Christ is risen Alleluia!

Transcription

1 Warsaw International Church Mobile Worship every Sunday at ul. Miodowa 21 (near Old Town) at 11:00 AM Entrance from Schillera Street Website: WIC WEEKLY 29 April 2018 Christ is risen Alleluia! Our news There will be no Thursday Fellowship Group meeting this coming Thursday. The next meeting will be on 10 May (Ascension Day). We give thanks for all those who have joined us recently, and we hope that they will feel at home in our church. A church council meeting was held last Sunday. We are planning a ladies day service for Pentecost, which will be combined with a baptism, and we are in the process of arranging our annual church picnic to be held probably some time in June. A pot-luck dinner will be held this Sunday, so please bring some food with you! Last Sunday s sermon Bible readings: Genesis 1, and 2,1-4; 2 Corinthians 4, 16-18; John 15, 1-8 Like many of us, I suppose, spring is the time of year when I get excited about all the wonderful things that are happening around me in nature. Our Indian worshipper, Sister Evangeline, was telling me that in her city, Hyderabad, the temperature is more or less the same all the year round, so there are always some plants or trees blossoming, unlike here in Poland. In Poland, the winter drags on for so long that it s a relief when the world of nature awakes again in the spring. My wife likes observing things that don t move around too much

2 like trees and flowers whereas I ve always paid attention to birds and butterflies. We re always particularly delighted when the swifts arrive in May birds that look like swallows, but go zooming round and round at incredible speeds in Warsaw s suburbs. We re so happy to see them because they make delighted screeching noises as they chase each other just like children playing. We re always so sad when they leave, fairly early at the end of August. All of a sudden it gets quiet outside our window no joyful bird sounds. Jubilate is the name of today s Sunday, the third after Easter the name comes from Psalm 66 which we read earlier: Shout with joy to God, all the earth!. Jubilate means be joyful, rejoice!. The Bible tells us we have good reason to be joyful. We read together from the beginning of the Book of Genesis, about how God created the world, and all the creatures in it, and how God was very pleased with His work. He was particularly pleased because He created man in His own image: man, who should have reflected what God was like. Isn t that a particular reason to be joyful? The idea of the image of God the imago dei as it s called in Latin plays an important part in Christian theology down the ages, especially in Catholic theology. Remember that the whole of Europe was Catholic before Martin Luther started the Reformation. Some of you might remember that the apostle Paul refers to Christ as the image of God (2 Corinthians 4,4). And so we can say that God originally created man in Christ He created man to be like Jesus. Unfortunately we know that, because man disobeyed God and turned away from Him, that contact with Christ was lost. Joy was replaced with chaos, confusion, suffering and death. That is the world we have come into. You know, I don t think we should necessarily understand the creation of the world and the fall of man, as presented in Genesis, in a purely literal sense. It s more than that. It s a presentation of your own and my own personal history. We are the ones who were created in God s image. We are the ones who have turned away from God. We are the ones who need to have God s image restored to us in other words, in Christ Jesus. We are the ones who need to recover our joy. At our last Thursday fellowship meeting, we saw that there is a difference between happiness and joy. It sounds as if we re playing with words, but there is a difference. We looked at a meditation written by a young man who described how he became a Christian. He wrote that before he believed in Christ, he was lacking in hope and joy, and he didn t think that life could be any better. While he was at high school, he met several people who seemed to have something he didn t have: their way of life was different. They weren t just happy, they were also joyful. Even though they had the same troubles as anyone else, they were always thanking God. This attracted him to them, and he started asking these Christians many questions. Eventually he became a Christian himself, thanks to those people s joyful attitude; and his life started to have a meaning for him. Now, as Christians we know that we have a treasure within us. And one of the most amazing things that Paul says in today s New Testament reading is that this treasure Christ in us, the restored image of God causes us not to despair when our physical body starts ageing and gradually falling apart. Why don t we despair? Because inside we are constantly being renewed. Faith doesn t grow old when we do. Faith doesn t decay. And faith sees death as just a gateway to a better life. Last week we talked about Jesus as the Good Shepherd. In today s Gospel reading, Jesus describes Himself as the true vine, and God the Father as the gardener. In a sense, the idea of Jesus as the vine, and us as the branches, expresses an even closer relationship between us and God than the idea of a shepherd and his sheep. Think of it: when you look at a vine, it s not always easy to distinguish the stem from the branches they are part of one and the same plant!

3 But the really important point that Jesus is making is that the only way the branches can bear fruit is by remaining in Him, the True Vine. And Jesus makes three promises. Firstly, He promises that if we remain in Him, He will remain in us. Secondly, He promises that if we remain in Him, our wishes will be granted. Thirdly, He promises that if we remain in Him, we will bear much fruit, as His disciples. We can believe those promises. Have you heard of Hudson Taylor? Hudson Taylor was the first great missionary to China. But he had his moment of crisis, while already working in China. He couldn t find joy in his missionary work. He felt that no matter what he did, he couldn t get near to God even though he tried praying, fasting, reading the Bible, meditating; it all seemed to do no good. And this failure to feel close to God made him think he was living in sin. He wanted to abide in Christ, to remain in Christ, but he didn t know how. His duties, interruptions and setbacks, even the Chinese weather, all had a negative effect on him. He became easily irritated, and could say unkind words. He hated himself, because he felt so powerless, even as a believer. He knew the power was in Christ the Vine but how could he get that power into his weak little branch? Only by stronger faith, which he was lacking, and this made him feel guilty of the sin of unbelief. How does one get faith? Hudson Taylor finally realised that this reading about the vine is about oneness with Jesus. In other words, if we are a branch, we are already one with the vine. And so the way to strengthen faith is not to strive for it, but just to rest in Jesus, to rest in the Vine. Jesus said: I will never leave you. And He also said: You are already clean. And so Hudson Taylor s joy returned, because the Bible had assured him that as a Christian he was one with Jesus, that Jesus wouldn t leave him, and that God had already made him clean despite his feeling of sinfulness. God declares us clean when we give our hearts to Jesus. Dear Friends, that is the Christian s joy. When we are feeling down, unworthy or sinful, let us claim the many promises in the Bible as our own. Let us simply rest in Jesus, knowing that He will then abide in us, no matter what happens. Abide With Me : that s the hymn we ll be singing next. Some people think of it as a morbid hymn, because that s what those on board the sinking ship the Titanic sang as they went to their deaths when the ship hit an iceberg. But that hymn is a prayer for God to be with us when everything is going wrong, and when even death may be approaching. We can have peace, and even joy, even on board a sinking ship. You don t believe me? John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church. As a young man, he sailed to America, but he was terrified when the ship he was on got into difficulties during a storm. But on that ship was a group of Moravian Brethren missionaries. John Wesley was astonished when these Moravians gathered on the deck of the ship and started singing their German hymns joyfully at the tops of their voices. He couldn t believe it! These simple people had a faith which he just didn t have even though he was a Christian, and a church minister. Dear Friends, the connecting chain is this: joy comes from faith. Faith comes from resting in Jesus. And resting in Jesus comes from trusting the promises in the Bible. No matter who we are, Christian or non-christian, the Bible has something to say to us, if we are open to its message. Let us believe its promises, simply, like a child, and we will never be disappointed. The question I want to leave with you today is this: Is that Bible on your shelf, at home, getting a little dusty? Amen. This Sunday s readings 29 April is the fourth Sunday after Easter. Verse for the week: O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonderful things (Psalm 98,1). Responsive reading: Psalm 98.

4 Old Testament reading: Isaiah 12, 1-6. New Testament reading: Acts 16, Gospel reading: Matthew 11, Food of the Spirit The Exchanged Life by J. Hudson Taylor J. Hudson Taylor ( ) was founder of The China Inland Mission (present-day Overseas Missionary Fellowship). This article is from a letter written to his sister in Britain in The last month or more has been the happiest of my life. Perhaps I shall make myself more clear if I go back a little. My mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past, feeling the need personally, and for our mission, of more holiness, life, power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for retirement and meditation, but all was without effect. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me. I knew that if I could only abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not. I began the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye from Him for a moment; but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, often caused me to forget Him. Then one s nerves get so fretted in this climate (in China) that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control. Every day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. To will was indeed present with me, but how to perform I found not. Then came the question, "Is there no rescue? Must it be thus to the end constant conflict and instead of victory, too often defeat?" How, too, could I preach with sincerity that to those who receive Jesus, "to them gave He power to become the sons of God" (that is, be Godlike) when it was not so in my own experience? (John 1:12). Instead of growing stronger, I seemed to be getting weaker and to have less power against sin, and no wonder, for faith and even hope were getting very low. I hated myself; I hated my sin; and yet I gained no strength against it. I felt I was a child of God: His Spirit in my heart would cry, in spite of all, "Abba, Father" (Rom. 8:15-16): but to rise to my privileges as a child, I was utterly powerless. I thought that holiness, practical holiness was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. I felt that there was nothing I so much desired in this world, nothing I so much needed. But so far from in any measure attaining it, the more I pursued and strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp; till hope itself almost died out, and I began to think that, perhaps to make heaven the sweeter, God would not give it down here. I do not think I was striving to attain it in my own strength. I knew I was powerless. I told the Lord so, and asked Him to give me help and strength; and sometimes I almost believed He would keep and uphold me. But on looking back in the evening, alas! there was but sin and failure to confess and mourn before God. A Sad Lack of Power I would not give you the impression that this was the daily experience of all those long weary months. It was a too frequent state of soul; that toward which I was tending, and which almost ended in despair. And yet never did Christ seem more precious a Savior who could and would save such a sinner!...and sometimes there were seasons not only of peace but of joy in the Lord. But they were transitory, and at best there was a sad lack of power. Oh, how good the Lord was in bringing this conflict to an end! All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was how to get it out. He was rich, truly, but I was poor; He strong, but I weak. I knew full well that there was in the root, the stem, abundant fatness; but how to get it into my puny little branch was the question. As gradually the light was dawning on me, I saw that faith was the only prerequisite, was the hand to lay hold on His fullness and make it my own. But I had not this faith. I strove for it, but it would not come; tried to exercise it, but in vain.

5 Seeing more and more the wondrous supply of grace laid up in Jesus, the fullness of our precious Savior my helplessness and guilt seemed to increase. Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was, I felt, the damning sin of the world, yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith, but it came not. What was I to do? Our Oneness with Christ When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy [Hudson Taylor s fellow worker in China] was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure, but saw the light before I did, wrote: "But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One." As I read I saw it all! "If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful" (2 Tim. 2:13). I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh how joy flowed!) that He has said, "I will never leave you" (Heb. 13:5). "Ah, there is rest!" I thought. "I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I ll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me, never to leave me, never to fail me?" And He never will! But this was not all He showed me, nor one-half. As I thought of the Vine and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured directly into my soul! How great seemed my mistake in having wished to get the sap, the fullness out of Him. I saw not only that Jesus would never leave me, but that I was a member "of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones" (Eph. 5:30). The vine now I see is not the root merely, but all root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit: and Jesus is not only that: He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we have ever dreamed, wished for, or needed. (Read John 15:1). Oh, the joy of seeing this truth! I do pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened; that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ (Eph. 1:18). Oh, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Savior; to be a member of Christ! Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and the left poor? Or your head be well fed while your body starves? Again, think of its bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a customer, "It was only your hand wrote that cheque, not you," or "I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself"? No more can your prayers, or mine, be discredited if offered in the Name of Jesus (that is, not in our own name, or for the sake of Jesus merely, but on the ground that we are His, His members) so long as we keep within the extent of Christ s credit a tolerably wide limit! If we ask anything unscriptural or not in accordance with the will of God, Christ Himself could not do that; but "If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us: and we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him" (1 John 5:14-15). Full Identification with Christ The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest positions He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult, His grace is sufficient. It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things, or the most expensive article. In either case he looks to me for the money, and brings me his purchases. So if God places me in great perplexity, must He not give me much guidance? In positions of great difficulty much grace, in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength. No fear that His resources will be unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me. All this springs from the believer s oneness with Christ, and since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I have been!