Daren continues our series on Genesis. This week he is speaking on Genesis 11. His topic is “God of Abram”
Transcript
Oh, yeah, don’t say, well, we really participated
in the fact you’ve both, haven’t we?
Well, thinking of saints, it turned out
that, as you know, we’re speaking on Genesis
for the moment, that there is and was a saint
from Saint Genesius.
And it’s not very much like Genesis.
Now, yeah, look at that.
I don’t think that was a celery, though.
Now, do you have a look at that picture there?
It was a patron saint of something.
What do you think he was looking through?
Saint Paul, as for his greatest actors, actors.
Now, on that note, I’ve got very deep
theological questions, you guys, to think about.
Are you ready?
It’s with the same thing.
Oppenheimer or Barbie?
What did you know?
What did you know?
It was great, then.
It turned out a good book, and I’m Oppenheimer fans.
You know, I’m a chair, I’ve got a kid.
What, Barbie?
Oh, oh, good day to see you, baby.
I’ve got a little bit more of it.
Well, the reason I say that is,
I think you will wear it down and go with it,
so don’t worry if it will open together.
Well, lastly, of course, was the Oscars.
And there was a lot of talk in the answers
about women or movies.
In fact, at the birthdays, a week before,
he wrote a poem he said, when he was giving
his presentation, he probably said,
he brought great, one of the people who loved us
and then he would have read.
Anyway, he was at the birthdays, and he said,
Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa.
Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa.
Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa.
Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa, Oompa.
Most of these films were frankly too long.
LAUGHTER
And you can watch the Oppenheimer these three hours.
It’s three hours.
Barbie’s nearly two hours.
And if you watch that, it’s a flowers of the kind of
the news in his course,
and you go, that’s three and a half hours.
They’re talking about bringing back
into missions in the syllabus.
Remember those?
I don’t know.
I think they’re on this stage now.
You know, I can really think of these missions.
But if you remember, you’d expect to come out
and go there with your screens.
OK.
But do you know what?
Since COVID and lockdowns, viewing habits
have changed, doesn’t it?
And to be honest, do you think you’ve washed up?
Yeah.
Do you think you’re going there?
Absolutely correct.
We tend to binge watch things, don’t be one.
Lots of screen sets.
And the reason I’m saying that is because
I’m going to content to you that Genesis,
chapter one to 11, are like series one of a box set.
And chapter 11, which we’re looking at today very shortly,
is the final episode with a clear item.
And most of the erosions and stories
will tell you that is actually the structure of Genesis.
But first, 11 chapters are of a certain series
if you like.
Everything changes next week.
Next week is the first episode of series.
How many series in Genesis?
I don’t know.
Maybe two or three.
But today we’ve got the final episode of series one,
really, that shouldn’t be clear at the end.
But think about that.
Some of it I read recently, but apparently,
to read the entire book of Genesis
in one day would take three and a half hours.
So maybe, if you’re thinking about each week
we’ve been looking at one chapter at a time,
maybe what you want to go to today,
you might want to binge and read Genesis.
It might be about three and a half hours.
Well, before we go any further,
I’d like my good friends Chris,
who’s going to read Genesis 11 for us.
And this is Genesis 11,
and it’s from 1 to 32.
The first bit’s going to be easy.
He’s talking about the Tarah of Babel.
Now, the Tarah of Babel.
Now, the whole world had one language
and a common speech.
As men moved eastwards,
they found a plane in Sheena and set them there.
They said to each other,
come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.
They used bricks instead of stone and tar for mortar.
Then they said, come,
let us build ourselves a city.
With a tower that reaches to the heavens
so that we make a name for ourselves
and not to be scattered over the face of the whole earth.
But the Lord came down to the city and the tower
and that the men were building.
The Lord said,
if, as one people speaking the same language,
they begin to do this,
then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
Come, let us go down and confuse their language
so that they will not understand each other.
So the Lord scattered them from there over the earth
and they stopped building the city.
That is why it was called Babel.
Because they’re the Lord confused the language of the whole world,
from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Now, this is where it gets interesting.
From Shem to Abram.
Two years after the flood,
when Shem was 100 years old,
he became the father of a fraxed.
And after he became the father of a fraxed,
Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.
When a fraxed had lived 35 years,
he became the father of Sheila.
And after he became the father of Sheila,
a fraxed lived 403 years
and had other sons and daughters.
When Sheila had lived 30 years,
he became the father of Iba.
And after he became the father of Iba,
Sheila lived 400 years and had other sons and daughters.
When Iba had lived 34 years,
he became the father of Pelic.
No, I won’t lie.
I did think about saying peg leg,
but then that’s fine.
I actually got to the hang of this.
And after he became the father of Pelic,
Iba lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.
When Pelic had lived 30 years,
he became the father of Roo.
And after he became the father of Roo,
Pelic lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.
When Sirogh had lived 30 years,
he became the father of Nihor,
and he became the father of Nihor.
Sirogh lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.
When Nihor had lived 29 years,
he became the father of Tira.
And after he became the father of Tira,
Nihor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.
After Tira had lived 70 years,
he became the father of Abram, Nihor and Haran.
This is the account of Tira.
Tira became the father of Abram, Nihor and Haran.
And Haran became the father of Lot.
While his father Tira was still alive,
Haran died in the Ur of the Shaldines,
in the land of his birth.
Abraham and Nihor married, both married.
The name of Abraham’s wife was Sirea,
and the name of Nihor’s wife was Millech.
She was the daughter of Haran,
the father of both Milka and Isuka.
Now Sirea was barren.
She had no children.
Tira took her, his son, Abram.
Abram, his grandson, Lot of Haran,
and his daughter-in-law, Sirea,
the wife of his son, Arabim.
And together, they set out for the Ur of the Shaldines
to go to Canaan.
But when they came to Haran, they settled there.
Tira lived 200 years, and he died in Haran.
Well done.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
It was really well done.
So I’m just wondering,
how do you understand this?
A little bit deeper into what I’ve been trying to say
for us, we’ve given the system earlier,
and just kind of setting my story.
I want to just put the idea to your sacred space,
holy ground, if you want.
And because I believe with all the exciting stuff that’s going on here,
MCA, particularly, thinking about the development of 146,
what do I’ve got these important to say about these projects
and what about this individually?
Because if we go back to the next slide of it,
if we go back to Genesis 11, it’s really a story of two hearts.
You’ve got the Tower of Babel, first of all.
And the treaty story, which is actually a flashback,
we’ll see in a little bit.
And it’s almost like a bit like one of those trying thrillers
where something happens and I think they jump in time
and go look at that in a minute.
But there’s really, really interesting ideas about that.
And, but, can you just say, well,
if you’re not important to all things, that might hurt.
And, but, I want to be about sacred space
in really, really important.
I’ve got this picture on the screen,
and we’ve got a picture on the left there
of quite a traditional church.
It might be a Catholic church,
or when you go to a very traditional church,
it might be a Catholic church,
or a Catholic church,
you’re often confronted with the baptismal font.
And the reason that’s there is because of the first thing you see
when you walk in, it’s baptism.
Because the view there is, it speaks at baptism,
speaking of the Christian church.
That’s why you see that.
And often, it’s furniture, bits and bobs,
in a sacred space.
Speak and tell about what we believe
and something about God.
On the right-hand side, you’ve got a really high artist.
You might have heard these Russian six feet of our conviction.
And, but, you know, the, the personal of those is to say,
the priest’s word is really, really, really important.
But, what does this space say about God?
What do you say about God?
So, we’re going to talk.
So, I don’t even want to quite,
I don’t even want to walk it on this way,
because, and I can hear, just over a year,
so I might be able to see this,
when perhaps fresh wine is loaded.
So, what really come into this workplace,
the first thing you see is always a lot of information
about the Lord and you,
there’s a lot of your knowledge of this space.
You usually get the work on a tiny one,
but you usually throw me cards.
And, that tells you the things that can flow on the world.
So, even by the day,
just don’t look for it on the front,
and the next thing you see is, front and centre,
But this version space, what does that tell you?
It will tell you the question here,
it really, really wants to pray the Lord in his coming.
It’s by your dear, the fact that it’s by your and in your cup,
I don’t think we can agree with some of our politicians,
but we think about that a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
But this is from the center.
If people know they don’t go wrong,
we get to this clear podium that we don’t want to call it.
And quite unusual why you want to sometimes,
because it’s clear, what does that say about God
and what God will believe?
Might like to pretend that it’s transparent.
We don’t hide.
We’re authentic.
You can see there’s no hiding behind any wooden box here.
What you see is what you get.
I’m going to take you a little bit further
to my favorite thing in this whole building.
And that’s this cross there.
We often sit at this part of the church
and sometimes, you know, just stare and look at that.
And I wonder what’s your favorite picture on there.
But what does that say?
Well, to me, you can quite clearly see each of those timers be made by children.
Not quite clearly says that children are welcomed here and valued here.
So all of these things in this sacred space,
tell us about who we are, what we believe and what we think about God.
What we think about God.
So getting back to Genesis 11 then,
I mentioned that it was a kind of like a throwback.
It’s almost like a thinking back to a previous time.
But if you have a look at this life,
there’s this talk about the people being spread out
and scattered on lots of different languages.
And it was great to hear those this morning.
But then suddenly you have this story of Babel.
So this baby really is the story of almost like thinking back to something
that happened a little bit earlier.
But there’s some really interesting ideas about this story.
It’s quite kind of widely accepted that the tower of Babel was what they call a ziggurat,
which is like a rectangular tower.
Think of like a wedding cake with lots of levels.
And it starts off with a big level and it gets higher and higher and higher.
But the idea is that people would not go up this tower to worship.
The idea is that God would hopefully come down.
Priest would maybe take some food up there.
There would be a bed at the top.
But what does that say about God?
You know, let’s just keep God way higher there at a distance.
Maybe God doesn’t really care about us.
He’s up there in evidence.
And you see, you know, because we heard a few weeks ago in Genesis 3
that people had lost their access to the presence of God
and they would long to get it back perhaps.
If you’re a bit of historian, you might have heard of Josephus.
And in his antiquities to the Jews in Chapter 4,
he reckons that this tower was built by Nimrod, son of Ham,
grandson of Noah.
And the reason Nimrod wrote it, built it according to Josephus,
was because he thought, do you know what?
If God is going to flood the earth again,
I want some way to run and hide and take my boat here.
Absolutely, yeah.
He was wrong because God said he wasn’t going to judge the world
in that way again.
Others say, well, perhaps this passage is all about an explanation
of why we’ve got so many different languages
and I’m sure it is.
And on that note, what do you think about this?
Well, yeah, exactly.
What language were we actually speaking? Glory.
A friend of mine, a preacher of friends, used to say,
well, of course, the version of Scripture is going to be
the King James Version in Heaven.
But who knows? Who knows?
But what does our most trusted source say to Scripture itself?
Let’s have a look.
So thank you, Chris, for reading that.
Let’s have a look at these verses one to nine, the Tower of Babel.
And it turns out there’s actually structure in this passage
for those who care to look a little bit closer.
This happens quite a lot in Hebrew literature.
And it starts off, if you look at verses one and two,
it kind of linked to verses eight and nine.
But the opposite way around.
So in verse one, you start up with one language
and people are coming together in one place.
And then in verses eight and nine, you’ve got many languages
and people are scattered.
So it’s the same, but the opposite in reverse.
Then you come into verses three and four,
and then they link up to six and seven.
So the three and four of the people spoke, verses six and seven,
God spoke.
So this is a bit like, you know, there’s really posh restaurants
you go to where you’ve got your plate and loads of knives and forks.
Where do you start?
Where you start on the outside and you work your way in.
And the most important bit is right in the middle.
The Lord came down.
This is the punchline, if you like.
This is the punchline.
This is the whole point of this passage, I believe.
In fact, this particular structure of Scripture
is called a chiasm named after the Greek letter X.
And I like the thought there that that is Jesus there
right in the center of that spiritual.
Or you could say X marks the spot.
The Lord came down.
That was a central idea.
But wasn’t that a good thing?
The Lord came down.
Wasn’t that the point?
Wasn’t that what they wanted?
They built this tower and they wanted God to come down.
So what’s been wrong?
Well, I think we need to get back to the previous verse.
Let’s have a look at that.
The people came together and said, let us build ourselves a city
with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we might make a name for ourselves.
Oh, doesn’t seem to be anything much wrong without this.
Isn’t it a good thing to make a name for ourselves?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Oh, who’s that?
Yeah.
A couple of years ago I got a job in a particular school in Sheffield
and I was really, really proud when they had my photo taken
and you can see my classroom there just through the door there
and you can tell how proud I was about this.
The fact that I still got a photo of it.
And what was amazing was outside one door, there’s my name,
Mr. Darren Craddock, head of computing.
Brilliant, there’s my name on the door at the top of my game
when they’re to set up this computing department.
I’m absolutely really, really proud about that.
But that thing’s always wrong for me.
And by the end of that year I ended up being signed off for mental and physical health really.
And even though from my point of view, this was it.
This was the peak of my career.
I even got one day on the door with a photo.
My name, I think it all went wrong for me.
In fact, during that time I even had an eye surgery,
a cataract surgery on my right eye.
It’s kind of weird.
I’ve got a contact lens in this eye.
It’s kind of a normal eye of this if you like.
So when I take my contact lens out at night, on the long side of here,
the short side of there is kind of weird perspective on life.
But even during, after that procedure, the eye pressure,
my eye went sky high.
Apparently your eye pressure is meant to be between 10 and 20
whatever those numbers mean.
Mine went up to 50 and I could have lost my sign.
But I’m just going to think to take you back like a story within the story.
When I sat there for this eye surgery, it was in Barbara, this amazing place.
And there was three of us men.
I was youngest by far, all waiting for this pretty scary eye operation really.
If ever you had that, you know what I mean.
It only takes 12 minutes to do this surgery, but you lie back in the theatre.
Your eyes can’t open.
A bright light shines on it and your lenses removed.
I won’t go into details.
And you have a new one, a fidget.
So before this operation, there’s three of us guys sat there.
The guy on my left, his flick was bouncing up and down.
You know how men do.
And I was sat there.
But in front of us were these two nurses.
And there was a male nurse and a female nurse.
And they were talking to us really calmly.
Putting our drops in our eyes, making sure we got the right eye.
And going from one to the other.
And we would sit there, trying to, lots and lots of eye drops.
And the guy who was talking to me said,
he’s doing anything this weekend, sir.
I said, well, actually, yeah.
I said, all being well with my eye, I’m leading a service and preaching at my local church.
And he goes, oh, that’s really good.
And he said, my wife’s daddy is the church minister.
And that’s my wife there, the other nurse.
Oh, wow.
And then if that wasn’t really good, the man to my heart.
The man to my right leaned over and put his hand at my shoulder and said,
hey, brother, I’m a Christian soon.
I thought, wow, we’ve got a list of congregations right here.
And it made me realize that sacred space can be wherever you find it.
Sacred space can be wherever you make it.
I like to go to the gym in Chris, who read this morning.
Go to the same gym.
And Chris, I’ve not asked his permission to share this.
Sorry, Chris.
But something that Chris does.
If you know what gyms are like, they often have a change with lots of lockers.
And what Chris would do, once he’s finished his workout, he’ll leave a gospel tract in the locker.
So who knows what might find out.
So even the smelly stinky men’s gym locker could be sacred space.
Sacred space is when you find it.
Sacred space is where you make it.
And I sometimes think that if you really want to find holy ground, if you want to see a burning bush,
you’ve got to spend some time in the wilderness.
So that was part of my story.
Going back to my school, it was so off of me, and I handed in my notice with no job to go to.
But I’m always to pay, you know, but a wife and doctor for you, you know, and…
Actually, and that sort of thing.
But I handed in my notice with no job to go to, but it was the right thing to go.
This was right at the end of the school year.
If you know how schools work, you can only really apply at certain points of the year.
This was sort of June time.
And then God miraculously provided a job for me, not ahead of computing,
but temporary teacher of computing.
I thought, I almost didn’t go through it.
My wife could have killed me.
Of course you’ve got to go through it.
But I went for the job and got it.
And then during the summer holiday, just before this job started, I thought,
I’d go into school, be really keen and tidy up the computer room.
Teacher’s company quite messy, sorry.
I went in.
And anyway, I was walking around the room.
And the first thing you come to in my classroom is this little cupboard.
You can see it like a kitchen unit with all computer stuff.
And I opened this cupboard, and there was this teaching resource there, as you can see.
And I took it out.
I thought that looks familiar.
I gave you a closer look.
And it says, down product, 2008.
That’s me.
So I can only presume that where they bought this at this school,
14 years previously, and it’s probably been in the cupboard ever since.
And it was almost like, you know, God was saying, you know, your name might not be in the front of the classroom door anymore.
But I’ve tucked it away here in this humble place, because this is where I want you to be.
I’m going to show you a couple of more quick photos of my classroom.
I took these a couple of weeks ago.
On the left is just above my teacher’s workstation.
You see what is there by Bible scripture.
You see on the other picture, looking out for the windows, there’s a cross.
And in all of our classrooms, we have a cross, because there’s somebody else’s name on the door.
There’s somebody else’s name glorified.
And even better, this is the score logo.
Now, I’m going to have that.
I’m going to try and torture the French.
It’s in French.
And it’s, ah.
I mean, I never know if it’s, ah.
Well, ah, like a sign.
Ah, that’s it.
Yeah.
But if I have a go, it’s ah.
Keena Bonne de Bongeur.
And the score motto is, ah.
How good is the good God?
Isn’t that great?
So, it’s not my name and majority of somebody else’s.
Somebody else’s.
So, let’s go back to our scripture.
You see, the builders really wanted to make a name for themselves.
They wanted to make a name for themselves.
Not always wrong in itself, but can be, certainly in my case.
But when I started to dig into the scripture a little bit deeper,
I was really taken with that word name.
Now, I want you to keep your eyes, if you can, on the word names,
because I thought, let’s have a look at the Hebrew.
I’m not a Hebrew scholar or anything like that.
Once very carefully, when I go to the next slide,
it says that we might make a shimmer ourselves.
We go back, look, name.
One’s of technology, name.
And, in fact, if you have a look, you can see this on Bible gateway
or whatever, look at the Orthodox Jewish Bible.
And it says that we may make a gem for themselves.
I think you look down at the very end of the Tower Babel,
verse 10, this is a count of Shem’s family name, a line.
It turns out, Shem means name.
And I wonder, it might just be me, that God is saying,
not your name is my name.
And it’s my family name.
They tried to make a name for themselves, but God said,
no, not your name, my name.
And the rest of Genesis 11, if you follow the story down,
you go down from Shem and it ends as we heard at Abraham.
And that is, that is the kind of like cliffhagger
at the end of Genesis 11.
Well, I’m going to give you a spoiler.
Because if you turn to the very beginning of the New Testament,
the story continues.
This is the genealogy of Jesus and Messiah.
The son of David, son of Abraham.
And it goes on, Father David, David was the father of Solomon
and so on.
Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary,
and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
I wonder if that’s the reason why the Tower of Babel story is right there.
Yes, of course it’s about the languages.
But remember the punchline, X marks the spot.
That’s where the treasure is.
God’s saying, it’s not about your name.
It’s about my name.
And I wonder if God is saying in Scripture,
I will make a ship.
I will make a ship.
I’ll make a name, but not in the way that you would imagine.
Because it’s not going to be through a building.
It’s going to be through a body.
It’s not going to be through a tower, but it’s going to be through a tree.
It’s not going to be through confusion, but it’s going to be through crucifixion.
It’s not going to be through religion, but it’s going to be through relationship.
It’s not going to be through sacrifices, but it’s going to be through his spirit.
It’s not going to be through our power or our performance,
but it’s going to be through a person.
It’s not through anything that we can do, but it’s through what he has done.
It’s not through our skill, but it’s through his salvation.
It’s not through our goodness, but it’s through his grace, and it’s not through our name,
but it’s his name, Jesus, Savior, Emmanuel, God with us.
You know, a couple of weeks ago, I was teaching a group of year tens, I teach computer science,
and there was three lads who were all having a bit of a chat together, and that it was
getting quite heated, and they were all talking about heaven and hell, and perfectly, of course,
it’s a Catholic story, and about his men all sorts. Now, they were supposed to be getting on
with their coding, but I always let that slide, and I’m more than happy for those conversations
to go on. Now, as I was walking around, one lad who I know, he’s a believer, caught me over,
he says, sir, sir, and I went over, I thought he was going to ask me about his computer program,
and he said, sir, he said, you can ask you a question, and I said, yeah, you dream dreams.
And then this young lad, 15 years old, said, what he said in Joel, in the last days, God says,
I will pour out my spirit on all people, your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
Yeah. I guess I’ll have to take that one on the chin, one side.
Yeah. But he got me thinking, he got me thinking, this young lad, 15 year old, in a class of a
couple of weeks before I was speaking, Joel. So I turned to Acts chapter two, where we read about
Pentecost, and when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place, how stable.
And suddenly a sound like the blurring of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the
whole house where they were sitting. God came down. And they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire
that separated and came to rest with each of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and
began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled him. Now they were staying in Jerusalem,
God’s fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. And when they heard this sound, the crowd came
together in bewilderment, because each one heard them in their own language, utterly amazed, they
said, I know all these men who were speaking Gathalains, and how is it that each of us hears
them in that very native language. So where there was confusion, now there’s understanding.
And then Peter, Peter stood up and he addressed the crowd and said,
yeah, they’re not drunk as you imagine. And then Peter says, this is what was spoken by the
Prophet Joel. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit and all people. Your sons and
daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams,
even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will
prophesy, and I will show wonders in their heaven above. So from a 15 year old boy,
the Pentecost, no longer confusion but understanding.
So what, so what can we say about this? Well, I just wonder whether as we’re thinking about
the building work that’s going on in 146, everything that happens here, maybe it’s a ministry
that we’ve got. Maybe sometimes we need to accept our own hearts and just to say,
Lord, am I, is this about making a name for me rather than the name for you, Lord?
How far are we allowing God to establish his presence and his purposes among his people
in his way, on his terms and for his glory? And I wonder if we have or have had any attitudes or
actions that might get in the way of God’s purposes and presence, that might confuse the
scatter instead of bringing peace and unity and blessing.
And I wonder also about this because Jesus said, when you pray, go into your room, close the door
and pray to your father who is unseen. Then your father who sees what is done in secret will reward
you. Well, we’ve been talking about sacred space as a corporate place. I wonder,
maybe if this is a holy place, just when you get home, just close your room, just you and the
Lord. And it doesn’t even matter what you say. There’s a famous quotation where an interviewer
wants to approach Mother Teresa, who is now a saint trying for them, and who prayed a lot.
An interviewer said, Mother Teresa, when you pray, what do you say to God thinking it was going to
be something amazing? And Mother Teresa apparently said, well, I don’t say anything, I just sit and
listen. And the interviewer, I think, you know, being clever, said, well, what does God say? Mother
Teresa said, well, he doesn’t say anything, he just sits and listens to you. What about this?
Saint Paul says in Corinthians, do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit,
who is in you, whom you’ve received from God. You’re not your own. You know that. You’ve been
brought with a very expensive price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies. So, what do our lives
say about God, about who we are, what we believe and who God is? What do our homes say? What do our
workplaces say? You know, when I get into work now, it’s, I used to get quite early,
we’re going to the gym, it’s cheaper at the clock, but I’m usually in quarter to seven, and one of
the first things I did was I walk around my sacred space, my classroom, and I pray, and God is always
there. So, you know, I perhaps even look up the cross, the cross, and I say, Lord, I welcome you here
today. I pray your blessing on all the children in my hair, in here, and, you know, just welcome
you here, and then I walk around and I say the Lord’s prayer, because my place of work,
you know, it’s work, and I’m looking forward to the holidays coming up, but it’s a sacred space.
It’s holy ground up. Maybe I should take off my shoes next time.
So, we are temples of the Holy Spirit, and because God just wants to be with us, because that’s all
he desires, in revelation we’ve been hearing about revelation, and it says, John says, look,
God’s dwelling place is now among the people, he will dwell with them, they will be his people,
and God himself will be with them, and be their God.
I’ve really finished, but just some thoughts to bring to your close. I want to invite the
musicians. I wonder, up in the moment, would you?
Yeah, go for that one. I’m going to actually take us right back to, you know, where we started,
and I realise that I’ve forgotten the story, that picture, that might come back in a minute,
I’ve realised I’ve forgotten to tell a story which I’m going to share, think about sacred space,
because it’s just going to link up with this. Remember that picture I showed you earlier about
the really tall palm pimp, and I can’t believe I missed out on that story, so I’ll share it,
it’s worth sharing. So, about 30 years ago, I was invited to go and preach in every year,
this really old Baptist Church, and my wife Judith and I went, so it was an old friend of mine,
a preacher friend who couldn’t make that the appointment, so he asked me. So, this was in June,
30 years ago, in this really ancient Baptist Church, it looked like an old kind of Anglican
Paris Church, and as my wife and I arrived, the whole congregation was outside, the youngest
must have been 83, but they were there really excited, you know, and they welcomed us, and as
soon as we went in, the first thing you could see was this great big pop which I was going to be
preaching from, so anyway, a bit later when I went up there, right next to it was the Baptist
history, is baptism equally important, now I’m terrified of heights, which I’ve not very tall,
but we’ve grown up this and looking down, but anyway, at the start of the service, all the
ladies seemed to kind of usher my wife to one side, and some of the older gentlemen said,
said, down a bit, let’s go and pray, and they took me to, this was a side room with all these
refugee teachers, and they were the little chair, and we always sat down to pray, and as we sat down
all the old men in unison all got up their chairs, and they went to kneel down to pray,
and it was when we were praying, I suddenly felt on this day floor that she feels quite comfortable,
as I looked down and looked to my left and to my right on these flag stones, you could see a little
kneel, that knee shape indentation on these flag stones, and I thought, how many decades of
kneeling in prayer in that speaker, I just had to share that story, and so I’m not a kid
position waiting for that much longer, but coming back to where I started,
thinking about fame and actors, their name, have a look at this, I’m sure you’re familiar
with, you know, when actors, when they get famous, and they get their name on the Hollywood walk,
and having a look at those photos, and I think it’s quite interesting to see their position
where they are, and I want to share with you, I suppose a sort of personal thing, and maybe
like a sort of tip, if you like, for anybody who has any ministry or preaching, and something
that I do, because when you’re preaching at the end of a service or leading a service,
people always come up to you, and they say, well done, you know, that was really good,
what would you do with that? Is that pride to accept that? Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,
and I’ll note that I’ll do that today, is you just accept the praise, and the thanks in good
faith, and you might say, well did he God speak to you, and then when I get home, I will go and
shut the bedroom door on my knees, and say, you know what Lord, all those praises are yours,
and you remember that glorious vision in Revelation 4, when there’s a rainbow circling the throne,
the surrounding that throne were the 24 elders, and they were dressed in white and had crowns
of gold in their heads, and they bowed down, and gave those crowns before the living God,
so maybe, maybe that is the most sacred space, on your own, on your knees, is for the name that
is above all names. So then invite the musicians, if you want one to start sort of playing to me,
and give us a moment just to respond, because it’s worth responding.
Maybe as you’re sat, you might want to sit and just listen to what, maybe chew on what you’ve heard.
Just thinking about whose name is on your, your door.
Are there any attitudes in our life that we’ve had? Maybe we’ve been quite happy to keep God in
our pockets. Maybe we’ve been happy to keep God at arms length high up in the sky out of the
reach, just on a Sunday. Maybe it’s time to come close.
And maybe there’s, some of us, there’s been confusion in lives in the scattering.
Maybe you’re here because you’re confusing, you’ve been scattered.
Maybe life has been hard for you, and God has felt far away.
Maybe this morning, if not physically on your knees, then just quieting your heart is near before
the name that is above all names, because in his name there is no more confusion.
He will bring beauty for action. He will bring healing from illness and pain.
For those who have been depressed, the suffering from depression, can arise easily.
He can bring that calm and that peace.
The age of us, as we’ve been out before our hearts, and we remember the Shems, the name, the name of
all names. Because God has exalted him to the highest place, and given him the name that is
above every name, that of the name of Jesus, every dish about, in heaven and on earth,
and of under the earth, and every tongue confess, that Jesus is Lord.