Category Archives: Sermons

How to be Wise

On Thursday I attended a lunch in the House of Commons to honour the work of Elam Ministries. During the meal, Magda, a young Christian lady from Iran also gave her testimony. She shared how she had been lured into a marriage with a man pretending to be a Christian. When he divorced her and took their 2 year old daughter, Magda went to the court to gain custody. According to the Iranian constitution a little girl can stay with her mother up to the age of 9. But the judge told Magda that the law did not apply in her case.

“The judge told me: ‘There’s only one way you can take custody of your daughter: If you come back to Islam and recant your Christian faith, we will give you your daughter.’ My lawyer was very happy. He urged me to accept the court offer and pretend I was not a Christian. It was a nightmare moment. On the one hand I really loved my daughter and wanted to get her back at all costs, but on the other hand I loved Jesus and had felt His living presence with me throughout my life. There was no way I could bring myself to deny Jesus. Deep in my heart, I felt peace that God was in charge. During those tense moments, I felt as if Jesus was waiting for my answer. Would I choose Him over my daughter? I told the judge that I would never deny Jesus. So the court ruled in favour of my husband and took my daughter away from me. This was the darkest chapter of my life. I missed my daughter terribly. I spent my days smelling her clothes, thinking of what she might be doing, and weeping. I became more isolated and was easily offended. I felt wronged and became depressed. I spent hours alone in my room crying.”

What would you have done? What will you do if you are faced with that choice in the future? Deny Jesus or lose your children? Deny Jesus or lose your job? Deny Jesus or go to prison? Deny Jesus or lose your life? What is the wise thing to do? The Bible was given to make us wise. The Book of Proverbs gives us the key that unlocks wisdom:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” (Proverbs 1:7)

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How Can I Know that I Know God?

A mother was out walking with her 4-year-old daughter when her girl picked up something from the ground and started to put it in her mouth. The mother tells what happens in her own words: “I took the item away from her and I asked her not to do that.” My daughter quickly asked, “Why?” “Because it’s been lying outside, you don’t know where it’s been, it’s dirty and probably has germs,” I replied. At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, “Wow! How do you know all this stuff?” I thought quickly and said, “All moms know this stuff. It’s on the Mommy Test. You have to know it, or they don’t let you be a Mommy.”  We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, as she pondered this new information. “Oh…I get it!” she beamed, “So if you don’t pass the test you have to be the daddy?” I smiled and replied, “Exactly.”

The Apostle John wrote this short letter, toward the end of his life, because he was worried these young Christians would not pass the maturity test. He were picking up some dubious practices contaminating Christianity with Greek religion.

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The Tongue and How to Control it

 

What are you doing Saturday night? Would you like to come to the cinema? How about a meal? Just you and me? When can I see you again? Yes I like you. I can’t stop thinking about you. You are very yummy. I’d like to get to know you better. I love you. I love you with all my heart. I’d like to spend my life with you. Will you marry me? I do….  That was careless. That was thoughtless. That was mean. That was hurtful. But you promised. You did what? The honeymoon is over. Don’t turn your back on me. Look at me when I am speaking to you. I give up. I’m not standing for that. How dare you. You are a…… Get out of my life. I never want to see you again. Good riddance and don’t come back. The power of speech. With the tongue, we can praise God, we can speak God’s Word and we can lead lost people to Jesus Christ. And in virtually the same breath we can tell a lie that ruins a reputation; with the slip of the tongue we can destroy a relationship; in a heated moment a single sentence can break someone’s heart. Once spoken, words cannot be deleted, they cannot be taken back, and sometimes never forgotten.

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The Invasion of the Body Snatchers

What scared you the most growing up as a child? When I was a child, the highlight of the week was watching TV at weekends – there was wrestling on a Saturday afternoon and a movie on Sunday afternoons- usually a black and white film about World War 2 or a Western. One of the scariest films I ever remember watching still haunts me. It was called Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Made in 1956, Don Seigel adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney’s 1954 novel The Body Snatchers. The story depicts an extraterrestrial invasion of a small town in California. The invaders replace human beings with clones that appear identical to real people but are actually devoid of any emotion or individuality. A local doctor uncovers what is happening and tries to stop them.

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers spawned a whole genre of science fiction thrillers on the same theme. The most recent adaptation, called the Invasion, made in 2007, stars Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman.

Some have speculated that Jack Finney had the very real fear of Communist infiltration in mind when he wrote his book about zombies.  He could just as easily though have been writing about the infiltration of the Church.

Because James 2 warns that there may indeed be spiritual zombies sitting right next to… They may come to Sunday services, sing the hymns, read the Bible, affirm the creed, recite the Lord’s Prayer, and drink the coffee. But are they really human or aliens? How can you be sure?

In James 2 we are told how to tell the difference. We are going to learn how to distinguish between three very kinds of faith – dead faith, demonic faith and dynamic faith. You know that faith is central to the Christian faith. The Bible says we are saved by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9); we must walk by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7); because we can only please God by faith (Hebrews 11:6); knowing whatever we do is sin apart from faith (Romans 14:23). So faith, what ever it is, is central to being a Christian. But there are three different kinds of faith – dead, demonic and dynamic faith, and its important we know the difference between them.

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Transformed by Truth


During the Munich Crisis of September 1938, as Hitler rallied his forces and the world slid inexorably toward war, more radios were sold than in any previous month. In this atmosphere of tension, Orson Welles and his staff prepared for their weekly Mercury Theater radio play. Auspiciously, on the night before Halloween, listeners found themselves listening to the innocent sounds of “Ramon Raquello and his orchestra”, only for the music to be interrupted by the first of a series of increasingly alarming news stories.

First came reports of several explosions of “incandescent gas” observed on the planet Mars, then after a brief interlude of more music came a hook-up to Princeton Observatory professor Richard Pierson (played by Welles) who assures the listeners that there is nothing to be alarmed at. Then there are reports of a meteor impact in an unassuming place called Grover’s Mill. Even today Grover’s Mill is a sleepy little hamlet…, but that night it was going to become the centre of the universe as the beachhead for a Martian invasion advancing on New York City, brushing aside American defenders and destroying dozens of familiar place names along the way. An emergency government announcement gave credence to the story, and huddled about their radios, panicked listeners (all over the USA) began to bombard local police stations with calls. From Trenton comes the account.

“We were petrified. We just looked at each other, scared out of our wits. Someone was banging on our front door. It was our neighbour across the street. She had packed her seven kids in their car and she kept yelling, come on, lets get out of here.”

Henry Sears, then just 13 years old, was doing his homework when he heard the first news flash of the invasion. Taking the radio down into the tavern below which his mother owned, he and a dozen or so patrons listened with mounting fear to the broadcast, until the men jumped up and announced they were going to get their guns and join in the defence at Grover’s Mill[1]. People packed the roads, hid in cellars, loaded guns, even wrapped their heads in wet towels as protection from Martian poison gas. In an attempt to defend themselves against aliens, listeners were oblivious to the fact that they were acting out the role of the panic-stricken public that actually belonged in the radio play.

People were stuck in a kind of virtual world in which fiction was confused for fact. H.G. Wells wrote War of the Worlds in 1898, in response to the unification and militarization of Germany. The reaction to the dramatic retelling of Wells’ story, shows that what we believe can affect how we behave. The truth transforms us. One reason Wells was so popular, is because his book was based indirectly on fact. We are indeed at war. But I don’t mean against the so-called “Axis of Evil” made up of Syria, Iran and North Korea, which our politicians tell us is the cause of the terrorism and threats to our democratic peace loving values. The ultimate ‘War of the Worlds’, behind which every other war is merely a skirmish, is described in Ephesians 6.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12).

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How to Handle Temptation

It was the first day of the school holidays. Bright, sunny and warm. But mum told young Sam that he was not allowed to go swimming with his friends that day. He must wait until tomorrow when she could supervise him. When he returned home for lunch she noticed his hair was wet. “Samuel!” his mother scolded, “I told you not to go swimming today.” “I couldn’t help it, Mum. I walked by the lake and it looked so clear and inviting. I was only going to stick my feet in it for a minute, and the water was so warm and felt so good on my legs. I just couldn’t resist!” he said with a big wide smile. Mum looked at Sam and said, “One question son, why did you take your bathing suit with you when I said you couldn’t swim today?” “I didn’t trust myself Mum, so I took it with me just in case I was tempted.” Last week we considered three key words which James uses to describe the path to spiritual maturity: Slavery, Adversity and Perseverance.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)

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Some Assembly Required

or, the Pathway to Spiritual Maturity (James 1:1-12)

It only has three words. But it’s a phrase that can make the toughest of men shudder. Women seem immune. Furthermore simply saying these three words to a man will usually result in nothing more than a tilt of the head and an accompanied look of curiosity. But have the average man read this short phrase on a pamphlet, box, or carton and you will almost immediately see his jaw tighten and large beads of sweat cover his forehead.

“What is the phrase?” You ask.  “Some assembly required!”  I am going to share with you a story that is deeply personal but common to those men, like myself, who are afflicted with an aversion to the before-mentioned phrase. This type of confession, however, is rarely shared in public and only in hushed tones, and usually reserved for conversations with only the closest of male friends.

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Becoming a Contagious Christian: Our Testimony

Let me share with you my personal testimony….

For much of my life I was blissfully unaware of dark secrets in our home. On two occasions our Bishop visited he found me vacuuming the carpet. Our previous church, St John’s Stoke in Guildford, at the time, had more carpet than any other church in the Diocese. The Bishop wondered if this was why I had appointed – to clean the church carpets. But I was not a happy bunny. I became increasingly dissatisfied with our vacuum cleaner and sought counselling. I tried replacing the bags and checked the mechanism to see if it was blocked.  I will never forget the day I found enlightenment and fulfilment in this area of my ministry. That morning I had already vacuumed the floor as usual. I had given up for the last time, went to a superstore and invested in our very first Dyson. I brought it home and vacuumed the same room once more. To my shame I had to empty the machine three times… I became a new man. I would get the Dyson out and show it off whenever visitors came to the house. I explained the power of its dual action cyclone. How the air inside reaches a speed of 924 mph creating powerful G forces that spin out the dust into a solid mass.

Whereas a traditional vacuum loses 50% of its suction after just one room, even with a clean new bag, a Dyson maintains 100% suction 100% of the time. Charles Dyson perfected his revolutionary machine after producing over 5000 prototypes. So impressed with the power of a Dyson, we bought a newer, more powerful machine, last year and donated our older Dyson to the Church. Is your life blessed with a Dyson? I will gladly give a demonstration if you remain sceptical. I am looking forward one day to owning the newest Dyson which is a robotic version guided by remote sensors so it will clean the house all by itself.  But my next acquisition will probably be the Dyson bladeless fan. I cannot imagine life without a Dyson, or why anyone would not want to own one.

“Jesus said “I am the Light of the World, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness.” (John 8:12).

In the story recorded in John 9, Jesus went on to prove it was true.  Jesus did something that had never ever happened before in all of history. Jesus gave sight to someone who had been blind from birth. And through this miracle he wants to teach us something very wonderful too. I want us to retrace this man’s spiritual journey from darkness to light.

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Our Creator, Saviour and Advocate

Life is a journey. It has a beginning and an end.  And we’re all travellers somewhere on that journey, forever on the move, learning, growing, changing.  For many, life seems meaningless, pointless, confusing and at times unbearable. In our reading today from John 14, Jesus offers direction, certainty and meaning. He brings words of comfort and hope for those confused or perplexed on the journey through life. How?

1. Jesus promises to lead us to God the Father
2. Jesus promises the Father will send us the Spirit

1. Jesus promises to lead us to God the Father

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3)

Can you imagine setting out on a journey and not knowing or caring where you were going? Silly isn’t it? Can you imagine forgetting where your home is?

Or forgetting how to get back? Life is the biggest and longest journey we can make. It is important we know where we are going. In our reading Jesus telling his friends that He must soon leave them. To be blunt, that He was going to die, and that they must know why. Jesus explains where heaven is and how to get there. Jesus seems to assume that his friends knew where heaven is. But they didn’t and were honest enough to say so. Peter, always one to speak his mind asks, “Where are you going? Why can’t we follow you now? Jesus answers by assuring them and us that death is not the end of our journey. We were created for eternal life. Our real home is heaven. Jesus describes heaven as a place. As real as any place on a map. But a very special map. Jesus is explaining the way to heaven.

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