Text of the Week: Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. Luke 6:12

Welcome to our services today and a special welcome to any who are worshipping with us for the first time. It’s a book to change people’s lives. That’s maybe why it was kept under lock and key. But once it got out there was no stopping it. In our service today we have three stories to tell. And we’ll finish with a story we’re part of that’s still going on. What we do when we leave this coming week will alter the course of that story.  The first story is the story of a man of great courage who determined to get the Bible into the hands of ordinary people. The second story is the story of the first part of the Bible, the Old Testament. The third story is the story of the second part of the Bible, the New Testament. Taken together that’s nothing less than the story of salvation not just for all humanity but for each one of us here today. And we are part of the story. As we take break that is broken and drink of the cup that we share we become part of the story. And the next part of the story is down to each one of us as we go from here into the week that lies ahead. Will that love of God whose story is told in the Bible reach out through us and touch other people’s lives in such a way as to change them this week? What a story we have to tell

Text of the Week: At that time Jesus went up a

hill to pray and spent the whole night there

praying to God. Luke 6:12

Welcome to our services today and a special welcome to any

who are worshipping with us for the first time. It’s a book to

change people’s lives. That’s maybe why it was kept under lock

and key. But once it got out there was no stopping it. In our

service today we have three stories to tell. And we’ll finish with

a story we’re part of that’s still going on. What we do when we

leave this coming week will alter the course of that story.

The first story is the story of a man of great courage who

determined to get the Bible into the hands of ordinary people.

The second story is the story of the first part of the Bible, the

Old Testament. The third story is the story of the second part

of the Bible, the New Testament. Taken together that’s nothing

less than the story of salvation not just for all humanity but for

each one of us here today. And we are part of the story.

As we take bread that is broken and drink of the cup that we

share we become part of the story. And the next part of the

story is down to each one of us as we go from here into the

week that lies ahead. Will that love of God whose story is told

in the Bible reach out through us and touch other people’s lives

in such a way as to change them this week? What a story we

have to tell

Morning Worship

Welcome and Call to Worship

24 O Worship the King

Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer

A Man of Courage

William Tyndale’s story

Reading: Acts 12:1-5

A Hy-Spirit Song

Welcome and Call to Worship

24 O Worship the King

Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer

A Man of Courage

The William Tyndale Story

Reading: Acts 12:1-5

A Hy-Spirit Song

Activities for all over 3

Introduction to sermon

I love heroic stories of faith. What an inspiration they are. William Tyndale standing his ground to put a copy of the Bible into the hands of the ploughboy so he could read the Bible for himself. This term’s value at St John’s school I courage – so in my two assemblies I told the story of Peter being imprisoned and refusing to be silenced – and linked it with Martin Luther King. I told more of the story of Peter and Herod Agrippa’s determination to execute him on the anniversary of the crucifixion of Jesus and the way the church was praying for his release and he was released. I coupled it with the story of Irina Ratushinskaya, Christian Poet who stood her ground for freedom in the Soviet Union and spent most of the 80’s in prison – someone we had been praying for in the 80’s – and then on her release wrote her story, came to the Literature festival I bought her book, queued up for it to be signed, said haltingly we were praying for you and she added to her greeting the pharse it works. I think of the Egyptian minister married to someone born and registered a Muslim who has become a  Chrsitian who is in Jordan facing horrendous repercussions and the request we p-ray for them.

I love heroic stories of faith. What an inspiration they are! Or are they? I was once taken to task for telling yet more such illustrations. They don’t inspire me at all, I was told. They make me feel only too aware of my own weakness, my own frailty my own failings. Far from being an inspiration they make me feel quite down.

That’s to my mind what makes the Bible such an inspiration. Even those you might think of as the heroes of the Bible make a mess of things.

I think of Genesis 1-11 as a a great magisterial prologue to the Bible – all its great themes are there. After the poetry of chapter one and the wonder and awe of God’s creation come a sequence of larger than life stories set at the beginning of time but all about the here and now in every generation, our own included. It’s all about the mess people get into in their lives – the mess individuals get into when they do the wrong thing – that’s the Adam and Eve story; the mess famiilies get into when they fall out – that’s the Cain and Abel story.  The mess the world gets into when nations turn to violence – that’s the story of the flood and Noah’s Ark. The mess the world gets into when people abuse power and seek to become like god – that’s the Tower of Babel Story.

The wonderful thing in each of those stories is that God comes in and gives those people each in turn a second chance. It’s as if the message is that no situation is so bad that God cannot bring something good out of it.

The prologue over then comes a story that begins at Genesis 12 and goes on through the rest of the Bible. You can think of it as a story told in two parts, with a sequel. And the story has a theme. It’s the story of salvation. It’s not a story of heroic faith, though there are great heroes of the faith whose story is told. It’s a story of people who make a mess of things. No matter what the mess God is there putting things right.

It’s actually a very simple story … and one that has been passed on down the generations and one for us to pass on too.

One of the quirky things we do in our church services is a bit different from what a lot of churches do nowadays. We don’t just sing in order to praise God, we don’t put all our singing together at the start of what we do. In what we sing we tell the story of our faith – one idea of that is that actually in singing the words of a hymn we can somehow make those words our own – we can say this is something worth singing about.

I came across a hymn this week that sums up the two parts of the Bible’s story and points us towards the sequel too. I was intererested to find that Peter Brooks who wrote it studied with some of the people I studied with when I was at College. It’s a hymn that somehow sums up how the Bible story works for me.

The first verse of the hymn sums up for me the first part of the Bible

CH4 605 Thanks to God verse 1

1          Thanks to God whose Word was spoken
            in the deed that made the earth.          - that’s creation
            His the voice that called a nation,
            his the fires that tried her worth.        - that’s the rest of the OT
            God has spoken: God has spoken:
            Praise him for his open Word.            - somehow the God of

                                                                        creation is speaking to us

                                                                        through all these words his

                                                                        Word of life, that open

                                                                        Word.

The first part of the story starts at Genesis 12 as God becomes involved with one couple and then their family as their family becomes a nation – it’s the story that begins with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and leads on through Moses and Joshua, the judges and the kings – it’s a story commented on by the prophets, it’s a story reflected on by poets and sages. It’s the story of the Old Testament. And interestingly in the Old Testament there’s a passage that comes to be used as a classic statement that goes to the heart of the story.

I had a week of school assemblies this week – Belmont’s harvest, Charlton Kings with a harvest hymn as they were preparing for harvest. The rhythm of the year. It was in the harvest that people were always to remember the core of the story that became the story of the Old Tetament. It’s a story in three sentences. It’s like the framework the whole of the Old Testament is built on.

God uses all sorts of people and shapes them -

OT story: Deuteronomy 26:5-9

‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.

God shapes a nation from a mixed bunch of people who trace their ancestry back to Abraham and Sarah and who know what it is to be treated as foreigners. They also know what it is to face hardship and devastation.

When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

It’s the wonderful insight that God is there with his people in the horrors they experience – always there with them. He is a god who acts to deliver his people. Then comes the exodus story.

 The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

This is the key story – and then the rest of the OT story tells how the people settled in the land and how they continually made a mess of things … and how through all that happened God was at work bringing his love and his blessing through to the wider world.

There’s a sense of the story of salvation pressing forward until the coming of Jesus.

And so the second verse of our hymn tells the second part of the story.

2          Thanks to God whose Word incarnate
            human flesh has glorified,                  that’s the coming of Christ
            who by life and death and rising         lie and teaching, death and

                                                                        resurrection has brought

                                                                        something remarkable
            grace abundant has supplied.
            God has spoken: God has spoken:
            Praise him for his open Word.

That too is summed up in a number of passages in the New Testament. In the Book of Acts Luke records some of the very first preaching of the message that lies at the heart of the New Testament. It is a message summed up in each of those passages – wonderfully in these words of Peter in Acts 10:34-43

 Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

That’s the starting point of the second part of the story – in Jesus the whole of the first part of the story has reached its fulfillment – now the love of God reaches out with remarkable blessing to all the world. That’s the message that came with Jesus.

You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

That’s the life and teaching of Jesus – recorded in the Gospels. The Gospels tell this story.

 We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem.

That’s what all these letters are and the rest of the New  Testament – the witness to the story of Jesus. And this story is a life-transforming story.

They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.  He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’

This is the story of the New Testament. It’s nothing less than the story of salvation.

The climax of the story is a wonderful sense of the love of God in forgiveness. It’s not a heroic story of faith. It’s the story of people who make a mess of things.  And it’s a story of the restoration that comes through the forgiveness that is so real.

That’s what makes the Bible so very special … and it is something to change and transform people’s lives. That’s why it is good to share it round. When we were remembering Kathleen Smith the other day in our service of thanksgiving some of Hilda Read’s family were there. Hilda was one of those lovely older people in the church family. One thing I will remember of her was that she had a new Bible – the Good News Bible – and it was almost falling apart – on her bedside table she turned to it a lot and she found in it something for al the mess lif has – something that brings God’s grace in Christ into our hearts.

Heroic stories of faith? They have their place. So much greater and more valuable is the Bible with its two part story of salvation that draws us to the God who makes a difference in our lives.

3          Thanks to God whose Word was written
            in the Bible's sacred page,
            Record of the revelation
            showing God to every age.
            God has spoken: God has spoken:
            Praise him for his open Word.

4          Thanks to God whose Word is published
            in the tongues of every race.
            See its glory undiminished
            by the change of time or place.
            God has spoken: God has spoken:
            Praise him for his open Word.

Let’s have a moment or two of quiet and then share in a prayer … leading into Hy-Spriit

God of Love,

The Bible tells us that you made the world and everything in it.

Help us to take care of all that you have made.

The Bible tells us stories of mistakes and forgiveness.

Help us to see ourselves and others

as you see us.

The Bible tells us of judges, kings, queens and heroes.

Give wisdom to the rulers of this and every nation.

The Bible tells us of fighting, and injustice.

Give peace to your broken world.

The Bible tells us that you love your people.

Help us to love you, too.

The Bible tells us that you are always with us, to the end of time.

Help us to work with you to build your kingdom.

The Bible tells us to love one another.

Help us to be kind, and to stand up for all those

who cannot stand up for themselves.

The Bible tells us that you have a purpose for each of us.

Help us to be all that you created us to be

HySpirit song of prayer and worship

Prayers of concern

If the Bible is a story in two parts, there is a sequel to the story. And we are part of that story. AS we break bread together and share in the cup we are putting ourselves into the story – and as it were putting Jesus into our story.

Here as we gather in Jesus name, as we take the  bread as we drink of the cup the presence of the risen Lord Jsus Chrfist is with us. And as we go from this place we take that presence with us into all that lies ahead of us come what may.

And so there is one more verse of that hymn for us to sing …

Verse 5 – leading into communion

5          Thanks to God whose Word is answered
            by the Spirit's voice within.
            Here we drink of joy unmeasured,
            life redeemed from death and sin.
            God is speaking: God is speaking:
            Praise him for his open Word.

The story of Communion

506 God, whose almighty word