Message from Tim

Discovering God's Long-Term Plans Instead of Making Our Own

Sorry, we are going to have to have to wait a bit longer for all social restrictions to be lifted, so those of you who have been counting the days until you can go out clubbing again won’t be able to do so until 19th July (or maybe, just maybe, 4th July). Do you think you can hang on for a little while longer?

For the rest of us, who are used to getting to bed at a reasonable hour on Saturday night so we can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Sunday morning worship, the delay means that Sunday services will continue to be socially-distanced, with mask wearing and no congregational singing. So, if you are waiting for us to be able to sing together before you return to church, do you think you can hang on for a little while longer? That is assuming, of course, that after 19th July we will indeed be allowed to sing again. In the meantime, spare a thought for pub landlords who have been threatened with fines if football fans who turn up to support England don’t keep quiet and stay seated during the match…

From this Sunday onwards, we will be streaming our Family Worship at 10.30 on Sunday mornings. From the end of July, there are sketchy plans to phase in another service, which we hope will look and feel a bit more like ‘Brighton Road’, with a more familiar style of worship and in-depth teaching. If we can resource this, one possibility would be to have both services on a Sunday morning at different times. How we will designate each service is yet to be determined, though in my mind I can’t quite get away from thinking of the style of the teaching session as ‘full English’ and the family worship as ‘continental’. Sorry to be short on detail - writing as I am in advance of our church members’ meeting on 23rd June, that is about as specific as I can get. Watch this space!

Meanwhile, conscious that streamed or recorded Family Worship may not be on everyone’s wavelength, as an interim measure over the next few weeks we are also planning a short series of podcasts or audio recordings based around 1 Peter. I envisage that these will look and feel a bit like mini services, perhaps with a couple of hymns or songs, readings, prayers, and a message, and I am grateful to Ian Rose for his willingness to help with this. These will be available on cd and on the website – Resources > Downloads > Sermons and Podcasts.

Why 1 Peter? Because it is addressed to God’s elect people, who are exiled and scattered through various provinces (1:1), and this sounds a little bit like our own ongoing situation of being dispersed rather than meeting together. But then I read in 1 Peter 1:2 that God knew all this was going to happen in advance, and we can derive some sense of security from the knowledge that we belong to a God who knows exactly what is going on.

There is a bit of a Trinitarian reference here as well – we have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: God’s long-term plan for us is that we should be sanitised by the blood of Christ, set apart by the Holy Spirit, and ready to do whatever he tells us. At a time when our own long-term planning has gone out of the window, God calls us to focus on the here and now – who we are (his people) and how that impacts on how we live.

And we are not left to reply on our own inadequate resources. Peter pronounces a blessing: ‘Grace and peace be yours in abundance.’ Those are powerful words. Peter invokes God’s grace and peace upon his readers. Imagine someone reading this letter out loud to those early congregations and pausing after those words, giving those who listened a chance to realise that this blessing is for them, giving them a moment to open their hearts to receive and embrace it. Odds are you are reading this bulletin message to yourself, but can I invite you to pause, and say out loud, ‘Grace and peace be mine in abundance.’ Amen and amen.