavenly call.

As we press forwards, looking to Jesus, the prize is already in reach. Christ Jesus has taken hold of us, and God has called us to it. It's yours for the taking as you trust Jesus and receive him as your Saviour and your Lord.

The bowling mat helps us think about:

1. the score - the things you think are for you might be against you;

2. and the only thing that matters - being close to Jesus, knowing him;

3. and the aim - pressing forward to be with Jesus. So what’s stopping you? Tonight we have this opportunity to get to know Jesus, perhaps for the first time - don't waste this opportunity. Get to know the one who gave himself for you. I'd love to introduce you to him. Or maybe you are already a Christian. May God's word to you tonight is to reevaluate your score, what you're depending on for salvation; and to refocus our aim, and press on towards the one thing that really counts - knowing Jesus.

This sermon was preached at the Bowlers' Service at the end of the St Matthew's Bowling Club Tournament in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday 15th October 2017. St Matthew's Bowling Club meets on Monday and Thursday nights, and new members are always welcome!

Sermon: Galatians 2: 11-22 Freedom by faith

Have you ever noticed that before a football match, the two captains come into the centre with the referee. They’ll toss a coin to see who kicks off. They shake hands, but once the whistle goes, it really does kick off. For a moment they were friendly, but now they are sworn enemies, out to beat the other team. As the bowling club tournament runs in the hall this week, you’ll see the same idea - a polite handshake one minute, then opposed the next.

As you listened to this morning’s Bible reading from Galatians, you might have wondered if the same sort of thing was going on. Glance back to verse 9 in Galatians 2 and you might remember from last time (before the harvest) that Paul and Barnabas shared the right hand of fellowship with James, Peter and John. They shook hands to show that they were in agreement, they were on the same team.

But was that just a formality? Was it all for nothing? Did it mean absolutely nothing, when you read verse 11, just two verses later, and discover that suddenly Paul is opposing Peter to his face, calling him out in public! What is going on? Why were they friends and brothers one minute, and then the next are at each other’s throats?

And when you see why Paul was opposing Peter, you might think, was it a storm in a tea cup? The row arose over something as small as eating arrangements - who sits with who, and what that says. Now, maybe you’ve planned (or are planning) a wedding reception, and you have all the names on bits of paper, seeing who can sit with who, and which people need to be kept apart for everyone’s sake.

That gets us so far in thinking about the importance of sitting and eating together. But the actual issue is there in verse 12. Peter was visiting Antioch - a city in modern day Turkey. The church was made up of Gentile believers. Peter would gladly share in fellowship with them - sharing meals with them, sitting at the table together, with no problems.

But all that changed when some people came from Jerusalem - members of the circumcision party. They were those who insisted that Gentiles had to be circumcised in order to be real Christians. And when they arrived, Peter withdrew from the Gentile Christians, wouldn’t sit and eat with them as he had before, and would only eat with Jews. When Peter did this, he influenced all the other Jewish believers to also draw back from the Gentiles, in effect making a distinction between Jews and Gentiles.

It was as if Peter was saying there are Premier League Christians - those who are Jews; and there are second division Christians - the Gentiles. Or imagine that as you arrived for church today, the churchwardens asked which football team you supported, and you only sat with people who support the same team - and then insisted that Man United supporting Christians are the real deal, while the Liverpool supporting Christians are at best, second rate.

Paul gets to the heart of what Peter is up to in verse 13. ‘The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy.’ None of us wants to be a hypocrite - saying one thing but doing another. But that’s what Peter was doing - he was saying that all Christians are the same, but then by his actions he was showing that some were more important than others. That to eat together, you Gentiles would have to be circumcised. Without it, you would miss out.

But as Paul says, in verse 11, he was clearly in the wrong. Peter was in the wrong because, verse 14 ‘they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel.’ Peter was a bit like a picture hanging on the wall that isn’t level. Maybe you never notice, but sometimes when you see a picture that’s askew, it just needs to be straightened up, to hang right. Peter was out of line when measured against the plumbline of the gospel.

And so Paul confronts him - not privately, but publicly. It’s right that in Matthew 18, Jesus gives us guidelines for resolving a private dispute with a brother or sister, but this is a public matter. Peter was leading people astray, so needed to be publicly rebuked. And the rebuke comes in verse 14.

‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?’ Peter was a Jew by his family line. But now he wasn’t living according to the strict food laws and cleanliness code. Jesus had taught him that all foods were clean, and so he was living like a Gentile. Yet now, by his actions, he was forcing Gentiles to follow Jewish customs in order to sit and eat with him. He wasn’t living that way himself, so why was he forcing others to do it?

In verses 15-16, we get to the heart of the matter. What does it take for someone to become a Christian? What is needed to be justified - to be declared in the right with God, declared innocent? There are two alternative paths to take; two approaches to being justified. Either we can do it by observing the law - obeying every detail of the Old Testament law, by living not just a good life, but a perfect life; or we can do it by trusting Jesus.

Listen again to these verses. Three times we’re told the right answer, the only way to be justified: ‘We who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.’

How is someone made right with God? Not by observing the law - because no one will be justified that way. It’s only by faith in Jesus Christ. Trusting him. Depending on what he has done for us, because we can’t do it by ourselves.

And it’s the same whether you are a Jew or a Gentile. Only by faith. Yet Peter was showing by his actions that faith in Jesus wasn’t really enough - you would also have to be circumcised. It’s right that Paul confronted Peter, so that Peter’s words and right hand of fellowship weren’t just meaningless, weren’t just hypocritical, but were followed through in his actions in welcoming all who believe in Jesus.

We are only made right with God by faith in Jesus. Nothing else will do. Nothing else can make it. Paul then goes on to answer an objection to this. Ok, someone says, you trust in Jesus, does that mean you can live how you want? If you’re not obeying the law, then does that mean that you can sin freely and still know that you’re saved? Like the person who sets out to commit some terrible sin, saying to themselves, it’s ok - God will forgive me after. ‘Does that mean that Christ promotes sin?’

‘Absolutely not!’ Paul says that being justified by faith doesn’t give us a free pass to live how we want, and sin freely. Rather, we will be changed when we’re justified ‘in Christ’ - united with him. When we trust Jesus, we are then ‘in him’ - so that what he does, we do and where he goes, we go.

In verses 19 and 20, Paul talks of the death and the resurrection of every believer. But it’s not a future thing, something that will one day come to pass. No, he speaks of it as something that has already happened, when we first put our faith in Jesus:

‘For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’

As we put our faith in Jesus, we go through death and resurrection - dying to the law and its demands. Crucified with Christ so that ‘I’ - the old me, the unrighteous me, the sinful me, the trying to be justified by myself me - my old self has died. Instead, Christ lives in me.

No longer do we live for ourselves, no longer do we try to justify ourselves by our good works or obedience to the law. Now, ‘I live by faith in the Son of God’ - the Son of God who did all that was needed for me to be saved - ‘who loved me and gave himself for me.’

The only way to be made right with God, to be justified, is by faith in Jesus, who loved you and gave himself for you. Trusting in Jesus is the only way to be saved - by the grace of God, giving us what we don’t deserve. So how could Peter insist on faith in Jesus plus circumcision?

Or how could we insist on faith in Jesus plus anything else? It’s all, and only by grace. We cannot achieve it by our efforts, we simply kneel at the foot of the cross. And, as Paul says in verse 22, if righteousness could have been gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

So stop trying to earn God’s favour by your good works - your giving to charity, your prayer times, your church attendance, whatever it might be. And don’t look down on others who don’t match your supposedly high standards of achievement. Your high standards are still useless to save you. Instead, simply receive. Take hold of the grace given by the death of Jesus for you. You just need open hands to receive - as we’ll do in a few moments at the Lord’s Table.

As you come forward, as you receive the bread and the wine, remind yourself of these words: ‘The Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ Stop your striving, and stand in his grace.

This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday morning 8th October 2017.

Harvest Sermon: Luke 12: 22-34 Consider the lilies

This morning we’re celebrating God’s goodness to us. We can see it all around us. We can smell it, but just don’t taste it! Our school used to go to my church for our harvest service, and if there were apples along the window sills, people would take a bite out of the apples and then turn them around... Don’t be doing that today!

But even as we’re surrounded by God’s goodness, it might be that some of us are feeling like the man on the screen. How do you think he feels? Is he happy? Don’t think so. How does he feel? He’s worried.

And you might be worried about something today. Health, money, school, family, work, or not having work - lots of things we might be worried about. But Jesus tells us that we don’t need to be worried.

Here’s what he says: Therefore I tell you, do not worry
about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.

Jesus is speaking about two particular worries - food and clothes - but as he does so, he helps us deal with all our worries.

Sometimes I bring along something to look at, but today the harvest decorations are a great reminder of the truth that Jesus teaches. Because Jesus also told people to look at things, and think about things, to help them see what he was saying. In today’s reading, he says look up, and then look down.

So here’s his first picture, looking up. Does anyone know what this is? It’s a raven. In Matthew’s gospel he talks about the birds of the air. Now think about the birds. When was the last time you saw a raven driving one of these - a John Deere tractor? Never! Or when was the last time you saw a robin driving a combine harvester? I’m fairly sure you haven’t - unless the farmer’s name was Robin, but that’s different!

The ravens and the other birds don’t have to plan and prepare. They do not sow or reap; they have no storeroom nor barn. So how are they fed?

Yet God feeds them. God the Father cares for them and feeds them. You don’t see the birds worrying about food, they get enough to do them, fed by God.

Now Jesus isn’t calling us to start eating like the birds, as if we’re Bear Grylls eating all the bugs. He’s not urging you to change from eating spaghetti to eating worms. Here’s the point: ‘And how much more valuable you are than birds!’

You are more precious, more valuable to God than the birds. If he cares for them, he will care for you as well. If he feeds them, he’ll feed you. We can depend on God.

And we have to depend on God, because our worrying won’t actually make a difference. Does anyone know who this is?

The man on the right is the world’s tallest man living - Sultan Kosen from Turkey, at a height of 251cm or 8ft 2.8inches. And to the left, maybe you haven’t spotted him, is Chandra Bahadur Dangi, the shortest man in the world, at just 1ft 9.5inches.

Here’s a short video of them meeting in London in 2015.
VIDEO

Would anyone like to be a little taller? Or maybe a lot taller? So we’re going to try an experiment. I want you to worry about your height, and try to make yourself grow taller. Ok, go! ... So how did that work out? Jesus tells us how that will work out: Who of you by worrying
can add a single cubit to his height?

Worry won’t help us. So why worry about anything?

Having looked up, Jesus now gets us to look down. Does anyone know what these are? They’re lilies. And Jesus tells us to consider them, how they grow. Just look at the variety of colours and shapes in the flowers that are here. Or imagine walking along a path and suddenly finding a whole field of wildflowers. Or walking into a florist’s shop. Now how do the flowers do it? Do they have floral fashion shows with all the latest looks? Do they worry about being designer daffodils? Of course not.

Does anyone know what this is? It’s not an upside down bicycle. It’s a spinning wheel, used to make the thread or yarn to make clothes. But Jesus says the lilies don’t labour or spin. They’re not working hard to produce their floral fashions. They don’t traipse around every clothes shop for hours. They’re naturally beautiful. The catwalk can’t compete. The supermodels aren’t as beautiful as the lilies of the field. Does anyone know who this is? This is Solomon the richest king of Israel, the one who gave his life to pursue wisdom and wealth. Yet even he wasn’t arrayed like one of these.

And what’s the point? Just like the birds, it’s an argument from the lesser to the greater. If our Father feeds the birds, he’ll certainly feed us. So here, If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!

When God was making grass which was going to be used to fire ovens, he could surely have made it functional and plain. There was no need for it to be fancy. Yet if God has clothed something so temporary; how would he not clothe you as well?

When we look at the birds, we see how our heavenly Father feeds them - and will feed us. When we look at the flowers, we see how our heavenly Father clothes them - and will clothe us. Our heavenly Father knows what we need. He will indeed supply it. We don’t need to worry, when we put God as our Master.

When we make his priorities our priorities; when we seek his kingdom, when we live the way God wants us to live, we discover that God will indeed provide for our needs. When we put God first, everything else falls into its proper place.

So are you worried today? Remember that God is your Father. He cares for you. Turn your worries into prayers, and discover how he provides for you.

This sermon was preached at the Harvest Service in St Matthew's Richhill on Sunday 1st October 2017.

Harvest Sermon: Luke 12: 13-21 The Foolish Farmer

Here are some famous sayings, let’s see if you can finish them off: Look before you... leap. Too many cooks... spoil the broth. A stitch in time... saves nine. And the last one: Where there’s a will... You might think it’s ‘there’s a way’, but it seems that where there’s a will, there’s a lawyer.

And if not a lawyer, then certainly some kind of dispute. It’s what causes this man to interrupt Jesus as he is teaching the crowd. His dispute is brought to Jesus in verse 13. ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’

He obviously didn’t like the fact that his brother had inherited something, and he hadn’t. And so he comes to Jesus, wanting Jesus to get involved, wanting him to go and sort out his brother. Now, you might have thought that Jesus would go and sort it all out, but that’s not what happens. Instead, Jesus gives a surprising answer.

‘Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?’ It wasn’t that the two brothers came together, wanting to get things sorted out, asking Jesus for his help. This was just the one brother, wanting Jesus to force his brother to give him something. So Jesus says no. It’s nothing to do with me.

Jesus then speaks to the crowd, but he’s also speaking to this man in particular. And he issues a warning. ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’

If you’ve ever been to Buckingham Palace, you’ll have seen the Guardsmen - they look about 8 feet tall, standing very straight and still in their red jackets and huge bearskin hats. It might look as if they’re just there for the tourists to watch and take photos, but they are there guarding the palace. If anyone jumped over the fence, they would spring into action to protect the Queen.

We’re told to be on our guard - against all kinds of greed. We’re to watch out for greed trying to control us. Jesus sees that this was what was going on in this man’s heart - he wanted a share of the inheritance out of greed. And so Jesus gives the warning. ‘A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’

At 8am on Tuesday the 30th May, the removals team arrived at the Rectory at Lurganbrae, Brookeborough. In a couple of hours, everything we owned was packed into the back of two lorries. Our whole life was in those lorries - and then I remembered the words of Jesus: ‘A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’

How easily I was believing the lie that all that stuff was the sum total of our life. How quickly greed was trying to sneak in unnoticed. We need to be on our guard against greed.

To help us grasp his point, Jesus then tells a parable - an ordinary, everyday story that teaches us something about heaven. We’re introduced to a rich farmer. It’s harvest time, and he’s been busy in the fields, gathering it all in. Things have been good this year - the weather has been perfect, so there’s a good crop. And yet, he’s faced with a problem.

His land has produced so much, his barns simply aren’t big enough. So he thinks to himself: ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ As he thinks about it, he comes up with the answer in verse 18: ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

Now you might be thinking, doesn’t that sound great? One crop big enough to retire on. A big bonus, and no more worrying about anything. A few years ago I read of a mega-rich family in England holding a retirement party for the latest person to retire from the family business - at the age of 30!

That’s the dream, isn’t it? No more working, just lying back on a tropical beach, topping up your tan. The hardest decision being whether you want vanilla or honeycomb ice cream. Take life easy, eat, drink and be merry. Isn’t that what life is all about? Having a good time and enjoying your wealth?

The farmer has decided on his course of action. His small barns are too small, so he’ll get rid of them. He’ll build bigger ones. So he goes and rings the builder. The builder even says that he’ll come first thing in the morning. What more could he possibly want?

The truth is, he will never see the builder coming. Despite his wealth, his riches, his prosperity, these things couldn’t save him. That very night... he dies. He never benefits from all that he had stored up. But it wasn’t an accidental death; not just a tragic coincidence; not just a twist of fate. No, God intervenes, and says to him, ‘You fool!’ This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

We might have been jealous of this man’s wealth, and his retirement plan. our opinion of him might be respect, or envy. But God’s opinion of him is ‘You fool!’ He had so much, more than he knew what to do with, and yet God counts him foolish. Why was that?

He didn’t think of God. The ground had produced a bumper crop, but the man forgot God the giver. As we’ve already sung this evening. ‘All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above, so thank the Lord for all his love.’ Everything we have comes from God. Yet how many of us realise and remember to thank God?

We might remember tonight as we come to the Harvest Thanksgiving, but what about the rest of the year? Are we mindful of how God has blessed us? We would always make sure to thank someone who gives us a birthday present or does something for us - what about God, who gives us everything?

He didn’t think of God, who gives us life. The man says to himself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years’ yet he didn’t have many years. He forgot that God gives us life, and each one of our days. As James writes, ‘Come now, you who say “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”’ (James 4:13-15).

He didn’t think about God, who sits on the judgement seat. His wealth mattered little before God - he may have been wealthy, but as Jesus says, he was not rich toward God. Millions of pounds in the bank, and yet bankrupt before God.

Not only did the man fail to love God with all his heart, mind, soul and strength (and his purse and his possessions), we also find that he failed to love his neighbour as himself. Do you remember what he said when faced with his problem? ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.’

He has no regard for his neighbour; no thought for those who have nothing; doesn’t consider sharing or giving away even the bit that wouldn’t fit into his barn. Everything is for himself.

So what about us? Are we selfish in storing up what we have for ourselves? Or do we remember those in need? Remember that what we have has been given to us by God, for his purposes, rather than our own private pursuits?

Now you might be thinking to yourself - I have no bumper crop; compared to those around me, I’m poor. Maybe the sermon is only for the richest people here, and the rest of us are of the hook. But in the grand scheme of things, when we look at the world, we are the rich! We are those with plenty, yet we keep all for ourselves and our comfort and pleasure.

Because of that, all of us are in danger of being called a fool by God. As Jesus says in the last verse: ‘This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God.’ Just like the man, we can be rich, and yet not rich towards God. But how do we stop being foolish? How do we become rich towards God?

The truth is that each one of us is bankrupt towards God. We have no credit, no merit, nothing going in our favour. Instead, there’s a big (and ever increasing) list of debts. Every sin has been listed. Our debt is growing. We could never repay it.

Yet the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, lived the perfect life, committed no sin, and then gave his life to pay for our sins. As Jesus died on the cross, he satisfied the debt of our sins - as we read in Colossians 2: ‘He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.’ (Col 2:13-14).

Paul is saying that it’s a bit like going into a shop with a bill. When you pay the bill, it’s taken, and placed on the nail. It’s been paid for, the debt is cancelled. It’s the same with our sins. Jesus has cancelled our debt towards God through his perfect sacrifice for our sins, which is credited to our account when we trust in him.

There’s an old gospel chorus which puts it so well: He paid a debt he did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay, I needed someone to wash my sins away. And now I sing a brand new song, Amazing Grace the whole day long, for Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay.

But even more than just our debts being cleared; the Lord Jesus also gives us his blessings, he credits our account, and gives us so much more than we deserve. Paul tells us in Ephesians that all these blessings from ‘the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us’ (Eph 1:7-8). Later they are described as the ‘immeasurable riches of the grace’ (Eph 2:7) and the ‘unsearchable riches of Christ’ (Eph 3:8). By ourselves, we cannot store up treasure in heaven – we are poor and bankrupt when it comes to the Bank of Heaven. But Jesus offers us the riches of his grace, and provides the means for us to have treasure in heaven.

Perhaps this evening you are realising your poverty towards God - I invite you to receive the Lord Jesus, to depend on him for rescue from your debt. In him, you will find all the riches of his grace.

Perhaps you are a Christian, but you’ve been pursuing wealth on earth rather than storing up treasure in heaven. That’s like depending on Monopoly money for your fortune. Turn again and find in Christ all that you need.

And please, as you leave this church tonight, don’t be a fool.

This sermon was preached at the Harvest Service in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Friday 29th September 2017.

Sermon: Galatians 2: 1-10 Freedom in fellowship

Has anyone ever ran a marathon? Just in case you’re wondering, I haven’t either. I might be able to run the 0.22 miles, it would just be the other 26 miles that would give me bother. But imagine that you had done all the training, you ran the race, and then discovered that it was all pointless, that it wouldn’t count, that you were disqualified.

That’s what’s happened to the 5000 participants in the Marathon of the North in Sunderland in May 2013. It turns out that along the way, they followed the wrong directions of the marshals, and the course they ran was 264 metres short of a full marathon (288 yards). One runner went the right route, but all the rest went the wrong way. They hadn’t run a marathon; they didn’t get a finishing medal; they had run their race in vain.

Imagine how they felt when they heard it was all for nothing. All their efforts wasted. Well, that’s the same fear the apostle Paul had - as he says at the end of verse 2. ‘For fear that I was running or had run my race in vain.’ But it wasn’t a messed up marathon that caused this fear. He wanted to make sure that he really did have the true gospel - he wanted to be sure that he hadn’t wasted the last fourteen years of his life, running in vain, by preaching the wrong thing.

If you’re jumping into Galatians this morning for the first time, it might be good to help you catch up. Paul is writing this letter to the churches in Galatia to call them back to the gospel of God’s free grace, the gospel that he had preached to them. But since he had been with them, false teachers had arrived in the churches, insisting that to be a real Christian, you first had to become a Jew - by observing the law, and particularly by being circumcised. Paul has been saying that circumcision isn’t needed, that it’s not part of the gospel of grace, received by faith.

Last time we saw how Paul had received his gospel directly from Jesus. But the false teachers seem to have been saying that Paul’s gospel was different to the other apostles’ gospel. That Paul was missing something important. So Paul tells us about a visit to Jerusalem, where he just wanted to make absolutely sure that he was in the right. In verse 1, he tells us who he brought with him - Barnabas and Titus. And in verse 2 he tells us what he did to be sure that he was right.

Notice that he went to Jerusalem because of a revelation. We find this in Acts 11:28 - where Agabus predicts a severe famine, and so Barnabas and Saul (Paul) were sent to Jerusalem with a gift for famine relief for the Christians in Judea. It wasn’t that he had been summoned by the apostles, like being sent for by the headmaster. He was there for one reason, but while he was there, he ‘set before them [the apostles] the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles.’

It would be a bit like checking your homework on the school bus - not copying, but just making sure that you had the same answers as someone else. Just to make sure that you weren’t barking up the wrong tree, that you hadn’t run your race in vain.

So what was the result of Paul’s visit to Jerusalem? He has confirmation that he is preaching the one true gospel. We see this in a couple of ways. The first is there in verse 3. ‘Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek.’

Titus, was a Greek, and therefore a Gentile, and therefore uncircumcised. But the apostles didn’t say, hold on, we’ll get a knife out. They didn’t require or compel him to be circumcised. This despite the desire of some ‘false brothers’ to have it done. These false brothers were undercover spies, trying to spy on the freedom Christians have in Christ Jesus, and to try to make us slaves. But Paul and the other apostles didn’t give in to them ‘so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.’ (5)

Paul is sure he has the one true gospel, because Titus didn’t have to be circumcised. He’s also sure because the apostles in Jerusalem didn’t add anything to his message. Paul had set before them the gospel he preaches. And the apostles didn’t see anything he had missed; didn’t need to add anything he was lacking. He hadn’t run his race in vain. They confirmed that he has the one true gospel of freedom.

So what about us? Are we confident that we have the one true gospel of freedom? Are we sure that we haven’t believed in vain, or taught in Sunday School in vain, or preached in vain? Is it in line with Paul’s gospel - what he sets out here in Galatians? Does our gospel bring freedom, or does it make people slaves by having to obey extra rules that we add to the free gospel? For us, the issue might not be circumcision, but it might be certain behaviours that we expect everyone to follow. Paul gives us the one true gospel.

And in the rest of our passage, we see that the one true gospel of freedom is for everyone. We see this in three particular ways.

First of all, in verse 7-8, the gospel is for everyone - not just Jews. I’m sure you know the song ‘If you’re Irish, come into the parlour, there’s a welcome there for you.’ That’s not the case here. You don’t have to be Irish, or Jewish, or any particular nationality. The gospel is for everyone!

The apostles in Jerusalem didn’t add anything to Paul’s message, but they did see something in it. ‘On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews.’ (7) The same gospel is for everyone, but there’s a division of labour. Peter was entrusted with the job of preaching the gospel to the Jews (or as the footnote reminds us, the original Greek says ‘circumcised’). And Paul was entrusted with the job of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles (footnote: uncircumcised).

The same gospel is for everyone - so everyone has a job to do. Peter’s mission field was different to Paul’s, but they brought the same gospel. God was at work in Peter’s ministry as well as Paul’s, so that the gospel goes to everyone. So who is your mission field? Who is the ‘everyone’ that you’ll be in contact with this week? It probably won’t be the same as the person sitting beside you, or in front of you. Your mission might be at your workplace - I might never meet your colleagues, but you will. You’re there for a purpose. Or the sports club you’re involved with. Or a choir. Or lodge. Or the parents you rub shoulders with at the school gate. No matter who you meet this week, they’re included in the everyone who needs the gospel.

Secondly, in verse 9, the gospel is for everyone - and it brings us together. The Jerusalem apostles (and James), the so-called pillars of the church, they recognise the grace God had given to Paul, and so they recognise the fellowship they have with him. The gospel doesn’t just bring us to God, it also brings us closer to one another.

They gave Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship - they shook hands on it, they recognised that they were brothers. On some Friday evenings, I can be found at Ravenhill. People from all over the province come to get closer to the Ulster team, to stand up for the Ulster men. But as the supporters do that, they also come closer to one another. Shoulder to shoulder in the stands.

The gospel brings us closer to God and closer to one another. Are we living out that fellowship? Are we growing closer together as we follow Jesus together? Are we welcoming others to join us? (How sad it would be if new people were joining us but they weren’t welcomed, weren’t even talked to, just ignored as we talk to ourselves...)

The gospel is for everyone, bringing us into fellowship together. So how can you be a part of this?

Finally, in verse 10 we see that the gospel is for everyone - especially the poor. ‘All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.’

It’s not that the Jerusalem apostles tell Paul to start remembering the poor - they ask that he continue to remember the poor. That was the very reason he was in Jerusalem - the famine relief (Acts 11:28-30). And he was eager to do it anyway. Caring for the poor is an outflow of the gospel - it naturally follows, because the gospel is for everyone; the gospel of free grace which can’t be bought or earned; but which is freely given.

Is care for the poor an essential part of our Christian life and witness here? Are we continuing to remember them? Or is is something we need to start doing? Are we as eager as Paul was to do it?

One of the ways we can do this is through supporting the Craigavon foodbank - towards the end of October we’ll have our foodbank collection - more details will be coming shortly. But are there other ways we can remember the poor, and bring the good news to them?

Five thousand runners went home disappointed from the Marathon of the North. Their aches and pains were all in vain; all their efforts had been for nothing. Make sure that you aren’t running in vain - make sure that you’ve got the one true gospel of freedom - the gospel for everyone: no matter who you are; whatever your income; it brings us together in fellowship, united to God and to one another. This is the gospel Paul preached, the gospel all the apostles preached. The only gospel that saves.

This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday morning 24th September 2017.

Sermon: Revelation 19: 1-10 Church is the bride of Christ

I seem to have a knack of having important life moments the same day as moments of national significance. My Institution here, as you might remember, was on the day of the General Election. As it turned out, my 30th birthday also fell on a nationally significant day - the Royal Wedding. As I was saying farewell to my 20s and lamenting the fact that I was an old man of 30, Prince William and Catherine Middleton were getting married.

If you can remember back those 6 years, or maybe even 36 years to Charles and Diana’s wedding day, you’ll know that the wedding was the big thing in all the newspapers and the TV news. All day long, the TV was filled with every detail of the wedding. It’s not every day that a royal wedding comes along, and so (it seemed like) everyone was watching this royal wedding.

Some friends travelled over to London, wanting to be there for the day, even sleeping on the footpath to get a good spot, to catch a glimpse of the bride and groom, the Prince and his new Princess. They were caught up in the excitement of the royal wedding.

As some people said at the time, it was like a fairy tale come true. The Prince had his bride, and they lived happily ever after. Now, normally in a fairy tale, there are some dangers to be faced, an enemy to be overcome, and some excitement along the way. But, when you think of it, even fairy tales point us to the real true story. A prince overcomes his enemies, slays the dragon, and rescues the girl, who becomes his princess. A fairy tale? Maybe, but it’s also the true story of the Bible - what God is doing in the world through Jesus.

And the Bible is moving towards the true fairy tale ending - the real royal wedding, which we hear of in our reading from Revelation. In Rev 19:7 we read these words: ‘Let us rejoice and be glad and give him the glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.’

All of history is moving towards this royal wedding. The groom is obvious enough - he’s the Lamb. All through Revelation, the Lamb is the Lord Jesus, the one who was slain, the one who has conquered, the one who is getting married. But who is his bride? Who is he getting married to?

Verse 8 gives us a peek of the bridal gown. ‘Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)’ Notice that the linen, the righteous acts, was given to her to wear. She didn’t make her own dress, it was given to her.

Later in chapter 21 we are given an invitation to see the bride again: ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ (21:9) And the description there is of a city, the Holy City, (new) Jerusalem. A cube of a city, as high as it is wide and long; with twelve gates, twelve foundations, a city which is pure, and bright, and clean; dazzling in its beauty, with the precious stones and the streets of gold and the pearly gates.

And you might be thinking - is Jesus marrying a city? But this is picture language - Revelation is like a picture book, as it teaches us truth in vivid imagery. You see, we talk about going to heaven, or meeting in the new Jerusalem, but the truth is - we are that new Jerusalem. The church is the bride of Christ, the wife of the Lamb.

To see that, we need to turn back to Ephesians 5, and what can sometimes be a controversial passage these days. (page 1176). And maybe even before you turn to it, you know which passage it is. It’s the one in which it says: ‘Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord...’ It also says, and probably just as difficult: ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...’

Now, at some point, I promise, we’ll come back to those words when we preach through Ephesians. But for now, I want to focus on verse 31-32.

‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church.’

As he addresses the theme of marriage, Paul goes right back to the very beginning of the Bible, to Genesis 2. We looked at these words on Thursday night at the Bible study fellowship - you’re very welcome to join us this week as we continue our Bible overview. But Paul takes these words from Genesis 2, about the man leaving his father and mother, and being united to his wife, and the two becoming one flesh. And we take these words as the pattern for marriage, for a lifelong public commitment of one man and one woman, forsaking all others until death.

But Paul says that, yes, they’re about marriage, but at their foundation, they are actually pointing us forward to the marriage of Christ and his church. Every marriage is a pointer towards the marriage of Christ and his church. And every marriage is meant to be a picture of that marriage - sometimes pictures can be out of focus, or distorted, but still, they point towards the real, the true, the perfect.

This helps to explain why marriage here and now is ‘till death us do part.’ John Piper has written a book called ‘this momentary marriage’. Sometimes people find it hard to hear what Jesus says about marriage in heaven, in Matthew 22.

The Sadducees had come to Jesus, trying to make a fool of Jesus, trying to trap him with a story and a question. The seven brothers who each married the same woman when their older brother died. Question - whose wife will she be in the resurrection? (They ask this because they don’t believe in the resurrection, so they’re trying to be ridiculous). Jesus says that ‘At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.’ (Matt 22:30). Why? Well, because Ephesians tells us there is only one marriage in heaven, and we’ll all be involved - the marriage of Christ and his church.

Whether marriage has been part of your experience or not, whether it’s been good, bad or indifferent, we’ll all experience the perfect marriage, the union of Christ and his church. We will be united to Christ, be one with him, dwell with him, not just for a few years, but for ever. That’s the real fairy tale ending, isn’t it? They all lived happily ever after. And it’s for real. For ever. Christ and his church.

We’ve been a bit more all over the place in terms of the Bible tonight than normal - we usually focus on one passage rather than chasing through the Bible - but I hope it helps to see that this idea of the church being the bride of Christ is right through the Bible. And that’s without thinking about our Old Testament reading where the Lord rejoices over Israel, his bride; or when Jesus comes his first miracle is to change water to wine at a wedding; or John the Baptist describing himself as the Best Man, the friend of the bridegroom who has now come; or Paul acting as the matchmaker and wedding planner in 2 Corinthians 11, promising the church to one husband, to Christ, to be presented to him as a pure virgin; or a host of other references we could have looked at.

The thing about weddings is that there is always an invitation. Mr and Mrs so and so invite you to the marriage of their daughter. And then at the bottom there’s the RSVP -Répondez s'il vous plaît - now my French isn’t that good, but it basically means, please respond. Let us know if you’re coming.

Well, the real Royal Wedding is approaching. The Lord Jesus will slay the dragon and rescue his bride. And we are invited to be there are the wedding. Not just as staff at the venue; not just one of the guests at the farthest away table; but as the bride, along with the rest of his church.

And back in Revelation 19:9 we read these words, the true words of God: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!’ There’s your invitation. The Lord Jesus has pursued you; he has rescued you from the dragon; and wants to make you his, forever.

As the hymn puts it, ‘From heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride, with his own blood he bought her and for her life he died.’

Are you looking forward to that day? Are you waiting for the wedding of eternity? The Spirit and the Bride say, Come (Rev 22:17). Will you be there on that day? United with your Saviour in his forever home. What a day that will be!

This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday evening 17th September 2017.

Sermon: 1 Peter 2: 4-10 Church is the temple of God

This evening we gather to celebrate the 180th birthday of St Matthew’s. We give thanks to God for his faithfulness, and his steadfast love to this congregation over many generations, with this parish church in the heart of the village being at the centre of peoples’ lives through all those years. The celebrations of Baptisms, the joy of weddings, the grief of funerals; and the regular, weekly gathering of God’s people around his word and his table, bringing prayers and praises.

For 180 years, St Matthew’s has held out the gospel to Richhill and beyond. These stones have echoed with our Saviour’s praise. But if you’re in the main aisle this evening, then these old stones have stood far longer than just the 180 years we’re celebrating tonight. Back in 1752, what is now the main aisle was built as the market house for the village, by the Richardsons of the castle.

When the market ended, it was decided to convert the market house into the parish church for the new parish of Richhill, in 1837. In our first reading, we heard how the Lord Jesus lamented that the temple in Jerusalem, the place of prayer, had become a marketplace, with traders crowding in. Well here in Richhill, we went the other way, with the marketplace becoming a place of prayer.

Tonight we rejoice in God’s goodness in the past; and give thanks to him for all that he has done in and through St Matthew’s over the past 180 years. But we can’t stop at that. We must also consider what God is still doing, and what God will do in the future in and through St Matthew’s. And our second reading, from 1 Peter, shows us that God is in the business of church building.

We’re given a glimpse of the plans, we’re brought onto the building site, in order to see how God is building his church.

And it all begins in verse 4: ‘As you come to him, the living Stone - rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him...’ Now if you go onto a building site, you might see plenty of stones, but you won’t see any living stones (unless the builder’s name is Livingstone!). Stones are just stones.

But this living Stone is described in greater detail by Peter: rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him. He’s talking about the Lord Jesus - who was rejected by men. Do you remember before the crucifixion, the crowd were offered a choice - Jesus or Barabbas? They chose to free Barabbas, and to crucify Jesus. Isaiah 53 says of Jesus, ‘he was despised and rejected by men...’ (Is 53:3). Everyone may have rejected him, but he was chosen by God and precious to him. God showed he was chosen and precious, because he raised him from death, gave him life - made him the living Stone.

Jesus is the living Stone. And Peter remembers a verse of Scripture, from Isaiah, which promises that Jesus would come. ‘See, I lay in Zion a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’

Jesus is this chosen and precious cornerstone. Now, what is a cornerstone? It’s the most important stone in the whole building. It’s the one set at the bottom corner, from which everything else is built up - it’s the one that keeps the whole building straight, like a foundation stone.

So what do you do with a cornerstone? You build on it, of course! But it’s not with bricks and mortar. It’s not with stones. Rather, what is the building material? It’s us. ‘As you come to him... you also, like living stones are being built into a spiritual house...’

Peter is talking about building the church - a spiritual house, a place for God to dwell - but it’s not a parish church, not St Matthew’s itself. We used to sing a song in Dundonald ‘Church is not a building, it’s the people there inside, people who love Jesus and wear his badge with pride...’

We are the building, we are the church, we are God’s dwelling place. We’re each like a stone being fitted into place, being built up together to be the temple where God lives, inside us. I’m a County Down man, and in the mountains of Mourne there are the famous dry stone walls, where the stones are placed together to build the wall, each stone playing its part in forming the wall, whatever shape or size, it fits with all the other stones. It’s like that with us. We are being joined together as God brings us together.

As we come to Jesus, we’re added to his church, we’re built into this spiritual house. But verse 7 reminds us that not everyone comes to Jesus. Peter tells us that we who believe in him know that the stone, Jesus is precious. But some people don’t believe. Some people reject Jesus.

So what about them? What will they do with Jesus, the living Stone? Rather than building on it, instead they stumble over it. The stone is there, to be built on, but they trip over it.

For those who don’t believe, Jesus is the stone that makes them stumble. You may not really believe that Jesus rose again from the dead; you might think it impossible that there is anything after death; you might not think that Jesus is the only way to God. You can’t accept what Jesus says about himself - the way, the truth, the life. Please think carefully - to reject Jesus is to stumble over him and to finally fall.

But the focus here isn’t on those who fall. Rather, the focus is on Jesus, the living stone. Some may reject him, not see what use they have for him, but ‘the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone’ - the one that crowns the whole building, that makes the whole thing come together.

Peter reminds us of the change that comes about as we come to Jesus, as we’re built together in him. And he uses some more pictures from the Old Testament to do so.

We are a chosen people; a royal priesthood; a holy nation. We have been brought from darkness to being in the light. We have been brought from not being a people, being on the outside, to now being on the inside, being the people of God. Once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy.

It’s what happens as we come into the church - the people of God; as we believe in Jesus and are built up together. And what is our purpose? Why have we been brought together? ‘That you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.’ We are to offer spiritual sacrifices of praise (5) - not just on Sundays, but on every day, wherever we are.

Maybe this evening you’re in danger of stumbling. Come to Jesus, and be built into his house, his temple. Through his mercy, come into the light.

If you have come to Jesus, if you have taken your place, united and connected with everyone else, then realise that you are a holy priesthood, that you are called to declare his praise. And do it!

So as we celebrate the 180th anniversary of this building being consecrated, we are called to get on God’s church building plans. As we come to Jesus - to be built into his Spiritual house; as we come together in the place God has placed us - so that God dwells within us; as we declare his praises - so that we celebrate what God has done for us; and as we bring others to him - so that they don’t stumble, but are included in God’s temple.

God is building his church. He’s been doing it through St Matthew’s for the past 180 years - may he continue, through to the return of Jesus, for his praise and glory. Amen.

This sermon was preached at the Thanksgiving Service for the 180th anniversary of the consecration of St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday evening 10th September 2017.

Sermon: Galatians 1: 11-24 Freedom from the past

One of the games we used to play at Youth group was a game called Telephone. You might know it better as Chinese Whispers. The young people sat in a line, and a message was given to the first person. They then had to whisper it to the next person, and so on, down the line, until the last person would reveal what they had been told. If it worked, you’d hear the same message, but most times it didn’t, and you’d get something entirely different! So you’d trace back to see where the message came from, and who said what.

The more grown-up version is when you hear some piece of news (or is it gossip?), and you ask them, where did you get that from? Who told you that? This is the question that Paul addresses in this next section of Galatians. Last week we began the letter by hearing that Paul is God’s man with God’s message, so don’t turn away from the gospel of grace. And Paul was quite insistent that his gospel is the real thing, the genuine article - whereas any other gospel is no gospel at all.

The Galatians may well be asking, well, how can we be sure that you’re right? Could Paul have been at the end of the Telephone game and got it wrong? Had he missed out on something that the false teachers said was true?

To help us understand all this, we need to know a wee bit about the false teaching. It was insisting that in order to be a real Christian, you also had to be a Jew, by submitting to the whole Old Testament law, and especially by being circumcised. Paul was saying that you didn’t have to be circumcised, or obey the law to be saved - you just had to believe. So which is right? Had Paul misheard the real gospel? Was he lacking some important element of it? So the question is, Paul, where did you get your gospel from?

He tells us in verse 11-12. And in these verses, he tells us where he didn’t get it from, first of all: ‘I want you to know brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up.’ This isn’t something that Paul invented one day; he didn’t make it up; this isn’t just a wee story. Ok, so, maybe he heard it from someone else?

‘I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it.’ So he’s clear that he hasn’t misheard when someone else told him the gospel, that he hasn’t missed out or added to it. So where did he get it from? ‘rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.’

There were no middle men, no bits added or missing, Paul received the gospel directly from Jesus, by revelation. We can be sure that Paul has the real thing, the genuine article. And Paul shows it by pointing to two things from his story - his testimony, and his travels.

First up, Paul reminds them his testimony. A testimony is a story of how you came to faith - and also how God is continuing to grow you. At it’s most basic, it’s divided in the same way that time is - BC and AD - Before Christ, and Anno Domini (the year of our Lord, or after Christ). Paul’s BC is there in verse 13-14. ‘For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.’ Before Christ, Paul was a persecutor. He was intense, he tried to destroy the church.

Move on to verse 16, ‘so that I might preach him (Jesus) among the Gentiles...’ The persecutor became the preacher. What a turn around! From one extreme to the other. And how did this happen? What was it that brought about the change? We see it in verse 15:

‘But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles...’

Three things happened to Paul. It wasn’t that Paul woke up and decided to change. It wasn’t that he decided to retrain as a preacher. It wasn’t that he so completely followed the traditions of his fathers that then impressed God enough to save him. Paul didn’t DO anything. It was all of God - the three things that happened to Paul, to turn his life around - they’re the same things that happened to us when we believed (or will happen when you do believe):

1 God set me apart from birth - or as the footnote puts it, from my mother’s womb. That’s an echo of the call of Jeremiah, but it’s the truth for all God’s people. God sets us apart, before we can do or say anything, he has chosen us.

2 God... called me by his grace. Paul definitely didn’t deserve to be saved. He was persecuting Christians, trying to destroy the church! But God’s call of grace is always undeserved. He just calls us.

3 God... was pleased to reveal his Son in me. Paul may have known something about Jesus, but it took this revelation, this turning on of the light, this moment when he saw Jesus, and everything changed. We may not get a visible revelation of Jesus, but we suddenly see him revealed to us in God’s word.

Paul knew all about the gospel of grace, because he had experienced it for himself. His own testimony showed that his gospel had come by revelation from Jesus. His life was flipped turned upside down - from persecutor to preacher, all and only by grace.

What’s your story? Have you got a testimony to share? How life was before - you may not have been a persecutor beforehand, your story may not be as extreme as Paul’s, but there will have been a change (and there’ll still be changes happening...). Have you experienced this grace in your own life? Have you received all that God does for us in the gospel - setting us apart by his sovereign choice; calling us by his grace; revealing his Son to us - have you experienced these things for yourself?

Paul’s testimony shows that he has the real gospel. But then he goes on to talk about his travels. Now when you hear that travels word, you might think - time for a snooze. Is this going to be like having to sit through someone’s holiday photos? Or listening to someone go on and on about every detail of where they went on holiday, and where all they’ve ever been?

It’s not, I promise you. You see, Paul has a purpose for mentioning this. He’s showing us again that he didn’t get his gospel from other people - and definitely not from the Judaisers (as they’re known - the people wanting to add to the gospel the principles of Judaism, like circumcision). And he shows us this by telling us about his movements.

We see this sort of thing all the time in detective series - when the policeman asks, where were you on the evening of the 20th March? Will the suspect have an alibi, making sure that they weren’t at the scene? That’s what Paul is doing here. It starts back in verse 15 again. ‘But when God... was pleased to reveal his Son in me... I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.’

So when Paul became a Christian, he wasn’t taught by others, he didn’t go to Jerusalem. He was far away, in Arabia and Damascus. He then did go to Jerusalem - three years later - to get to know Peter, but it was only a short visit, fifteen days. He only saw Peter and James (the rest of the apostles were afraid of him - Acts 9:26). Then he went away again, to Syria and Cilicia.

Do you see what he’s saying? He wasn’t depending on being told the gospel in Jersualem, he already had it from Jesus. And he was only with them a short time. And as for the churches in Judea - the place where the false gospel of the Judaisers may have come from - he didn’t know them, and they didn’t know him.

‘I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they praised God because of me.’

Paul’s travels show that he didn’t receive the gospel from anyone else, and so didn’t mess it up. He received it directly from Jesus. We can believe it, and receive the gospel of grace that was evident in Paul’s testimony.

That grace of God shown to Paul led to God’s praise. As the churches of Judea heard how God’s grace had changed Paul from persecutor to preacher, they praised God. And God’s grace continues to lead to God’s praise.

Just think how amazing it would be if those who are currently persecuting Christians became Christians themselves. Those involved in the North Korean regime; or any of the other countries on the Open Doors world watch list. If God’s grace called them, and revealed Christ to them - what praise there would be. So pray for it!

Or the celebrity atheists - Richard Dawkins, or Stephen Fry, or some of the others you see on TV or read in the paper. Could God save even them? Yes, by his grace, and by revealing his Son to them. Pray for it to happen!

Or what about you? Could God save you? It happens as God calls us by grace, and reveals his Son to us. As we respond, it brings about a big change in our life, but even more praise to God.

One man would have been considered too bad for God to save. He tried to desert his Royal Navy ship. He was transferred to a slave ship, and became a slaver captain; a particularly cruel one at that. But one day, he cried out to God in a storm off the north coast of Ireland, and in St Columb’s cathedral, discovered the wonderful grace of God - or as he (John Newton) puts it in his hymn, ‘Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.’

Is this your testimony? I pray it will be so. Amen.

This sermon was preached in St Matthew's Church, Richhill on Sunday morning 10th September 2017.