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SINGING THE PSALMS – PSALM 34

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One of the things at Banstead Community Church we’ve been trying to do more of is sing the Psalms.

This Sunday we are going to be singing Psalm 34.

One of the challenges of singing this psalm is its length.  There are two versions in The Trinity Psalter Hymnal both having 7 verses.  Sing Psalms has 13 verses, and Seedbed Psalter has 10 verses.  The Book of Psalms for Worship divides the psalm up into 3 parts, with each having a different metre.

We could have chosen to sing a few verses of Psalm 34, with plenty well-known tunes that could be used.  Instead, we’re going to sing a paraphrase, Through all the changing scenes of life.

Through all the changing scenes of life,
in trouble and in joy,
the praises of my God shall still
my heart and tongue employ.

Of his deliv’rance I will boast,
till all that are distressed
from my example comfort take,
and charm their griefs to rest.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me;
with me exalt his name;
when in distress to him I called,
he to my rescue came.

The hosts of God encamp around
the dwellings of the just;
deliv’rance he affords to all
who on his succour trust.

Oh, make but trial of his love,
experience will decide
how blest are they, and only they,
who in his truth confide.

Fear him, ye saints, and you will then
have nothing else to fear;
make you his service your delight,
your wants shall be his care.

From Praise! which can be sung to the tune for Come Thou Long Expected Jesus:

Tell His praise in song and story,
bless the Lord with heart and voice;
in my God is all my glory,
come before him and rejoice.
Join to praise his name together,
he who hears his people’s cry;
tell his praise, come wind or weather,
shining faces lifted high.

To the Lord whose love has found them
cry the poor in their distress;
swift his angels camped around them
prove him sure to save and bless.
God it is who hears our crying
though the spark of faith be dim;
taste and see! Beyond denying
blessed are those who trust in him.

Taste and see! In faith draw near him,
trust the Lord with all your powers;
seek and serve him, love and fear him,
life and all its joys are ours:
true delight in holy living,
peace and plenty, length of days;
come, my children, with thanksgiving
bless the Lord in songs of praise.

In our need he walks beside us,
ears alert to every cry;
watchful eyes to guard and guide us,
love that whispers ‘It is I’.
Good shall triumph, wrong be righted,
God has pledged his promised word;
so with ransomed saints united
join to praise our living Lord!

(Photo: David Beale)

LATEST LINKS

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10 links to check out over the weekend…

(Photo: Ryan McGuire)

LEADERSHIP LESSONS (6)

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Ray Evans has written two excellent books – Ready Steady Grow and Church Leadership – he also has posted on the FIEC website over the last couple of years, some excellent articles on Growing as a Leader.

Here are some takeaways from 3 of them: Evangelistic Energy; Attendance, Migration, Community; and Church Membership.

1. It is tiring keeping evangelism at the top of the church’s agenda. Why? Ultimately, because of unseen forces of evil seeking to destroy God’s good purposes. But there are other factors to be aware of.
– Running a church takes a lot of time and effort, whatever stage and size you are. It is very easy for church leaders to spend all their time with Christians.
– You put on courses, and people who says they are keen to come, drop out.
– People show interest in the gospel, appear to understand it clearly, then say “It’s not for me”.

2. “Leaders of growing churches put themselves near the people coming towards faith. They get to know them and they make sure they invest their time and best efforts to win these people as converts before establishing them in their new faith, as the Lord works in them.”

3. A popular idea is for leaders to spend time investing in the most promising disciples to turn them into disciples who make other disciples. But often they can take up a huge amount of the leader’s resources and energy without becoming effective evangelists of outsiders.

4. Common today for there to be weak attendance at Sunday evening meetings. Around 1 in 4 FIEC churches don’t have an evening service at all.

5. “More people coming but less often.” As a church grows the regularity of attendance slips.  When 25% or more may be away on any one Sunday, church is challenging.  Why is this happening?  Consumerism.  Spiritual superficiality.  It is probably more complex than that.

6. The challenge of students going off to university never to return.

7. One Christian leader estimated that half of all Christians in Britain aged under 30 live in London.

8. Personal connection can be as significant to attendance as something that’s nearby.

9. An organisational pathway starts with ATTRACTION, moves on to RECOGNITION/IDENTIFICATION and leads to INTEGRATION.

10. Attraction is everything from your website and media presence, good signage, publicity, to the greeting from the welcome team.

11. Recognition is about spotting new people and warmly relating to those returning for a second, third, or fourth time. Vital at this stage are invites to hospitality, information, and introduction to others who can identify with them.

12. Integration is to help new people really feel part of the church. How does that happen? Suggestions include a ‘meet the pastors’ lunch and ‘induction shaped’ course that covers Family Values (why the church looks like it does today – history, mission, vision and values); Family Life (how the church is structured and run, and what individual’s responsibilities are commitments are); Your Role in the Family (contribution you can make). After these, the process of bringing someone into membership can begin for those who want to proceed.

(Photo: Brad Neathery)

KIDS TALKS FOR ADVENT

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With Advent soon upon us, here are some series of kids talks to use in church in the four Sundays leading up to Christmas.

Series #1: Why Advent?

Advent 1 – Why celebrate Advent?: Talk

Advent 2 – Advent says ‘Be Ready!’: Talk

Advent 3 – Advent says ‘Be Patient!’: Talk

Advent 4 – Advent says ‘Be Excited!’: Talk

Series #2: What should we do this Christmas?

Advent 1 – Recognise: Talk

Advent 2 – Repent: Talk

Advent 3 – Rejoice: Talk

Advent 4 – Receive: Talk

Series #3: Responding to the Good News of Christmas

Advent 1 –  The Wonder of Mary: Talk

Advent 2 – The Obedience of Joseph: Talk

Advent 3 – The Joy of the Angels: Talk

Advent 4 – The Eagerness of the Shepherds: Talk

(Photo: Hans Kristian Pedersen)

KIDS TALK: BIG QUESTION #5

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This is part of a series of kids talks I’m doing in the morning service at Banstead Community Church based on the New City Catechism.

Big Question #5 – What else did God create?

Powerpoint Pictures: Goldfish; Empty Goldfish Bowl; Goldfish in Bowl with water and scenery.

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Imagine I’ve just bought a goldfish and a goldfish bowl.

Would I just drop the fish into the bowl?  Why not?

I need to put some water in it first, otherwise the fish is going to die.  But just water in a bowl wouldn’t be very interesting for the fish.

What else could I do?

I could put some coloured gravel, some greenery, some scenery like a shipwreck, in the bowl as well.

Creating a home for a fish that is good requires both care and creativity.

Big Question 4 asked “How and why did God create us?” and the answer it gave was “God created us male and female in His own image to glorify Him.”

But before He created us male and female in His own image, God created something else, and that’s what the next big question is all about.

Let’s look at it now…

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Q: What else did God create?

Genesis 1 tells us that God created everything out of nothing.  The heavens and the earth. Day and night. Sky and sea. Land and plants. Sun, moon and stars. Birds and fish and all the animals that move along the ground.

God took great care in making the earth a perfect home for people to live in.

God was also creative, making it an interesting place to live in with lots of colour and variety and beauty.

We then read that: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

It was just as He wanted it to be.  God did all this for our good and to show what He is like – that He is amazing!

So what is the answer to the question, “What else did God create?”

It is this:

A: God created all things, and all His creation was very good.

Let’s say the question and answer out loud together.

What else did God create? God created all things, and all His creation was very good.

Children when you go out to Sunday School you’re going to learn a song that will help you to remember this.

KIDS TALK: THE BIG BIBLE ADVENTURE #8 – GENESIS 12:1-3

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This is part of a series of kids talks I’m doing for a weekly assembly in a local junior school.  The plan is to tell the story of the Bible over 4 years.

The Big Bible Adventure #8 – Genesis 12:1-3

Powerpoint Pictures: 10 Downing Street Door; England Shirt; School Uniform; X-Factor Elimination; Prize

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Think about the kind of things people might get chosen for (Prime Minister, Represent England at football, or Team GB in the Olympics, represent school in a competition, to stay in the X Factor, win a prize in a competition).

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In the story of the Bible we have people who speak different languages in different places divided from one another.

People are still disobeying God and the world is a mixture of good and bad.

But God’s promise to rescue people by sending someone to undo the mess brought into this world by Adam and Eve still stands.

And it begins with God choosing one man and his family.

“The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

God chooses one man, Abram.  He gives him a command, leave everything you know and go to the place He would show him.  He also makes some wonderful promises.

People – a great nation, enough people to fill a country.

Blessing – one from his family who would save people and bring God’s blessing to all the peoples on earth.

But Abram was a surprising choice.  Sarai, Abram’s wife, was barren which mean that she couldn’t have children.

So how on earth would a great big family come from Abram?  How would this Saviour of the world come from Abram?

Would Abram believe God’s promises and do what God asked him to do?  Will God keep His promises?

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More talks from The Big Bible Adventure can be found HERE.

(Photo: bigal101)

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.7

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Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 7 – Goodness)

1. Goodness = God is infinitely benevolent.

2. When Scripture speaks of God’s goodness towards His creatures, it often uses the term ‘love’.

3. “Love is distinguished as benevolence, beneficence, or complacence. Benevolence is love in intention or disposition; beneficence is love in action, or conferring its benefits; and complacence is the approbation of good actions or dispositions.”

4. Goodness when it is exercised toward the unworthy is grace and toward the suffering is mercy or pity.

5. The pleasure which God’s creatures enjoy is a demonstration of His goodness. Humans are able to experience pleasure greater than that of animals because they can get it from “the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge”, “in the proper exercise of our moral powers” and because of our capability of “loving and enjoying God”.

6. “Pain is often experienced, but it never appears to result from an arrangement specially made for receiving it.” No organ of our body was specially designed to give us pain.

7. How do we reconcile the goodness of God with the presence of animals which have organs designed to inflict pain (fangs of serpents, stings of insects, talons and tusks and beaks of carnivorous animals) and the innumerable miseries which human society is filled? This question should not be overlooked.

8. How should we respond to the presence of pain and suffering which threaten God’s goodness?
a) Acknowledge the presence of pain and suffering.
b) Acknowledge that happiness and misery are “entwined with each other, and form parts of the same system.”
c) Acknowledge that our experience is of blessings “poured upon us incessantly; and when suffering comes, we are often conscious that is arises from our abuse of God’s goodness, and is, therefore no argument against it.”
d) Acknowledge that present suffering dos not compare to future good.
e) Acknowledge that the sufferings we experience “become an occasion for the trial of our faith.”
We should “believe in the wisdom and goodness of our heavenly Father, and believe that his ways are full of goodness, even when they are inscrutable.”

9. “It is perfectly conceivable that pain itself may, in some cases, enhance our pleasure, as relief from suffering renders subsequent enjoyment more exquisite; and, in other ways, which we are unable to comprehend, pain may produce a beneficial result.”

10. Sin is the clearly the cause of much of the suffering present in the world. Dagg speculates at this point that the pain which animals experience isn’t only caused by man’s sin. “Unless the order of things was greatly changed at the fall of man, hawks had their claws and beaks from the day they were created, and used them before man sinned, in taking and devouring other birds for food; and therefore, pain and death, in brute animals, did not enter the world by the sin of man.” I’m yet to be convinced by this view.

11. Is happiness the chief good? “When pleasure and duty conflict with each other, we are required to choose the latter… if a whole life of duty and a whole life of enjoyment were set before us, that we might choose between them, we should be required to prefer holiness to happiness.”

12. The miseries of sin are means “used by the great Father of all, in the discipline of his great family, to deter from the greatest of all evils.” Judgments and threatenings are means of sanctification and are a manifestation of God’s goodness.

13. “The goodness of God is the attribute of his nature, which, above all others, draws forth the affection of our hearts. We are filled with awe at his eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence; but we can imagine all these attributes connected with moral qualities which would render them repulsive. But the goodness of God, while it is awful and grand, is at the same time powerfully attractive.”

(Photo: Ben White)

FIELD NOTES (25/11/M)

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25/11/M

Some of the resources from the recent FIEC Leaders’ Conference are now online.

Main Talks

Annual Review 2018-2019

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Another couples of Christmas Videos from Speak Life: There IS a dragon at Christmas and The Gift – Christmas Musical Comedy.

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Sign up to the free Crossway + membership.

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Matt Smethurst: “Christians are not anti-LGBTQ people. We are for them. If we were against them, we wouldn’t share the life-altering love that we—sexual sinners all—have discovered in a bloody cross and empty tomb.”

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David Gibson: “There are some preachers who would benefit from more academic learning before preaching. There are so many academics who would benefit enormously from learning to preach before learning to write.”

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I love the Dispatches from the Front film series, so am glad to see this new one on Luke’s Dispatches.

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Andrew Wilson: “Pastors: a sheep is not a beast of burden.”

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A webinar from Duncan Forbes on Narcissism in Ministry.

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Marcus Honeysett: “When I mentor someone, the primary Bible verse in my mind is 1 Samuel 23:16: Jonathan went to David and strengthened him in God.”

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James Clear: “The old gatekeepers were external: credentials, approval, access. The new gatekeepers are internal: curiosity, confidence, consistency.”

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All the details about the next Reaching the Unreached Conference can be found HERE.

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Dustin Benge: “The Bible is enough for: Knowing the Triune God, Understanding the truth, Leading to salvation, Edifying the church, Sanctifying the believer, Commissioning for ministry, Directing the church’s mission, Warning of judgment. The Bible is enough.”

PORTRAIT OF A CHRISTIAN (3)

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Portrait of a Christian – Choosing what Christ would choose

Download my teaching handout as a pdf

More teaching handouts can be found HERE

(Photo: zaid zolkiffli)

SERMON: MATTHEW 13:10-17

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Sermon I preached on Matthew 13:10-17 at Banstead Community Church on 24th November 2019.

Download MP3

1. You will be grateful

2. You will be growing

More sermons can be found HERE

(Photo: Justin Luebke)

A PRAYER BASED ON ROMANS 9:1-29

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A prayer based on Romans 9:1-29.

Gracious and loving Father,
We are amazed at Your kindness to us.
That for those whom You have saved, nothing – not death or life, not angels or demons, not the past or the future, not anything in all creation – will be able to separate us from Your love for us in Jesus.
But it grieves us to know that there are many who do not have this certainty.

Our hearts are filled with great sorrow and unceasing anguish when we consider that the majority of Jews have rejected Him and are facing His punishment.
They were God’s people;
adopted by Him.
They had seen His glory.
They were in a covenant relationship with Him.
They had the law which showed they needed a Saviour.
In the temple worship, the priesthood, the sacrifices, the festivals, they had Christ pictured for them.
They had all the Old Testament promises.
And yet they still rejected Him.

We recognise as well, that they are so many more Gentiles who do not believe in Jesus.
Including many in this nation, and even in this community.

How we wish that this were not so.

Yet we praise You, that we can be confident that You will keep Your promise to save Israel – the Israel made up of people You have chosen to be Your people.
An Israel made up of both Jews and Gentiles, which includes us, who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are truly astonished that You would choose to save us.
There is nothing about us that makes us better than those who are not saved.
You made Your choice before we had done anything good or bad,
which means that our salvation has nothing to do with us –
Not our birth, our desires, our actions, our merit, our knowledge, or our connections –
You chose to save us, because You chose to save us.
How grateful we are that You have, because we have sinned and deserve Your condemnation.
If You were giving us what we deserve, we would already be in hell, with every other human;
That You rescue anyone, not leaving them to be held accountable for their guilt, shows just how merciful You are.

We ask that by Your Spirit You would be at work in us.
Cause us to plead with You to show us mercy by enabling us to turn from our sins and believe in Your Son, and in Him alone.
Cause us to be overjoyed that You would save us;
to be awestruck that You would rescue us.
Cause us to trust in Your promise to save all who have faith in Jesus and to know for certain that a glorious future awaits us if we hold fast to Christ ourselves.
And cause us to be compassionate.
To be concerned for those who are still lost and stubbornly rejecting Jesus.
The many Jews and even more from the nations.
To be grieved that many people are at present drowning in their sins.
To believe that there are still a vast multitude whom God has chosen to save.
And to take seriously our responsibility to speak the gospel, knowing that faith comes from hearing this message.

We thank You that salvation is all of You.
And so, to You be the glory for ever.

Amen.

(Photo: Freely)

SINGING THE PSALMS – PSALM 33

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One of the things at Banstead Community Church we’ve been trying to do more of is sing the Psalms.

This Sunday we are going to be singing Psalm 33. There are not a lot of options for this Psalm to choose from, as finding a well-known to sing to in most cases has proven  difficult.

We’ve chosen to sing the version in The Book of Psalms for Worship that covers only the first 5 verses of the Psalm, but another option is listed below.

From The Book of Psalms for Worship which can be sung to the tune for Breathe on me, Breath of God:

With gladness in the LORD,
O let the righteous sing!
For when the upright give Him praise,
It is a fitting thing.

So give the LORD your thanks,
With harp your music raise;
And with a ten-stringed instrument,
Sing out to Him your praise.

And as you sing and play,
Your skillfulness employ.
O sing a new song unto Him;
With shouts express your joy.

For upright is the word
The LORD has given us,
And all the works that He has done
Were done in faithfulness.

For He seeks righteousness,
And all that’s just and fair;
The LORD’s love is throughout the earth,
Abundant everywhere.

From Praise! which can be sung to the tune for I Sing the Mighty Power of God:

Let all the righteous to the LORD
their joyful voices raise!
How right that they should play and sing
to him new songs of praise!
For faithful are his word and works,
beyond all human worth;
the Lord loves what is right and just,
his goodness fills the earth.

The heavens and all their host were made
by his all-powerful word;
at his command the seas appeared
and in the deep are stored.
Let all the earth in awe and fear
before him bow the knee:
the Lord, at whose direct command
creation came to be.

The Lord confounds the nations’ pride,
he foils what they had planned,
but his designs and purposes
they never shall withstand.
O happy nation, then, in which
the Lord as God is known,
called forth by sovereign grace to be
a people of his own.

From heaven the Lord sees humankind:
all live within his view;
and he who forms the hearts of all
considers all they do.
An army cannot save a king
despite its strength and speed;
the Lord sees those who trust in him
to save in time of need.

We wait with patience for the Lord:
he is our help and shield;
and he has given our hearts a joy
which cannot be concealed.
Our trust is in his holy name:
O Lord, our lives endue
for ever with your steadfast love
even as we hope in you.

(Photo: David Beale)