Narangba Baptist Church

Last Sunday I began this year from the book of Genesis and the story of Noah believing God has put signposts before us to follow on our journey of New Beginnings. The first signpost is connected with the fact that Jesus is coming back to judge the earth. When this happens God will show mercy to those he finds favour in his eyes (Gen 6:8). Until this happens We are to seek the favour of God’s presence (Gen 6:5-12). And that favour is found in knowing Christ as Lord and Saviour. God is calling us to walk faithfully with him in close fellowship. In all that we do we must seek to please our God through confession and repentance. Remember this will be hard because the thoughts of our hearts still are inclined to sin, and we live in a wicked and violent culture. The second signpost closely follows the first. When God speaks to us we must obey by faith (Gen 6:13-Gen 7:16). Like Noah we must do everything that God asks us to do. Just as Noah and his family and the animals went into an ark that did not have a rudder or a motor, by faith and in holy fear, we must respond to God’s favour upon us with a faith and trust in him even when nothing is fully explained. The third signpost that we are to remember on our journey in 2012 is that Without God’s mercy we have no future (Gen 7:17-Gen 8:5). When God destroyed the earth through flood, he remembered Noah and the animals. He spared Noah from the punishment that the human race deserved. God has remembered us here at NBC and worked to lead us into a new beginning. God is about to act once again to restore his church. Just as God sent the wind to restore the earth, so God has sent to us his Holy Spirit to breathe new life into us.

Whether God designed a window in the ark for Noah to use to launch the raven and doves, or whether Noah built one for himself, no one knows. But what we do know is that the window provided for a process by which Noah could discern the right time to leave the ark. He was in the ark for nearly a year and then waited for God to show him when he should leave. Imagine if the smell of the ark (because of the waste) became so great, that it was difficult to stay in the ark. Imagine if Noah decided in his own wisdom to leave the ark before the water receded in the lowlands, or before the vegetation started to grow, which supplied food. God’s plan for the Noah and his descendants and the animals to be fruitful and multiply would have been a disaster. Fortunately, Noah did not leave the stinky boat straightaway. He had a process of discerning the right time through the use of ravens (eats flesh off carcasses) and doves (eats food supply in the lowlands). Day after day Noah waited. God had shut him in the ark and it was God who was to let him out. The fourth signpost we must remember is that This is a season of waiting on God until we clearly hear him (Gen 8:6-22). The window we have available to us is pray as sons and daughters of God. Through prayer we wait and listen for God to speak to us. ‘Oh God, what is it that you are saying to us?’ ‘What is it that you want us to do as a church here in Narangba and beyond?’ ‘What is your timing O’LORD?’

Yes, waiting for God’s timing is difficult, especially if one is in a stinky boat. But we must wait. And so the final signpost we must remember on our journey is, just as God remembers us when he sees a rainbow, so God continues to remember us by his unfailing love. We need to get God’s attention through prayer and be remembered by God and he will act (Gen 9:1-17).

To that end I believe we need to come together as a church and pray through a focus on: ‘What is it that Jesus is saying to us?’ ‘What is it that Jesus wants us to do as a church here in Narangba and beyond?’ ‘What is the timing?’ This prayer focus must be a priority for the life of this church, if we wish to walk faithfully with our God and carry out his will and purposes. Further details of this prayer focus will come in the following weeks. If anyone is interested in being involved in the organising of this, please speak to me.

God bless

Pastor Phil

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Have you ever had that discussion as a child or as a parent, about who is the favourite child in the family? As a parent, my response is simply I love you, there is no measurement that can be applied. My heart is full of love for each of you. My love began for my children while they were still in the womb. Mick and I had pet names for each of our children and we talked to them and loved them while they were still hidden from us. It is amazing how our heart can keep expanding to love others. This is mystery children [and some adults] find hard to grasp, that we can remain fully loved even though others are in the family. God’s love for us is a Father’s love and His love expands to all generations, to all people. This is what Jesus was saying to His disciples and us in His prayer in John 17 (you can read it in the Message).

I have revealed the Father and His love to those who He was with, but also those who were yet to believe, us. Jesus the first born Son was loved by the Father before the creation of the world. Jesus’ heart for his disciples to know that the Father’s heart expanded to include us, those yet to believe, who were yet to know God the Father as His most loved and cherished children.

Jesus came to make the Father known so that we could then carry on His mission - revealing the love of the Father, making Him known to others. This is the life Jesus gave to us, His church—journeying ourselves and others deeper and deeper into knowing God. We need our life as a church to be in pursuit of this life, because that is where we receive life in all its fullness, this is where we truly abide in Christ, where we find our rest and take on Jesus yoke which is light and easy, where our burdens and worries can be given to Jesus, where we are released and set free, where our eyes are given sight and our ears can hear and our spirit is awakened. What a journey we are on, walking with our Saviour King, who has cleansed us from all unrighteousness and has taken us by the hand to lead us into the very heart of the Father.

Pastor Deb

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Last week we discovered that David had a covenant with the people, before God (2 Sam 5:3). David never forgot this, he served God as His ruler over God’s people, but God remained his King, the King of Israel. This was displayed in how David lived his life. David repeatedly enquired of the Lord, and waited on God’s response and then obeyed God. This was a foundation of David’s rule over Israel. It became such a pattern in his life that Nathan, God’s prophet failed to seek God’s heart when David sought his discernment regarding building God a house (2 Sam 7). Nathan tells David, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you”. Even when God is with us, we must continue to seek His heart, we cannot become blasé or apathetic, we must pursue God’s heart. God speaks through Nathan saying, ‘David will not be the one to build God a house’. God then speaks to David of his future and gives David beautiful promises for him and for his children. David’s response is this prayer, “Who am I, Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? … you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant—and this decree, Sovereign LORD, is for a mere human!” David placed God in his rightful place in his heart, God was King and David was his servant.

I love David’s response to Nathan’s message from God. David sat before God (2 Sam 7:18). David was continually seeking to be in God’s presence, you can hear it in his prayers and in his Psalms. Whether in times of blessing, or in difficult situations David was always talking with God. David pursued God, like God pursues us (Mat 18:12). This is why David was called, ‘a man after God’s own heart’ and even though David sinned so deeply with Bathsheba and Uriah David didn’t fail to cry out to God.

In Psalm 51 David declares he has been sinful from birth, and his heart cry to God from his place of brokenness is -

STAY WITH ME—CLEANSE ME—FILL ME—RESTORE ME

David’s heart is full of desperation, he knows he cannot live without God. There is nothing in and of himself that can make him right with God. David asks God to wash him clean, he keeps crying out to God, to clean him, fill him, restore him. To clean a heart, David knows that God has to do a new work, he has to create - sinful hearts can not simply be washed and made clean like we would wash out a dirty cloth (Heb 9:14). So David asks God to create in him a clean heart, to do a new thing in his life. This is the only way we can be restored to God, we need His renewing work in us so that we can have a right spirit (Titus 3:3-7). How awesome, that in his loving pursuit of us our Faithful God can and does continue to be our God Creator, creating in us a clean heart and a right spirit so that we can come into his presence restored with the joy of our salvation. He is our Jehovah-Rohi our Shepherd, who is relentless in the pursuit of us, so great is His love for us ( Ps 23, Luke 15:3-6, John 10:14-18).

God said that David was ‘a man after His own heart’ (1 Sam 13:13-14).

What is God saying to us, at Narangba Baptist about our heart?

Are we like our God, do we have a relentless love for Him?

In our continued place of ‘New Beginnings’, God is seeking us, His church to become a church after His own heart. God is saying to us, His church, “Run with all that is in you to find me—Pursue me” (Mat 6:33).

Be hungry and thirsty for me, desire me, and delight in me (Ps 37:4, Ps 42:1-2).

Have a contrite heart before me and let me bring my renewal—Let me wash you clean and create in you a new heart (Ezekiel 11:19-20).

Pursue only me as the King of your heart (Mat 6:33, Mat 22:37, Jer 29:13).

Pastor Deb

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God was the leader of His people, He was their King and he appointed those who were to rule and judge on His behalf. When leaders make mistakes it has a flow on affect. Out of Samuel’s wrong decision to appoint his sons, the people argue for a king (1 Sam 8:1-5). Rejecting God they choose self-rule, no longer do they want to follow in God’s way, choosing instead to use the blueprint of the surrounding nations they ask for an earthly king. The people of Israel traded their TRUE King for an earthly one. God warns His people through Samuel of their coming captivity to their earthly king, but they still cried out for a king.

Leaders make mistakes, but we cannot use the mistakes of others to justify our failure to hear from God. God will always continue to speak into the lives of His people when we are going in the wrong direction. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it’. (Isaiah 30:21). If we continue to fail to listen, then we are a rebellious people and are in danger of getting what we want. Israel gets what they ask for and Samuel anoints Saul, who was “as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel and he was a head taller than anyone else” (1 Sam 9: 2) . God seems to me to be saying if your going to look at earthly things, then I will give you what your eyes desire. Here is your good-looking king, look at his appearance, note there is no mention of Saul’s heart or character. Woe to us when God gives us over to our own desires, to our own plans (Rom 1:20-25, Prov 1:29-31) to delight in earthly things rather than to find our delight in Him and what he purposed (Ps 37:4, 1 Sam 12:20-22) . Samuel warns Israel that if they do not fear the LORD and continue to rebel against God then His hand will be against you (1 Sam 12:14-15). The people ask Samuel to pray to God so they would not die. This is a truth we must take a hold of, sin leads to death (Rom 3:23) and rejecting God as our King, is sinful.

God is love and He is merciful, this is true and Samuel states his and God’s faithfulness to Israel (1 Sam 12:20-25). But God is also just and He will discipline those he loves (Heb 12:5-8, Job 5:17-18). It is hard for us to think about God’s hand being against us, His children. God is gracious and forgiving when we turn from our sins but we must confess our sins and acknowledge how we reject God’s rule and choose to put our own plans into place. God is not apathetic towards his children, He will always act according to His purposes and he will reject those who reject him as he does with Saul, who completely failed to acknowledge God as the King of kings and who instead sought to exalt himself (1 Sam 15:10-12).

Saul failed to listen to God’s spiritual leader Samuel and he failed to listen to God and this disobedience resulted in God rejecting him. When we fail to listen to God we choose to live under our own rule. In our place of self-rule we cannot hear from God. When we establish foundations other than God’s sovereignty, God says to us, “you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day”. It’s seems logical to me that God will not answer when He is not being spoken to; when we seek for our earthly leaders to be the source of our relief, when we cry out amongst ourselves about our hardships, God will not answer.

I believe in our continued place of ‘New Beginnings’, God is seeking to journey us to acknowledging His sovereignty. His hand has been against us, he has disciplined us, His church. He has torn up the foundations so that He can build upon this foundation, His Kingship. I believe God wants to establish in our foundations a heart for prayer. Now is the time to come before God our King and cry out to Him for relief in our areas of hardship. Now is the time to humbly come to listen to God our King and serve Him with all our hearts (1 Sam 12:20). “For the sake of his great name the LORD will not reject his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you his own” (1 Sam 12:22). Praise God, for He is faithful, may we prove to be faithful as His church in listening to Him, who remains and is forever the King of kings.

Pastor Deb

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Last Sunday we engaged with the story of Hannah and her family who chose to worship God year after year. This didn’t mean they were a family without dysfunction, they had their share of pain. But flaws and all, this family were able to go deeper with their sacrifice, deeper into understanding— God is the King of their lives.

Hannah had a desire for a son and God had a plan for Samuel. God begins his plan with a person, Elkanah, a certain man, in a certain place & time in history (1 Sam 1:1). God chooses to use us, and even though he chooses us as co-workers (1 Cor 3:9), God remains sovereign over time, place and us. This is what Hannah knew— her circumstances, her barrenness were of deep distress to her, but she was powerless over her situation. Year after year in her pain and in her sorrow Hannah and her family went to the temple to worship and sacrifice, but this year her despair caused her to ‘weep bitterly’ before the LORD. In her place of anguish God’s plan came to the fore. Hannah makes a vow, she humbles herself before her King and in the asking she gives back to God the very child she so desires— Samuel is given back to God.

Hannah’s vow was not simply dedicating the child to God, this was releasing him completely out of her hands and into God’s hands for all the days of his life, so that he would belong only to God. Hannah gifted back to God her most desired and cherished gift. This is going deeper with God, when we can be transformed in such way that the hand we hold out to receive from God, also releases to God what has been given. Hannah’s action caused God to remember her and He became for Hannah, the King of the powerless, the helpless and the broken and she rejoiced in her King (1 Sam 2:1-11).

This is the very opposite to what Eli’s sons were doing. When people came to sacrifice, the first portion- the fat which was burnt off belonged to the Lord and then the priests could take their portion. But Eli’s sons would take their portion before the sacrifice was given to God (1 Sam 2:12-17). These wicked priests were taking for themselves meat that didn’t belong to them before God had received his and this sin ‘was great in the LORD’s sight’.

The difference between Hannah and Eli’s sons was the acknowledgment and understanding that God is King and in that place we humble ourselves before him, knowing that everything belongs to God (Sam 2:6-10). Eli’s sons see only their own desires and took what rightly belonged to God (1 Sam 2:15-16). Hannah asked God to remember her, to be active in her circumstances, but she didn’t stay only in that place, she allowed her spirit to be moved, to hear God and what he desired for her and what we see is this beautiful exchange between God and his servant. We see Hannah go deeper with God through sacrifice. What’s amazing is Hannah’s vow affected others, specifically her husband who had every right to keep Samuel, as he was his first born son from his first wife, but Elkanah stood in agreement with Hannah and God and the family fulfilled the vow made by Hannah (1 Sam 2:21-28).

We, God’s church, can come to the same place as Hannah and her family. We too can acknowledge our powerlessness over our circumstances and in so doing acknowledge God’s Kingship over us (Rom 5:6-8). We too can stand together as a family who choose to worship God ‘year after year’, committed to fulfilling our vows.

God is the King of Narangba Baptist, and in our continuing place of ‘New Beginnings’ our response to His Kingship is to humble ourselves before him. Like Hannah we too can cry out to God to remember us, to be active in our circumstances and the life of His church. We too can pour out our hearts on the altar of God and tell him our desires for this church. And in that place we too can go deeper with God and say this church belongs to you, we give her back to you to be a servant of the Lord, to fulfil your plans and purposes for all her days.

Pastor Deb

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Last Sunday we began to prepare for the celebration of Jesus’ first coming, which we traditionally do on the 25^th December. We prepare for this celebration while looking forward to Jesus’ second coming. This preparation has started with a focus on hope which God sent with the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God. And what a message of hope we have. Jesus the king of kings is coming back to reign on this earth and to bring our salvation to completion (Lk 1:26-33). God has chosen in his sovereignty and love to show his presence through his grace, not only when Jesus came to this earth, but will do so again when Jesus returns. Between his first and second coming, we have been given the Spirit of Christ in our hearts. God is with us. While God’s presence is with us our hope in Jesus the king will not be disappointed. The beautiful thing is that this hope we have is not in our abilities or human effort or our plans, but in God’s agenda (Lk 1:32). God will once again act in history and complete our salvation. Our hope is not in a baby but in the exalted Jesus. Evil is doomed. The final word is the triumph of God.

This hope we have speaks of action until Christ returns. It is a hope which can shape our attitudes about life. Jesus wants us to come into our lives anew now and show God’s grace (Lk 1:28). Jesus is calling us to a new awareness of our need for God’s grace to break in on us, to cause us to review where our faith is placed, to renew us, to set us free, and to stir the Spirit within us. Jesus is calling us to trust in him and his purposes (Lk 1:34,37,38). God does not want us to respond to his voice of hope like Zechariah – “How can I be sure of this?” (Lk 1:18). When God speaks to us a message of hope, he wants us to respond like Mary – “How will this be?” (Lk 1:34). In Mary’s response, there is no doubt. There is openness and willingness to yield to God’s will despite not knowing all the answers. Her response to God’s message of hope sets in motion God’s will for her.

Are you in a place where you are prepared to do whatever God asks of you? Is the hope you have, that you hold onto, an anchor for your life? Is your life secured by hope that grips on our solid rock Jesus Christ? Remember, that our hope in Jesus will never fail us (Lk 1:32-33,37). Hope is a confident eager expectation of good, because God is committed to his promises (Lk 1:32-33), and there is a certainty and finality in the hope in God (Lk 1:37). Therefore, let us be a church where hope in God is alive, and lets set in motion God’s will for us here at NBC.

God bless

Pastor Phil

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Last Sunday, we concluded our series on Galatians. The Apostle Paul made clear to us the Good News of Jesus Christ. We saw that we are a church in Christ (Gal 1:22). In Christ there is freedom (Gal 2:4) - our sins have been forgiven. We are accepted by God. We are no longer under the sentence of death. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, loves us and gave himself for our sins (Gal 1:4, Gal 2:20). We are no longer slaves to the power of sin, but we are children of God (Gal 4:7). We are free from the penalty and the guilt of sin (Gal 2:16; Gal 5:4). In Christ the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ lives in our hearts (Gal 2:20; Gal 4:6). Because we God’s children, we have received the promise of the Spirit (Gal 3:14). We are children of the Holy Spirit. We are to live by the Spirit (Gal 5:25).We are born again by the power of the Spirit (Gal 4:28) We are a new creation in Christ (Gal 6:15). We are born again as the result of a divine promise (Gal 4:23). We are children of divine promise (Gal 4:23, Gal 4:28). We who live by the Spirit are called to enjoy the freedom we have in Christ and live for God (Gal 2:19; Gal 5:13). Our Lord Jesus Christ rescued us from this present evil age (Gal 1:4). We are free to run a good race (Gal 5:7) – free to allow Christ to be formed in us (Gal 4:19). We are Christ people. We are to carry each others burdens when they are too difficult for that person to carry. (Gal 6:1-3). In doing this we fulfil the law of Christ – love your neighbour as yourself (Gal 5:15); do to others what you would have them do to you (Mat 7:12).We are children of the law of Christ. We are to serve one another humbly in love (Gal 5:13). We who live by the Spirit are to stand firm in the truth (Gal 5:1).

Galatians also showed how easy it is to turn to a different gospel (Gal 1:6). We who live by the Spirit, allow ourselves at times to use our freedom to indulge in the sinful nature (Gal 5:13). This sinful nature battles with our understanding of God’s truth. In Galatians this different gospel teaches God’s favour / acceptance = grace + human effort (‘the natural’). We set aside the grace of God (Gal 2:21). This human effort may take the shape of ‘customs’. People who teach this untruth, force us to follow customs, which are difficult to obey (Gal 2:14; Gal 4:10). We become enslaved by them (Gal 2:4; Gal 5:1). We rebuild what Christ destroyed (Gal 2:18). Some of us obey these customs because we are afraid of being persecuted by those who preach a different gospel (Gal 2:12; Gal 4:29), or we just want to please them and win their approval (Gal 1:10). Obeying these customs will keep us from obeying God’s truth (Gal 5:7). It will put in question whether a servant of Christ (Gal 1:10). In trying to finish by human effort (Gal 3:3), we turn back to weak and miserable spiritual forces of the world (Gal 4:3,9) – ‘the natural’, where miracles, and the power of God are not sought.

What might a different gospel look like to us in our western culture? In his book Christless Christianity, Michael Horton speaks of different gospel being preached in churches in North America. He notes that “the church in America today is so obsessed with being practical, relevant, helpful, successful, and perhaps even well-liked that it nearly mirrors the world itself. Aside from packaging, there is nothing that cannot be found in most churches today that could not be satisfied by any number of secular programs and self-help groups.” He says that the “focus is on us and our activity rather than on God and his work in Christ. … We come to church, its seems, less to be transformed by the Good News than to celebrate our own transformation and to receive fresh marching orders for transforming ourselves and our world. Rather than being swept into God’s new world, we come to church to find out how we can make God relevant to the ‘real world’ that the New Testament identifies as the one that is actually fading away.”

Horton adds that the “Bible is mined for ‘relevant’ quotes but is largely irrelevant on its own terms” God is used as a personal resource rather than known, worshipped, and trusted; Jesus Christ is a coach with a good game plan for our victory rather than our Saviour who has already achieved it for us; salvation is more a matter of having our best life now than being saved from God’s judgment by God himself; and the Holy Spirit is an electrical outlet we can plug into for the power we need to be all that we can be.” This different gospel turns “the message of God’s rescue operation into a message of self-help.

… God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and most world religions. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when needed to resolve a problem. Good people go to heaven when they die. Basically, the message is that God is nice and we are nice, so that we should all be nice.”

Last Sunday the question was asked of the church: in our church life do we emphasise the gospel of God’s grace in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit (the ‘supernatural’) alone? Before you answer, please let Horton’s warning to the church speak to you. Horton may be a bit extreme in his view, but he does align himself with the Apostle Paul’s opposition to a different gospel being preached. Is there something that we can discern from Horton’s insights, that might make us more alert to Satan’s continuing and subtle attack on our understanding of the gospel of Christ at NBC? Remember, in our place of ‘New Beginnings’ we are, and will be, always under spiritual attack. What better of way of doing it, than attacking the very foundations of our living temple – the gospel of Jesus Christ.

God bless

Pastor Phil

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