Cloverley – Talk 4 Sunday Mornin

Cloverley – Talk 4 Sunday Morning – Get Up!

Austin Powers Clip

From start of Chapter 22: 59:31 – 1:01:11

Life is full of special relationships between two close friends or family members. Just like Dr Evil & Mini Me, they’re based on mutual respect & understanding, shared interests & experiences, love between two people. This need to be close with people in community I believe comes from the fact that we’re made by a God who is himself community.

Let me explain a bit. You’ve got God the Father, God the Son & God the Holy Spirit. God is described as having 3 persons in one – the Trinity. God sees himself as being a community.

Not only does God consider himself to be a community, he likes company. More specifically he likes our company. In the creation story, we read this:

Genesis 3:8 Then the man & his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, & they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Now even though Adam & Eve had been up to no good eating fruit from the tree God told them not to, God still wanted to hang out with them, see how they were doing. He was walking around looking for them. The same picture applies to us today. Did you know God is looking for you? He’d love to catch up with you, to see how your day’s going. He’s interested in all of us because he likes us & loves us. He wants nothing more than to spend time with us.

This brings us back to the Trinity, the idea that God is Father, Son & Holy Spirit. This is a total over-simplification but you’ve got God the Father in heaven, God the Son who came to earth as Jesus to live among us, & you’ve got God the Spirit who lives in & among us now. Before Jesus went back up to heaven, he promised that the Holy Spirit would live with us & be in us. The Holy Spirit is as much God as Jesus is or the Father is. And the reason God is here in the presence of the Holy Spirit? Because he loves to be with us, showing us the best way to live & helping us do it.

Think about this for a minute. If it’s true that God is with us, by his Spirit, right now, that’s amazing. God loves us so much that he wants to live with us. I’ve lived with a number of friends over the years because I enjoy their company. God loves us so much that he wants to be with us all the time. And because he’s God & he’s love, he’ll be the best housemate you’ll ever have.

God loves to be in community with us. And he has so much to give us & bring to our lives if we let him. Forget the idea that God is moody or a killjoy or boring. God wants the best for us all the time.

We might not recognise what’s best for us, but he does. It can seem a pain cos we’re young & can’t see the future, but God can, and he knows exactly what’s gonna end up being good for us & what’s gonna end up being bad for us. God, through the Holy Spirit, teaches us life.

God also gives us peace. I’ll let you into another secret. Do you know the most nerve-racking thing I’ve done since becoming Youth Co-ordinator at church? More so than doing sermons to 300 people, doing an assembly for 800 people (all girls aswell). The most nervous I’ve been in this job was going to the cinema. Remember that time we went to see that shocking film ‘Hero’ at Showcase? Well that was my first time doing anything official with you guys from YF. I turned up at the cinema, didn’t really know any of well & just had to get to stuck in. You were all very nice to me but the first time I met a lot of you, I was bricking it. And yet, I could say a little prayer, ask God for the confidence to chat to some of you & introduce myself, & I was alright. God gave me his peace & comfort that I wouldn’t embarrass myself, & even if I did embarrass myself, that it’d wouldn’t matter. It’s the Holy Spirit that brings us comfort & peace when we need it most.

Another job that the Holy Spirit does as he lives with us is point out where we are often going wrong. It’s probable that what we call our conscience is in fact God speaking to us, reminding us of what’s the right thing to do. You know the small voice inside you that you can either follow or ignore?

It’s like it’s a big triangle in our chest. When we’re about to do something that’s dodgy, something that the Bible would call sin, it spins around & jabs us. You know it when it happens. Maybe you’re given too much change in the shop & you don’t give it back to the shopkeeper. Maybe you watch something on TV late at night that you know isn’t helpful. We can either follow the guidance of this triangle inside us, or we can ignore it. But when we ignore it, there’s a danger it loses some of its effectiveness.

The next time we’re tempted to do something that’s not right, the Spirit of God living inside us is not gonna be as effective in picking us up. We’ll still be aware of it, jogging our conscience, but it’ll be fainter, easier to ignore.

The more we ignore God, the easier it becomes. Until eventually we can find it very hard to know the difference between right & wrong. But there are times when we ignore God a lot too. And if we ignore God when he’s trying to keep us from doing bad things, it’s gonna be very hard to hear his voice when he’s telling us that he loves us & if we say sorry & mean it, everything we’ve done wrong, all our sin is forgiven & forgotten.

What can we do about it? Well, it’s actually pretty simple. Whether you’d say you’re a Christian or not, all of us can ask God through his Holy Spirit to come & live with us. If you don’t think you’ve ever said Yes to God, you can today. If you’ve said Yes to God in the past but the things that you & I have done wrong have blunted our ability to hear how much he loves us, we can ask God to restore that relationship with him.

When we ask God into our lives, how does it work? How does the Holy Spirit do it? Because it’s quite a complex thing to get our heads around, The Bible uses picture language for the Holy Spirit, images such as wind, fire, water, and breath. We’ll look at one image now…

God = Hairdryer We = Ping Pong Ball

Remember the Holy Spirit is God’s presence with us. God, his Spirit, breathes on us, giving us life.

1. Hairdryer behind back: Sometimes we can’t see, feel, hear, know or understand God. We just go through life – wake up, eat, go out, come back, sleep. God seems distant & irrelevant. But he’s still around whether we realise it or not.

2. Ball to Dryer: Sometimes we think we can feel him a bit. It may be through people or places. A particular building might have a certain atmosphere or peace about it, or places like Cloverley or camp, or church or squash. I think our conscience can work like this, speaking to us about what’s right & wrong.

3. Dryer to Ball: There are times when we give God a bit more time than usual. When we begin to listen to him. Ask him questions. And when we spend time with God, we can often begin to feel a bit different inside. We give him the chance to breathe on us for longer, & it makes a difference in our life. He gives us a new purpose & direction. And it’s his love that warms us up, not anything else.

Still in complete control (Grab Ball) but if…

(a) You know God loves you

(b) Know that Jesus died on the cross so that the things, the sin, that blocks you & God can be forgiven

Then maybe you’ll let God take control of your life, and say to God ‘Ok, my life is yours. I’ll trust you.’ (Ball floats on hot air)

And you may wobble. You might have your ups & downs; you might get led places you weren’t expecting to go, but God is always supporting you by his Spirit. If you stumble, that’s ok. He’s still breathing & waiting for you to climb back on. He’ll meet you where you’re at & help you up again.

What do you have to do to receive God’s Spirit? It’s the same as what you do if you want to become a Christian. All you have to do is ask. If you’d like to have God in your life, if you’d like to receive his forgiveness for everything you’ve ever done wrong; if you’d like his love & his help to live a life that pleases him in the future, then we can do that right now. It doesn’t mean life is necessarily gonna be easy, or that bad things won’t happen, cos they will. It doesn’t mean that it won’t involve changes in your attitude or lifestyle, cos it will. There’s a cost to following God, it won’t be easy & will involve sacrifices & confusion & hard times. But God loves you, & he won’t rush you or trick you or trip you up. He’s as gentle with you as a breeze, gently blowing away all the cobwebs & rubbish in your life & replacing it with his warmth & peace & goodness.

If that’s you, if you’d like to ask God to be your friend & make his home in you, then I’m gonna say a prayer now. And if it’s for you, then just in your seat, I’d like you to repeat each line after me. You don’t need to do it out loud, just whisper it quietly to God. He’ll hear you. Let’s all close our eyes.

Lord Jesus Christ, I know I have sinned in my thoughts, words and actions.
There are so many good things I have not done. There are so many sinful things I have done.
I am sorry for my sins and turn from everything I know to be wrong.
You gave your life upon the cross for me. Gratefully I give my life back to you.
Now I ask you to come into my life.
Come in as my Saviour to cleanse me.
Come in as my Lord to control me.
And I will serve you all the remaining years of my life in complete obedience.

If that’s you, if you’ve prayed that prayer of commitment to God, come & tell one of us leaders, tell someone else. That’ll firm up in your mind that you’ve done it, and means other people can be involved in helping you grow as a Christian.

Just as every part of the body is different, so every Christian is different. All of us have something unique to bring to this group. No one can say things the way you say them, smile the way you smile, laugh the way you laugh. No-one has got your exactly the same talents as you.

When we become Christians, God gives us special gifts. The Bible calls these presents ‘spiritual gifts’. They’re not standard gifts like a DVD or some money, but things that we can use in everyday life in order to help other people. There are a few different lists of these gifts in the Bible. They include the:

· Gift of wisdom (ability to make wise decisions)

· Gift of healing (praying for people to get better & become ‘whole’)

· Gift of teaching (making truth easy to understand)

· Gift of helping (supporting others in practical ways)

· Gift of prophecy (speaking God’s word)

There are others like the gift of administration – sounds weird but God gives some people a gift to be able to organise & plan things. The way Trevor sorted out the rooms this year makes me suspect he’s got the gift of administration. There’s the gift of giving, whereby you feel able to be more generous with your money & possessions than is natural. The gift of encouragement, where you build other people up. The gift of hospitality, where other people enjoy coming round your house & feel at home. There are so many gifts, so many talents that God gives us, & each is designed to help other people.

Spiritual gifts include natural talents that have been transformed by the Holy Spirit. So the ability to play a musical instrument can be used by God; Drama & acting; football & other sports; dancing, art, humour. God can help your talents grow so that other people benefit from your abilities.

And there’s no age limit on things. If you’re a Christian, of any age, God has given you special gifts that he’d like you to contribute to the community, to help other people grow. When you become a Christian, you automatically get the Holy Spirit living inside you. And you automatically get something new, a new gift, a new ability. God chooses what gifts to give us as sees fit, and he wants us to use our gifts. We can ask God for particular gifts, but often we don’t even know what gift or gifts God has given us in the first place.

It’s good to work out what gifts God might have given us. That way we can hone our gifts & talents. For example, if you’ve been given the gift of hospitality, it probably makes sense to spend time learning to cook. If you’ve got the gift of administration, it probably makes sense to learn to use computers well. If you’ve got the gift of teaching, it probably makes sense to study the Bible more often. It’s like if you’re given a bike for Christmas – it’s no good unless you learn how to use it.

One way we can try & work out what our gifts are is to find out where our passions lie, the kind of things that get us going in life. With this in mind, I’ve got a ‘What’s Your Passion?’ sheet for each of us to fill in.