Category: Sermons

Sermon: Sunday, 18th December, 2023
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Luke 2:8-20

Has this story of angels and shepherds got any relevance for you today? As you might expect from a minister, I’m going to say ‘Yes!’ Why do I say that? Firstly, because this really happened. This is a historical event. The birth and life and death of Jesus are recorded by Dr Luke in this gospel, and by Matthew, Mark and John in the other gospels. But it is also recorded by secular, non-Christian historians such as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Josephus. Together, these secular sources speak about Jesus as: a good-natured and virtuous man; a teacher who amassed a large following; a man who performed supernatural feats; and one whose disciples claimed he had risen from the grave and was believed him to be the Christ and the Son of God. Dr Luke begins his gospel saying that he spoke to many eyewitnesses of these events. He says: ‘… I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.’ (Luke 1:3-4)

The Christmas story is not just a nice story for children. It is, rather, a true story, relevant to each one of us. The Bible is a completely reliable book, and is God’s message to each one of us. In fact, if the Christmas story isn’t the best news that you have ever heard, then you haven’t properly understood it.

Of course, at Christmas Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ birth is not his beginning, as it is for us. Because Jesus is God and so is eternal. There was never a time when Jesus did not exist. His birth in the stable is his beginning as a human being. Right at the heart of the Christmas message is that in Jesus, God became something he wasn’t before, a real human being. He is 100 % God and became 100% human at his birth, whilst remaining 100% God. This begs the question – why did God humble himself to leave a perfect Heaven and come into earth as a real human being. To answer this massively important question, we need to listen to what the angels says, because God sends his angels to explain the meaning and relevance of this wonderful event- God becoming a real human being.

In verse 8 we find the shepherds doing what they do best – watching their sheep, even during the night. It’s no wonder we read that they were terrified (verse 9). Not only do they see a normally-hidden supernatural being, an angel, but we also read that the ‘glory of the Lord shone around them’. What was this glory? This is the shekinah glory of the presence of God himself. This was the amazing manifestation of God’s presence that used to settle on the temple at certain times, and which went ahead of the Israelites in the desert. During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, ‘Let’s get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt’. (Exodus 14:24-25) In other words, God is making it clear that he is with the shepherds. I love the fact that Jesus announces his birth not to king Herod or to the emperor Caesar Augustus, or to the rich or religious elite, but to ordinary shepherds. This surely must inform us that the birth of this baby is for ordinary people like us.

Let’s get to the angel’s explanation of this wonderful event. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Christ, the Lord.’ (Luke 2:10-11)

Jesus left Heaven and came to earth in order to save ordinary people. God’s Christmas gift to us is a Saviour. It is a gift offered to all the people of the world. And if received in faith, it is a gift which will give us lasting joy.If Geoff gave me some deodorant and mouthwash for Christmas I might be somewhat offended as he’d be telling me this is something I need. I need to improve my hygiene. In the same way, God’s gift to us, in one way, is offensive; because if God sends us a Rescuer, then that means there is something we all need to be rescued from. The Bible tells us plainly that we need to be rescued by God, because of the many wrong things we have all thought and done in our lives. The short Biblical word for this is ‘sin’, and it means breaking God’s rules. He says we are to love Him and one another, but the truth is that so often we don’t. So often we are selfish and proud and even ignore God in the world he created. Often, we don’t even get on with those we love the most.

Human beings are capable of great acts of love, and much good. Sadly, we are also capable of lust and anger and rudeness and unkindness. God hates these things and this spoils the relationship between human beings and God. So, God takes the initiative and comes to rescue us from ourselves. If our greatest need was information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need was money he’d have sent us an economist. If our greatest need was technology he’d have sent us a scientist. But our greatest need is forgiveness so he sends us a Saviour.

‘Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you…’ (Luke 2:11)
‘She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’ (Matthew 1:21) Today, God is offering you a Saviour. The question is, will you receive this gift?

We’ve been enjoying Christmas carols today. But the first Christmas carol was heard, when thousands upon thousands of angels appeared in the sky: Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.’ (Luke 2:13-14) Let’s think together about this first ever carol. Why are the angels singing ‘glory to God’? Why are they rejoicing in God’s actions? These myriads of angels are rejoicing at the prospect of millions of people being saved from their sins and receiving eternal life. The angels are full of wonder at the grace of God, sending his one and only Son to die for rebellious humans, who simply do not deserve such a gift. They wonder at the love of Jesus, knowing he was going to die on the cross in the place of others- instead of them.

They are also singing about peace: ‘… and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.’ I think a lot of people sing carols and misunderstand what kind of peace this is, and I don’t want you to misunderstand today. This is not a horizontal peace, between humans. This is not about peace in Ukraine or Israel or in other places where there is war. This is a vertical peace between humans and God. Again, that’s a sobering truth, as it means without a relationship with Jesus, we cannot possibly have peace with God, which is the only lasting kind of peace there is.

How do you get this peace? The answer is simple. You get it by turning from your wrongdoing, and believing that when Jesus died on the cross, he died to pay the price of your sin. You ask him in prayer to take charge of your life, and worship him as your God and Saviour. ‘Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…’ (Romans 5:1) Do you have this peace today? This also means that the peace is not for everyone. Yes, it if offered to everyone. But many reject God’s incredible gift, too proud to admit the wrongness in their hearts.

How have you responded to the gift God offers you today? He offers you himself. He died on the cross and says that if you come and admit your need of forgiveness and ask him to forgive you, then he will do just that. I hope each one of us will respond like the shepherds: The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. (Luke 2:20) Notice that the shepherds respond to Jesus’ birth in exactly the same way as the angels did, praising and glorifying God. If you really understood Christmas, you too would praise and glorify God for sending Jesus into the world to be our Saviour.

We often talk about the spirit of Christmas, and by that we mean a sense of togetherness and kindness and generosity and selflessness that sometimes marks the Christmas period. All these things are good, of course. But the spirit of Christmas in its truest and purest form is to marvel, as the angels and shepherds do, that God would leave Heaven and come to earth in order to die for us. When we ‘get this’ and grasp it, we are able to have a joy and peace which no one can take from us, and which lasts, even when everything else in our lives goes crazy.

If you have been ignoring Jesus, things are not fine between yourself and God. You can’t ignore God and be his friend. But, the good news is this: God offers you a present. Will you take it and unwrap it? No matter what you have done in your past, you can be forgiven by God, through receiving the gift of Jesus’ death on your behalf. I urge you to receive this gift for yourself and enjoy peace and eternal life.

Sermon: Sunday, 10th December, 2023
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: 1 John 1

When was the last time you said sorry to someone for something you did. Have you wronged anyone recently? When was the last time you said sorry to God? Have you wronged God this last week? In today’s passage, we have one of the clearest, most beautiful promises in the Bible: ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’ (1 John 1:9)

At first, this might sound too good to be true. Free forgiveness from God himself. Is there a catch? It sounds straightforward, so why aren’t more people interested in this promise? There’s no catch; however, this is a conditional promise. Forgiveness is not given to all, but only for those who confess their sin to God. Sadly, confessing sin is something many are unwilling to do.

John mentions people who have a totally different attitude to their sin – they deny it (verse 8). Each one of us in this room has a choice to make about our wrongdoing, we can deny it and gloss over it as if it’s no big deal, or we can take it seriously and confess it to God.

We have three headings on this topic, and to help us remember, each on is connected to the colours of a traffic light: red – stop; amber – get ready; and green – go.

1. Red – stop! Stop denying you have wrong thoughts and actions.

Humans are experts in denying our mistakes. ‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.’ (1 John 1:8)

It’s a scary part of the human condition – all of us are capable of deceiving ourselves. We can end up believing something that’s just not true. For example, someone might have a few pints, and think: ‘I’ll be fine to drive home tonight. The roads are quiet’. We fool ourselves and end up endangering ourselves and others on the roads. We have made a wrong assessment. The worst thing human beings can deceive themselves about is the state of their own hearts, morally speaking. We can fool ourselves into thinking that we are basically good people. We can end up convincing ourselves that ‘sin’ is a word which might apply to terrorists, or drug dealers, but not to us.

“He who cannot find water in the sea is no more foolish than the man who cannot perceive sin in his members.” Charles Spurgeon

It might be foolishness, but that doesn’t stop us denying our sin. In John’s day, there were those who claimed to be ‘without sin’. This is sometimes called ‘perfectionism’. It was part of the false teaching connected with Gnosticism. Gnostics denied the relevance of bodily acts, so they could, for example, have affairs but claim this had no bearing on their relationship with God, because he was not interested in the deeds of the body, but only in the spiritual side of life. They were totally wrong. We don’t often hear that kind of false argumentation today. But one thing is the same: people continue to claim that they don’t have a sin problem.

How do we manage to fool ourselves into thinking of ourselves as far better than we actually are? We play the blame game: blaming someone else – we might call this ‘Adam and Eve syndrome’- The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ (Genesis 3:12-13) Can you relate to blaming others for the mess in your life?

‘It’s not my fault I’m living like this- it’s the way I was brought up.’ (blame our parents).
‘Yes, I lost my temper. But he was provoking me. What else could I do?’ So, we rationalise our sin. When it comes to wrongdoing, we can see the faults of others with 20:20 vision, but when it comes to our own sins and faults we have a blind spot. Blind spots in driving are dangerous, but when we are blind to our own flaws and sins, they are deadly.

We blame our genes or our circumstances. Nowadays, sin is no longer the wrong things people do but just actions caused by internal weakness we can’t help (something genetic), or external forces out with our control, our environment. In the past, we spoke of people as moral individuals responsible for their actions. But now, people are more likely to say: ‘It’s not my fault. I couldn’t help it’.

“Modern fallacies claim that sin is a disease or a weakness, something due to heredity or environment, necessity or the like; people come to regard sin as their fate, not their fault. Such people deceive themselves.” Leon Morris

In other words, we say, in effect, there’s no such thing as sin!

We think we are much better than we actually are: we over-estimate ourselves. The rich young man listens to Jesus recounting the Ten Commandments – ‘All these I have kept since I was a boy.’ He was deceiving himself. The truth was, he had not even kept the first commandment, ‘Have no other gods before me’; his god was money.

One of my friends said to me recently: ‘I don’t need any God to forgive me’. In others words, he’s telling me that he is a good person. He is blind to the lust, pride, greed, and bitterness in his heart. He is deceiving himself. And this is the way most people think.

There’s the lady who does her bit in the community, helping to raise funds for the local primary school and volunteering at the food bank. ‘How dare you call me a sinner’, she thinks sitting in church. It’s good that she is helping the community. But that does not make up for the fact that she has not given God his true place in her life, and the true place for God is first place.

We also deceive ourselves by relabelling sin, and calling it something else. When we relabel sin, we use other words – euphemisms – for those sins, and then they don’t sound like such a big deal: termination, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia

It happens all the time in our culture and in the church. Adultery is called ‘having an affair’. Theft is ‘helping myself to perks.’ David Jackman

Selfishness is ‘standing up for my rights’. The last thing we human beings will admit is that we ‘sin’.

We try to sanitise the sinfulness of sin. We can be like the proverbial ostrich, and bury our heads in the sand, and act like we don’t have a problem with sin, but that won’t make our sins go away. It’s not a good strategy. Verse 10 reminds us that by denying our sin we are calling God a liar! Because again and again, God tells us sin is a universal problem. ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…’ (Romans 3:23) and if undealt with, we will have to pay for our own sin in Hell. What about you this morning? Are you making excuses? Do you think you have a problem with: greed, jealousy, envy, bitterness, or an unforgiving spirit? Red- stop making excuses and instead acknowledge your sin and guilt before God.

If you say ‘I’m fine on my own – I don’t need God’s forgiveness.’ then you are deceiving yourself and have lost touch with reality. The reality is given by Jesus. ‘For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.’ (Mark 2:21-23)

2. Amber – Get ready! Instead of making excuses – get ready to confess your sins.

‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins…’ (1 John 1:9)

Confession recognises that we are personally guilty of many wrongs. Remember the Lost Son and his ‘amber moment’? “I have sinned against heaven and against you”, he said. When we wrong others we also wrong God, as it is his commandments we break.

What is confession? In Greek- homologeo = to say the same thing that God says about our evil.

Who decides what is right and wrong? Sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4) and so sin is defined by the law of God. He decides what sin is and what it deserves. Confessing our sins involves agreeing with God that the wrong actions we do are serious and have consequences.

What is God’s attitude to sin? He promises to judge it. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden because of their sin. In Genesis 6:3 life expectancy is cut to 120 years because of human sin. In Genesis 6, God floods the world because of sin. In Genesis 11, God confuses human language because of sin. We should never be flippant about sin. Clearly, he hates it. He hates it far more than we do. Why? ‘God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.’ (1 John 1:5)

What is God’s attitude to your sin? He must not leave it unpunished. This is serious. All who continue in sin and refuse to confess it, will be separated from God eternally. There is nothing casual about sinning. Confession means saying ‘I was wrong’. I am responsible. I am sorry LORD.

‘If we confess… = present tense = signalling that it is what we habitually do. We need this mindset of confession to be daily. Daily we confess our pride and jealousy. Daily, we confess sin and flee from it. Notice too that we are to confess our sins: plural!

The LORD wants us to be specific every day when we pray to him. Not ‘LORD sorry for my sins’ (in general). Be specific. LORD I was embarrassed to share my faith at work today – I’m sorry. LORD I was rude to my wife, and short with my children. I am too concerned with my money. LORD I am lukewarm and half-hearted in my love for God.

Amber: are you ready to say the same thing as God about your sin? Are you ready to acknowledge that you are morally responsible to your Creator and Law-giver and that you fall short?

The promise of verse 9 is an amazing promise. But it is a conditional promise. Not everyone is forgiven. Have you gone to God and confessed your sin? If not, then you are still in your sins. Are you ready to swallow your pride today, and confess your sins to God. If you confess…

3. Green – Go! Go to God!
And what happens: Forgiveness and cleansing. ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’ (1 John 1:9)

The promise is for those who confess – they can go, go before God and have their guilt dealt with. Why? Why will God forgive us? ‘… the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.’ (1 John 1:7) Nothing else can remove our stains. It is the blood of Jesus that cleanses.

Sin Sin is like a huge debt which we can never repay – God forgives us – he cancels the debt.

Unrighteousness – forgiveness is like clothing covered in horrible stains – God purifies us – he removes the stains forever. So, when Father looks at us he sees no stains – clean clothing.

All God purifies us from all unrighteousness. All of it. There is no sin Christ’s blood cannot deal with! The hymn puts it this way: ‘My sin — oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! — My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!’

Go to God – he gives us every encouragement: The green light is shining brightly: ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.’ (1 John 1:9)

‘God is faithful’: John did not have to say this! Why does he say it? Friends it’s not too good to be true. When God makes a promise, we can be certain about it. We can have confidence in it. The angel Gabriel reminds us: ‘For no word from God will ever fail’. (Luke 1:37)

‘As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’ (Psalm 103:12) When we come to God and confess our sins – specifically – asking for cleansing, he will do it!

Why? Again, we ask Why? Because God is faithful and God is just. ‘God is just’: the forgiveness of sins is a matter of justice; however, this is not the justice we deserve. Of course, God cannot just ignore our sin. But Christ has already received God’s justice for our sins. Therefore, when we come and confess our sins, God says ‘I would be unjust were I not to forgive you.’

God is light. God doesn’t just ignore our sin. He has to deal with it. We expect criminals to be punished for their crimes. We need to be punished for our sins. How can God let us off and be just? Because he is not letting us off – Jesus has taken our punishment. Our sin has been paid for, and that why God is able to forgive us, and maintain his justice at the same time. ‘For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.’ (Romans 3:22-26)

Red : Stop making excuses. Stop denying sin.
Amber : Get ready to confess your sins. Admit them. Admit them to God.
Green : Go to Jesus and he promises you forgiveness and purity. He never lies. It’s a gift paid by him.
Have you come to God confessing your sin?

Sermon: Sunday, 3rd December, 2023
Speaker: Geoff Murray
Scripture: Colossians 2:11-15

Do you find yourself wondering today what baptism is all about? Have you stopped to think what is happening? Isn’t it strange the minister is randomly going to drop some water on Billy’s head, why? Why is Billy about to be sprinkled with water? Well, it’s not just sentiment though Billy is very cute. It’s not just tradition though churches have practiced it through the ages.

We do it because baptism has been instituted by Jesus for the good of his church as a sign of the realities of new life in Jesus. After his resurrection, in Matthew 28 Jesus said that his church was to be about two things: Making disciples and baptising.

1. The Sacrament of Baptism

Baptism is what is called a sacrament whereby someone is either immersed in water, sprinkled with water or have water poured on them and that is an outward sign given to those to signify their belonging to the visible church, to the people of God. The signs point to many things which we’ll get onto in the next point but it very much is a sign.

Baptism merely points to the greater realities of the Christian life but are not the realities themselves. In short, Billy is going to be baptised shortly, this baptism will not make him a Christian, it will not guarantee he will be a Christian. Nevertheless, his baptism points to the realities of being united to Jesus Christ.

Baptism is also a seal. When we are converted, the Bible says we are ‘sealed by the Holy Spirit’ (see Ephesians 1:13) as a guarantee of our salvation; that is an inward work yet baptism is an outward sign of that inward work. When the Holy Spirit fills us, that is God’s stamp inwardly saying after faith is expressed, ‘I will be true to my word and I will save you.’ Similarly and outwardly, baptism is the outward sign and the pledge of God that when the conditions of the covenant are met, that is faith, that God will be true to his word and he will save.

You may be wondering why Billy is being baptised if he is not converted. We’ll get there.

For now though, we’ll consider the most important part of the sermon ‘The story of baptism’ and if you hear nothing else of this sermon, this is the bit we all need to hear.

2. The Story of Baptism

The story tells of union with Jesus Christ. That when we express faith in Jesus Christ, God isn’t like ‘cool’ and leaves it at that, there’s actually something greater going on there. We are united to Jesus which means that God is committed to us and what is true of him becomes true of us. God pledges himself to us when our faith is in Jesus that he will save us and won’t go back on his word. Particularly it is mirrored in his death, burial and resurrection with our death to self and new life in Jesus Christ.

That, just as Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins our old self will be put to death, just as Jesus was buried in the tomb, our old self will be buried in baptism and just as Jesus rose from the grave we also will rise in newness of life. (see Romans 6:3-6 and Colossians 2:11-15)

In short, the story baptism tells us is that there’s something wrong but it also tells us how it can be fixed. It causes us to reckon with what Paul calls our sinful nature. We see in verse 11, the putting off of our sinful nature displays that there’s a sinful nature there in the first place to be put off.

‘When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ.’ (Colossians 2:13)

We’d all readily look out at the world and see without trouble that something isn’t quite right. War, poverty, greed, depression, death. Something is not quite right. But the Bible doesn’t get us to stop there, the Bible asks us to stop, to reflect, to take stock of our own lives too and realise something isn’t right with us.

Now that might be an unpopular thing to say today, it might offend you, but even those of us who think we’re alright would be forced to admit that we’re not perfect. The times we hold onto bitter grudges. The occasions where we say a cutting word to someone even though we know its going to hurt them. The times we withhold generosity from the needy all the while we live very comfortable lives.

These are just a few examples, but I’m sure you could think of some in your own life where you’ve not lived up to a good standard. For all the good we might do, we also have done wrong. And all the wrong we do can’t be cancelled out no matter how much good we do and your wrongdoing still stands. And all of that is symptomatic of the fact we are ‘dead in sin’ as Paul says here in Colossians.

That basically means that every one of us naturally are shut off to God. Whether that shows itself in hostility and an anti-God mentality or whether it shows itself in the fact we couldn’t care less about God. This is where we all are without Christ, we are dead in sin. And unless we put our trust in Christ that is where we will remain.

But when we put our trust in Christ, that old self is buried and we are raised with Jesus. Just as Jesus died on the cross to pay the charge of sin that stood against us and was buried then rose, so when we put our trust in him for our acceptance with God, we are united to him in his death, the old self dies we are united to him in his burial and we are buried in baptism then just as he was raised from death to life, so are we raised to newness of life.

That’s what baptism is about is the fact that you and I are dead in sin, shut off to God and unless God raises us to new life that’s where we stay. But when God intervenes that we are taken from death to burial to life.

Are you shut off to God? Are you indifferent or apathetic towards him? Are you against him? You remain dead in sin, for all the good you might have done, your record of wrongs still stand and you are under God’s condemnation. No amount of good works can change the fact that you have done wrong, no amount of religiosity can change it, only faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus can change that. Only when we put our faith in Jesus’ death can he cancel your record of wrongs, only Jesus by his resurrection can give you new life.

Where is your faith this morning? Is your faith in yourself? Your wrong still stands against you. Is your faith in your religious practice? No amount of attendance at church, not all the water in the world used in baptism can save you, only through faith in the working of God who sent his son to pay for your sins. Put your faith in Jesus Christ, be united to him and know newness of life.

3. The Subjects of Baptism

Who is to be baptised? It’s clear that those who are believers are to be baptised, nobody disputes that, it makes sense. Those who have faith in Jesus receive that sign which signifies the reality of their new life in Jesus. We see it commanded, ‘Believe and be baptised.’ throughout the New Testament, we see it happening. We see even in the Old Testament, Abraham first of all has faith then is given the sign of circumcision.

It seems like a bigger stretch to say children of believers. I mean they don’t even believe this stuff for themselves so why would we give them the sign. Well there are a number of reasons we do practise this in the Free Church of Scotland and why we are bringing Billy forward to be baptised this morning.

(a) The storyline of the Bible
As I said baptism is a sign pointing to the realities of the good news of Jesus, of our being united to Jesus and our new life in Him. Baptism is in the new testament, but in the old testament, there was another sign, circumcision. That’s what we read Genesis 17. Abraham believes God, he is counted righteous, he is then circumcised. But, it is not him alone as the believer who is to be circumcised, but also his children. And that continued to be the practice throughout the time of the Old Testament that believers and children of believers would receive the sign of the covenant, that is circumcision.

Now, the question is what happens when we cross over into the New Testament. The promise doesn’t change. Paul’s letter to the Galatians says, in short, that the promise made to Abraham is what is found and revealed in Jesus. It is the same promise that was made to Abraham which he trusted God for is what is found in Jesus Christ and what we trust God for. (See Galatians 3:14-29)

Furthermore, the passage we read in Colossians 2:11-12, it makes the connection from circumcision to baptism. That our circumcision, the circumcision of Christ is baptism. So it seems that the New Testament isn’t about scrapping the Old and starting again. No. If anything, we should assume continuity unless told otherwise and we are told otherwise. Our faith in the New covenant is in the same person as in the old covenant. There is great continuity and where there is discontinuity, the new testament makes a big deal of it.

• The inclusion of the Gentiles
If you go throughout the gospels and the new testament letters, we see that much is made of the inclusion of the Gentiles. In the old testament, it was the nation of Israel who were God’s chosen people and not those outside of Israel. Flip over into the New Testament and Gentiles are included, are welcomed, are brought into the people of God, its everywhere.

• The setting aside of the old sacrificial system
Hebrews 10 talks about how Jesus has made the one for all sacrifice of his body on the cross setting aside the need for the old sacrificial system

• The presence of God
God used to dwell in the temple behind the curtain in the holy of holies where nobody could go, but now, the temple curtain is torn in two, the Spirit comes and lives in his people.

These are three huge changes between the Old Testament and New Testament. In every case where there is a change, the New Testament picks up on it, but it doesn’t seem to change when it comes to the role of children in God’s covenant relationship with his people. In fact, to sound pretentious for a moment, the silence is deafening! The fact that given the 2,000 years of history where children of believers were part of God’s blessings and promises and all of a sudden it stops. Wouldn’t there be something to tell us it had stopped?

In the context of the New Testament where it is loud and noisy about everything else that’s different from the Old Testament, if the position of children of believers has changed, why is there absolutely nothing about it? Then you have the fact that if there was a change of position from old covenant to new in regards to children it would go against the grain of every change from old to new.

Every single change or discontinuity from Old to New Covenant means that life for the people is greatly enhanced, not greatly reduced. It would therefore cut against the grain hugely if, in the transition between the old and new covenant, everything was to improve and be enhanced, but that wouldn’t apply to the children of believing parents.

(b) What the New Testament says
And then there is the fact that although the New Testament may be silent on baptising infants, it is not silent on the children of believers.

(See 1 Corinthians 7:14, Ephesians 6:1 and Acts 2:39)

If children of believers are to be viewed as unholy, unconverted, unregenerate people outside of the covenant of grace then they are not holy as in 1 Corinthians 7:14, when they are called to obey their parents the phrase ‘in the Lord’ doesn’t make sense as they aren’t in Christ, and Peter had no reason to mention children in Acts 2. He could have just said ‘for you and for all who are a far off.’ but he specifically mentions children.

Now, in a moment John is going to come and baptise Billy. This won’t make Billy go from spiritual death to spiritual life as if by magic. This won’t guarantee that Billy will be converted one day. In Genesis, Esau wasn’t converted after being given the sign of circumcision. There’s nothing to say Billy will one day be converted.

But we do it because we recognise that throughout biblical history that children of believers are to be recognised as part of the people of God and therefore the sign of the covenant is to be given not just to believers but also to children of believers. And the sign extends to Billy today of what is already a reality, that he is a child of the covenant of grace because of the faith of his parents, with the promise from God that if and when he expresses faith, God will be true to his word and extend the realities of the sign, new life in Jesus Christ to him.

So perhaps you’re sceptical this morning as a believer with children as to whether or not you should have them baptised even though they haven’t yet expressed faith, even though they perhaps can’t express faith yet, but what is clear is that children have been included in the Old Covenant. I think what we’ve looked at is clear that they should be included in the new covenant. Would you prayerfully consider having your children baptised? It is their right being a child of a believer that they too receive the sign of the covenant. Would you extend that to them today?

Sermon: Sunday, 10th September, 2023
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Matthew 18:21-35

Every true Christian church is a family where we should expect to be loved. Remember what Jesus said: ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’ (John 13:35)

But let me make another statement which is also true: every true Christian church is a place where we can expect to be hurt and offended and let down. That doesn’t sound so good. But it is both true and realistic, and it’s important that we think about that, so that when others do let us down, we’re not surprised.

1. Be realistic

Peter understands this. He comes to Jesus with a question (verse 21): ‘Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’

Peter’s question is ‘when’ my brother sins against me and not ‘if’. It is inevitable. When they do sin against me what am I going to do? Will I go in a huff? Will I leave the church? Will I stop speaking to them? Will I give them the cold shoulder?

I suspect he might have been asking out of his own personal experience. Perhaps some of the disciples had offended him and treated him badly. ‘But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.’ (Mark 9:34)

So, how realistic are you in this area? Do you recognise that people in this church will sin against you? And that you will sin against them from time to time. People will hurt our feelings. In the church? Other Christians? Yes.

We live in an age where people are hyper-sensitive as to how they are treated. When wronged by others, many react like hedgehogs and curl up into a ball in a defensive position, refusing to deal properly with the person we feel has wronged us. Others might react like a rhinoceros, charging around, fighting fire with fire, and retaliating against those who have hurt us. Neither reaction is godly. We must understand this basic truth: when we become Christians, yes, God forgives us, but that doesn’t mean that we stop sinning. That only happens when we reach Heaven! We live in a fallen world, and all Christians still struggle with sin. To put it bluntly, if you stay in this church, you will sin against me and I will sin against you. Peter is realistic and we need to be too.

2. The limit of forgiveness

Peter knows he should forgive others. What does he want to know? How many times should he forgive? In other words, is there a limit?

Jewish rabbis said you should not ask for forgiveness more than three times. That was enough. Asking a fourth time is asking for too much. You can’t just keep on doing the same thing can you? Peter is more forgiving than the rabbis. Perhaps Peter expects Jesus to praise him for his generous heart. Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.’ In other words, an unlimited number of times. Just keep on forgiving your brother or sister, without counting, and without stopping. It’s not a matter of arithmetic (counting up) but attitude (being a forgiving person). We don’t think, ‘That’s the eighth rude thing he’s said to me this week.’

If we’re honest, we find it hard to forgive sometimes. So, what should we think about in order to become more forgiving people? Why should we forgive others?

That brings us to the parable. A man owes billions of pounds to the king but claims he can pay it back. He couldn’t even pay back the interest on his debt! Who is the king, and who is the first servant? God is the king, and the servant with the huge debt stands for all Christians.

3. Our forgiveness

Let’s just pause here. What is God telling us through this picture of a servant with a debt so big that he can never possibly pay it back? We are the servant. We are in a similarly desperate situation, in that we owe God a moral debt that we can never hope to pay back. Did you know that? No one likes to be in financial debt – it’s a horrible thing. But there is something far worse and far more serious, and that’s to be in moral debt to God.

Every single day I fail God and let him down. I do not love my neighbour as myself, and I certainly don’t love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. We all offend God with our pride, greed, lust, selfishness and anger. Imagine I sinned just thee times a day. In one year, this would be more than 1000 sins against God. Multiply that by your age and it is an enormous debt.

What does the Bible say about how big our debt to God is?

‘My sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head’ (Psalm 40:12)

‘I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens.’ (Ezra 9:6)

The only hope the first servant has is for the king to show him mercy. God reminds us this morning that we can never pay him for the debt of our sins. Our only hope is his mercy, revealed to us in the cross of Jesus Christ. Our only hope is for Jesus to pay that debt for us.

4. Forgiving others

Let’s move to the heart of Jesus’ parable. ‘But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.’ (Matthew 18:24)

This seems crazy. We get angry as we listen to this part of the story. A servant who’s been forgiven billions, and is owed a few thousand but refuses to cancel the small debt. It seems unbelievable! Surely someone wouldn’t behave like that. Yet, when we refuse to forgive other people that’s exactly what we are behaving like. For we have a huge debt before God, which we can’t pay. If you are a Christian it is because you have been forgiven. So, to refuse to forgive is to contradict the gospel. We are needy sinners and have received forgiveness and that’s why we must forgive. We must forgive a very little as we have been forgiven a great deal.

“When I see myself standing before God and realise what my Lord has done for me, I am ready to forgive anyone anything.” Martin Lloyd Jones

‘Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.’ (Colossians 3:13)

The following questions might be uncomfortable, but it is necessary to reflect on them. Is there someone in your life whom you need to forgive? What is keeping you from forgiving that person? Is there someone in your life that you need to ask for forgiveness? What is keeping you from seeking that person out and confessing to them?

“Unforgiveness is too expensive: The toxins of bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness are too deadly to store in our heart-pantry. May the wonder of our forgiveness be 10,000 times more real than the pain of our heart-wounds.” (Scotty Smith)

“As we respond to God’s way in a daily lifestyle of confession and forgiveness, we begin to experience things we never thought we would see in our relationships. We begin to see bad patterns break, we begin to see one another change, and we begin to see love that had grown cold becomes new and vibrant again. When we experience hard moments and God gives us the grace not to give way to powerful emotions and desires that would take us in the wrong direction, we experience the practical help and rescue his wisdom gives us again and again. All this means that we no longer panic when a wrong happens between us and those with whom or to whom we minister. We no longer take matters into our own hands in the panic of hurt and retribution.” (Paul Tripp)

Let’s go back to where we began. We will fail one another in this church. We will all need to practice forgiveness.

What are we saying if we refuse to forgive others? It’s a serious and solemn mistake to make: ‘Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.’ (Matthew 18 32-35)

In other words, if we refuse to forgive others, we need to ask ourselves the question: have I really been saved myself? Have I truly been forgiven by God?

More positively, one of the evidences that we are a child of God is that we do forgive others. And if we struggle to forgive others, we need to come back to this parable again and again, and remind ourselves of the enormous debt God has forgiven us. Will you do that?

Sermon: Sunday, 27th August, 2023
Speaker: Geoff Murray
Scripture: Psalm 121

Who do you ask for help? Your parents? Your friends? Someone in church? Google? This psalm tells us in verse 2, ‘My help comes from the Lord.’ He is the source of help, the Lord. As the psalmist makes his way to Jerusalem, he looks up to the hills where Jerusalem is and where the temple in the Old Testament was and he reminds himself that his help is in the Lord.

What can we say about the Lord’s help? Well, it says six times in this psalm that the Lord will keep us or he is our keeper. We need to know what to do with that though. If we read that literally to mean physical protection, we will be hardened against God and we will treat him like a liar. Hard things happen in life and God doesn’t stop the gunman from pulling the trigger, or the deadly illnesses from coming and taking us, or the relationship from breaking down. ‘What’s the script, God? I thought you would protect me!’

Jesus prayed this psalm, Jesus sang this psalm. How was he able to say these verses in Psalm 121 when he knew about his own sufferings, when he saw the sufferings of those around him, when he told his followers they would suffer?

• ‘Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.’ (Matthew 10:28) How can he promise this unless God keeps a soul?
• ‘Pray that your faith may not fail.’ (Luke 22:31-32)
• ‘… unspoiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you.’ (1 Peter 1:3-4)

You may feel weak, needy, helpless because of your sin, you may fear your faith will fail but God will keep you close. How will he keep us close?

1. The Lord’s keeping is constant

‘He will not let your foot slip – he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.’ (Psalm 121:3-4)

We’ll come back to the first line in verse three but we see that ‘he who keeps you will not slumber, he who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.’

He’s like a coach keeping an eye on the training session ensuring that everything is going as it should be.
He’s like a gardener keeping close watch over their garden to ensure that their plants/fruit/veg has the perfect growing conditions and is growing as it should.
He’s like a parent watching over their newborn baby with care and caution and delight.

The only difference, of course, is that God doesn’t take his eyes off the ball. The coach’s mind might drift and wander to other things. The gardener has to step away and do other things in their life. The parent has to sleep.

But not God. God doesn’t have to sleep, his mind never wanders. God has got his eye on you and on this world and he never, for a second, takes his eyes off you. This psalm says, ‘God’s got you!’

You may feel weary and broken, you may feel depressed and depleted, you may feel like you’re at the end of the rope and think, ‘Where is God?”. God is in control and he has his eye on you. He keeps you when the unwanted health diagnosis comes in, when you live through the darkness of depression, when your relationship breaks down.

What else is constant about his care? ‘The sun shall not strike you by day or the moon by night.’ (Psalm 121:6) There is this recognition that the sun could be shining, the moon might be glowing, at any and all times of the day God will keep you. You could be going to sleep, you could be in the midst of sleep, God doesn’t stop watching over you then. Isn’t it amazing that when we sleep God is still keeping his watchful eye on you? Isn’t it amazing that when we rest, God is at work? Even when you’re asleep he takes care of you.

Lastly on this point, when will God stop being watchful? Being caring? Keeping you? Never. ‘The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.’ (Psalm 121:8) Not from this time on as long as I can be bothered. Not from this time on until I lose my patience with you. Not from this time until I find someone better, more important, more intelligent, more likeable, more holy. No, if you are a Christian this morning, God is never going to stop keeping his eye on you. You might doubt his patience to bear with you, he will bear with you. You might doubt whether he really cares enough to stick around, he cares enough to stick around! And that promise does not have an expiration date on it.

As you parent, as you work, as you serve your neighbours, as you go about the smallst and most mundane tasks in life God has his watchful, caring, keeping eye on you.

Where does your help come from? At all times, in every season, in every circumstance, the Lord! Look to him for your help. The Lord keeps you. He doesn’t have limits. He doesn’t take his eye off the ball, he doesn’t slumber or sleep. It may be night time, it may be day time. It may be today, it may be 20 years from now, he will keep you. How can you carry on as a Christian today? Because the Lord keeps you.

2. The Lord’s keeping is comforting

Whenever we do something for the first time, we maybe unsure of ourselves and so we try to get reassurances from a book or a video on YouTube or a friend we know to make sure we’re doing the right thing and we’re on the right path. We need similar assurances as Christians. Not necessarily that we are doing the right thing, though God’s word reminds us how we ought to live, but rather that God isn’t going to drop us, that God isn’t going to give up on us.

We’ve all at times wondered if the promises of God are for us. Is there really no condemnation for me? Is God really patient towards me? Do I really have peace with God? And the underlying thought is. ‘Have I undone it all?’

There are promises in this psalm which tell us that if we are his people he will keep us. Verse three tell us He he will not let your foot be moved. On a dangerous road like the psalmist was likely to have been walking towards Jerusalem, the city of God, a wrong step could be fatal, God promises not to let the foot of his people to be moved.

Maybe you’ve been hill walking and the path is really narrow and you need to be careful otherwise you could fall. It was like this for the psalmist as he walked this road, it’s like that in a spiritual sense for us today. One wrong footing and we can begin walking away from God. We have the outside danger of the Devil who Peter tells us ‘… prowls around like a lion seeking someone to devour.’ (1 Peter 5:8) We have the world trying to tempt us with so many things that would lead us away from God, we have ourselves as we often are aware of our sin which can easily develop into patterns of behaviour and habits if unchecked.

There are so many dangers in the Christian life. We are, as the hymn says we are ‘prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love’. It isn’t plain sailing, a piece of cake, it isn’t easy. But, friends, there is one with his watchful eye on us, who is making sure our foot will not be moved, that it will not slip. You might feel your weakness and vulnerability spiritually speaking, yet the God of all the universe keeps his eye on you.

There is another image used. Instead of feet slipping, it’s sun melting! ‘The sun shall not strike you by day. Nor the moon by night.’ (Psalm 121:6)

It’s not immediately clear what the reference is to the moon, but what is clear is the reference to the sun. We need umbrellas in this country for the rain but in hotter climates, its not uncommon for an umbrella to be used in the sun. Why? To protect them from the sun.

As they pass uncertain paths they knew he would be with them. As they travelled down the Jordan Valley southwards and then turned west to ascend the steep roadway to Jerusalem, the sun would be on their left side. The Lord then was likened to the shade on their right hand where comfort and protection was felt. The psalmist making this pilgrimage to Jerusalem would have been exposed to extreme heat from the sun without much cover. God says in verse 5 that he will provide shade! ‘As the sun is melting away, I will be your shade, I will be your protection.’

Again, this idea that the walk, the pilgrimage was dangerous. Not just in terms of feet slipping, but in terms of the sun being so strong. As the devil fires his attacks at you, the Lord is the one protecting you, being a shield about you, being a shelter, being a refuge, being kept safe in him. It’s not that we won’t be attacked spiritually by Satan, we will, but we will be protected from the full extent of it. If he didn’t, we would fall away.

Be reassured, if you love Jesus, though you are weak, though you battle against sin, the Lord is your keeper. He keeps your feet from falling, he is your shade protecting you, he is your keeper.

3. The Lord’s keeping is a journey

The psalmist is making that journey towards the city of Jerusalem, where the temple of God was, on his way to worship. Why does he lift his eyes to the hills looking to Jerusalem – to God’s city where the temple was. That is his direction of travel, thats where he is journeying to, that’s where he is aiming for. Jerusalem was the hub of spiritual life for the people of God. It’s where the temple was, it’s where God lived by his Spirit in the temple.

As Christians, we ultimately travel, not towards modern-day Jerusalem but towards the New Jerusalem. And the best part about the New Jerusalem is that God is there! (See Revelation 21:9-27)

But for now we travel. For Christians, that is our direction of travel. We’re on a journey aiming for that heavenly city, that New Jerusalem. In short, towards God. Where is your direction of travel? Are you travelling towards God or away from him?

If you’re travelling away from him, you ultimately travel alone, God is not there. You have no keeper. You have no helper. You are like a sailor without a navigation system, a mountaineer with no map and your end destination is not the New Jerusalem where peace will reign, but a place where there will be a marked absence of peace. There will be an absence of light, there will be an absence of hope.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. In this world you will have trouble, but you don’t need to walk it alone, the Lord is here right now saying to you, ‘Journey towards me, journey towards the New Jerusalem. The way is hard, narrow, dangerous, but I will be with you. I will be your keeper.’

Why don’t you begin your journey towards God today? Ask him to forgive your sins because of what Jesus has done and live your life for him. Know the care and keeping of God today and forever! Put your trust in him. Say with the Psalmist, “My help comes from the Lord!’

What about if you are a Christian today and you are journeying towards God, what does it have to say to you? It says that we can trust God with our lives. As we face the hard things in life let’s remember, God is the creator of the world, nothing is too hard for him, he can keep you even when you face the hardships of life. He never takes his eye off the ball for a second but has his eye on you the whole time, and his heart towards you is good – overflowing with grace and mercy to keep you. Your life may be hard, it may be very hard, but God promises to those whose faith is in him, he will keep you. There won’t be a single circumstance, season, time, or day where God will not be keeping his eye on you. Do not give in to self-reliance, you are awake only so many hours of the day, you’re capable of making mistakes, getting it wrong, but not God.

As you fight your sin, he is your keeper, as you feel discouraged, he is your keeper, as you go to work, he is your keeper, as you parent, he is your keeper. As you go through ordinary life you will experience hard times spiritually, but when our trust is not in ourself but is in God he promises you, reassures you, he is your keeper, he is your help and he always will be. You may be weak, but he is strong, you may take your eye off the ball but God never does.

Sermon: Sunday, 25th June, 2023
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-21

One of the privileges we have as a church family is that we can pray for one another. A useful tool for encouraging us to do this has been the church directory. We can work our way through the list of names and make sure we pray for everyone on a regular basis. Three times we have used our church facebook group to help us to do this in a disciplined way. Perhaps it is time to do it again. But when we pray for each other, what should we pray for? There might be specific needs or problems that we know about and it’s good to pray about those. I think it’s fair to say that most of our prayers for ourselves and for others are focused on external circumstances – for good health, success at work, that our children would excel at school, for safety in travel and for personal happiness. Should we pray for such things? Yes, we should. Jesus teaches us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer and says that we should pray for our ‘daily bread’- our everyday needs. However, this ought not to be the focus of our prayers. It’s not the focus of the Lord’s Prayer. And so, it is good for us to return again and again to Paul’s prayer with the simple question – what does Paul pray for, and what can I learn from his prayers? That’s what we are going to do this morning. We will remind ourselves what kind of things we ought to pray for.

1. Paul prays for power

When he prays for others, he asks (verse 16) that the Father would strengthen the Ephesian Christians with ‘power through his Spirit in your inner being’. Do you pray that others in the church family might know God’s power? We should. Again and again, we find Paul making this request in his letters.

What kind of power is Paul praying for? Is it power to perform miracles? Is it power to become healthy and wealthy? No. He prays for God’s mighty power to be at work so that Christ might dwell in our hearts through faith. But that leads us to another question – is it not true that all Christians already have Christ dwelling in us? Yes, that is perfectly true. ‘And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.’ (Romans 8:9) So, what does this mean? It means that we are not praying for something new, but to experience more and more of Jesus in our lives. To experience more of his influence. We’re praying for a closer walk with Jesus.

The key word here is ‘dwell’ and this is a strong word. This word ‘dwell’ is not something temporary, like staying in a hotel or an air B&B for a few nights. This word means to take up permanent residence.

I think the best picture to help us understand this is to think of a young married couple buying run down, badly decorated home, which is barely fit to live in. The roof leaks and the garden is wild and there’s so much needing to be done it is overwhelming. However, bit by bit, over time, one room at a time, the house begins to take shape and the house slowly becomes a home. That’s a bit like what happens to us when we become a Christian. Jesus moves into our dilapidated hearts, and begins a renovation project which will last the whole of our lives. So, we pray, ‘Lord, I know these attitudes in my heart are wrong – please help me to get rid of them. Please replace the hatred with love. Please replace the selfishness with kindness. Please replace the outbursts of anger with self-control.’ And Jesus, the great builder and interior designer, works in our hearts, making us more like him.

Why do I need you to pray that I would have power? Because I am weak. Why do I need to pray for the Spirit to empower you? Because you are weak too. The truth is, we desperately need the power of Christ in order to cope with the everyday things of life. We need Jesus’ power to resist all the temptations which will come our way. If you depend on your own strength, it will be a disaster. We need Jesus’ power to help us raise our families. We need Jesus’ power to help us go to our work and to do our work for his glory, and so that we can share with those in need.

The Christian life is not an easy life. In fact, it’s a constant battle between living selfishly and living for God. ‘For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.’ (Romans 7:22-3) As we pray for one another, ask God to strengthen others with his power.

Here’s a challenge for us: is there a particular room in your house that you don’t want Jesus to touch? It might be at work – you are being a bit ruthless in your behaviour and pride yourself in that and don’t really want to change. Or perhaps there’s a room with a sinful habit you have, and you don’t want to give it up. Or perhaps it is your viewing habits. We need to ask Jesus to come into all of the rooms, and change all of them.

2. Paul prays for the perception of God’s love

Paul wants us to grasp the dimensions of God’s love for us. Often, I will pray that God will help me to love him more, and that is a good prayer. But here, Paul is asking that we would grasp the enormity of God’s love for us. It’s a love which doesn’t just have three dimensions but four: ‘And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.’ (Ephesians 3:17-18)

Notice that in verse 17 Paul says that Christians already know something of God’s great love for us. He says we are ‘rooted and grounded’ in that love. It is when we remember Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross in our place that we become most aware of that love. However, here’s the truth of the matter, I still don’t have an adequate appreciation of how much God loves me, and neither do you. And that’s exactly why we need to pray for the supernatural power of God to help us to grasp and lay hold of and rely on God’s love more.

My wife loves to swim in the sea and in lochs. I’m not so confident and so tend to just paddle around the edges. And I miss out. When it comes to God’s love, do you want to just paddle around the edges of it, only thinking about it a wee bit? Or do you want to swim in that love, making it your key thought every single day?

Human love can be a fragile thing. Sometimes people can even say the words to us, ‘I just don’t love you any more’. But God will never say that to his children. When did God’s love for us begin?

‘For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.’ (Ephesians 1:4)

‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Romans 8:38-39)

‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.’ (Jeremiah 31:3)

‘The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’ (Galatians 2:20)

Paul also wants us to know that experiencing the love of God is not something which we just do in private. Verses 17 -18; ‘And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…’

“It takes the whole people of God to understand the whole love of God.” (John Stott)

What does this mean? Well, we gather each Sunday to worship Jesus together, and there’s something powerful in that togetherness. We have fellowship together, sharing how God has been helping us and strengthening us, and as we hear about that, we too are strengthened. We need each other in order to grasp God’s love!

Verse 19: To be ‘filled to the measure of all the fullness of God’ means to become a mature Christian. Don’t we all want to become mature Christians? What’s the secret? The secret is to understand just how much God really loves us! It’s God’s love which energises us as Christians.

‘For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.’ (2 Corinthians 5:14) If you are compelled to live for God out of guilt, that will never bring fruitful results. If you are compelled by self-righteousness, convincing yourself that you are a good person, that won’t work either. Lasting fruit will only come from our lives if we are compelled by the love of Christ.

Let’s think of God’s love as rich, fertile soil, in which we will grow. That’s actually what Paul is saying to us here. He says (verse 17) that we are ‘rooted’ in this love. In other words, the love God has for us contains all the nutrients and goodness we need in order to flourish spiritually. Again, all the more reason why we need to grasp this love more than we do.

Let’s also think of God’s love as the foundation of our lives. Paul uses this image too in this passage. He says (verse 17) that we are ‘established’ or ‘grounded’ in God’s love for us. We all know what happens to buildings with weak foundations. When the storms come, they are liable to collapse. The same is true of us. When the storms of life come our way, the disappointments in relationships, the difficulties at work and with health, the persecution, the financial troubles, if we don’t have Jesus as our foundation we will collapse under the weight of these things. But if Christ’s love for us is our foundation, we will be able to withstand the storms, in his strength.

Friends, let’s keep on praying for one another as much as we can. And when we do so, add these specific requests to our prayers, that we would know God’s power at work within us, and that we might have the life-changing ability to better appreciate God’s love for us. This is the kind of soil that we need in our lives, so let’s ask for it.

Let’s end our time in this passage marvelling at the dimensions of God’s love. It is so broad that it encompasses men and women, rich and poor, and all the nationalities of the world. It is so long that it is a love which predates the existence of the earth, and will go on, unbroken, into eternity. It is so high, that it will take us up to Heaven one day. And it is so deep that Jesus was willing to stoop down and come into this earth to save the worst of sinners like us.

Sermon: Sunday, 18th June, 2023
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Exodus 14

This is one of the most dramatic and famous historical accounts in the Bible. Imagine being an Israelite family on that day. You’ve been slaves for the whole of your lives. It has been a living nightmare – you’ve been worked to the bone by a ruthless superpower who have been committing genocide against your people, drowning Israelite baby boys in the river Nile. Making bricks without straw in a country which despised you and who worshipped false gods. It’s been that way for hundreds of years. But in recent days, God has raised up a leader called Moses and performed supernatural acts of judgment against your Egyptian oppressors, bringing them to their knees through ten plagues. The last of the plagues resulted in the eldest male in every Egyptian household being killed. However, your house was safe, as the doorway was covered in the sacrificial blood of a lamb, just as the LORD has instructed. The only safe place was to be inside a home marked by this sacrificial blood. To your astonishment, the Egyptian rulers finally agree to let you go. Moses assures you that God will direct us to a country of our own. It’s been such an overwhelming time. Could it really be true? You’ve never felt this way before – brimming with excitement and best of all – free. God has brought you to Pi Hahiroth, with the sea in front and the desert behind. You head to sleep to dream of what our own country will be like.

However, the next day, after such an emotional high, your hopes come crashing down. Ominous sounds are heard and they’re getting closer and closer. That nauseous feeling returns to your stomach as you realise the Egyptian army is approaching. A country of our own? It was too good to be true. You’re trapped! The sea is ahead of you and our old enemies are behind you. It seems like you are going to be slaughtered. Your best hope is to be taken back to Egypt. There is no way of escape. That’s what’s happening here in Exodus 14. Pharaoh has changed his mind. In stubborn foolishness, he regrets letting his slave labour force go and pursues them with hundreds of chariots. Each one probably carried both an archer and a swordsman. These chariots were the weapons of mass destruction of the day – terrifying.

But what has this ancient battle got to do with us here in Kirkcaldy this morning? Before looking at some of the details, let’s just take a step back and try to see the big picture. This event teaching us of what it means to become a true Christian. The Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt is a crucial visual aid for us, teaching us what we must experience in our own hearts, if we ever want to make it to the promised land of Heaven.

In what ways are we like these Israelites? What is this visual aid teaching us? Where are we in the story? We’re like the Israelites because we too were slaves and under the power of an evil and merciless ruler. The Bible tells us that before we become Christians, we are slaves to sin. Jesus said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.’ (John 8:34) If you’re not a Christian yet, you might well find that offensive. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Just as the Israelites were in Pharaoh’s iron grip, so we were in the grip of Satan. We lived to just please ourselves and with barely any thought of pleasing God. Doing what you want might seem like freedom, but it’s actually spiritual slavery, because God has made us and designed us as human beings to live in a relationship with him, following his ways and not our own. That’s how true freedom is found, through a living relationship with God.

Just as drug addicts are addicted to their drugs, or alcoholics to the bottle, so all human beings without Jesus, are addicted to living selfish lives, breaking God’s rules on a daily basis and failing to love God. Before we become Jesus’ followers we are slaves to sin. When we put our trust in Jesus and his death on the cross, we are set free. The Bible says, ‘But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.’ (Romans 6:17-18)

There’s another way we’re like the Israelites here. They were completely trapped with no way of escape. They could not save themselves. They were helpless. The sea was in front of them and the enemy soldiers behind them. Left to themselves, they were doomed. They needed God to rescue them, to save them. In the Bible, that’s exactly how God describes the situation of all human beings. We are slaves to sin, but we have no way of setting ourselves free. We have no way of escape. Left to ourselves, we will eventually die, and then have to appear before God and give an account for our lives. ‘And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…’ (Hebrews 9:27) If you’re not yet a Christian here this morning, this is a visual aid just for you. You cannot rescue yourself spiritually any more than the Israelites could set themselves free. Your only hope is for God to open up a way of escape.

That brings us to the most beautiful part of the visual aid. When there was no way of escape, God made a way. He supernaturally sent a wind to gather up the waters of the Red Sea. He opens up a way for us to leave slavery behind once and for all, and to head towards the Promised Land. He deals with our enemies in a decisive blow, destroying them with his power. When there was no way, God makes a way, and leads his people to safety. This is the God who saves – the God of salvation. In the wonderful song of Moses in the next chapter we read: ‘The Lord is my strength and my defence; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea.’ Exodus 15:1-4) This is what lies at the heart of the Exodus. The LORD has become our salvation.

In this way, the Exodus story points us straight to Jesus dying on the cross. Because that’s when God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross that he opened up a way of escape for us. Before, there was no way for us to be forgiven by God and to enter Heaven when we die. We had no way of getting to Heaven, because we are just too dirty and sinful, and our huge debt of sin disqualifies us. But when we trust in Jesus, he pays off our spiritual debts completely, setting us free, and leading us to the Promised Land of Heaven. When there was no way of escaping God’s just judgment on our sins, God himself opened up a way, by coming to die for us. The cross is the real Exodus. Jesus death and resurrection is the definitive way God opened up a pathway back to himself.

How do we know this is true? How do we know this opening of the Red Sea is a picture pointing forward to a greater salvation to come when Jesus would die and rise again? In Luke’s Gospel, there’s the wonderful account of Jesus’ transfiguration. This is when Jesus was soon to die on the cross. But for a short time, his inner glory comes bursting out, and his face shines like the sun. Moses and Elijah appear from Heaven to talk with Jesus. And what are they talking about? ‘They spoke about his exodus, which he was about to bring to fulfilment at Jerusalem.’ (Luke 9:31) Jesus’ death was the real Exodus. The opening up of the Red Sea was just a ‘trailer’ about God saving his people, to whet our appetites. The main saving event in all of history was Jesus’ death.

What, then, does God want from us this morning? He wants us to stop relying on ourselves, and trust completely in him for forgiveness and salvation. In a word, he wants our faith. He wants us to believe that only he can open up a way to Heaven. Let’s think back to the Israelites on that day. In order to be saved, they would have had to step onto the seabed, in faith, believing that the Lord would keep holding back the waters on either side of them. Imagine taking that first step. Maybe your faith is weak, but you trust that God has done this, and you begin to walk across the sea. It’s God who has saved you. It is 100% God. He has opened up the path, and he just wants you to walk through.

What does God want from you this morning? He wants your faith. He wants you to trust that Jesus is the only hope you have for your sins to be taken away and blotted out. ‘By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.’ (Hebrews 11:9) God doesn’t have a sea he wants you to pass through. But he still wants your faith, your belief in his way to be saved. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16)

The Israelites had to put their trust in God that day. The question is, will you do the same? Will you say in your heart right now, ‘Yes I know I don’t deserve to go to Heaven, but Jesus died on the cross in my place, and that’s the path I’m stepping out onto.’ If you do that, you will be set free. Believe today that only God can rescue you, and trust the way of escape he has made for us.

What else can we learn form this passage? There are three short lessons.

1. We see how hard the human heart is even in the face of evidence.

Here, we are thinking of Pharaoh in particular. He’s not just seen one outstanding miracle from God but ten. Time and time again, God revealed his power and authority to Pharaoh. God is the true King. And how does Pharaoh respond? He keeps on rebelling. He has all the evidence, but persists in rebelling against God. It seemed like the Israelites were the slaves and Pharaoh was free, but actually it was the other way round; Pharaoh’s heart is a slave to rebellion and sin against the true God. Many people are like that today. They have evidence of Jesus’ life, miracles, death and the greatest sign of all – his resurrection from death. Yet, it makes no difference. ‘The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.’ (1 Corinthians 2:14) Were it not for God’s Spirit, we’d be just like Pharaoh. We’d see the evidence of his power, and continue rebelling. How hard the human heart is. We cannot save ourselves.

2. We see how Christians, at times, can wish they weren’t Christians any more.

Perhaps that sounds a shocking thing to say. God had shown his faithfulness to Israel by bringing them of Egypt with signs and wonders and by protecting them from the angel of death. God redeemed them, with lambs dying instead of them, so the angel of death would pass over their homes. But now there’s a new challenge, and it’s like they have spiritual amnesia. It’s as if they think, ‘God can’t handle this situation’. We’re trapped. How do they respond to this new threat? ‘They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!’ (Exodus 14:11-12) They respond with biting sarcasm, fear, and unbelief. They turn on Moses and do not trust in the Lord. They wish they were slaves once again in Egypt.

Yet, we all can be like that. God has brought situations into my life and I’ve doubted whether God can handle this new situation, even though he’s been faithful to me for my entire life. I might even think, it’d be easier if I wasn’t a Christian and then I could have an easy life, blend in, and not have to tell people about all this serious stuff of sin and salvation. Then I wouldn’t have to come to church and be committed with my time and money and resources. I could just chill out and enjoy life. I could indulge my pet sins. For a time, our old lives seem preferable. Israel’s desire to go back to Egypt is something we might face too. We need to pray that God would keep us in a place of faith, rather than a place of fear. God’s grace here is also astounding. Even when his people wobble so much, he remains faithful to us.

3. We see how God brings us to a place of weakness so that we fully rely on him.

‘Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon.’ (Exodus 14:1-2) Notice that it is God who deliberately leads the Israelites to a place where they are hemmed in by the sea and the desert, knowing full well that the Egyptians will trap them on the other side. Why does God do this? Because it’s when we understand our own helplessness that we begin to trust in God and his salvation, and he alone gets the credit and the glory he deserves.

Impossible situations in our lives are occasions for God to show his grace and love and power in our lives. We think we can’t go on, but he provides for us. This is exactly what Paul speaks about in his second letter to the Corinthians. ‘We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.’ (2 Corinthians 1:8-9) Are there situations in your life just now which seem to be hopeless? Are you beyond your own resources? Don’t be surprised if God breaks in and reveals his glory in that situation, perhaps not right now, but in the future. God specialises in bringing us to a place where we have to rely on him. When things seem impossible and beyond us, keep on trusting. Remember what Jesus said to Jairus when his daughter had already died. Could Jesus handle this impossible situation? He says to Jairus: ‘Keep on believing.’

As a church, we must not rely on ourselves. That’s why the prayer meeting is so important. And if we lack Sunday School teachers, crèche helpers, finance, conversions, and face all kinds of pressures from the apathetic world we live in, we must fully rely on God’s power. We want to see a church planted in Leven, but we want God to get all the glory, and that will only happen if we rely on him at each step. And in our lives at home and in work, take your impossible situations and bring them to God in prayer, knowing that he loves to display his glory in our lives. ‘The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.’ (Exodus 14:18)

We don’t face troubles on our own. ‘The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.’ (Exodus 14:14)

Sermon: Sunday, 4th June, 2023
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Psalm 130

The Christian life is not an easy one. I hope our church is never a place where we all pretend to be fine when we are not. Everyone in our church has significant areas of brokenness and difficulty. Of course, there are times of great joy in the life of faith, but there are also times when we feel overwhelmed, like we cannot go on. It is during such dark times that I am so thankful to the Lord for Psalms like Psalm 130. Here, we understand that most Christians go through such dark times; we are not alone. But it also provides us with first-hand experience about how we can find the light again, and that is so important.

In verse 1, the Psalmist is crying from ‘the depths’. He feels like a drowning man, plunging hopelessly into the ocean. Have you been there recently? Perhaps you have. If not, you probably will be before too long. It’s a miserable place, where we wonder if God will even hear our prayers. We feel hopeless. We feel as if there is no way out.

1. Conviction

Why is the Psalmist in such a place of spiritual darkness? Is it because of the death of a loved one? Is it because of long-term sickness? No. We see from verse 3 that the Psalmist has begun to see the blackness of his own heart, and to see how offensive his thoughts and actions must be to God. We call this conviction of sin. And so the steep-sided pit which the writer is in is a pit of shame and guilt and sorrow. We aren’t told what the specific sins are. But I’m sure most of us can relate to this experience, when we realise how disgusting and shameful our thoughts and behaviours really are in God’s eyes. This is one of the seven penitential Psalms, where we find someone not just feeling sorrow for themselves because they have God into a moral mess in their lives, but more than that, they have deep sorrow because they know their indefensible behaviour is ugly in the sight of God, and deserves to be punished.

Again, please notice that this is the experience of a believer, a Christian. It reminds me of the words Jonah expresses, having rebelled against the clear instructions of God, and having been cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish. He says: ‘The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you, Lord my God, brought my life up from the pit. When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.’   (Jonah 2:5-7.

What about our own lives? Could it be that we don’t go into ‘the depths’ as much as we ought to? That might sound controversial. But it might be that we’ve become so desensitised to the sin in our own hearts, and that we’ve lost sight of the holiness of God, whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity, and so we are ignorant of our own sinfulness. Experiencing such spiritual sorrow can be a good thing, if it leads us to repentance and faith.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.’   (Matthew 5:4)

‘Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.’   (2 Corinthians 7:10)

We need to slow down in life, and give ourselves time alone with God, and think through the sins in our lives. Then we might taste something of this sorrow for sin.

2. Confession

When we go through the dark depths of conviction of sin, we need to follow the Psalmist’s example here, and confess our sin to God. I love the fact that in verse 2 he cries out to God for mercy. Please don’t overlook this – it’s very important. This cry for mercy informs us that he knows he does not deserve God’s forgiveness. He knows he cannot earn God’s forgiveness. All he can do is cast himself on the character and promises of God.

It has been said that ‘God is always the most offended party when we sin’ and that is true. Even if we lie to someone else, ultimately it is the law of God we are breaking: do not bear false testimony. Then in verse 3, we have the powerful image of God keeping a record of all our wrongdoings in a book. It would need to be a very thick book, with many pages. It would be a thick book for all of us here. The Psalmist acknowledges that if God gave us what we deserve, if he gave us strict justice, then we would be done for. We would have no hope: ‘If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?’   (Psalm 130:3)

Then we come to some of the most wonderful truths in all of the Bible: ‘But with you there is forgiveness’.   (Psalm 130:4) This is what we celebrate as Christians. We must never take this truth for granted. Some people have a really casual attitude to their sin, and to forgiveness. They think: ‘Of course God will forgive me, that’s his job’. That’s what God does, isn’t it? Well, in a sense, but he only forgives those who earnestly turn from their sins, and throw themselves on the mercy of God, trusting in Jesus for their salvation. It took the death of Jesus on the cross to make the forgiveness of sins possible, so it is something we should never take lightly or trivialise.

“Free, full and sovereign pardon is in the hand of the great King. It is his right to give it, and he delights to exercise it.” (C H Spurgeon)

‘The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him…’   (Daniel 9:9)

How did the Psalmist know that there is forgiveness with God? I think the main teaching on it stemmed from the sacrifices offered at the temple. There was always the idea that through the shedding of blood, through the death of a substitute, there could be forgiveness. This underlined just how costly God’s forgiveness really is. At the end of the day, all sin must be paid for and accounted for.

We read in Leviticus: ‘He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull’s blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it. In this way he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been…’   (Leviticus 16:15)

If you have been in the depths, and you lay hold of God’s forgiveness, it is the sweetest experience. Martin Luther once had a dream where Satan brought a scroll full of Luther’s sins. Luther said: ‘Is that all you have’? And Satan then brought two more scrolls, full of Luther’s sins. Luther said to Satan: ‘Write across each scroll, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin’.

Sometimes, when we wrong other people, they never forgive us and never forget what we have done, even when we sincerely repent and ask for forgiveness. Not so with God who says: