There have been some encouraging signs this last week that the omicron wave may have peaked. The seven day average of newly diagnosed cases has been falling. I am hearing of more people recovering from infection than acquiring it, of more households coming out of isolation than entering it. School still has to resume with an inevitable rise in transmission but there is hope that a combination of common-sense precautions, practiced by many, and vaccination immunity will see the outbreak contained as the year goes on.
Ongoing Adaptation
We continue as a congregation to adapt to the presence of the virus. We will delay restarting morning tea and supper for another fortnight, waiting to see the impact of school returning on the circulation of the virus in the community. For the same reason, and to allow families a little more time to get into the school routine, we will be delaying the resumption of Kid’s Club and Youth Group until the 11th February, the end of the second full school week. But we will have the Lord’s Supper on the 6th February as usual, although with the self-contained wafer and grape juice combination [a fresh batch]. It is a great encouragement and comfort to remember our Lord’s death together, and as the Supper is a visible expression of our unity in Christ it is good to mark the resumption of the congregation’s ministries at the beginning of the school year, ministries in which we serve together in the work of the gospel, by sharing together in this visible expression of the truth of the gospel that Christ has died for our sins.
Adaptation, large and small, personal and communal, will continue to be required of us in the term ahead, the year ahead.
Guided by the Big Truths of the Gospel
What should guide each of us in the adaptations we make, as we seek to pilot our vessel safely through the storm of Covid? It is the big realities we have already embraced as believers, the realities we confess in believing the gospel.
- That the living Creator God has sent His Son the Lord Jesus Christ into our world to save, to gather for God a people of His very own [John 10:1-18, Rev. 5:9-10]. And that to accomplish this salvation the Lord Jesus has died for our sins, He has risen, He reigns, and He will return in glory, all in fulfilment of God’s plan revealed in His word.
- Believing the gospel we live confident of God’s steadfast love and that He is with us for, justified by faith, we live at peace with Him [Romans 5:1], His adopted children by grace [John 1:12-13];
- and we live confident of our future for the Lord has said He will raise us up at the last day, [John 6:35-40] – “for this is the will of my Father:”, said our Lord, “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
- And we live also knowing that we will give account to Him for the way we serve Him. “We make it our aim to be pleasing to Him” wrote Paul, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has sone in the body, whether good or ill.” [2 Cor. 5:9-10]
The gospel is the compass that guides us through life and living to please our Lord Jesus, to hear at the end of our lives well done good and faithful servant, is our true North.
'The gospel is the compass that guides us through life and living to please our Lord Jesus, to hear at the end of our lives well done good and faithful servant, is our true North.'
In living through Covid the big truths of the gospel guide our adaptation, and they commit believers to praying, sharing the gospel, meeting and serving as expressions of the love we are called to in response to the love we have received. These things are not just Christian habits or duties. They are expressions of lives lived to please Jesus because we love Jesus, Jesus who calls us to turn to Him for grace and help, who desires all people to be saved, who calls us to love our brothers and sisters and so meet with them and serve them with the gifts He gives us through His Spirit.
Having a heart to serve
Our experience of Covid and the responses to it by our governments has made many of us hesitant to plan, undermined in some confidence in engaging with others, wearied us, and narrowed the horizons of our lives as we have withdrawn from activities that involve us in mixing with others. But in adapting to Covid, learning to live with it, we can’t be guided by our hesitancy, or weariness, or self-protectiveness. We must be guided by the truth of the gospel, by living to please Jesus.
'In adapting to Covid, learning to live with it, we can’t be guided by our hesitancy, or weariness, or self-protectiveness. We must be guided by the truth of the gospel, by living to please Jesus.'
As the new year commences there are many opportunities for service, whether that is in ministries you used to serve in, or in ministries where gaps in teams have developed as life has carried some to other places. Kid’s Club, Youth Group, Sunday School, our Sunday Service teams, Growth Groups, Play Group, Mainly Music – all need people who will commit to serving their brothers and sisters, commit to activities that purposefully share the gospel and disciple believers. If you have the desire to serve, there are opportunities for you. If you want to know them, talk to the leaders of those ministries or one of the pastors. But as we adapt to Covid, the desire will be the issue – your heart, whether you want to live to please the Lord Jesus and trust Him to provide the strength to do the work He has called you to in His Word.
'If you have the desire to serve, there are opportunities for you. If you want to know them, talk to the leaders'
And that is why, despite the pressures and disruption of Covid, I am confident as the year goes on that we will regain momentum in sharing the gospel and teaching the faith, in meeting together to encourage each other to persevere until we meet the Lord. It is confidence in the Lord Jesus, that the good work that God has begun in our lives He will continue, that by His word and Spirit He will continually renew our hearts in love of Jesus and love of His people, that distinctive mark of being disciples of the Lord Jesus.
'I am confident as the year goes on that we will regain momentum... It is confidence in the Lord Jesus, that the good work that God has begun in our lives He will continue'
But His work in us is a work He calls us to give ourselves to. Writing to the Philippians Paul said
“Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose. Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world, by holding firm to the word of life.” [Phil. 2:12-16]
That is a word for us. Hold firm to the word of life, the big truths of the gospel, and make living to please the Lord Jesus your guide as we adapt to living with Covid this year.
'Make living to please the Lord Jesus your guide as we adapt to living with Covid this year.'
