Twas the week before Christmas....

Well it's the week before Christmas, and so far it's been good. We had our Children's Christmas party on Saturday which was rowdy (I nearly lost my voice) but we had about twenty there and it went well. On Sunday I preached on 2 Timothy 4:1-8 in the evening, which was a real stretch, it's a text I felt like I collapsed under the weight of. I almost phoned Alan up to tell him I couldn't preach. But God is good.

And now it's the week after Christmas. It was great to be in Townhill on Christmas day, Rachel and I had beef dinner and went and visited our parents. We got back to Townhill, and went to our friends Alison and Dave's wedding. On Sunday I preached on the second half of 2 Timothy 4. This week I'm doing some prep, finishing my essay on Job, and doing some thinking about how to door to door in a way that works in Townhill. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Tuesday 12th December

Phew! Just finished the last Pure course this morning, so no more having to be down the uni for half seven.

The last session was called pure forgiveness and I had to do a talk on the cross and sexual sin. Struck by a few things. The worst thing about sexual sin, indeed about all our sin, isn't just our side of it (guilt, the mess it causes, letting ourselves down), it's the fact we have grieved God. God is hurt by our sin, and I wonder if you and I really dwell on this? I was struck again that the cross is for God as much as it is for us, if not more. The blood of Christ is for God to see, to show that his righteous anger has been satisfied. All our sin and the hell we deserve dealt with in that instant on the cross. How much I need to take this in!

Sunday night's sermon came as a real wake up call: especially convicted about slackness in repentance. We sit on a whole mound of sin: habits, thoughts and attitudes. There's the subtle sins and the respectable sins. Yet we just don't see it, and I don't see that all sin no matter how small grieves God. Left with the challenge am I willing to be exposed? Am I willing to be shown up for what I am? If I'm convinced that, in the words of Richard Sibbes, 'there is more grace in Christ than there is sin in me' then I'll be willing to be as bruised and shown up as possible, just as long as it is dealt with.

This week I'm preparing a sermon for Sunday, doing Waffles, leading Prayer Meeting on Wednesday, and contacting Sunday school parents about the Christmas party. Oh yes and there's the calendars to go out as well.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

I was reading John 14 ('I am the true vine'), verse 9 struck me: 'As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love'. What does it mean? How has the Father loved the Son? How has the Son loved us? What is the relationship between the two and what difference does it make to me?

Well Jesus explains it in the next verse : 'If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love'.

How has the Father loved the Son? In their exclusive and eternal relationship, the Father has shown the Son all of his commands, all of who he is and what his plans are. The Father shows the Son his plans for salvation through the cross. Jesus has already stressed this special relationship earlier in the gospel (5:17, 5:20). The Son abides in this relationship by his obedience to all the Father plans and wills.

How has the Son loved us? In exactly the same way. Out of sheer love he has revealed Himself to us, who he is, his purpose in the cross, what his commands are. And we are to abide in this relationship by obedience. And it's Jesus' will that the same joy that sustains him in his obedience to the Father, would sustain us in our obedience to him and would overflow. (15:11)

The impact this has on me is to make me see the in incredible position that I'm in as a Christian: in the same way the Father loves the Son, so the Son has loved me. And it makes me see that obedience isn't some joyless extra tacked on to the Chritian life but it is how we grow. Oh for fuller and complete obedience! How amazing to be sustained by the same joy that was in Christ. I want to know that kind of joy and obedience.

The week commencing Monday 4th December...

I've got an essay on Job due in this month, so I'm looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into it and getting a better grasp of its message.

This week I've got usual things Pure, Mothers and Others, The Talking Shop, Volleyball, Waffles and going out on the street with Allan. Meeting up with students: looking at John's Gospel with Will, Christian Beliefs with Phil, and starting the Pursuit of Holiness with Jon and Jamie.

I'm going to spend some time thinking about the Christmas services, let me know if you have any ideas about stuff we could do in them. Oh yeah, getting the calendars out as well. And on Thursday I'm meeting up with Chris Rogers my theological tutor, to get stuffed full of theology (and twixes). I'm preaching a couple of times this month, please pray I would have something to say.

This week: 27th November to 3rd December

(The picture doesn't have anything to do with what I'm about to say, I just found it).

Well this is proving to be a good and busy week with lots to get on with.
Preparing for preaching on Sunday night, speaking at Ponty CU on Thursday and Boja's CU in Gowerton on Friday. Meetings about Mums and Tots and Youth Link. Finishing essay on Regeneration. On Tuesday Morning I had the Pure course at the University which is a six week course on what the Bible teaches about sex and relationships, which I've been leading with Heledd the UCCF staff worker. Meeting up with our students Will, Jaimie and Phil. And we've got Waffles tonight.

If you're reading this from Townhill please pray for us to know how best to reach youth on the hill on a Tuesday, pray for the preaching of the Word on Sunday, and for ourselves that we would learn to pray.

Welcome to my blog!

Hello there, this is my first post on my new blog. The general idea is to let people in my church know what I get up to in the week, and to post occasional musings and comments. But first a word about the really long title...

What's in a name? That which we call a blog by any other word would smell as sweet. (I know blogs don't smell but Shakespeare said it so there.)

Well I've given this name to my blog because it's a quote from the eighteenth century pioneer missionary David Brainerd. It's also the title of John Piper's chapter on him from the great book 'Tested By Fire'. When I read it as a student I was really taken by Brainerd's refusal to settle for anything less than meeting with God and his determination not to waste his life. I guess it's a phrase that has stuck in my head, and it's a challenge to me. So often I find my self settling, and need to be reminded of the type of holy discontented-ness Brainerd had. Here's the quote in full from 'Tested By Fire' p122. It's taken from Brainerd's Diary :

'When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of him the more insatiable, and my thirstings after holiness the more unquenchable....Oh, for holiness! Oh fir more of God in my soul! Oh this pleasing pain!It makes my soul press after God...Oh that I may feel this continual hunger, and not be retarded, but animated by every "cluster from Canaan" to reach forward in the narrow way, for the full enjoyment and possession of the heavenly inheritance. Oh that I might never loiter on my heavenly journey!'.