26th April 2025

Statement of Faith.  3 of 4

Readings: John 3:1-3 & 16-21. Romans 8:1-11

While Lectio 365 is doing a really excellent job leading us through Eastertide, and this week it has been particularly powerful, we are looking at our Statement of Faith, which might seem somewhat mundane in comparison. 

This is our third session and so far we’ve established the authority and reliability of the Bible and we’ve talked about the Trinity, about who Jesus is, and then who the Holy Spirit is. If you’ve missed any of this, I do encourage you to read what I said by visiting our internet site and looking in the sermon archives.

So today we move on to n° 5, which says Man was originally created in the image and likeness of God.  His disobedience led to his fall, and thus to physical and spiritual death. All men are born with a sinful nature, are separated from the life of God and can ONLY be saved by the atoning work of the Lord Jesus. The fate of the unrepentant and unbelieving is a conscious existence in eternal torment, and that of the believer is eternal joy and bliss.

I’m not a fire and brimstone, hell and damnation type of preacher, as you know, and in any case, I think, or hope, that if I did that this morning, I’d be preaching to the choir.

But the fact of the matter is that it’s not the choir we’re worried about.  There’s a world full of people out there who either have genuinely never heard about this, or they have and they chose to ignore it. 

On Wednesday those of us at the Bible study saw a cartoon of people on an aeroplane that was about to crash, crying out to God for mercy. 

It was making the point that deep down, most people DO believe that God exists. Sadly though, critically even, that’s not enough. 

That’s all very sobering, but the thing is that there is good news and it’s our job to get it out there, to let the world know, our family and friends especially, that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

We are not all born evangelists, I’m certainly not, but, as Pete Greig reminded us yesterday, we are all missionaries. If we live honourably, show love to our neighbours, let them know, at least, that we’re Christians, and if we financially support the ministries of those who are evangelists, then we’re on the right track.  That’s why this church supports missionary organisations, rather than just charities, currently Mary’s Meals, World Vision, and the Church Mission Society. And that’s also why, on Saturday, we are joining one ourselves, The Christian and Missionary Alliance in English, the Alliance des Églises Chrétiennes et Missionnaires in French. 

And this brings us beautifully into our next article, n°6. Salvation is offered freely by Jesus Christ to all men. Those who repent and believe in Him are born again by the Holy Spirit; they receive the gift of eternal life and become children of God.

We refer to that glibly as the “good news of the gospel”, but by golly it really is “good news”. I don’t know of anything better.  

There IS an alternative to the conscious existence in eternal torment that we were just talking about, and it’s freely available to ANYONE. But there’s a catch. We have first to acknowledge our need for grace, receive forgiveness, and submit to his Lordship. All that can be easier said than done for some people.

Again, I don’t want to spend my time this morning preaching to the converted, but what I do want to do is to make it clear why this church is here, what it believes, what it stands for and what its role is, to be a place where people will find family and friendship as they enjoy getting to know God, his love and his peace.

One way or another, we must be witness to the fact that as Jesus told Nicodemus, “no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

Did you know that on our internet site, the tabs along the top are “Home”, “Who is Jesus”, “About us”, “Sermon archives”, “Missions”, and “Version Française”?  If you’re reluctant to talk to people yourself, the “Who is Jesus” tab can be useful places to send them. 

And moving on there’s even more good news, because not only does God want every living person to be saved, but as our Article 7 tells us that He wants every believer to be filled with the Holy Spirit, fully sanctified (spirit, soul and body), separated from sin and the world, totally dedicated to God's will, thus receiving the power necessary for holy living and effective service. This awareness of the need for sanctification, usually distinct from conversion, confirms normal growth and allows for progressive development.

I have to apologise if you know all this stuff, but I need to explain what’s meant here by the words sanctified and sanctification. There’s a lot of jargon, inevitably I suppose, in modern Christianity and that’s not always very helpful.

Literally it means “made into a saint”, and that’s logical if you think about it.  We’re going to heaven, and when we get there, we will be saints. 

But there are two aspects to it.  An instant one and a progressive one. 

And it’s God, in the form of the Holy Spirit who does this.   We are saved “by the Spirit”, and at that moment God, God the Holy Spirit, comes into our lives, he starts to inhabit us, we become saints, we’re sanctified.

But then, God the Holy Spirit begins a progressive work transforming the way we think and behave, sanctifying us “by the Spirit”, and simultaneously, progressively “filling us more and more with his Spirit”. I hope that makes some sense.

There’s another use of the phrase “filled with the Spirit” that refers to the events of the first Pentecost, that we’ll be celebrating in just a few weeks’ time, and that you’ll find in charismatic and pentecostal churches (small ‘c’ and small ‘p’).  I don’t want to get too bogged down by this, either, but I thought it might help if I tell you, briefly, about our own experience.

When Charlotte and I lived in Buckinghamshire in the late 1980s, we struggled to find a church where the Bible was taught, where God seemed to be present, and where the worship seemed more than a boring traditional routine.  We knew that such churches existed because my younger sister went to one, and we would go to it with here as often as we could, but the snag was that it was 3 hours away.

The only one we could find locally was an Assemblies of God, pentecostal church, so we’ve witnessed and experienced some of the ‘manifestations’ that I mentioned last week.  It was uncomfortable at first, but we came to understand that it was genuine, and we knew that God was in it. 

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve wanted to express yourself, but because of your emotions words just failed you.  That’s akin to worshiping in tongues.  You just want to express your passion and intimacy in worship to God, to go further than your vocabulary will let you, so the Holy Spirit intervenes and gives them to you, and before you know where you are, you’re worshiping in tongues. 

Of course it’s not as simple as that, but what I’m trying to say is that it’s not something to shy away from, quite the reverse.  

This leaves us with four more articles to talk about, healing, the church, resurrection and the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s all for two weeks’ time because I’m not here next Sunday, when you’ll be in Andy’s capable hands.   

If anyone wants to talk more about anything that I’ve said today, I’d be very happy to do so.