Tag: christianity

Sunday Set List 14 August 2011

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, faith

Last Sunday we held the first of a new style of meeting at my church. Normally the youth band play downstairs in a more relaxed youth-style meeting. This meeting, the youth band provided the music, while the Corps Officer preached and organised the meeting that was upstairs in our main worship hall. The whole aim of this service was to bridge the gap between the relaxed style of worship of our regular Youth Meetings, and the more “formal” style of the regular Sunday meeting.

In choosing songs for this meeting, with the message entitled “The Invention of Lying” and a general theme of Love, I picked a couple of newer songs, a couple of older songs that we often use in the morning meetings, and a couple of Youth Band regulars. I think I’ll try to stick to this mix to help encourage this mixing of the styles of worship.

Songs we used were:

  • One Day – Hillsong
  • Break Free – Hillsong
  • You are Good – Nathan Rowe
  • The Power of your Love
  • Hosanna – Hillsong
  • Jesus, lover of my Soul
  • Take it All – Hillsong

It was a great service, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else we can do in the rest of the year.

This post is part of the Sunday Setlists, run by The Worship Community. Follow the links to read more about what songs were worshiping God on Sunday.

A Star Trek Devotional: Code of Honor

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, faith, Star Trek Devotional

PICARD: You’re right, Data. It does sound like a joke. With the power of the Enterprise, we could overwhelm this place easily. Take what we want.
DATA: I may not understand human humor, sir, but I am a Starfleet Academy graduate.
PICARD: Which means, of course…
DATA: … understanding the Prime Directive, sir.
PICARD: Which is, unfortunately, what this is about. By our standards, the customs here and code of honor are the same kind of pompous, strutting charades that endangered our own species a few centuries ago. We evolved out of it because no one else imposed their own… (stops; shakes head ruefully) Sorry, that became a speech.

Lt. Yar and Yareena battle to the death for the position of Lutan's "First One"

In Code of Honor, the Enterprise crew visit a planet to open trade negotiations to obtain a vaccine. When the leader of that world, Lutan, abducts security chief, Lt. Tasha Yar, and his wife challenges Yar to a fight to the death, Captain Picard orders Data and Geordi La Forge to analyse the weapons with the aim of evaluating their use in a battle to the death between Yar and Lutan’s wife. Continue reading “A Star Trek Devotional: Code of Honor” →

You can feed 5000 (or more)

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, faith

This is the sermon that I delivered at York Salvation Army on Sunday 7 August, 2011. The Bible passage it is based on is Matthew 14:13-21.

Preaching seated

I apologise that I’m preaching seated down. I hope you can all see me. Just over a year ago, I was playing basketball in my E division Salvos comp team, the aptly named Team Victory, because we never win. I was making a drive in towards the left, and my knee collapsed from under me. At the time, it was suspected that it was just a dislocated patella, but after I reinjured my knee earlier this year while making a coffee, it became apparent that my Anterior Cruciate Ligament had actually been ruptured, with the only fix being Surgery. I had that almost two weeks ago, and as such, standing isn’t great, so I’m going to have to be seated for this sermon.

However, you’ll know that Jesus taught many sermons seated. These are mostly in the Gospel of Matthew, as this gospel was written for a Jewish audience, who understood that respected teachers taught while seated. So I thought I’d look at those to see if that was what God was wanting me to talk about today. But they didn’t grab my attention so much, however, the Feeding of the Five Thousand sparked something that I thought was where God was leading me today.

“You Feed Them”

The disciples come to Jesus saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus responds by saying “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

This was something that really stood out to me. Jesus instructs his followers to perform the miracle of feeding all these people. However, the disciples can’t see past the physical need of food, when Jesus is actually telling the disciples that they are able to feed these people spiritually. However, they lack the faith at this time to see past the physical, to see what Jesus is talking about, and to see the possibilities.

Lack of Faith stories

The Feeding of the 5000 is the only story that appears in all four gospels, and in three of the gospels, they are accompanied by other stories where the disciples showed a lack of Faith.

In the feeding of the five thousand, the disciples didn’t have the faith that they were able to feed the people, even though Jesus knew that they were able.

Following this story in Matthew, Mark and John is the story of Jesus walking on the water, where Peter steps out from the boat, then lacks faith and begins to sink.

Finally, in John 6:30, the crowd says to Jesus “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you?” This crowd is the very same crowd that was at the feeding of the five thousand – the same crowd that made Jesus withdraw himself from the crowds because (as John 6:15 puts it) “they were about to come and take him by force to make him king.” Yet they lacked the faith to trust him a day later, and asked him to perform another sign.

Has there been a time in your life where you’ve lacked faith? I’m sure at certain points there has been times where we’ve all questioned whether God exists, or whether God is able to help in this or that situation. These times aren’t to be shunned, you shouldn’t feel bad about them. Because I believe that they are healthy, as it is through questioning that we become stronger in our belief.

Likewise, in each of these occasions where the Disciples or the crowd showed a lack of faith, Jesus provided the food for them to restore that faith. Jesus provided Food for the five thousand, pulled Peter out of the water, and calmed the seas, and spiritually fed the crowd by saying he was the bread of life.

Feed them through Jesus

In the feeding of the five thousand, it was only through Jesus that the disciples were able to feed those that were there. The disciples brought what they had, five loaves and two fish – basic Galilean rations. Jesus blessed it, gave it to the disciples and they distributed it.

The important thing here is that the disciples brought what they had to Jesus, and once Jesus had blessed it, they were able to feed the crowds with what they had. Jesus enabled their small blessing to feed thousands.

What this means to us is that no matter how small our gift is, when we give it to Jesus, he is able to multiply it to give blessing to a multitude of people.

An example. I studied Music at university, and as part of that I developed skills in arranging. One afternoon this year, I got home from work, and sat down and worked on an arrangement of Rueben Morgan’s song, Let the Weak say I am strong, for our Songsters at Floreat. I was completed by dinner. It was very little work for me. However, I presented it to our Songster Leader, and he distributed parts for our Songsters and we rehearsed it. Last Sunday, we performed it, and while I wasn’t able to join in thanks to my knee, I was up the back recording it on my phone. That has been uploaded onto YouTube, where that small effort of mine has continued to bless people who I may never know or meet. When I give my gifts to Jesus – no matter how small they may be, Jesus is able to use them to allow me to give blessing to others.

Disciples able to feed others

A couple of months ago, we celebrated Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit came down and empowered the believers. At this time, Peter, the apostle who ran away from Jesus when he was questioned during the crucifixion, the apostle who blurted out at the transfiguration not understanding what he was saying, the apostle who stepped out of the boat and lacked the faith and began to sink, delivered this incredible sermon.

Now, Peter was a fisherman, unschooled, unlearned, having not studied the Torah. Yet, in the sermon that is recorded in Acts 2, about 40% of the sermon is quotations from scripture. There’s a large passage from the prophet Joel, and two passages of David. This is quite an amazing feat for someone who is uneducated, yet through the Holy Spirit, Peter’s small amount was magnified, and there were 3,000 new converts that day.

I’ve been reading Bill Hybel’s book, Just Walk across the room, where he encourages us to walk across the room and make relationships with people. He suggests that when we’re open to the guidance of the holy spirit, we are then able to be aware of opportunities to talk about faith with friends, to be open to opportunities to invite them to church. When we offer up our everyday life, such a little, mundane, thing, and allow the holy spirit to bless it, then we open ourselves up to the possibility of feeding 5,000.

5000 (and women and children)

In conclusion, a short note about the last verse: “five thousand men, besides women and children.” This was the norm for how numbers were recorded. For example, in Exodus 12:37, it is recorded that six hundred thousand men, besides children journeyed from Rameses to Succoth. The reason Matthew included this is to show that there was no exclusion to who received the blessings of God. No group was to be excluded from the glory of God, and likewise no group should be excluded from your ministry.

So if you’re to take only one thing from today, let it be this: Take what you have, give it to Jesus to bless, allow the Holy spirit to magnify it, and let it bless anyone and everyone that you know.

The right to become children of God

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, faith
Incipit Page of the Gospel of John.
The incipit page from the Gospel of John (Image by peterjr1961 via Flickr)

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

John 1:12-13
This is a beautiful passage from the beginning of John’s gospel, that says that all who believe in Jesus, all who accept him and trust in him, have the right to become a child of God, and accept all the inheritance that comes with that, to receive God’s care and protection.

This NIV translation has some interesting changes in verse 13. The NRSV translation of verse 13 reads “who were born, not of blood, or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” They both use the plural, “who were” or “children” as opposed to the singular “who was” which some old translations have. The singular implies that it is only Jesus that this passage is talking about, where as the plural implies that it is talking about everyone that accepts and believes in Jesus. But the next part, skipping the “not of blood” with the NIV translating that as being “not of natural descent” is a nicer translation, if not entirely correct, but it does reduce the chance of confusion. E.C. Hoskyns in his book The Fourth Gospel writes “The Evangelist cannot write that the Christians were not born of blood (singular), because their birth does in fact depend upon a death which later he describes as involving the outpouring of blood.” This depends on whether you believe that salvation comes through the death of Christ, or as this verse seems to imply only through belief in his name. Note that one does not discredit the other, it is all in which way your beliefs take you.

There are many who would say that belief that doesn’t include salvation through the cross makes you not a “real” Christian. To them, I would give this verse, “to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Personally, I believe that Christ died to forgive our sins as an amazing act of grace. He did this for all the children of God, all those who believe in his name.

Why does God allow evil in his world?

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, faith

This topic suggestion, Why is there evil in the world?, is from The Daily Post as part of the Post-a-day writing challenge.

Student: Sir, you are working on the Premise of Duality. You argue there is Life and then there is Death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it.

That quote is part of a longer story about an atheist Philosophy lecturer and a student having an argument in class, where the student ends up declaring to his classmates that the lecturer has no brain, because no one in the class has seen, felt, tasted, smelt or heard it. You can read it in full here.

You see, there is evil in this world when people are far away from God. God allows it because he has given us free will. We can choose which way we go. I have this image of God, and all his angels, looking on from above, cheering each of us on to choose the right way, and consoling us when we make a mistake.

Postaday2011 links

You can feed five thousand

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, faith
Jesus is considered by scholars such as Weber ...
A depiction of Jesus, teaching seated. (Image via Wikipedia)

Liesl and I have been asked to lead a service at the York Corps on August 7, and it’s apparently my turn to preach. Now, I’m due to have knee surgery on Tuesday (if I don’t there’s a whole heap of other problems happening, but I’m not going into that), which means I may well be on crutches when we do the service. So I’m planning to preach sitting down. Jesus often sat down while teaching, so why shouldn’t I?

It got me thinking about the times Jesus did sit down to preach, which mostly appear in Matthew’s gospel. This is all because Matthew’s gospel was written for a mostly Jewish audience, where Teachers would teach seated. So there’s the Sermon on the Mount, and the parable of the Sower and the seeds that fall on various ground, but these didn’t seem to grab me. I turned to chapter 14 and read of the feeding of the five thousand.

After this, I read the relating passage in the Tyndale commentary that we were given a while ago and I now have a bookcase to display them so I grabbed this commentary and this little bit sparked an idea.

As the day wore on, the disciples urged Him to discontinue His healing activity and to send the crowds away to obtain provisions before it was too late. Jesus, still moved with compassion for the hungry, shepherdless throng that surrounded Him, decides to use His miraculous power to satisfy their needs. But first He brings home to His disciples indirectly the fundamental truth that he has called them to be shepherds of the new Israel which constitute the Messiah’s flock, but that they will never be able to discharge that function in their own strength. All the power necessary for ‘feeding the sheep’ comes from Him, the chief Shepherd of the flock, and from Him alone. Such would seem to be the significance of Jesus’ words “They need not depart; give ye them to eat.” When they point out that their available supplies, “but five loaves, and two fishes” are totally inadequate for a catering task of such magnitude, He bids them bring their resources to Him; and in His hands they become so wonderfully multiplied that when the disciples receive them back from Him and distribute the broken pieces to the people they are found to be more than adequate for the entire company.

The Gospel According to St. Matthew Tyndale Commentary (General editor Professor R.V.G. Tasker), 1961. Page 143-144
Reading this passage sparked a light in me. When Jesus says “They need not go away; you give them something to eat” (NRSV), he’s telling the disciples that they are able to feed the people spiritually. Yet they aren’t able to see past the physical needs into the spiritual needs. And then as the commentary points out, it is only through Jesus, the “chief Shepherd” that we have the power to feed five thousand people, spiritually, and when we come to him, when we rely on him, we are able to do the seemingly impossible.

So, that’s where my thoughts are at a couple of weeks out from the sermon. We’ll see how they turn out. But for now, a question for you to think about: Do you think you could feed five thousand? If not, how many could you feed?

As we forgive those who sin against us

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, faith

This topic suggestion, Why is it so hard to forgive?, is from The Daily Post as part of the Post-a-day writing challenge.

Father, forgive us, as we forgive those who have sinned against us.

Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness. It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend, But I forgive you (Image from Flickr by bija1agape. Quote from Naj on Flickr)

A line that so many Christians will know so well, coming from the Lord’s Prayer. As with many aspects of Christianity, it can often be much harder to live this out than it is to say. As such, we often hold onto sin long after it has occurred.

For example, I held onto a sin against me for many years. After being bullied in year 11 and 12, I refused to go near the school for a couple of years. While the school itself had done nothing wrong – in fact it did everything it could to help me through the period – I held onto that sin, I held it against the school. Continue reading “As we forgive those who sin against us” →

Money Issues

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written:

“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
their righteousness endures forever.”

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

2 Corinthians 9:6-15 Continue reading “Money Issues” →

Random Acts of Kindness

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, Life
The cover of Daena's 365 days of kindness… journal.

Today I’m putting the focus on my friend’s blog, 365 Days of Kindness. Daena is an incredible young lady, and one of my close friends. Last year, she started Project 25, encouraging people to do random acts of kindness.

This year, she decided to expand, and challenge herself to do a random good deed every day for a year. She’s writing them down in a journal, and slowly uploading them to her blog. She’s a bit behind (having only recently uploaded the ones for January), however it is a fantastic project, and a wonderful challenge.

We find this mentioned in the gospels of Jesus.

“Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?” Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”

Matthew 22:36-40 (MSG)

The second commandment that Jesus lists here – love others as you love yourself – is just what Daena is practicing here, Loving others, whoever they may be, as she loves herself. Wouldn’t the world be an amazing place if we all followed Daena’s lead and looked for ways to show love to others?

Divine intervention and free will

by Ben Clapton, posted in Archive, faith

This topic suggestion, They say “everything happens for a reason” – do you think this is true?, is from The Daily Post as part of the Post-a-day writing challenge.

I was asked by a friend on Facebook recently what my thoughts were on whether everything was planned or whether there was the possibility of coincidence.
I believe that God is omnipotent, knowing everything that has happened, is happening and will happen. He has a plan for our lives: “for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.” However, God also have us Free will. He gave us the ability to choose for ourselves. My picture then is of God watching a sporting match. While he knows the result, he’s there, surrounded by all his angels cheering us on, rejoicing when we choose the right path, and consoling us when we make a mistake.
Does that leave any room for coincidences? I think so. I’ve heard the phrase “god-incidence” used to describe those situations where it could only have been influenced by God. I truly believe these happen.

So does everything happen for a reason? For has a plan for our lives – it’s up to us whether we follow that plan.

Postaday2011 links