Sharing some thoughts

Tonight we heard part of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (6:10-20). It’s the well known passage about putting on the armour of God – the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, put on whatever shoes will make you preach the gospel of peace, take the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And hear is where we often leave that passage, but Paul goes on with some incredibly important words about prayer, ‘Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication, keep alert and persevere in prayer for all the saints, pray also for me so that when I speak a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Paul had given up a good life. Materially successful, he had enjoyed the wealth and power of a Roman citizen. When he spoke people listened, they listened out of fear, they listened because they had to ! But since his conversion Paul’s life h...

Part of Paul’s letter to the Romans that we have just heard (1:16-17), contains the words, ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith...’ The word ‘Gospel’ literally means ‘Good news’, and as Paul writes you get the sense that he is encouraging others to stand up for the gospel, to not be ashamed, but to fight to share the good news that is for everyone. A farmer went into his bank one day and announced to the manager that he had bad news and good news. "First, the bad news..." said the manager. "Well," said the farmer, "I can't make my mortgage payments. And that crop loan I've taken out for the past 10 years - I can't pay that off, either. Not only that, I won't be able to pay you the couple of hundred thousand I still have outstanding on my tractors and other equipment. So I'm going to have to give up the farm and turn it all over to you for whatever you can salvage out of it." ...

Tonight’s Old Testament Reading was the calling of Isaiah by God (Isaiah 6:1-8). The passage we heard ended with the wonderful words, ‘I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us ?” and I said, “Here I am, send me!” A week last Friday there was an article in the Western Mail with a picture of a Church with a ‘Sold’ sign outside and an even larger picture of the Archbishop of Wales below. And the article had a heading saying, ‘Church attendance in Wales set to plummet to under 40,000 a month’. Reading the article it mentioned that the current figure is somewhere around 200,000 people per month attending. It was a classic story of depression in the Church, the sort that papers love to print – it was based largely on figures coming from the Methodist and Presbyterian Church, and related to the year 2050. It’s a long time off, and the facts may not make complete sense in terms of the Church in Wales or many other Churches which are actually growing, ...

A man was not feeling very well and decided to go to the doctors. While he was waiting in the doctor's reception room, a nun came out of the doctor's office. She looked very upset and drawn. The man went into the doctor's office and said to the doctor: "I just saw a nun leaving who looked absolutely terrible. I have never seen a woman look worse." The doctor said: "I just told her that she is pregnant ." The man exclaimed: "Never ! Is she?" "No”, said the doctor, “but it cured her hiccups." I’m not quite sure what the relevance of that joke really is, but today is Trinity Sunday and I decided that the best thing to do, rather than risk completely boring or baffling most people with the doctrine of the Trinity, was to begin with a joke ! Trinity Sunday, the celebration of God, one in three and three in one, is a confusing day ! Seeking wisdom for this sermon I looked up the definition of the Trinity in a nice easy text ...

I want to begin this morning by breaking a bombshell to you all. This news is that God is good for you. Now hopefully you will already know this but I actually read the results of a survey a few years ago that looked at people who went to Church and believed in God and people who did not, and guess what ? Those who go to Church and believe are more likely to be happy and often, healthier. I wonder if the disciples always felt that they were happy and healthy and to be honest if they always felt completely sane. I have to admit that I am still a bit of a big child and so I love imagination and Winnie the Pooh. I thought that today it would be good if you could all use your imaginations with me. So, trying not to sound too much like Jackanory I want to get you thinking. Imagine if all of your life you had been waiting for one special man sent from God to make the world a better place. And no ladies I am not talking about Pierce Brosnan or your husbands, although obviously in my cas...

If you’ve listened to the news over the last few days, three words you will inevitably have heard are ‘No overall control’. Councils throughout Wales and England have been left with deals needing to be done in order to decide upon who will lead those Councils for the next term. And as I heard these words for the umpteenth time I started to think of how true that statement is for so many people. In their lives there is ‘No overall control’. Today I want to think briefly of a Saviour who offers to control our lives, not in a domineering, dictatorial way, but in a way that expresses concern for every aspect of our lives. A way that shouts out to every one of us who is listening, ‘I love you and want the best for you.’ That is the God we worship, the God who in Jesus accepted all of the humiliation of rejection and torture, even death, and who still shouts, ‘I love you whoever you are and whatever you do.’ And so I want to think of another 3 words which help with these thoughts – belon...

Ascension Day is a difficult day in the Church calendar in some ways. There are a couple of problems – firstly we have the question of Why Jesus left at all ? Couldn’t he have stayed and helped out a bit down here. This world certainly needs his help... And then there’s the question of how he left. It’s very difficult to picture Jesus just disappearing into the clouds above – beamed up to God, and yet, we are told, this is what happened. And yet Ascension Day in spite of these problems is a day of great celebration because it’s the day when we recognise that Jesus left the earth quite deliberately, because in doing so he gave us the strength to do his work until he returns, and he trusted us enough to do that work. So much of our lives are taken up watching and waiting, and this is perhaps especially true of our spiritual lives. We comfort ourselves with the ‘busyness’ of faith, the life of the Church and so on. We watch and wait for something to happen, something or someone to...