Week Commencing Sunday 2nd May 2021

Devotional Materials. Week Commencing Sunday 2^nd May 2021

Call to Worship

4¹⁴ Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven^, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Opening Hymn (Guitar)

For this I have Jesus
For this I have Jesus
For this I have Jesus, I have Jesus
(Repeat)

For the tears that flow in secret
In the broken times
For the moments of elation
Or the troubled mind
For all the disappointments
Or the sting of old regrets
All my prayers and longings
That seem unanswered yet

For this I have Jesus…

For the weakness of my body
The burdens of each day
For the nights of doubt and worry
When sleep has fled away
Needing reassurance
And the will to start again
A steely-eyed endurance
The strength to fight and win.

For this I have Jesus…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MOS6zb3ysg

Last Sunday and today we look at how the Lord refined and changed His disciple Simon Peter.

Reading

⁵⁴Then seizing him (Jesus), they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. ⁵⁵ And when some there had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. ⁵⁶ A servant girl saw him seated there in the firelight. She looked closely at him and said, “This man was with him.”

⁵⁷ But he denied it. “Woman, I don’t know him,” he said.

⁵⁸ A little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.”

“Man, I am not!” Peter replied.

⁵⁹ About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.”

⁶⁰ Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. ⁶¹ The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” ⁶² And he went outside and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:54-62).

Opening Prayer

Lord Jesus. You are our great High Priest; advocate with the Father. You live for ever to intercede for us. This office shows you care for us and continually watch over us. We thank you have brought us to a knowledge of yourself, and ever since, you have been leading us one step at a time, praying for and guiding us.

Lord we come to you in confession, recognising like Peter that we have sometimes let you down. We confess we have sinned against you and done many things to grieve you. For these and all other sins forgive us, we pray.

Father, you teach us to depend on you. We confess we love those times when the sun is shining and all seems to be going well. When we see the tangible benefits resulting from faith in you, and for a while- at least- your Cause is popular. But underneath we know it is no special credit to us to be devout and zealous when all is going well.

Your word calls us to consider it pure joy whenever we face trials of many kinds because the testing of our faith develops perseverance. While we naturally recoil at those times of difficulty, we know it is then we grow the most. Like fire to iron you make us stronger, more useful, you deepen your work of sanctification, making us more like you.

Help us to keep walking with you by faith and not by sight. Not to give way to sin, but instead to take the opportunities given us in this life to grow in faith, hope and love. Amen.

The Scriptures encourage us in our trials, for they tell us the Lord is interceding for us. The Scriptures also encourage us to follow Christ’s example within our trials:

“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12: 2, 3)

We are going to listen to Michael Card’s song ‘Violent Grace’ which helps us to do just that:

Song. “A Violent Grace’ Michael Card (Recording through PA, from the album ‘Soul Anchor’. Refs Hebrews 5:8; 12:2; 13:3)

A mural of memories moves by in a blur
His prayers all seem unanswered and unheard
His pleading petitions, His loud cries and tears
A last reprieve will simply not appear.
 

So ruthless, He loves us. So reckless His embrace.
To show relentless kindness, to a hardened human race.
The joy that was before Him
On the Man of Sorrows face,
And by His blood

Most willing of victims, And with His final breath destroyed the one who holds the power of death.
The hate heaped upon Him, scorning all the shame.
But all for love He died and overcame.

In all of time no one had ever heard.
And to the world the thought seemed so absurd.
Beyond their wildest dreams no one could ever tell of a high priest who would sacrifice Himself

Michael Card

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtYZoPS8zik

Sermon. The Rock –Maker. Part 2

Peter was previously called Simon. It was a common name, but not very complementary- it meant “reed”.  But Jesus gave him the name Cephas- which when translated means Peter. Both the names Cephas and Peter mean “rock”.

Last week we looked at earlier episodes in the Gospels accounts that revealed the tension between the weaknesses of Peter on the one hand, and what Jesus intended to make of him on the other. So, for example, we saw Peter’s potential in his great confession “You are the Christ the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16), but shortly after Jesus has to rebuke him for saying something that would try to seduce Jesus from his mission.

Then we turned our attention to the first of three key episodes in Peter’s life where we actually see the “rock-making” process in operation. The first was during the last Supper. There Jesus says to Peter: “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you Simon that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death” Jesus answered, “I tell you Peter, before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times that you know me”.

So let’s look at the two other key episodes today where we see the rock making process in action:

Luke 22: 54-62. Jesus has been arrested and taken to the house of the high priest. Peter has followed at a distance and waits in the courtyard. Certain individuals challenge him saying Peter is one of Jesus disciples. Here we see the stark contrast between Peter’s earlier, self-confident boast “Lord I am ready to go with you to prison and to death” and the reality of his behaviour when he is tested and subjected to pressure. Jesus prediction that Peter will deny even knowing him and that he will do so three times comes true.  No doubt Peter is weary and afraid, and Satan is whispering in his ear, stoking up the flames of fear. But it’s not Peter’s finest hour. Tom Wright says:

“It’s a scene worth stepping into for a few moments, as we ponder what is at stake and what it all meant. Think of the fireside, that chilly April night. Loyalty has taken Peter this far, but as the night wears on tiredness has sapped his resolve. It’s a familiar problem, which sometimes strikes in the middle of someone’s life, or of some great project. We sign on to follow Jesus, and we really mean it. We start work on our vocation, and we have every intention of accomplishing it. Beginnings are always exciting, if daunting; the midday heat, or the midnight weariness, can drain away our intentions, our energy, our enthusiasm. Few if any Christians will look down on Peter and despise him. Most, if not all of us will think: yes, that’s what it’s like. That’s what happens. Perhaps it’s only when we’ve been there that, like Peter, we can start to live and work in a new way, no longer out of our own energy but out of a fresh, and humbling will of God”

Peter left the courtyard crying bitterly. Not only because he had denied his Lord the Messiah, but because he had turned away from a very dear friend, a person who had loved and taught him for three years. Fortunately the story does not end here, despite all that Jesus himself is going through at this point, he is praying for Peter. Peter’s tears are of true sorrow and repentance. The Lord has not left him at this lowest of points. Far from it, he oversees the rock making process. All this will work for greater good as Peter learns afresh to take his eyes off the waves of his denial, and fix them onto the Lord who loves him.

Perhaps the most moving moment in Peter’s life is when he meets Jesus on the shores of Galilee after the resurrection. John 21:15-17 reads: “When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter “Simon son of John do you love me more than these?”

 “Yes Lord” he said, “You know that I love you”

Jesus said “Feed my lambs”

Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”

He answered, “Yes Lord, you know that I love you”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

The third time he said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord you know all things, you know that I love you”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep”.

Jesus didn’t say to Peter, “I rather hoped you would be the first Pastor, but I’m afraid you will just have to sit in a pew from now on- you can’t be trusted” Nor did he say, “I am going to put you on probation for a year and see if you have pulled your socks up, and after a year we will review your case and reconsider your position” He said : “Peter I can cope with you, provided I am sure of one thing. Do you love me?

This is the most important thing for any believer. Do you love him? Jesus asked this same question three times. Peter had denied Jesus three times. As a consequence Jesus asked Peter three times “Do you love me?” to affirm Peter’s love and commitment.

Jesus reinstates Peter to follow the earlier commission he had given him: “And I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church” Peter will have a leading role in establishing the Church. He will feed the sheep and take care of the flock. Peter has been matured through this intense testing. We now see more rock like quality in him:

The book of Acts reveals his leadership of the new community at Jerusalem. He is filled with the Holy Spirit and preaches at Pentecost, where 3000 are baptised. He is the spokesman before the Jewish authorities and shows unflinching courage- to the point where he is imprisoned because of his stand for Christ. He was the first Apostle to be associated with the Gentile mission and later gave his support to Paul’s campaign to extend Christian fellowship to Gentiles without obliging them first to become circumcised Jews.

Peter performed miracles and undertook missionary journeys in Judaea and Syria. In John 21, Jesus indicates that Peter will be martyred. It is thought that in AD64, in the persecutions under Nero, Peter was crucified. There is some support that he was crucified upside down because he felt unworthy of imitating Christ’s supreme sacrifice. He is now Peter the rock!

We have seen what Peter was and what he became. The challenge now comes to each one of us:

Who are you and what will you be?

Who are you?

Naturally you and I are like Simon- Simon the reed- easily swayed, along with our other weaknesses, but God has a plan for us, as he had for Simon, of something much better; He will fashion each of our lives so they are strong/ rock like in Christ

At various junctures in our lives we come to understand this. I believe God has a perfect plan for my life, but the plan I thought He had for me does not always come to pass. The problem is that mixed up with my and your idea of God’s perfect plan are carnal thoughts of easy success, popularity, ease, and perhaps like Peter vain thoughts of “who is the greatest?” And the Lord can’t allow any of us to stay at that level. He intends to move you and I to His plan which really is the best!

And what is the priority? His priority is to develop our characters- make us more godly. He will put us in situations where He can develop the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Such as longsuffering- a fruit of the Spirit valuable to him- learning to bear with opposition and desertion, then there is perseverance; not giving up when everything seems against you:

In the thirteenth century there was a disagreement between Scottish leaders about which one of them would be king. King Edward the first stepped in and took the honour for himself!!

The outraged Scots secretly crowned Robert Bruce their king. After an unsuccessful battle Bruce found himself on the run-one of his own blood hounds was even being used against him

After madly careering through the Scottish woods, exhausted, frightened, and bleeding, Bruce suddenly came to a stream. Plunging in, he waded alongside the bank until hoisting himself into the limb of a tree. There he stayed and the dog lost the scent.

Bruce spent the ensuing winter hidden away in a hovel in the mountains, keeping himself alive on a bag of old potatoes. One cold, grey afternoon, he felt almost hopeless, spirits badly draining. But he noticed a spider trying to weave a web in the corner of the window. The creature was having a hard time of it, because the wind kept blowing away his threads. Time after time, the spider gave another effort and finally the thread held.

“I might be that spider,” said Bruce. “I too have failed. Like those threads, my lines have been broken and blown away. But you have shown me that there is always one more time- a time for one more attempt, and, with persistence, a winning one!”

Bruce left the hovel to gather his scattered troops, and by the Spring he had an army that was tougher than ever. Battle after battle raged until their lines finally held and they drove the English out of Scotland.

Ever since that time it is said no one by the name of Bruce has ever killed a spider!

Love is also a fruit of the Spirit. He will put you in situations where you will see need, and His Spirit will be prompting you to use your gifts- not for your own glory, but in order to love and serve other believers and to reach out to others who do not know Him. That’s what Peter had to learn. Love asks how I can serve God’s people, through imparting God’s word (“feed my sheep”, the Lord said to Peter), love asks how can I build that person up and encourage them, how can I show practical care for them?

But, like Peter, we all want to hold on to our immature plan and are reluctant to embrace the “rock making process” And that’s where the testings begin.¹ Even fruit bearing branches must be pruned back so they can bear more fruit. The Lord permits testing in order to help move us from where we are to what we will become in Him. To move us from a cushy life to a useful one, to move us from blaming and criticising our brothers and sisters to loving them, to move us from giving up to fighting on, to move us from cowardice to courage, to move us from keeping our mouths shut about the good news, to spreading it, to move us from self-pity to self-surrender, to move us from over confidence to dependence on Him.

Every one of us, I guarantee, are locked into one or more of these battles between who we are and what the Lord would have us become. And the best thing you can do when you face the testing which probes to see which way you will jump, is to go with the rock making process.

If you keep insisting on the old, immature plan, you will regret it as Peter did. Your conscience will not let you rest and you will lose your peace with the Lord. But if this morning you say to Him- “Lord I have refused your voice in the past, I have failed you, I have even denied you by my actions and words, but now I see, yet again, it’s futile to insist on staying as I am, now I want to say “yes” to what I can become in you.” The Lord will hear that prayer- indeed He has been praying for you to come to this point. And he will help you take the next step that deep down you know your conscience and His word demands.

Will you go with the rock making process?

Jesus says “Do you love me?”

That is the challenge.

At the same time there is great encouragement and assurance as we surrender ourselves to the rock making process. Consider, right from the beginning the Lord told Simon He was going to be made into Peter, the rock. From the time He came into your life, and however unpromising it seems to you, He is going to complete the good work he has started in you too.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians ‘being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ’ (Philippians 1:6). Once you have put your faith in Him Jesus will complete His saving work in you, whatever your failings and trials. We have seen this in the life of Peter, and that is of great assurance for each one of us.

There’s a wonderful illustration of this in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Christian is in the Interpreter’s house, and the Interpreter takes him to a room where there is a fire burning against a wall. One is standing by the fire always casting much water onto the fire. He has a pail of water, I suppose, and he is casting water onto the fire to quench it, yet the fire burns higher and hotter.

So Christian, puzzled by this mysterious scene, asks the Interpreter, “What does this mean?” The Interpreter says, “The fire is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart. He that casts water upon it to extinguish and put it out is the devil, but in that thou seest the fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter—” Why is that? Again, Christian asks the question. Why is it? If the devil’s trying to put out the fire but the fire’s just burning higher and hotter, why is this?

To answer, the Interpreter shows Christian the other side of the wall. Think of a fireplace; that is a fireplace in two different rooms, and in one room you have somebody throwing water on it. The Interpreter takes him around the corner and helps him see on the other side that there is a man with a vessel of oil in his hands, “of the which he did also continually cast, but secretly, into the fire.” The Interpreter says, “This is Christ, who continually with the oil of his grace maintains the work already begun in the heart, by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still.”

Christ began the work in you, he continues and sustains the work in you on this earth, and he will certainly complete the work and bring you into heaven.

Hymn-writer Augustus Toplady wrote:

“The work which his goodness began
The arm of his strength will complete.
His promise is yea and amen,
And never was forfeited yet.

"Things future nor things that are now,
Not all things below or above,
Can make him his purpose forego,
Or sever my soul from his love.”

1 The Lord does not ‘play’ with our lives- He is not the ’author of evil’ (James 1:13). He can redeem the results of our own sin as He did Peter. Others are responsible for their sin against us and we live in a ‘fallen world’, but if we entrust ourselves to Him and the rock making process He will help us to return good for evil (via fruit of the Spirit, forgiveness etc) and still oversees/redeems those situations too (Genesis 50:18-21; Acts 12:5-11, 1 Corinthians 7:14)

…………………………………………………………..

Our next hymn asks the question ‘whom shall I send?’ Who will the Lord send to show his heart of compassion to those in need, and who are lost without him. Let our response be ‘Here I am Lord’

Hymn (Piano)

I have heard my people cry. 

All who dwell in dark and sin, 

My hand will save. 

I who made the stars of night, 

I will make their darkness bright. 

Who will bear my light to them? 

Whom shall I send? 

Chorus

Here I am Lord, Is it I, Lord? 

I have heard you calling in the night. 

I will go Lord, if you lead me. 

I will hold your people in my heart. 

I, the Lord of snow and rain, 

I have borne my people's pain. 

I have wept for love of them, 

they turn away. 

I will break their hearts of stone, 

Give them hearts for love alone. 

I will speak my word to them 

Whom shall I send? 

Verse 3

I, the Lord of wind and flame 

I will tend the poor and lame. 

I will set a feast for them, 

My hand will save 

Finest bread I will provide, 

Till their hearts be satisfied. 

I will give my life to them, 

Whom shall I send? 

Daniel L Schutte

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgLwH5RdtPk

Prayers

The Lord’s refining work in Peter led him to love others. Let us pray now for others who are in need.

Heavenly Father we pray for the UKs 6.5 million carers to receive the support they need. We pray especially for those with physical and mental health problems themselves and those balancing work and other family responsibilities with caring for those dependent on them. May you be their strength.

Please help Governments and others to increase their aid to the world’s 26 million refugees, half of them children, and so many others displaced within their own country. For Jesus sake- who was a refugee too.

We pray for relief to come to any older people with care and support needs who are denied dignity, respect, proper care and kindness. Please help local councils and other agencies seeking to safeguard the estimated 500,000 over 65s who are at risk.

Holy Spirit, thank you for being present in our lives, empowering us to care for others. Help us not to succumb to ‘compassion fatigue’ about global problems of poverty, injustice and damage to the environment. Please enable us to do whatever we can to help, through your amazing mercy.

Loving Lord, as lockdown measures are increasingly eased and the focus on Covid-19 increasingly shifts to other matters, we ask that you would help us to hold on to the spirit of kindness and concern for neighbours, and our appreciation of relationships when it was not possible to meet and share with together. May these habits of compassion spread and take root right across society to transform the way we live, work and worship.

Thank you Lord for measures during the pandemic that helped to reduce the numbers of people living on the street. Grant success for companies, celebrities, councils, organisations and volunteers who are working together to reach those who are facing homelessness. Buy your generous grace.

Lord of the Church, please revive our hearts, inspire our congregations and mobilise the Body of Christ at large with a renewed desire to proclaim your truth and demonstrate your compassion through sharing the gospel and serving others. For Christ’s sake we ask these things. Amen (From CARE Prayer Diary, April- July 2021)

Hymn (Piano)

Refrain: 
Great is thy faithfulness! 
Great is thy faithfulness! 
Morning by morning new mercies I see:
all I have needed thy hand hath provided--
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

2 Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon, and stars in their courses above
join with all nature in manifold witness 
to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love. [Refrain]

3 Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, 
thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide, 
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside! [Refrain}