What thinking people should do

Karen, Karen Wilson, who's been studying at the Sixth Form College in Worthing for some time and is shortly to make a new departure. She'll tell you about it, I think, in a few moments. She wants to tell you of her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, for much of my life, for much of my life, I had very mixed up feelings as far as God was concerned. Whether he existed or not, I could not have told you, and I think that if ever I met anyone who did believe in God, I'd probably laugh at them, thinking them weak, needing someone to lean on. At school and college, I studied sciences, and evolution was so presented that it left the biblical explanation of how life began seemed ridiculous, as did Noah and the ark.

Hence, the whole Bible, to me, seemed to be a lot of stories about how man thought things had been in the past. Hence, I just sat back, feeling snug, because this Christianity thing wasn't true after all, and hence, no commitment or effort was required of me. So, I continued with these agnostic views until, in October 1983, I was invited to the Christian fellowship by some friends at college.

Well, I only really went for a bit of a laugh, and perhaps out of a little curiosity, just to see what these Christians got up to. Well, I was pleasantly surprised by the warmth and friendliness of the people, and to my surprise, they were really interesting, and not at all introverted, and they had many interests apart from Christianity. Then, in January 1984, a friend invited me along to this church, and having never heard of the tab before, I had no preconceived ideas as to what it would be like.

When I first arrived, I was really surprised. For the first time in my life, I actually enjoyed a church service, and I just couldn't believe it when the preacher actually cracked jokes. It just seemed so far from the formal high church services I'd attended when I was younger.

So, for the first time, I heard prayers that were not read out from a book, and I had spontaneous prayers spoken as if God was really there and listening to them. Well, I kept coming, now and then, but letting so many excuses distract me. But when I did come, I got to know people from the youth group, and I could see the difference Jesus made in their lives.

I wanted to be like them, knowing God's love in their lives, and yet, I didn't want to make a commitment which would mean me changing my lifestyle. Well, after the summer, which during that time I'd forgotten God and the church, and really gone out and done my own thing, I came back to the tab, but I felt hypocritical. Everyone around me seemed to be so excited about what God had given them, and I felt I was missing out.

So, I kept coming, and by October, I was beginning to read the Bible, and gradually, it came alive, and no longer seemed like a story, which for me was a greater hurdle to overcome. And I began to realize that Jesus was not just a historical figure, but he actually was God, who had come in human form to die on the cross for you and for me, so that our sins might be washed away, and hence then, we would no longer have a barrier between us and God. And this verse from Romans 5, verse 8, comes to mind.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And so, in December last year, realizing that Jesus had died for my sins as well, I prayed for forgiveness, and asked Jesus into my life. Well, since then, life hasn't been easy by any means, because Christianity is no ticket to a stressless life.

It's not at all escapism. But I do have a constant and everlasting joy, very different from the temporary, superficial joys that come from the world. Because of what the Lord had done for me, I felt I would like to serve him in evangelism.

And so, last month, I spent a month with OM. There, the Lord taught me many things, and I now have a deeper relationship with him, which I hope to carry with me when I go to study physiotherapy in a few weeks' time. I want to be baptized today, because Jesus commands us to repent and be baptized in the Bible.

It won't do any good for me, but I want to show the one who loves me that I'm serious in following him, who, by his own grace, has given me eternal life. Our second candidate this evening is Tim Sellers. Unknowingly, some of you have committed your lives into his hands in the past.

He's an air traffic controller at London Airport. I first came down the tab just over a year ago, when I was invited down by a friend. The tab made an impression on me from the start, by the way Jesus was presented as a living saviour.

Up to then, the only understanding of Christ I had had been what I'd been taught at school, an interesting figure from history. Seeing and hearing people talking about Christ as though he was alive, and what he'd done for them, made me look at my life and consider what he'd done for me. Shortly after coming to the tab, my employer sent me to work in Scotland, and this, I believe, was the first time I'd experienced God at work in my life, although I didn't realize this at first.

When I arrived in Scotland, I found out that two of the staff were Christians. Or rather, one was, and the other one said he was. Carol, the real Christian, would witness to me and tell me how God had changed her life and made her into the person she is today.

Speaking to those who knew her before, in the non-Christian days, they said that she had changed and no longer interested in the non-Christian activities she used to get involved with before. She understood what it meant to be a Christian and what benefits she had gained. Chris, the other person, was quite happy to tell everybody how wonderful he was and how God was rewarding him for his faith.

He would give false witness and tell everybody how generous he was with his time and money. His attitude made such a bad impression on the other staff. Is this what a Christian is really like? I realized that my life wasn't perfect and that I was guilty of many of the things Chris was.

I prayed that God would change me, and over the next few months, people began to notice a change. No longer did I worry so much or fly off the handle when things went wrong. This change was slow and wasn't very apparent to me.

I was full of self-doubt. I wasn't sure if I were a Christian. I'd made a commitment several times and answered to appeals at the tab, but never gave an impression so, for fear of being branded a fraud.

I was still sinning, and I thought I could never become a Christian. I started talking to other Christians at the tab, and by studying Scripture at the basic Bible class, I did realize I had become a Christian. I now accepted Christ died for me on the cross to pay for my sin, and that I had been forgiven.

Since that time, several months ago, the exact date I'm not sure of, I've experienced God working in many areas of my life, now that I trust him. My testimony is that people have noticed a change in me for the better, not through my own strength, but through God's. Simon.

Number three, Simon. Simon Gollings. Simon, what were you doing as a job until fairly recently? I was in the Merchant Navy.

Been there for about 13 years. And what were you doing in the Merchant Navy? I was in the Catering Department, worked in various areas. And were you brought up to come to church? Yes, over the several years I've been going into church and got to know about Jesus, but I didn't quite understand at the time what was being preached or sung about.

So how did your interest in the Christian gospel really begin to develop? Well, the Lord must have been working in my life during that time, and I kept coming home on leave and going back to see. And it was during an illness that I had two years ago, I found myself, well, I believed that I was going to die. And in desperation I was down, I found myself talking to a lady downstairs who lived underneath me where I was living over in Brighton, and I'd realized that she was a Christian from several years back.

And I was able to talk to her about Jesus, and she prayed with me and told me that Jesus loved us and that he died for us on the cross. And it was from that day on that I started to read my Bible, took it back to see with me, and I realized what a terrible mess I'd made of my life. I was a real sinner.

And I really didn't believe that anybody could forgive me, but Jesus did. And I just praise him for that. Yes.

Tell us then, Simon, how with all these various experiences that you had, what sort of clinched it that you really came to know Christ as your Savior? I wanted to, I'd just realized what sin, all the sin that I was into, and I wanted to start my life again. And I knew that by taking my, confessing my sins to the Lord, that he would forgive me. And since that day I did, it changed my life completely.

And it's just amazing how he's been working in my life since then. And what particular reason is it that you want to be baptized this evening? Because I believe that Jesus did die for me, and I just want to say thank you to him for that. Words can't really express it, but in the Bible he says we must be baptized.

Those who believe, be baptized in his name. And it's a commitment to the Lord to say that you're going to go his way in future and push all your old ways out of the window. Fine.

Good. Thank you very much indeed. First to Mark's Gospel and Chapter 9, and we're reading from verse 2. After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and led them up a high mountain where they were all alone.

There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses who were talking with Jesus.

Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. He did not know what to say.

They were so frightened. Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud. This is my son whom I love.

Listen to him. Suddenly, when they looked round, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what rising from the dead meant. Now turning to the second passage in Philippians chapter 2, and we're reading from the first verse. If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing.

Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

And I'm going to add to Bob's two readings by bringing to you a couple of verses in a letter written anonymously, at least we're not sure of the author. It's in the New Testament. It was addressed to the Hebrews in the 12th chapter.

And verses 2 and 3 have this to say. My emphasis is on the first words of each verse. Hebrews 12, 2 and 3. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him, the Lord Jesus, who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Sometimes I'm asked, as I was just a couple of weeks ago, this time in a very kindly fashion, why it is that at the tabernacle they speak so much of Jesus Christ. Actually, we like to refer to him as the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the answer to the question is that really the heart of the Christian gospel revolves around him. And there are many of us here in this large congregation who would say that our proudest boast is to have an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And we believe that his death on the cross of Calvary is an antidote, a solution to the sin that we have committed.

Now, of course, you can dismiss this as a load of thinking from miniature people with dwarf-like brains. But if you do that, you are also rejecting the testimonies of millions and millions of people around the world. And what I'm asking you to do tonight, maybe some of you for the first time, you're feeling, well, a little strange, but we hope reasonably comfortable amongst us here at the tab.

You've made it. You've discovered we're not a Jewish synagogue as somebody said we were a little while ago. But this whole business of coming to church on a Sunday is, well, it's a little different from what you're used to.

Now, let me try simply to spell out the reason as sincerely and as academically honestly as I can as to why we're inviting you to do what any thinking person ought to do, and that is to consider the claims of Christianity. I'm an addict to reading. My diet this week, or last week, included amongst other things, at least flicking through the pages of, I've yet to consider them in any depth, Time magazine, has on its frontispiece the portrait of the recently appointed Soviet leader, Gorbachev, and a quotation that is really the speech that he employed in respect to questions put him by the Time journalist.

Speaking of the world condition, the situation in the world today is highly complex, very tense. I would even go so far as to say it is explosive. And then he adds to the comment, Time is passing, and it might be too late.

The train might already have left the station. Now, whatever you make of Gorbachev and indeed comments by Western politicians, if you are a thinking person, then you must come to the conclusion that there is a lot on planet Earth that causes us to be somewhat disturbed. The reason, for instance, for the Greenpeace debacle out there in Australasia, the sinking of that ship, at least the reason for the sending of the ship into that area was because people are concerned about the explosion of nuclear weapons and what the French are doing down there in the Southeast Pacific.

I was listening to a journalist speaking to a top-ranking Egyptian politician in the last few days about the troubles that there are in Egypt and the problems that they are getting from a resurgence of Muslim fundamentalism, the sort of thing that you associate with Ayatollah Khomeini. And he was saying that people are so desperate, even in his country, that they are trying to find an answer by a leap out into what he cynically referred to the extraterrestrial, a hope that somehow God could come to the aid of men and women in the 20th century. Now the reason, the reason why I'm suggesting to you that you need to consider the Lord Jesus is that thinking person, I assume you to be, you're aware that all is not right on planet globe, on planet Earth.

Indeed, some people have suggested that we're just like the Titanic moving towards the iceberg and all that we can do in changing political scenery a little is akin to shifting the deck chairs on the liner before the disaster. Now I want to try to show you that there is another way to view our world, another way to view your life. I want to suggest to you, if I may, the religious solution.

You say, there he goes, that's the one thing I don't want to get on board, the religious thing. Reminds me of the story, I can quote this because of what went before in a testimony of two caterpillars having fellowship on a lettuce leaf and they were discussing deeply philosophical issues and they were being buzzed by a butterfly and one caterpillar said knowingly to the other, you wouldn't catch me in one of those things. And maybe, my friend, you're saying at the moment as far as the religious ticket is concerned, you'll not catch me in that trap.

It's not a trap. It's not an escape taken by dwarf-like intellects. It's a thing that shouts at people who are prepared to consider the case for Christianity.

The Bible says, consider him. Consider the Lord Jesus. Take a fix on your life in its steering from the Lord Jesus.

You know what I mean by that expression? It's got a rather drug addiction flavor but it never really had that flavor. To take a fix is what a pilot takes. I once remember in an unqualified fashion flying a small plane at least part of the distance from the northern territories of Kenya back to the airport in Nairobi and the pilot who was giving me a lesson when he saw that the plane was sort of dipping more than it should be dipping, he said get your eyes fixed on that mountain and steer towards the mountain.

Get a fix. And this is what the Bible suggests about the Lord Jesus that if you steer your life in regard to him and his teaching, then you'll have reason to be somewhat optimistic as you face the future. Consider him.

Why should we consider Jesus Christ? First reason, because heaven demands that we do. Heaven demands that we do. The scripture reading that you had earlier from the Gospels gave the story of our Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration.

He was there with three of his disciples and suddenly a voice spoke. It was an audible voice because they recorded what was being said. It was Almighty God and speaking of his Son, he said, this is my beloved Son.

Hear him. Hear him. Now have you ever listened to the voice of Jesus honestly? I used to teach in London and some of the astonishing things that I experienced were more in the venue of the staff rooms than in the classroom mixed with well-qualified scientists who had an unfair approach to Christianity that some of the boys in my third and fourth streams would not have had.

They'd pass conclusions on things that they had not even considered. Have you ever stopped to hear Jesus? You say, how can I hear him? Arnold Kessler once said that, a philosopher who died in a suicide pact with his wife in London just a few years ago and left a few million pounds that's just gone to the University, I believe, of Aberdeen for setting up a department of parapsychological research. And Kessler said this, we're running out of time and God has left the receiver off and there's no word coming from the Lord.

Now the answer to the question, how can you hear God, is well, my friend, you hear God in this book. You see, this is not just an ordinary book. For many of us who are committed to Christianity, it's a fascinating book.

It's got a magnetism about it. You see, although it was written hundreds of years ago, to be frank, part of it was written more than 2,500 years ago, it has this original quality to it that it speaks in an up-to-date fashion. It's not just a question of what God has said in the past, it's what God is saying today.

And if you're prepared to stop and consult the record and anyone with reasonable intelligence can understand the Gospels in the Bible, then you can hear Jesus speaking to our current situation, whether you're in sixth form in Worthing College, whether you're a first year at one of the secondary schools, or whether you're from the local Derby and Joan clubs, I don't care. You can listen to God speaking to you through the Bible, you can listen to God speaking to you through your conscience, you can listen to God speaking to you, I refer this humbly, through the words of a preacher, for God has ordained the ministry of preaching as being a means whereby His word is conveyed to other people. And God speaks to you about Jesus and He says, consider Him, have you ever considered Jesus Christ? The unique character of history, check His life as far as His sinfulness is concerned and you'll find that there was no thing that could move under that category at all.

In fact, His enemies and His friends had to say of Him, this man has done nothing amiss, not sinful, but sinless. Could you say that of yourself? Could you say that of your nearest or your dearest? Could you say it of your children? Could you say it of your employer? Could you say it of anyone that you've ever met? Look into a mirror, see your own life. What is there? Less than perfection, you'll agree to that, won't you? Of course you will.

We would question your sanity if you answered otherwise. But look at the Lord Jesus, can you find one spot, one blemish on His character? And don't think that the record is biased because I could quote you those who were not in any way followers of the Lord Jesus and what they had to say of Him. Pilate's wife sent a telegram to her husband, do you remember the story? Have nothing to do with that just man.

When Jesus had been propelled before the Roman procurator and seemingly was on trial for his life, have nothing to do with him, he's a just man. Peter, one of the closest associates of Jesus, when he was an old man, wrote a letter to a Christian church, largely of Jewish people, and he said of the Lord Jesus that He was without spot or blemish, an expression that's really Hebraic and describes a perfect lamb. That was Jesus, sinless and selfless.

One of the greatest problems I have on planet Earth is not with any of my relatives nor with any of my friends, it's with myself. To understand myself, to cope with myself, my own tensions, my own desires, my own weaknesses. Do you find that yourself? You know in the 20th century we've developed a new study, we call it psychology.

It means the study of human behaviour. It's always been a problem. The difficulty in the 20th century is that we've asked the questions that they were right ones and we've given them the wrong answers.

I don't understand myself because I'm out of relationship with God. And the reason why Jesus came into the world and why God the Father says hear Him is because He offers the way whereby in discovering God you can understand yourself. Hear the Lord Jesus.

Hear Him speak to you through His word. Hear Him speak to you as you reflect upon the testimonies of these candidates. They weren't professionals.

They're not getting a fee for having been baptised this evening. And yet what they said was from the sincerity of their hearts. You could hardly question that, can you? How do you explain their experience? Heaven demands that you consider Jesus.

But not only does heaven demand it, history compels you. You say, what you mean compels me? Well, I say that you're under a compulsion, you're under a constraint. You're a thinking person, we've conceded this.

Now, the fact of the matter is you live in 1985. Surprise, surprise, you knew that. You don't need to have come in from Goring for someone to have told you that.

What's 1985? Well, 1985. Alright, I'm boasting, I'm a mathematician. 1985 what? Years.

Years after what? After the birth of Jesus. You see, your entry onto planet earth, whether you like it or not, at least mathematically, is related to His entry. Because time is bisected by the life of Jesus Christ in the year of our Lord.

1985. Ah, but I'm not just using a trick of numbers. You see, I could demonstrate to you, though time won't allow it, that the whole of western civilization has been drastically affected by the consequences of the teaching of Jesus.

You say you find that hard to swallow? Alright. You're a woman, you're a lady. Would you choose to live in Europe or would you rather go to some of the lands that I sometimes minister in? Pakistan or Bangladesh? Or the Middle East? Iran? Iraq? Afghanistan? Would you rather live in a Christian country, at least a post-Christian country, where the ethic of Christianity still abounds, or would you be a second-class Christian in a pagan society? If you're a thinking person, you'll say, I'd rather stick in Europe, please.

And you'd be quite right. But what's the reason for the benefits that are yours? The influence of the Christian gospel. It is the Christian gospel alone that gives woman currency and value.

So you're educated. Well, thank God for that. Who first started the movement for education in history? You check it through in Europe and you go back every time, every time, without exception.

Down the 19th, 18th, 17th centuries, you go back to the Christian church. So you're in good health. Well, God bless the National Health Service, but who got in on the bandwagon of helping people to recover health before an Aaron Bevan ever came along with his magnificent scheme to help people ensure that they got the right treatment in the British Isles? And the answer is the Christian church.

Where does the Christian church get its inspiration from? The gospel. Jesus says, go into all the world, preach the gospel, educate and heal. Either dramatically as a result of prayer or later on as the church came to appreciate as a result of using the brilliance of human minds and the revelations that God gave into physiology and so on and so forth.

You see, history demands. It demands that you ask yourself the question, how is it that the life of this obscure Galilean peasant has so influenced the whole of Western Europe? He was obscure. You know, he was born in Bethlehem, a very insignificant village just a few miles down the road from Jerusalem.

He was educated, brought up in Nazareth. No one had ever heard of Nazareth in history before. It was Jesus that gave Nazareth some faith.

And yet most of the things that we associate with greatness, Jesus never did. I mean, he never went to university. He never married.

He never wrote a book. He never traveled more than 100 miles from the place where he was born. Never got a university degree.

And yet it's been said of Jesus, of all the armies that ever marched, of all the navies that ever sailed, of all the kings that ever reigned, of all the politicians that exercised influence, all these compressed into one mass, has not affected the life of man on planet Earth more than the Galilean peasant, Jesus of Nazareth. How, my friend, test your intellect. I'm not just bothered about your emotion.

I start with the intellect. Test your intellect. How do you explain this? Consider Jesus, says the scriptures.

Consider him because God the Father demands it. Consider him because heaven asserts that you must. Consider Jesus because history compels it.

And finally, I said I wouldn't preach for long this evening. It's rather hot in the tap. And I want to have your concentration, so I won't presume upon it by lengthening the service more than necessary.

Consider Jesus. It's my final point, and it's the most important one. Because your future depends upon it.

Your future depends upon it. What hope is there in our world? No, this is not a scaremongering sermon. I told you that I was quoting earlier from Time magazine.

I could bring to you half a dozen, I don't exaggerate, political journals, socialistic commentators, and so on and so forth, who predict the future with, obviously, with a hesitation, because they're not sure which way things are going. You take a man like Alvin Toffler, a great sociologist, produced a book called The Third Wave, following another book that he had written, trying to predict the trends in the future. And there's not a holy optimism in his book, and he doesn't speak as a sort of Jeremiah evangelical preacher.

Do you know there's a man whose grave is in France? I've quoted this before, forgive me, but it needs to be said again. On his tombstone is this epitaph, Here lies a man who went out of this world without ever knowing why he came into it. Do you like that? Why life? Why are you here? What about the problems and the difficulties that sometimes pile in on you? Oh yes, there are joys as well.

I'm not trying to give an exaggerated opinion of the situation. I know that you can cop out and have a wild time occasionally and an extravaganza, and maybe you've got this psychological nature that makes you more of an optimist than a pessimist. But in your clearest thinking moments, ask yourself the question, why are you in this world? Why are you on this capsule earth? And where are you bound? And where is it bound? Do you know there's a study in the Bible known by theologians who are always good at giving complicated answers to simple questions, as eschatology.

Eschatos is the Greek word for last. It really means the study of last things. What's going to happen? Do you know what's going to happen? All right, some of you are going to feel that I ought to be heading for Grailingwell.

Jesus Christ is coming back to this earth. Now that's not my deduction. That's what he clearly said.

Incidentally, it's in the creed. We're getting to the time in England where you have to tell people that what they have been chanting, sometimes when they went to church in earlier years, is the very thing that we are preaching from the evangelical pulpit. Jesus Christ who descended into death was resurrected and went into heaven from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

This is no sort of sect theology that I'm spilling out. This is historic, biblical, Anglican Christianity that I'm telling for. The Bible says this of our Lord Jesus as the disciples were watching him go from earth to heaven.

Ye men of Galilee, speaking in a group fashion of these early followers of the Lord. Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? Straining your eyes as though somehow you're afraid to continue life without a visible recognition of him being there. This same Jesus who has gone up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go.

Acts chapter 1. Paul writing to the Thessalonians in the third chapter speaks about the trump of God sounding. He speaks about the Lord Jesus Christ returning and raising the dead and instigating judgment. The Bible says through Jesus Christ he is the one man that God has appointed to judge the world.

Jesus was at the beginning of history. The creative force teaches the word of God and he will be at the end of history. He will come again to judge the living and the dead and that includes you and me.

You say I don't believe it? Look my friend. Several hundred prophecies in the Old Testament accurately indicated when Jesus was to be born the first time. Hundreds of years before it ever happened they got the location right.

Bethlehem. They got the name of Jesus right. They got his type of teaching right.

They got his mode of death right. They predicted his resurrection right. I could spend a long time demonstrating this to you.

It's an uncanny thing is the Old Testament prophecy is fulfilled in the person of Jesus. Now isn't it a reasonable assumption if the Old Testament was right and if it goes on supported by the New Testament in predicting the return of Jesus Christ it might be right as well? Now it's not pure speculation I leave you with this evening. You can clinch what I'm suggesting about Christianity by making a commitment yourself.

Consider Jesus who died on the cross of Calvary to absolve you and you and you and you and you of your sin. He doesn't do this automatically. You need to make a response.

You're not saved because you're English. You're not saved because you're a member of the Conservative Party or the Labour Party. You're not saved because your parents were Christian.

You can only become a Christian as you make a personal commitment to Jesus Christ yourself and face the future with a holy optimism that one day, perhaps not far hence this Jesus Christ who did so many extraordinary things and left such sublime teaching is returning to planet Earth. Do you know what Gorbachev the Russian leader said and it's almost an incredible statement coming from him towards the conclusion of Time magazine's interrogation as he assesses the huge problems that confront America and the Soviet Union and international relationships on a global scale. Surely God on high has not refused to give us enough wisdom to find ways to bring us an improvement.

Whether he said that with tongue in cheek, I don't know. But that's what he said. And he's right.

God on high has not refused us enough wisdom to find ways to bring us an improvement. He sent Jesus consider him embrace him make a mental and heart response to him and do it now. And did you mean it, friend? Here for a season, that's so.

Our lives are relatively short even though they span seven decades. The Christian gospel doesn't say believe in Jesus and cop out of your responsibilities to help this world in its mess. It says believe in the Lord Jesus be filled with his spirit and become a better citizen and a greater contributor towards resolving some of the gigantic dilemmas that confront us.

We're not escapists. We're not obscurantists. Thank God the truth of Jesus Christ sets us free and enables us to face the future with courage with optimism with thought with dedication.

Send this congregation away we pray with your blessing. Create more thought within our hearts and enable us to make, if we haven't already that response to the message of the gospel confirm us in the most holy faith. And whatever Lord waits in store for us in these next few days may the strength that we've gained from this service help us to cope with the challenge of this coming week.

Send us out with your blessing. The blessing of the triune God Father, Son and Holy Spirit now and until Jesus returns to our world. Amen.