Some of Tim's Sermons

I wonder who here has special plans for this coming Friday? I can see that some of you are sat there thinking, “why should we have special plans for this Friday?” Who can enlighten our bemused brethren? It is, of course, Valentine’s Day. An opportunity to celebrate romantic love, particularly poignant perhaps for those in long distance relationships who don’t see each other very often, but make a special effort to get together for Valentines. Expectations are very important for an occasion such as Valentine’s day. Some couples choose not to make a big thing of Valentines, which is fine as long as they have the same expectations. However it can go spectacularly wrong when there are the kind of mismatch of expectations that are the staple of romcoms everywhere. He thinks they’ve agreed not to get presents but she things that means he’s planning a big surprise or engagement proposal. Oops.

What about other situations when we might expect to meet people. I wonder if you’ve ever been to a reunion – workplace or school. I wonder if there was someone particular you were expecting or hoping to see there. Or maybe there are family get togethers – weddings, baptisms, funerals, Christmas, when you expect to see people that you haven’t seen for a while, and look forward to catching up with them. There is something about the expectation of meeting that gives us motivation to go, the expectancy is, in itself, enjoyable, and creates in our hearts and minds an emotional state that makes the meeting even more special.

This morning we’re continuing to explore one of our core values, that of Loving God. In previous weeks we’ve thought about loving God by having hearts for Jesus, by being rooted in the Bible, and by doing our best for God. Today we’re reflecting on the way in which our loving God can be seen in our expectancy to meet with God. Loving God means that we expect God to be present and active in our lives, and we welcome and look forward to that encounter.

To help us think about this, we’re looking at two passages of Scripture, both from the early years of the life of the church after Jesus’ return to heaven.

In Paul’s letter to the Christians living in Corinth, he contrasts the experience of the people of God in the Old Testament, with the experience of the people of God since the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on all God’s people.

After God had freed the people of God from slavery in Egypt, under the leadership of Moses, God met with Moses on mount Sinai and gave him the law, including the ten commandments, that the people were to live by. When Moses came down from the mountain, the people were afraid because his face was shining from having been in the presence of the glory of God. To placate their fears he had to wear a veil to hide the shine, only taking the veil off when he went into the tent of meeting to talk with God.

In that time, Moses expected to meet with God, and it was glorious, but the others didn’t want to meet with God, and were fully convinced that doing so would lead to their death. This understanding continued throughout the whole of the Old Testament times, with only the High Priest allowed to go into the Holy of Holies in the temple, and he was only allowed in once a year.

Alongside this deep sense of the holiness and separateness of God, there was also a strand of an awareness of the presence of God. This is perhaps seen most clearly in the Psalms. Psalm 23 – “The Lord’s my shepherd, I shall not want.” Psalm 139 – “Where can I flee from your presence Lord”

With the ministry of Jesus, however, this sense of the immediacy of God’s presence was strengthened immeasurably. Before his birth Jesus was named Immanuel – God with us. As Jesus died the curtain in the temple, separating off the Holy of Holies, the place of the presence of God, was torn in two from top to bottom, opening up access to the presence of God. Following Jesus’ resurrection, some of his final words to his disciples before he returned to heaven were, “surely I am with you always.”

As Paul has it, “Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” There is now no curtain, no veil between us and the presence of God. We can meet with God, we can enjoy God’s presence, with the freedom and boldness that the Holy Spirit has given us. More than this, as we are in God’s presence, so we are transformed and made more and more glorious, as we become more like God, the likeness of God’s image in us becomes more and more perfect through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It’s amazing.
But we’re not just given the theory in the life of the early church, we’re shown this in practice. We read about an example in our reading from the book of Acts.

In the days and weeks following the day of Pentecost, the church has been growing vigorously. The disciples have been teaching in the Temple courts, and have been healing people. Peter and John have been at the forefront of this, and have got themselves in some trouble with the authorities. The religious leaders, having had Jesus killed, had hoped that all his followers would take the hint and disperse. To their astonishment, the opposite seems to have happened. They have grown in courage and boldness and are now in the Temple, claiming that Jesus has been raised from the dead and that everybody should repent and follow him. So, they arrest Peter and John and put them in prison. They then interrogated them, ordered them not to speak or preach any more, and released them.

This is where we pick up the story this morning, Peter and John have just returned to the other disciples and have reported back what has happened. They are not discouraged though, far from it. They turn to God in praise and prayer. They recognise the opposition they are facing as a reaction to the truth of what they are saying. They remind themselves that God had said that this would happen, and that even this opposition is under God’s authority. I find their prayer a bit strange. They don’t ask that the opposition should stop. They ask for boldness to continue sharing the good news of Jesus faithfully despite the opposition. They want to share the good news with words and with miraculous actions. This is a truly courageous, expectant, prayer. They take Jesus’ promise to be with them seriously, trust it, and expect great things to happen as a result of it.

And what happened? The place was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. They spoke the word of God boldly. They were expectant to meet with God, and they did.

So, if we are a church that values loving God, if we are individuals that value loving God, what does that mean practically for us in terms of being expectant to meet with God?

Perhaps a helpful question to ask is, “where do we expect to meet with God?”

Perhaps we expect to meet with God in our worship services. That certainly makes sense. We know that part of our vision is for this to be a place of intimate worship. We hear God’s word to us, we can pray with and for each other. We share bread and wine in which we are reminded of the cost of Jesus’ presence with us, and there is a physical connection with Jesus in the act of eating and drinking. I wonder if sometimes the week on week nature of our gatherings, particularly for those of us who help organise and do things on Sunday, mean that we aren’t always expectant or prepared to meet God as we gather. Perhaps that might be something we could work on. Perhaps praying at home, or on the way here, “Lord I want to meet with you afresh today, I expect to meet you in worship today.”

Perhaps we expect to meet God in our small groups, as we gather to study God’s word in a different way, to pray and worship with people we share life with in a different way. The disciples in Acts were meeting in a house, not a church building, it probably looked more like a small group than a Sunday service. I wonder what it would look like for your small group to pray the prayer that the disciples prayed. A bit scary perhaps – but there’s a real sense of the expectancy of God’s presence there that is challenging.

And what about out in the world? We’ve been talking a bit over the last couple of Sundays about our frontlines. The places we spend our time Monday to Saturday. The place where you’ve marked on this map, or taken your coaster to. Do we expect to meet God there, gone ahead of us, at work in people’s lives? I think that we can expect this. If what we claim about God is true, if God is truly the Sovereign King of all, at work in creation. If Jesus is the Saviour whose death and resurrection are effective to bring healing, forgiveness and wholeness to all who turn to him. If the Holy Spirit is active and working now, as Jesus promised. If these things are true then surely we can expect to see the effects of this in the world. We just need to look out for it, be alert to it, and celebrate it when we see it.

As we come into land, I have to say that I struggle with some of these concepts. Sometimes people say to me that they have had a strong sense of the presence of God in a place or a worship service. I don’t often feel like that. I feel like maybe I’m colour blind to it and just can’t see the colours that others see. I’ve been disappointed when I expected God to be present and to do something in a situation, and it just hasn’t worked out that way. But, I stand here anyway and choose to believe and declare in faith that God is present, here and in the world. If I continue looking, and sometimes that means trusting other people’s more sensitive eyes than my own, I will see and experience God’s presence. I love him, so I will continue to look for him, and expect him to be at work. Will you join me?