Friday Communication - 24th November 2023
As I said last fortnight next year we are planning to participate as a church in the 2024 Meet Jesus mission initiated by AFES, and we are shaping our church calendar around that commitment, the calendar that is being published alongside this Friday’s communication.
In this talk I am going to draw your attention to some features of the calendar that I hope provide ways that encourage and facilitate your own participation in sharing the gospel with those with whom you are in contact. Wanting others to be saved was the desire of the Lord Jesus who came to seek and save the lost and is the natural expression of the Christian heart, the heart that loves the Lord Jesus and wants Him to be glorified as He is, the only Saviour of the world, and the heart that, knowing for itself what it is to be graciously forgiven by the Holy God, to be adopted as His children and each day be assured of His steadfast love, and to live in a world of death with the hope of eternal life – all through faith in the Lord Jesus, loves our neighbours and wants them to share in this new life.
How can this desire for the salvation of others from judgement and hell be expressed in our lives, and how does our calendar help? Let me give you four ways – praying, living, speaking and inviting.
Praying
Every third Wednesday you will see in the calendar our congregational prayer meeting. Meeting for prayer was the practice of the first disciples [e.g. Acts 2:42, 4:23 ff, 12:12, 13:2] and we are given great encouragement to pray, including to pray for the spread of the gospel and for the Lord to open hearts to receive it [Acts 4:29-30, Romans 10:1, Eph. 6:19-20, Col. 4:3-4] and this is what our prayer meeting is devoted to. No training or planning can raise the dead. Only our God can, and we should be asking Him to bring the dead to life by His word. But the prayer meeting is there to be an encouragement to our own prayers in growth group and in private. Why don’t you choose three or four people to pray for specifically – that the Lord would bring them to hear His word and open their eyes to the truth of Jesus’ glory. And share your prayers with one or two others, with your growth group, so that you can pray together for them, and encourage each other to persevere in prayer over the year.
Living
This should go without saying. Our Lord said to His followers “let you light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” [Matt. 5:16], and Peter wrote to the scattered believers “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation’ [1 Pet. 2:12]. Our lives should stand out from the world by their goodness, by being marked by truth, love and forgiveness.
But we can forget the power of a life lived trusting and obeying the Lord Jesus. As a reminder of that why don’t you have a listen to Danny and Leila Abdallah speaking at this year’s parliamentary breakfast. There are some things I might say differently but the words the man who killed three of their children while driving drunk in 2020, Samuel Davidson, said to Danny when he visited him in gaol are powerful. Danny asked him why he had become a Christian in gaol, and Samuel replied “I want what you have …..” [Click here to jump to the start of the 15 minute Keynote Address speech]
Living trusting the Lord Jesus in the trials of life – whether that is the exhaustion of young children, the disappointment of chronic illness, the grief of loss, the financial stresses of modern life – commends the gospel.
And we can forget the power of life lived together in a community committed to truth and love, to repentance and forgiveness. As a community we can commend the gospel by our life together, and the calendar provides opportunity for you to introduce your friends to our community. There are events planned to be a relaxed introduction to our community scattered throughout the year.
These start with Christmas Carols, and then next year the Colin Buchanan Calvary Road Concert [a concert for adults] in February, the Picnic in March, a Bush Dance in April and Bundy Live in July although this will have explicit gospel content weaved into the music. Then after the mission Sundays in August and September there will be Bundy Unplugged in October – a great showcase of our community – to help those attracted by the gospel to find their way into our gatherings, and coming around to carols again.
As well as those events there are our regular ministries for children, young people and mums and babies, where people can meet Christians outside of a church service. But the good of inviting to church where our own faith can be encouraged and nurtured, and where week by week your friends can meet other believers, should never be overlooked, especially where we are all conscious to thoughtfully engage with those who are new amongst us.
Our lives individually and our life together can commend the gospel.
Speaking
And we can our selves share the gospel with others by our words, and by our words keep God in the conversation in a world that seeks to forget and exclude Him. We can all do this in our daily conversation just by speaking out of the abundance of our hearts. If we are praying for someone in need, we can say “I’m praying for you”, and even talk about what you are praying for them. If you have been to church or bible study and someone asks you what you did on the weekend, or last night, you can say “I met with others to listen to God’s word”, or something like that. We don’t need to be experts or to have all the answers to speak from our own experience. Like the blind man in John 9 we can just speak of the one thing we know – that the Lord Jesus has saved and kept us [John 9:25]. You might be surprised by another’s interest.
But some of us might find that awkward and need encouragement or want to be further equipped to take the opportunities we have to present the gospel. We are planning, Lord willing, to run a four week evangelism training or refresher in term 1 on a Sunday afternoon starting Feb. 25th. And as at the heart of the mission is the idea that the best way to get to know Jesus is to listen to Jesus Himself in the gospel we are also planning in term 2 to run one to one bible reading training from June 2nd. This will focus on reading John’s gospel, the special edition of the gospel being prepared for mission, with another. Being confident to read the gospel with another is a great skill to have and to use throughout life, so if you have not done the training, plan to be there.
Share in seeking the salvation of others by praying, living, speaking, and finally inviting
Inviting
I have already spoken of events where your friends can get to know us and start to feel comfortable with us. Hope Explored and Christianity Explored are also planned to run in terms 1 and 2, and there will be other events associated with the Mission being run by others in the year – e.g. The TGCA events with Nancy Guthrie (May) and Rory Shiner (date to be released). If you are at work in the city you should also look out for City Bible Forum events, and at Uni for events being run by your CU.
But the climax of the mission for us will revolve around the six Sundays from Aug 4th to Sept 8th where a variety of us will be speaking on six passages from John, the six passages that are also highlighted in the ‘Meet Jesus’ edition of John’s gospel. On these Sundays the gospel will be presented clearly and people will be given the opportunity to respond to the gospel in the service through a response slip. IF you bring your family or friend to any of our services on those Sundays, they will hear the gospel and it will be made clear to them how they can find peace with God through faith in our Lord Jesus. Lord willing we will need your help in following them up, helping them become established in the faith, and incorporating them into small groups.
And that brings me to highlight what are the recurring features of our calendar – like Growth Group Leader training, or evening congregation and youth group camps. All these are vital. We need more who are willing to sacrifice their time and energy by serving their brothers and sisters in leading growth groups where we can disciple and encourage each other, and camps are an important way for people to become incorporated into the evening congregation or youth group, to be in contexts where they can hear the gospel taught and be encouraged to keep following Jesus.
Look through the calendar and make space in your life to share together in making Jesus known this year and in discipling those whom our Lord calls to Himself. Don’t let the ‘cares of this life, the desire for riches, or the desire for other things’ get in the way of helping others meet Jesus, for there is nothing better.
And do pray. We plan, but it is the Lord who establishes our plans. And we are in a spiritual battle where the devil is active to distract people from and obscure the gospel. So let’s pray as Paul did for the Thessalonians that [2 Thess. 1:11-12] our God would make us worthy of his calling and fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by His power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in us, and we in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
