This morning we had a great morning of worship and there was a real buzz in the atmosphere.
Then we heard from John Steele who talked about the Bride of Christ from Rev 19:4-9. Jesus is searching for a bride. We are in the betrothal time. We need to get ready, make our selves ready, just as a bride prepares in the natural during her engagement period. During the engagement period, the wife learns “wifely” things and collects the dowry.
We make ourselves ready for Jesus personally through ministry, worship, fellowship and discipleship.
Mission is collecting the dowry to present to Jesus. The dowry is the nations. Collect the dowry by gathering more brides.
Be a bride who is proud of the bridgegroom. If you are a bride, you want to give him the best dowry possibly. God wants to see the city and Long Gully come to Him. He wants them presented as dowry.
You can only bring the dowry if you are ready though.
You need to worship at home, in private, as well as in public. You need to fellowship with the Father as well as each other. Discipleship is applying the facts, living a Godly life. Ministry is about ministering where your passion is. It’s about getting into somebodies life and making a difference in their life.
You can only do that when you are ready. You need to get over your past. Hold your head high and don’t say “poor me”. Make a difference, don’t take up space.

Let Jesus be proud of you.

Alan today spoke from Philippians 2:1-13. As we take comfort, compassion and tenderness from Christ’s love, we are united in spirit and purpose. We are all united in Spirit if we do those things, but the problem is the flesh.
Our attitudes should be the same as Jesus. We need to align our attitudes and motivations with Jesus. As we make a choice to align ourselves with God’s word, He works in us and works the change in you.
Philippians 2:3-4 talks about selfless sacrifice. We must not destroy somebody else in order to achieve what we want to achieve. There’s nothing wrong with ambition, but it becomes selfish ambition when it’s at the expense of others or driven by your ego needs. Paul says that “each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of others”. There’s nothing wrong with getting your needs met, but don’t be selfish about it, or destroy other people in the process. Your needs do count for something, it says to look not only to your own needs, but you need to find a balance.
Paul also talks about humility, but we are not to devalue ourselves in the pursuit of humility. True humility is knowing who you are, simply being that, then allowing others to do likewise. A secure person is comfortable with who they are and allows others to be who they are. If others excel beyond us in various areas, then we should be happy with that.
If we are serving in any area for any other motivation than humility, then it is a false form or pride. We need to see God work in people so that their image of themselves is how God sees them. It is not proud or arrogant to acknowledge the things that you do well. If Christians were a body of believers who did acknowledge the things that others were good at we wouldn’t have to struggle with unity.
Jesus got indignant when He wasn’t treated with respect, but yet He was a humble man.

We need to embrace true humility. Make the choice to be like Jesus. Your sense of worth, your value comes from who you are. Valuing another person doesn’t devalue yourself. You can only serve God with a true humility when you value who you are. Taking the gifts that God has placed in you and using them to serve God is humility. Recognise the gifts in others though and be encouraged when they do things that may be better than the way you can do it.

Our gold coin offering for missions today was boosted by the addition of the funds that Noel’s connect group had raised over the past year. It’s great to see individual connect groups catching the missions vision and contributing where ever and whatever they can to see the gospel spread in other nations.

Alan preached a good message from John 9 today. It was good to be reminded that we don’t always have difficulties because we’ve sinned. Sometimes we do, but sometimes, like the blind man, we have difficulties just so that God’s glory can be shown.
When Jesus made the mud and put it on the eyes of the blind man, He was looking for a faith response from the man. He could have quite easily have spoken a word and the man would have been healed, but He chose to do it in a way that required the man to take a step of faith. The blind man would have realised that He had to obey to be healed. He would have sensed the presence of Jesus and known that He wasn’t just somebody being silly, but somebody who had an anointing to heal.
God won’t do something the same way. He will do things out of the relationship we have with Him. Jesus will do the miracle, but not in the way we think.

Jesus did things on the sabbath. He broke the rules and regulations of the Pharisees, which they didn’t like. You aren’t allowed to wash on the sabbath (John 9:15-16), but Jesus told the man to go and wash. The religious people were then more concerned about the fact that He was healed on their sabbath, rather than celebrating the miracle.
A genuine move of God will bring division (John 9:16). You need to make a decision on whether or not You will go with the new move of God.

In John 9:28, the Pharisees declare that they are Moses disciples. They are tied to the law and don’t want to see Jesus as the Messiah. They have trouble accepting that Jesus will do things differently and has ushered in a new era which doesn’t involve being tied to rules and regulations like in Moses day. The Pharisees even speak directly against Jesus by declaring that it was sin that had made the man blind, even though Jesus earlier declared that he was not blind because of sin. Jesus is also called a sinner by the Pharisees because He doesn’t adhere to their standards (John 9:24).

So far the blind man has only had his physical eyes opened. After his encounter with the Pharisees, Jesus hunts the former blind man down and opens his spiritual eyes. The miracle of sight was given in both the physical and the natural.

We all have a choice to make. We can be a pharisee and stay with the experiences that we have had in God, or move with Jesus. We can step out beyond our religious traditions. Jesus challenged religious traditions, religious beliefs and limitations. He’s still doing that today. Make a choice to follow what God is doing today and don’t get stuck in tradition.

This morning we had an extended time of worship before Alan came and gave us his communion message. He allowed the Holy Spirit to move as we came around communion and we had a great time spent in the presence of God as we contemplated the meaning of communion.

Julie has just been on a missions trip to PNG with the CRC ladies team and gave us a rundown on the missions trip and the things that God did over in PNG through the team. Her missions trip was a mixture of resorts and ministry and God did some amazing things at the Conference where the team was ministering.

In a brief sermon, Alan then talked about Joshua 1:1-3. Moses my servant is dead. There are always seasons in God. Sometimes the old ways of doing things have to die. That doesn’t mean that they were wrong, just that we need to move with what God is doing now. There comes a time when we need to step into the promised land, following God’s presence, leaving behind the ways we have known. We need to be ready to move with what God is doing now, move into the community and use the gifts of the Spirit there. We need to let the world be influenced by the church. Moses is dead. Take the promised land!