An active church serving the
Five Towns area of West Yorkshire, U.K.

See also previous Sundays: 17 June 10 June 3 June 27 May

Last Sunday: 24 June 2007

Speaker 24 June: Phil Jones
Subject: - The Fullness of Christ
Bible passage: Colossians 1

In the introduction to Colossians Paul lays out his thanks and prayers and says that the church in Colosse needs to know that Christ is over everything – he is supreme.

In verses 15-23 we see that there are two clear aspects of Christ’s supremacy:

• He was the agent of creation – all things were created by him and for him. Creation is his! (v16)
• He is the head of the body, the Church – he was the firstborn of a new race, the first of his kind. He is supreme over the inhabitants of the universe! (v18)

We see in Colossians 2:9 that Jesus is the fullness of God. Everything that is in God is in Jesus. Jesus’ supremacy affects our eternal destiny; personal lives and conduct must change. In verses 10-11 of chapter 1 Paul prays that the people’s lives might be fruitful and worthy of the Lord.

Leading a fruitful life is being triumphant in your conduct through the circumstances that happen every day. That’s what God values. We must not, however, be dwarfed in our thinking - God is supreme over all the details, both small and large. As humans we must not impose our own limits of capacity on God. The fullness of God in Christ is so much bigger.

Our calling is to be willing to be reshaped to be what Christ wants us to be, having understood that Christ is supreme in everything. Lay before him the big, middle and little things of our lives. Trust in Jesus Christ, the fullness of God!

Report by Ben Groves; photo by Tony Hall

Below are the previous few Sundays. Older ones may be found on the Archive page.

20 May 

Speaker 17 June: David Matthew
Subject: - Galatians: God’s GPS Won’t Take You To LA
Bible passage: Galatians 1:6-9

Some trouble-makers were foisting ‘a different gospel’ on the Galatian believers, one so far removed from the real gospel that Paul called it ‘no gospel at all’ and pronounced a curse on its proponents.

It was legalism, which took people back into slavery to a rule-based existence under the Jewish law. It replaced grace with ‘works of the law’ and replaced a life of faith with religious observance.

Such reversion to Judaism is not a problem to us today, but the underlying principles of legalism can still quickly take hold and tie us down. These involve our relying on external acts for approval by God and other people (like getting up unrealistically early to read one’s Bible) and make rules on issues where God himself doesn’t make them (like not eating ice-cream on Sundays). Under legalism we end up desperately trying to please people and live in fear of their disapproval.

Against such trends we must hold fast to our Christian freedom (Gal 5:1). By being united to Christ we have ‘died to the law’ (Gal 2:19) and so are beyond its reach. With him we have risen to a new life of freedom from its domination. We now life by grace, faith and the Holy Spirit, not in bondage to rules and regulations.

The opposite danger is antinomianism – using our freedom irresponsibly to ‘indulge the sinful nature’ (Gal 5:13). This is to be avoided as much as legalism, like ditches at either side of the road.

If ‘LA’ stands for Legalism and Antinomianism, God’s GPS, like a good sat nav system, will stop us ending up there. His GPS means living by Grace, Phaith (sorry!) and the Spirit. If we live that way we will be a blessing to everyone, so that we will be able to say with Paul, ‘They praised God because of me’ (Gal 1:24).

Report by David Matthew; photo by Tony Hall

10 June 

Speaker 10 June: Brian Weathers
Subject: Keeping Our Faith
Bible passage: Various

Two of the main points Brian addressed were:
1) How do you know you’re a Christian?
2) The responsibilities of children and parents in walking with God.

In addressing how to know if you’re a Christian, Jesus made it clear in John 3:16 that “…whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” As well as believing in Jesus, there should also be a number of key changes and characteristics that stand out in our lives. One of these is the Word of God - is it making a difference to your everyday life?

The wise man, who Jesus spoke of in Matthew 7:21-27, is the one who built his house on rock and it stood despite fierce storms. This is the man who heard the Word of God and carried it out; in contrast to the foolish man who heard but did not obey built his house on the sand which fell with a great crash.

God’s people should also be repenters, seeking to turn away from the wrong things they used to do and striving to live a life of obedience and one pleasing to the Lord. The company that you keep should also be a key change in the Christian - do you still hang out at the same places you used to and with people that maybe aren’t good for you?

Brian’s second point addressed, in particular, young people and parents/guardians. Young people can’t live off their parent’s faith but must have their own relationship with God. There is a battle going on for the minds of our young people and that the choices made now will determine the course of their lives. Parents need to be praying for their children regularly, that none of them shall be lost, just as Jesus prayed for his disciples. Christian youth groups and youth leaders cannot be expected to carry young people through, they are there to support the parents but parents themselves must ‘lay down the law’ with their children. Some advice to young people is to serve your creator in the days of your youth; you cannot have one foot in the truth of Jesus and one in the world.

Finally, Brian encourages us to continue to work at our faith, to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:5-11). Do not sit idly by, be proactive and be refreshed in Gods word!

Report by Catherine Weathers; photo by Tony Hall

3 June

Speaker 3 June: Trevor Jones
Subject: Characteristics of the Early Church - 3
Bible passage: Acts 2:41-47

After the day of Pentecost the recently converted Christians devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. They didn't just attend church; they devoted themselves to church. Devoted means they continued steadfastly, they were determined and they persevered. They were people who put their past behind them after their conversion. God set them free from their past.

The early Christians also devoted themselves to their fellowship. If we belong to Christ, we belong to his people; we have fellowship with one another. We need to persevere to serve one another in love – it is a big responsibility. Events of church life ought to be default things in our diary. If anyone wants to be a person of Christ, to grow and be mature, they have to be committed to the church. If we want to see the same results as the early church saw, we need to do what the early church did.

Fellowship is not just being nice to each other on a Sunday and then not seeing each other for a couple of weeks. If our commitment to the fellowship is only symbolic it will lead to nothing. What we do by fellowshipping with each other is to benefit those who haven’t found Christ. We can look at a helpful checklist to examine our commitment to our fellowship:

• How often do we decline invites on a Sunday because of commitment to our fellowship?
• How often do we take “time-outs” on a Sunday?
• How many activities of our fellowship do we attend outside of the Sunday meeting?
• When did we last make a live contribution to the church morning worship?
• How long since we were in the company of people in the fellowship outside of church?
• How long since we did something for our fellowship that wasn’t at the top of our list of preferences?
• How long since we’ve allowed ourselves to be inconvenienced because of church?

Do we really devote ourselves to our fellowship? – Because we need to for our own sake, the sake of the fellowship and the world.

Report by Chris Weathers; photo by Tony Hall

27 May 

Speaker 27 May: David Matthew
Subject: 2 Corinthians: Jesus is God’s ‘Yes’
Bible passage: 2 Corinthians 1:20

God’s great plan is to unite everything under Christ (Eph 1:10), and he introduced it in two major stages: OT and NT.

OT Stage. He began with an individual, Abraham, revealing to him the principles of grace and faith, and indicating that his purpose was to reach ‘all peoples on earth’ (Gen 12:3). From there he went on to work through Abraham’s family, and then through the nation descended from them: the Israelites. These were slaves in Egypt, but God gave them freedom and their own land to live in: Canaan.

There they were to be ‘a light to the Gentiles’, and to encourage them in that role God gave them some ‘for ever’ promises. The Davidic kingship, the land of Canaan, Jerusalem, the temple and the Levitical priesthood were all given ‘for ever’. But with Israel’s dismal failure as covenant-keepers and as a ‘light to the Gentiles’ it seemed as if God’s promises had failed: David’s dynasty died out; the land and Jerusalem were lost at the exile; the temple was destroyed (twice) and the Levitical priesthood ceased, having no temple to officiate in.

NT Stage. But Jesus was himself the true Israelite. He was everything the nation as a whole had failed to be, and all God’s ‘for ever’ promises are fulfilled in him, and in his church. He is the ‘for ever’ Davidic king (Lk 1:31-33); he is the true temple (Jn 2:18-21); in him the land expands to embrace the whole earth (Gen 13:15; Rom 4:13); the old Jerusalem yields to the new Jerusalem (Gal 4:24-26; Heb 11:9-10); and the finished work of Jesus the priest has ‘for ever’ results (Heb 7:23; 10:12-14). The OT originals were merely a ‘shadow’ of the NT ‘reality’ in Christ that we now enjoy (Col 2:16-17). So today we have no business looking for material, OT-type fulfilments like Zionism and refusing to eat pork.

All this means it is opportunity time! The ultimate phase of God’s purpose is the one we are living in, where Christ’s atoning work has been done and the Holy Spirit is active worldwide. So let’s be positive about the future and be bold in sharing the gospel, expecting God’s widespread blessing.

Report by David Matthew; photo by Tony Hall

Go to the Archive page for earlier Sundays