Sermons

One question that we are used to asking regularly is, “What do I get out of it?” Every shop, large and small, these days seems to have a loyalty card scheme. And as you go into yet another shop and you’re invited to sign up, you’re weighing up in your head: is it worth it to install yet one more app on my phone, or — if you’re old-fashioned and like a credit-card-sized piece of plastic to weigh down my wallet or purse even further so that I can’t find anything — the question that you want to know is, what do I get out of it?

Have you ever had something that you have heard of frequently but never actually seen for yourself, and then one day you get the opportunity to see it?

When I accepted the job to come to this church in Scarborough a little over five years ago, I had never at that point in my life been to Scarborough. My first visit to Scarborough was to come and look at potential houses, and I got the chance to see the seaside town of which I had heard much but never been.

When you are young, you tend to look ahead. Your life stretches out ahead of you, and you can have all kinds of dreams and ambitions. “When I grow up, I want to be a...” And that continues through your teenage years for a while. For most of us, there comes an age when you start to look back instead. Back at a golden age, a golden age that is no more. It could be a golden era in your past. The dream job that you once had but no longer do. The dream house you lived in but then you had to move. The dream family that you no longer have.

Well, life in Britain is often at the moment extremely painful. There is an increasing polarisation in Britain. We divide ourselves into tribes. We know that I'm part of this tribe, but I'm not part of that tribe. I belong to this group of people, but we don't like them. Sometimes people say things or do things that can be really deeply hateful. While other people can show great acts of kindness, only to have it repaid by the person they were being kind to reporting it as being a hate crime.

We're becoming more and more aware these days of the dangers of fakes. Whether that is fake news, fake banknotes, fake holiday advertisements, fake job listings, fake concert tickets, deep fake videos claiming to be somebody that you trust speaking, or fake designer goods. Just this past week, police forces across the country raided hundreds of tiny shops on high streets up and down Britain, confiscating large quantities of counterfeit vapes. They might have been stolen as well, I don't know, but they were fake.

What kind of TV do I like? You've probably never wondered what kind of TV Pastor James likes, but I'm going to tell you: many different genres. I love a good detective story. I love a thriller, space opera, but you cannot beat time travel. Now, I'm going to be a little bit controversial here. Not Doctor Who. I think it's completely lost the plot, but there we go. Now, I realise that may have deeply offended people.

We’re in a little sermon series that we’ve called Divine Encounters, looking at different individuals in the Gospel of John that met with the Lord Jesus.

A former work colleague of mine used to say, “I’m fine with you being a Christian as long as you’re not a born again Christian.” Don’t worry, this work context was not me working on a church staff team.

If you’re going through a hard time of one kind or another, it helps to have company – people around you who can give you companionship, support, love and care. It helps not to be alone. But it helps even more if the people who are with you have had some kind of experience similar to yours. It means they can relate to what you’re going through. They can begin to see life in your shoes and to empathise. Then you’re truly not alone.

Life can be cruel. Cruel to you personally, cruel to your family, cruel to your business. You see much cruelty on the news, and it can make you wonder if God is, in fact, cruel. Many people who don’t believe in God don’t believe in God because they think, from looking around them, that if there is a God, he must be a cruel God. And, as awful as it is to live in a world with nobody at the controls, it would be even worse to live in a world where there is a tyrant at the controls. And so they choose to conclude it would be better if there was no one.