Dear friends,

What are you waiting for? Fr Mike reflects: https://stgeorgechorley.co.uk/news/news_inner/325

Notice sheet: https://stgeorgechorley.co.uk/brochure/theway.pdf

Have you thought about representing our church at the diocese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ03kcenq94

God bless,

Fr Mike

Dear All,

Please find attached this week's sermon and you are very welcome to join us at 4pm for our 'Closer' service as we learn about the Ascension of Jesus together with crafts, games and song. Everyone is welcome!

And don't forget next week is the Chorley Deanery Mission, with loads of fantastic events taking place over the weekend. We'd like to invite you all especially to come and join us at St George's Church next Sunday at 11am for a Pentecost picnic!

John 17:11-19

11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of[a] your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by[b] that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by[c] the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

Have you ever stopped and asked, if Jesus could pray for me, what would he ask? Well here we have an answer to that question. Just before he’s crucified, he pauses and looks up to God. He says this prayer and this prayer can teach us a lot, in particular it can teach us three things about being a disciple. Being a disciple means relying on God in our difficulties, it means going out into the world and being a disciple means that we will be different like Jesus. He could have asked for anything, he could have asked for nothing bad to ever happen to his disciples again, he could have asked that they’d all have happy lives, but he doesn’t.

He asked for something that we’d never think to ask for. He asked for God to be with us in the hard times, not to remove us from the hard times. He asks for God to be with us in the hard times.

Nobody can answer fully why that was his prayer. Certainly, it doesn’t always match up with my prayers. I don’t know about you but I spend most of my time in prayer praying for God to just come in and sort out the problems that I face. But instead, maybe we should be asking for God to be with us in the things that we face.

I do know this, I know that those sorts of prayers, when we’re going through difficult times, that sort of prayer is like a muscle. And I’m told that some people (admittedly, not me) like to go to a gym to work out their muscles. And at the gym, on the rare occasion I’ve been, I’ve noticed there’s a few different types of people.

At the gym there are people who sign up, they’re all for becoming members and they may take advantage of the pool and some of the other gym perks but never really seriously exercise. I have to say that that is probably the category of gym goer that I have been in the past. Next there are those who look really flashy, they turn up wearing all the right things, talking about getting in shape, but from what I could see they’d only jump on the machines for a few minutes and then leave again. Thirdly, there were those who broke a sweat.

Those were the people who came in every day, they worked and they worked and it was a part of their life that they wanted to get more in shape and stay healthy. Getting in shape physically does tend to mean that you have to break a sweat.

And the same is true with prayer. In difficult times, the temptation is just to expect God to come in and fix everything but that’s not how it works. If you want to grow in your relationship with God you need to hold onto him in prayer in the hard times.

Asking for things to be easier isn’t what we’re meant to do, and neither are we meant to just do the flashy bits, to turn up on a Sunday and look like we’re trying with faith when we’re only really working on our prayer life in public. At home, in the difficult times, day in day out, build up your prayer muscles. Then when things are thrown at you, you learn to rely on God being with you through the hard times.

And we need to build those prayer muscles up for when we go out into the world. We get to have God with us in our difficult times, because we are his people, but he’s with us to help us to go out into the world and tell people about him. That’s why we’re building up our prayer muscles, to go out and do something.

One of my guilty pleasures in life is that I pretend to hate but secretly love the TV series ‘Love Island.’ Becky will put it on and I’ll roll my eyes and act like I hate it but three weeks in I’ll be aghast that Jonny isn’t with Charlotte, or whatever. But one of the things that always makes me laugh about love island is that most of the men on the show have all these rippling muscles and big biceps but they never actually use them. For a lot of them, the muscles are all for show, not for practical use.

We’re not prayer glamour models. We’re not just meant to sit there with our amazing prayer life and our huge six pack of faith, we’re meant to be labouring by going out and telling people about Jesus. How long has it been since you’ve invited someone new to something for church? Maybe you’ve been praying and having faith and building up your prayer muscles but are you using your prayer muscles for mission?

So we can learn from Jesus’ prayer that God is with us in our hardships and we should lean on him, we learn from this prayer that we should use our growing relationship with God to go out and tell others about him. But also we should realise that we’re meant to be different to the rest of the world.

In verse 16 Jesus prays, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” This is where we get that helpful phrase “be in the world but not of the world.” If you’ve ever heard that phrase before. We’re meant to stand out with the love of Christ in us, but we’re also meant to stay a part of the world. Jesus doesn’t want most of us to quit our jobs and become fulltime monks or nuns off in a convent, thank goodness. No, instead Jesus wants us to go out into the world, into our jobs as fulltime beacons of hope and love.

Be a part of the world and if you can, be successful. Do all things to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31). In all that you do may God be glorified through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 4:11). You are being kept by God from the evil one for the mission. Don’t sacrifice the gospel for a promotion. Don’t trade the love of Christ for a good joke. Don’t give up the mission in order to be accepted. If you’re following God in the work place then you’ll stand out because of your love as you reflect Christ’s love.

There’s a great preacher over in America who became a Christian and someone asked him why he wanted to go to church for the first time and he answered “I just followed the loving people.” So being a disciple according to Jesus’ prayer means learning to rely on God’s presence with us in times of difficulty, it means building up our prayer muscles and sing them for mission, and it means being in the world but standing out because of Christ’s love in us.

So as we go out from today maybe you could commit to building those prayer muscles, to praying and spending more time with God this week. Maybe you could commit to praying for mission and the bravery to be a part of God’s mission, and maybe you could think of how you could show God’s love in your work, to your friends and to your family, what can you to stand out as you live out your life as a disciple of Christ. But always remember that through it all, he is with you. Amen.