Worship: The adoration of the crucified risen and ascended Lord Jesus

Imagine a dark church at 3 o'clock in the morning, you have been woken from sleep by the church clock. You struggle into wakefulness and strike a match which shines out into the church and you light a candle that is placed before a simple wooden cross. 

As the stark image of the cross seems to flow and grow filling your field of vision, the words of Isaiah 6  " I saw the Lord high and lifted up" come into your mind as the image of the cross sparks the imagination. 

However, the image of the  cross does not support a vision of God clothed in fiery royal finery, seated on a majestic throne, but of a king stripped naked and bloody with skin stripped off by flogging and hands pierced by cruel nails.   
Isaiah's vision produces holy fear and underlines our need for repentance in the face of a thrice Holy God.
 However the vision of Jesus lifted high on the cross fills our hearts with love for a God who left his throne in the heavenly places to suffer and die the most horrible and degrading death for everyone who puts their trust in Him. The glory of the cross is a very strange sort of glory. Jesus knew that he had to be lifted up, like the serpent in the wilderness, then He would draw all people to Himself.

Philippians2:6-11  is a wonderful picture of Jesus as the obedient son of God leaving the majesty of heaven and the perpetual love of the trinity of  persons of which he was fully part. He laid aside all the joys and majesty of that union to become fully human, suffering everything that we suffer, including death, even death on a cross.

However the death or Jesus was followed by His glorious resurrection and ascension. On the cross our broken nature and our lives which end in death were totally transformed, by the power of what Jesus did on the cross. We have been transferred from the kingdom of this world of sin and death to the Kingdom of Christ and to life in a new world  were Jesus reigns as God and King. The dividing wall that separated us from God has been broken down and we have free access into the throne room of grace.     
Once we give our lives to Christ we are given everything that Jesus achieved, by His death on the cross.

Our lives which were once full of pride and totally obsessed with self, have become the place where love flows out to all around, helping to bring in the kingdom of Christ, until our physical death calls us to life with Him.  
We can then continue in adoration, love and worship of our wonderful crucified raised and glorified Jesus Christ in His new restored creation; a unified heaven and earth. 
  

  

The Miracle of Dunkirk and the power of intercession.

Earlier this month we went to the new Lewes cinema,The Depot, which is a fine new building in which to see Dunkirk the movie. It is a dramatized chronicle of the battle, and it was very well portrayed.

May 1940 was a very dark day for the allies as they had been encircled by the German armies and were in danger of total destruction. In fact, there would have been a terrible defeat, apart from 3 incidents which allowed the army to be evacuated by a fleet of naval and little ships which managed to ferry over 338,000 men over the channel in a few days. The three miracles which occurred were Hitler’s order to halt the advance of the German army, a terrible storm over Flanders which prevented the bulk of the German air force taking off, and a flat, calm Channel. So, what caused The Miracle of Dunkirk ? Certainly, the whole population of England was motivated to pray, from the King, downwards. However, the story goes deeper, and it started back in 1879, when a young boy was born in a Welsh mining village. The name of the boy was Rees Howells.

Rees was born into the time and place of the Welsh revival, and he had two deep spiritual experiences. One was when he was dying of cholera and he made a total commitment of his life to Jesus. The other was when he experienced the Holy Spirit, not just as an influence which came over the revival meetings, but as a real person, who with the Father and Son shared a deep emotional commitment to their created world. Rees began to actually feel the deep anguish and love which the Godhead felt for their deeply broken creation.

He lived out a life that was really in touch with God, and he slowly learnt the discipline of obedience to what God was saying to Him through the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit. His power grew as an intercessor, first within his local community, then in a wider context in Christian ministry and healing. He went to South Africa, where, under his influence, there was a major spiritual revival.

On his return to this country he founded a Bible school in Wales. He initiated many projects, never asking for any money. He simply prayed to God who always provided the exact amount without any external requests. Very early in the rise of Hitler and his party in Germany, Rees saw him for what he was, an agent of evil and the enemy of the work of Christ all over the world.

Rees saw it as his job to pray and intercede, first of all for peace and, when war was declared, for a quick and peaceful conclusion. However, as events progressed, he saw he must uphold the Christian west and pray for the defeat of Hitler. So, he created a band of like-minded people in his Welsh bible school where they interceded right through the war for many hours of every day, including asking for God’s intervention at Dunkirk.

You can learn much more about his story by reading his biography by Norman Grubb. However, it comes with a warning: you might find it a very deep challenge to your own level of commitment to Christ. I certainly did.

What is Intercession?

Intercession is a form of intensified prayer, which is characterised by three things.

Firstly, an intercessor is deeply identified with the one who is prayed for; they have submerged all their own interests for the needs and suffering of the other.

Secondly, there are tears. Just as Christ wept over Jerusalem, so the intercessor shares the “groanings too deep for words” of the Spirit (Romans 8:26).

Thirdly, there is the gained place of intercession, an inner peace that God has heard and answered the desires of our hearts for that person or situation, and we can turn from intercession to praise and worship of our generous God.

Are you willing to spend time praying for our Church, town and country?

If you feel called to be an intercessor, do read the book. You can contact Letchmi Wall who organises Trinity’s monthly prayer gathering for people who intercede for the church, or Serena Smith who organises the monthly town wide Saturday prayer time.

God is not dead

It’s related that once in the life of Martin Luther, his wife Katie came down in the morning and greeted him and she was attired in mourning, she was in black, and Luther said to her, “Why are you wearing mourning?”
     She said, “Because God is dead.”
     He said, “Nonsense, woman, God isn’t dead.”
     She said to him, “Well, if God isn’t dead, why do you act as if He were?” And that was a real rebuke to Martin Luther, the great reformer, the great interpreter of Scripture. (quoted from DPM weekly E-devotional)

Jesus Christ is very much alive living and living in this world in His church and in individuals who have been born from above, so why do we sometimes act as though he has no hold or influence on us?

Paradoxically, we can only be alive in Christ if we die to self and allow the living Jesus to take control of our minds and bodies. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. “Matt 16 v24b-25.

St Paul lived this out and he could say, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20.

As baptised followers of Jesus we carry with us the wonderful illustration of baptism, where we are taken down into the water, symbolising death and burial of the old selfish nature and we rise up to new life, joining with Jesus in His resurrection.

So in practice how do we live our lives, fully empowered by the living Christ. It is not an easy road, because it is one which involves the suffering of taking up our cross daily. “that I may know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:10-11.

It is a radical decision that involves giving up all our pride, ambition and self-will. It involves giving up control of our lives to the Holy Spirit, to become clean empty vessels through whom the Holy Spirit may flow to a world which is so in need of the love and compassion which the Holy Spirit of Jesus can give working through us.

As we have been learning in our recent sermons it is about being filled daily with the fullness of the Holy Spirit to have the power to live our lives overflowing with the sacrificial love and life-giving power of the living Lord Jesus. This week in the Antioch club we had Neill Stannard, who is starting his training for ordination this autumn, giving his testimony. It was amazing how God had been working in him throughout his life, often through very difficult times, and times of rebellion; God was always there, supplying just the right people and circumstances to lead him on his chosen path, and making a life changing impression on so many people he was in contact with both in his work as a school teacher and in other areas of life like the rugby field.

So, we have a choice, we can live as nominal Christians attending church on Sunday, but living the rest of the week as if God is dead in our lives: or we can live amazing Spirit filled lives with the life of Jesus flowing out to our communities and everyone we meet. Start each day by asking Jesus afresh int o your life through the power of His Spirit.