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Author Archives: Stephen Sizer
Open Wide the Gates: Edmund Chan
Edmund Chan, the Leadership Mentor of Covenant Free Evangelical Church, Singapore, was the guest preacher at Christ Church, Virginia Water, on Palm Sunday 20 March 2016. His sermon was based on Psalm 24 and Mark 11.
Watch two more of Edmund’s sermons here
The Storm Before the Calm: Richard Bewes
A sermon preached at Christ Church, Virginia Water on Mark 13. View Richard’s website here
Jerusalem Has Fallen
After the death of the British prime minister, the world’s leaders gather in London to pay their respects. Without warning, a series of devastating terrorist attacks wipe out five world leaders attending the funeral leaving the city in chaos and ruins. Secret Service agent Mike Banning springs into action to bring the U.S. President to safety. When he falls into the hands of the sinister organization, it’s up to Banning to save his commander in chief from a horrible fate. London has Fallen is the latest disaster movie to hit the cinemas. The film is the sequel to Olympus Has Fallen, released just under three years ago about a previous terrorist attack on the White House. “Olympus” being the US secret service code for the White House. Well, the theme of our Gospel reading could be entitled “Jerusalem has Fallen”. Jesus and his disciples have just arrived in Jerusalem. They were fisherman from villages along the shore the Sea of Galilee. They were impressed by the fine stone buildings.
“As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” (Mark 13:1-2)
Jesus shocked them with his apocalyptic warning of imminent and total destruction. So…
Where do we Worship? The Church Defined
A few weeks ago I visited Cairo to preach at St Michael’s and All Angels and to give some teaching on the reliability of the Bible. It is a very special church family. Their building hosts several congregations including an Egyptian community, two separate expat church families (one Anglican and one non conformist) and two Sudanese congregations one all age and one in their teens and twenties. To accommodate everyone in their heart language, they hold numerous mid-week and weekend services in English, Arabic and Sudanese. The music ranges from the exuberant and informal African, via Egyptian Arabic music to the more laid back Anglican Hymns Ancient and Modern. And the Anglican priest is called Jos who just happens to be a fluent Arabic speaking Dutchman. Cosmopolitan, international, multi-ethnic.
Not that dissimilar to the picture of the international church of Jesus Christ, the Bride of Christ we find described in Peter’s first epistle. In 1 Peter 2:1-10 we discover how God would have us live in community. We were designed to live in community – to know and be known, to love and be loved, to serve and be served, to celebrate and be celebrated. Peter uses four vivid pictures to describe our relationship to one another in the Church.
The Riches of Poverty
“Do you not know that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?” I wonder if you can guess who said that? John Wesley.
He went on to say ““When a man becomes a Christian, he becomes industrious, trustworthy and prosperous. Now, if that man when he gets all he can and saves all he can, does not give all he can, I have more hope for Judas Iscariot than for that man!” This morning, in our series on Jesus, Mean and Wild, we meet the lady who knew how to handle money. I want us to observe how impressed Jesus is with her rather than her contemporaries. We don’t know her name but we do learn:
True Giving is Unpretentious: Observed by God’s Son
True Giving is Sacrificial: Prized in God’s Economy
True Giving is Reckless: Trusting in God’s Provision
The Riches of Poverty (Mark 12) from Stephen Sizer on Vimeo.
The Prosperity Gospel
God’s Will is Prosperity, insists Gloria Copeland. “Give $10 and receive $1,000; give $1,000 and receive $100,000. . . . In short, Mark 10:30 is a very good deal.” “Scripture clearly establishes how intensely God desires to display His goodness and His love toward man by pouring out His prosperity and abundance… If you’re a believer, you have a covenant right to prosperity. And not just prosperity but True Prosperity. Now, with Gloria’s detailed study, you can “… discover for yourself that God’s Will is Prosperity.” And if following Gloria’s advice doesn’t make
you sufficiently wealthy, Amazon recommends, you also read her husband, Kenneth Copeland’s books, The Laws of Prosperity, and Prosperity, the Choice is Yours.
If the Copeland lifestyle is anything to go by, they are blessed indeed. A recent survey claims Copeland is the richest pastor in the world.[i] Their net worth is estimated at $760 million though he already claims to be a billionaire. Their 1,500-acre ministry campus near Fort Worth includes a church, a private airstrip, a hangar for the ministry’s $17 million jet aircraft, and a $6 million lakefront mansion. Maybe there is something in the prosperity gospel. Gloria quotes from Mark 10 where we meet a very religious and very prosperous young man who wants to follow Jesus. Lets read the story and see what it has to say about the prosperity gospel. Continue reading
No Abiding City: The Rt Revd Michael Lewis
No Abiding City: Christian presence, problems and possibilities in the Middle East.” A Lenten lecture at John Keble, Mill Hill by the Rt Revd Michael Lewis, Bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf in the Episcopal Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. Sponsored by Christians Aware, Church Mission Society and US.
Submission: The Heart of Worship
According to the BBC, since the Middle Ages, 14 February is the date we’re encouraged to show our partners even more affection than the other 364 days of the year. Not in some parts of the world though. In places like Pakistan, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, celebrating Valentine’s Day with flowers, chocolates or a glass of wine could result in severe punishment. In Malaysia, last year, 80 Muslims were arrested by the Islamic morality police for celebrating Valentine’s Day. Officers raided budget hotels in the central state of Selangor and capital, Kuala Lumpur, detaining unmarried Muslim couples who were sharing rooms. The anti-Valentine’s Day campaign by the country’s Islamic authorities goes back to a fatwa (religious ruling) issued in 2005. However, many Malaysians still celebrate the day and other faiths are not affected by the Valentine’s Day boycott in the country. In Pakistan last year, there were clashes at a university in Peshawar over Valentine’s Day. Liberal students were celebrating with red balloons and cake while another group felt such a show was un-Islamic.
Dozens of students threw rocks in the scuffle, leading to gunshots being fired by both sides and rooms in a student dormitory being set on fire. Three students were injured and stones were thrown at police. In Saudi Arabia, Valentine’s Day is banned by the kingdom’s religious police. Women and men sit separately in restaurants and public displays of affection are taboo. However, some shops continue to sell red roses and other traditional Valentine’s presents. One shop owner described how Valentine’s Day orders are placed over the telephone to avoid detection and flowers are hidden in the back of the store. Last August, the decision to sentence five Saudis to a total of 39 years in prison, as well as 4,500 lashes between them, was upheld. The men had been found dancing with six women they were unrelated to on Valentine’s Day. Alcohol and red roses were also seized.[i]
The Real Jesus I Never Knew
The first event I ever came to at Christ Church, 18 years ago, was an Alpha taster evening. I sat next to a lady and we got talking. Then she asked me “What do you do for a living?” I replied “Guess”. Without batting an eyelid she said, “Well, you are either an estate agent, a vicar or an undertaker.” I replied, “How did you guess?”, She replied “Because I am married to one”. She was in fact a local vicar’s wife.
J. John the evangelist has a better answer. “It’s difficult to know what to say. Because if I say to you that I’m a Reverend, which I am, that conjures up certain images in people’s minds as to what I might be. I like to be a bit creative in telling people what I do. I sat next to this lady on an airplane at Heathrow airport and I said, ‘Hello’, and she said, ‘Hello’. Then I said to her, ‘Where are you going?’ and she said, ‘I’m going to Singapore’. And she said to me, ‘Where are you going?’ and I said, ‘I’m going to Australia’. I said, ‘What do you do?’ and she told me; then she said to me, ‘What do you do?’ and I said, ‘Well….’ ‘… I work for a global enterprise.’ She said, ‘Do you?’ I said, ‘Yes I do.’ I said, ‘We’ve got outlets in nearly every country of the world.’ She said, ‘Have you?’ I said, ‘Yes we have.’ I said, ‘We’ve got hospitals and hospices and homeless shelters,’ I said, ‘We do marriage work, we’ve got orphanages, we’ve got feeding programmes, educational programmes.’ I said, ‘We do all sorts of justice and reconciliation things’. I said, ‘Basically, we look after people from birth to death, and we deal in the area of behavioural alteration.’ She went, ‘Wow!’ And it was so loud, her ‘Wow!’, loads of people turned round and looked at us. She said, ‘What’s it called?’ I said, ‘It’s called the church … have you not heard of it?’ And that’s it, really, isn’t it – if we are a follower of Jesus then we are part of a global enterprise. But not only is it global, it’s intergalactic, because it includes everyone that’s gone before us.’[i]