31/01/2020

The spirit of the Lord is on me,

Today's verses

Isaiah 61 
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,[a]
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
    and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations.
Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
    foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
And you will be called priests of the Lord,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
    and in their riches you will boast.
Instead of your shame
    you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
    you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
    and everlasting joy will be yours.
8                For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”
10 I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.

Image result for galilee in israel map

In Luke 4, after Jesus was tested in the wilderness for 40 days, he returned to Galilee. 
14Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
16He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.

 He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” f
20Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
23Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ ”
24“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27And there were many in Israel with leprosy g in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
28All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Hope all is well with you and keeping you in our prayers. Blessings and love




27/01/2020

God's Reign is for the Birds




Matthew 13:31-35

The meaning of the parable of the mustard seed seems apparent. What begins as the tiniest of seeds grows into a tree large enough to house ...the birds. 

The reign of God is like that. Small beginning. Big ending. A handful of disciples become a worldwide church. A few fishermen and women grow into a Christian empire. We are the world! Kind of makes your chest swell, doesn't it? 

Makes you feel important to be at the centre of such a glorious, expanding kingdom. Well, that kind of triumphant kingdom is a world away from what this parable is all about. If we scratch beneath the surface of this parable, we will discover that God's 
reign is for the birds. Keep on reading, click on the link!

A Different Drummer: God's Reign is for the Birds: a sermon on Matthew ...:


26/01/2020

The Lord of the harvest


Preached by Jonty Allcock on Sunday, January 5, 2020
From the series Guest Speaker - Preaching


     I have got a question for you. What you are you asking God to do in 2020? What would you love God to do in 2020.
     Asking is what Christians do. To be a Christian means that you are a child of the creator of the universe. You get to call Him Father and therefore you get to ask him for things. So what are you asking him for.? One of the big mistakes we make as Christians, we fail  asking God for anything. I learnt this the hard way when we were young, I have 3 brothers. Once we had a visitor in, this wasn't very normal. but he was a fairly wealthy man from Jordan and he was travelling back to Jordan and coming back to England, he said what would you like me to  bring you. I was polite and I said: 'Can I just have a few sweets. My little brother who was less well-mannered said I want a remote-controlled car. We forgot all about it then he turned up. He gave me my sweets and then he gave my brother the biggest most extraordinary remote-controlled car I've ever seen.
I learnt an important lesson that day, You ask and what you ask for shows what you think of the person you ask.
Often the things we ask God for are about the things that affect us

In Matthew chapter 9:35-38 Jesus is going to teach us something something all of us should be asking for. 
Can you see Jesus is telling us what we should be asking God in 2020. It's in verse 37, 38


35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
We should be asking in 2020 that there would be more workers to go in the labourers sent by God. What would it
What would it be for you 
To help bring it down, 3 ways

The idea of harvest.
The harvest is plentiful, the Lord of the harvest. What is he talking about? Why does he use this language


A rich biblical thing, it goes right through the bible. 
The bible is one story from beginning to end, the Bible is not random verses where you pick verses that's nice for you. 
it's the story of God and his work.
The idea of harvest
I'm not much of a farmer, and I get  I do remember occasionally doing a bit of There are two bits of harvesting, 1st bit is scattering, you scattering the seeds all over the place then you wait
and then the comes the exciting bit : the gathering bit
To be honest, the scattering is a bit boring
Scattering and harvesting this is what 

In the Bible, Jesus is talking about something bigger.When you hear the word scattered, that is a bad thing, 
To be scattered, it's to be under God's judgement, when people do something wrong, he scatters them.
To be gathered, is a good thing

When they rebelled against him, what did he do, he scattered them out of the Garden,  away from the Garden
in Genesis 11, humanity again rebells against God in a big way and it build a tower so that they can be gathered together.. in rebellion agasint God
It's very funny. 
We are going to make a name for ourselves
They are building a tower to reach the heavens
Are they doing something down there?'I can't see what they are doing it's very small
When God comes down and sees the rebellion, do you know what he does? he scatters them, that's His judgement, he sends them away. 
The story of the bible is how God from scattered people gathers them in the harvest. 
That's what the Bible is all about

We discover time and again that when people do things wrong, they are scattered.
There is an evil king of Israel called Ahab, and his days, one of the prophet said to Ahab I saw Israel  like sheep scattered without shepherd.
When there is something wrong, the people are scattered.
Turn to Ezechiel chapter 11, verse 17. Here is God speaking through Israel, 
“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’
Here is God's great promise, that's God's judgement. Now in his coming, there is the time of gathering, not the time of scattering
that is what Jesus is referring to when he says the harvest is plentiful
Jesus as he is looking at Israel 

Matthew 9 verse 36

Do you see a people content or do you see like Jesus see them 
people who are like sheep without a shepherd. Do you know how they are, they are dead. For a little while, they could be happy, the reality is that if they haven't got a shepherd, they are in danger
As we walk through London
if we first see the need
He didn't walk through the world
There was a b
Jesus sees it
We pretend that everything is fine but it's not We live in a world 
because this world is a scattered world
There are millions of people scattered

The danger is
 that 
we've got to fix it
Can we fix it?
Bob the builder, can we fix it? No not really!
We just need better education, heathcare, 
a declaration 
we don't want 
The message in the bible is no you can't. 
v 38 Therefore do, fix, therefore pray why, 
Do you know what his Son come to do?
Right at the start of Matthew gospel, John the Baptist said..
his winnowing hand ..

Why does Jesus have to die in order to gather the harvest? I deserve to be scattered in hell but Jesus came to take the punishment in my place, he was forsaken by his people
This morning, do you know this Lord of the harvest
Those who refuse to be gathered, i will not be gathered by Jesus
broken, Jesus says Come to me, why don't you come 

There is no 
Only him 
There would be more 
Jesus is interested in labourers, he doesnt want fan, he doest not want 
He wants people 
He doesnt want customers, 
Jesus doesn
want volunteers, that is very different to a labourer
Labourers work
The normal experience 
How are you? I am tired. Exactly, that's what it's supposed to be like.
We are supposed to rest, you learn to rest.
Some of us need to be told: work
There are million people
how are they going to hear?

On this final day
It's our finest joy, 
He is looking for labourers

Other time I go to the supermarket, 
Saying to people about Jesus is the best thing ever
and sometimes we think that 


15/01/2020

When I was visiting my penpal in the US at Chicago, Nora took me to