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Listen to our new Liberty Church Podcast! Extract: Jim’s preach Jan 22nd ‘In Him we are bold to approach God’
Reading from Luke 8:43- 48 In the crowd that day was a woman who had been subject to menstrual bleeding for twelve years, but no doctor could cure her. She came up behind Jesus and touched the hem of his garment, and immediately her bleeding stopped. "Who touched me?" Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you." But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I felt power go out from me." When the woman realized that she couldn’t remain hidden, she came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then Jesus said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." This is the last one of the seven ‘In Whoms’ we’ve been looking at in the book of Ephesians where ‘In Whom’ means ‘in Jesus’. ‘In Jesus’ and through faith in Jesus we can boldly approach God with freedom and confidence. That confidence is faith. We each have faith to different degrees. Jesus said that even faith that is as tiny as a mustard seed is enough for him to work with. In tonight’s reading the woman, who was slowly bleeding to death, forced her way through the crowd to Jesus. It was a daring and bold thing to do. This woman’s condition made her ceremonially unclean/contaminated. Religious rules prohibited her going out in public. She was forbidden to touch anyone as she would contaminate them and make them unclean too. But this woman had faith to overcome the religious rules that restricted her and condemned her to a life of isolation. As this woman reached out and touched Jesus, instead of Jesus becoming unclean, His purity flowed out to her and healed her, made her clean.
Her faith in Jesus made her bold enough to touch Him. That touch set her free. In amazement she realised that at last she was free from this terrible condition that had ruined her life and cut her off from everyone. But joy turned to fear as Jesus suddenly said ‘Who touched me?’ Fear gripped her. She knew the religious law discriminated against her. But instead of Jesus being angry and giving her a rollicking He was delighted with her and with her faith. Faith can make you daring/bold. Religious rules bring guilt and fear. How many of us have tried to get near to Jesus only to let religious rules come and convince us we’re not good enough and frighten us off? It happened to me. Has it happened to you? The last ‘in whom’ of Ephesians says that in Jesus and through faith in him we may ‘boldly approach the throne of God with freedom and confidence’. These words feature in Charles Wesley’s Hymn called ‘And Can It Be?’. Charles asks this question ‘Amazing love, how can it be?’ because he was simply amazed at what Jesus had done for Him. In the first verse of his hymn he expresses his wonder as to why Jesus would die for him. He has to confess it’s a mystery and he cannot fathom the hugeness of God’s mercy. As the hymn continues Charles realises that Jesus gave himself because of the sheer depth of God’s love. And Charles discovered it’s all free. This grace is without limits.
Limitless grace fuels God’s endless mercy. Charles can’t grasp how immense the mercy is… it’s beyond his finite mind but what he can grasp is that the mercy is free and has made him free. Charles had felt imprisoned, bound up in a religious system that told him his guilt stopped him being worthy. It put demands on him he could never quite achieve. Life was full of more guilt and a sense he could never be good enough for God. Spiritually he felt enclosed in a dungeon of darkness. But then came that glorious day when Jesus, the light of the world, shone in to end his imprisonment.
The chains of religion, the man made rules that told him that no matter how hard he tried he could never be good enough, the chains that wore him down and restricted him from freely relating to God, were gone. He wrote the famous words: ‘My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee’. He discovered he was free! The condemnation and guilt he used to carry were gone. The rules that once controlled him had vanished. As he knew that he was in Jesus he discovered a boldness to approach God Himself
In Jesus, Charles had the boldness of faith to claim the crown of righteousness that Jesus had bought for him. The righteousness that allowed him access to God at any time, no matter what was happening in his life. Jesus has bought our righteousness. Like the woman who touched Him, reaching out to rely on him makes us clean. Relying on Him we can freely, confidently approach God knowing that we are always guaranteed a welcome. Extract: Jim’s preach Jan 15th ‘In Him we are a Holy Temple’
Reading from Ephesians 2:14–22 Jesus Himself is our peace, He has made both Jew and Gentile as one and has destroyed all the barriers, torn down all the walls that divided men and women, He did this by abolishing the law with its commandments and regulations. When He died the law died with Him.
His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the Jew and the Gentile and men and woman, so making peace.
Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace one another, and accept our differences and diversity. Christ came and preached peace to all that listened, treating all as equals. For through him we all have access to the God by one Spirit.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and more than that, you’re family. This is all built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
In Jesus the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Jesus you too are being built together to become a house in which God lives by his Spirit. In Ephesians Paul states 7 times that as Christians we are spiritually ‘In Jesus’ and the 7 spiritual benefits we have of being In Him. So, as we seen in previous weeks, Paul tells us that God see us as redeemed people who have a tremendous spiritual inheritance, who possess the gift of faith from Him and are sealed with the Holy Spirit so we can never lose what He has given us.
But how do we see ourselves? Do we dare see ourselves as God sees us? Or does how we see ourselves agree more with how others see us? Church and society have judged many of us here negatively. Many of us have been subjected to prejudice, constant criticism or bullying or a lot of hurt from people in our lives. These things give us a tendency to have a low opinion of ourselves… but God has a high opinion of each one of his Children. Hopefully those that have been coming to Liberty for some time have come to realise that God treasures each one of us as precious to Him. He accepts us exactly as we are. Many of us find God’s unconditional love and his delight in each one of us hard to accept. It’s hard for us to grasp that because we are ‘In Jesus’ God sees us as spiritually perfect. Paul then writes in Ephesians about how those who trust in Jesus are God’s Temple. Like the Temple in Jerusalem that Solomon built precisely to the blueprint God had given him. Imagine…if you had money to build your own house and furnish it just as you liked. Imagine the chance to get a great architect, employ the best builders and craftsmen to build your dream home. A house made exactly to your specifications no expense spared. What’s more you could position your house exactly were you’d like it to be, in the city, in the country, with a sea view or by a river. Anywhere you like. That’s what God did when He gave the plans to Solomon for His Temple. He said to Solomon ‘build me a house on a hill overlooking the city exactly as I want it’. And Solomon did build the Temple, God’s house, and God supplied the money the men and materials to do it Once finished Solomon dedicated it to God, handed over the keys as it were, and scripture tells us the presence of the Lord came and took up residence in His new house. It tells us in 1Ki:11 that when the Temple was finished the glory of GOD came and filled The Temple. A cloud, which was a visible sign of God’s presence, came into the temple. The sense of God’s presence was so powerful it totally overwhelmed the priests serving there. The temple became Holy the moment God moved into the temple.It was His new house and it was His presence that made it Holy. Scripture tells us that Solomon’s Temple symbolised the Temple to come which would be made of people, not stone God’s Temple today is each one of us who knows Him. Each one is unique and designed by God. And at the moment when we come to trust in Jesus, God himself spiritually takes up residence within us. We become God’s temple, God’s house, the place where God lives. We become a place were He wants to live, with an unique outlook on life. And the place where God lives IS HOLY… purely because He is there.
God wants each of His houses and homes to be different with different features and different outlooks. Each Christian is different and each Christian is home to God. Each one is a unique place for God to live in. Each one is holy made holy by Him and so is worthy of his presence. What’s more Ephesians tells us that every place Christians gather together is where God lives. So, Liberty is God’s house. The body of Christians gathered here, not the building, make it God’s house. His presence among us makes Liberty a holy residence. God is the Architect of the house of Liberty and He is furnishing the House of Liberty with those He has chosen and made worthy. He surrounds Himself with us and sees each of us as precious and beautiful in His sight. God wants His house to be a happy and pleasant place for Him to live in. And also a home where He can share His peace and where people can rest and, when they need to, recover. God also wants to make Liberty a welcoming home where people can come in and meet Him. Liberty is His house, a glorious house fit for a King. Extract: Jim’s preach Jan 8th ‘Purified, Filled and Sealed’
Verses from the book of Ephesians. The seven ‘In whoms’. (In whom = In Jesus) In Jesus we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; In Jesus also we have obtained an inheritance, being chosen according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, In Jesus you trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: In Jesus also after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, In Jesus the whole building is joined together to become a holy temple in the Lord. In Jesus you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. In Jesus and through faith in him we may boldly approach God with freedom and confidence. When you preserve fruit you start by washing and sterilizing the jars. There mustn’t be a scrap of contamination in the jars or the fruit will go off. The fruit is then packed tight into the jars and a lid is put on to seal it. Then nothing can get in to contaminate it. It keeps perfectly for a very long time. Before Christmas we started to look at the book of Ephesians where the apostle Paul says that once you are a Christian you are In Christ. When you become a Christian by believing and trusting in the Lord Jesus God sees you as being in Christ. From then on when God looks at you He chooses to see His Son Jesus and His perfection instead of your faults and failings. In Col 3:3 it says ‘your life is now hidden’. In Eph 1:7 it says In Christ we have redemption. That means He paid the price for the forgiveness of our sins. Being totally forgiven made us spiritually spotlessly clean – a bit like the jars washed clean and sterilised from every possible germ. That level of cleanliness makes us immediately fit for heaven. In today’s terms … we have a gift voucher paid for by Jesus that says ‘Heaven… Admit one… Free’ In Ephesians Paul writes that the payment is made ‘according to the riches of his grace’.
In my Blackburn translation of the bible (!) says it says ‘That’s a gradely (wonderful) amount of undeserved favour from God, a massive Grace Gift voucher…..so much grace that you’d have no chance of using it up even if you had 100 lifetimes.’ There’s more than enough Grace for each and every situation or circumstance. You can never earn it. You can never fall out of it or away from it. You can only fall into it. So we are spiritually cleansed In Jesus – like the jars were cleansed. What was next in the fruit preserving? Oh yes, the filling. Verse 11 of Eph 1 says that In Jesus we have an inheritance. Every promise made by God to the ancestors of Jesus like Abraham (to whom God promised ‘I’ll will bless you and make you a blessing to others’) was passed down the generations to Jesus. Now because spiritually we are In Jesus. Paul wrote that we are joint heirs with Christ. Ephesians goes on to say about our trust in Jesus. We come to trust in Him because we heard about Him one way or another in the way that was right for us personally What we came to know was the good news of our freedom that we are free to be ourselves before God and to be totally accepted by God as we are purely because of Jesus. What occurs spiritually the moment we come to faith in Jesus is called a Divine Exchange. We are filled with every spiritual blessing. Jesus made Himself nothing… to give us everything He accepted the poverty of earth… to give us the riches of heaven He took our punishment… to give us forgiveness He was cursed… so that we would be blessed He took our sin… and gave us His righteousness He took our guilt… to give us his glory He accepted darkness…to give us His glorious light He endured rejection by God… to give us acceptance with God He lived a mortal life… to give us eternal life He rose victorious from death… to make us conquerors in life Without you knowing it at the very moment you trusted in Jesus the divine exchange took place. And Paul tells us that we were then immediately sealed by the Holy Spirit And that takes us back to the preserved fruit where, when all is done, the jars are sealed. Paul writes that we have this treasure ‘in jars of clay’ 2Co 4:7. We are like jars that have been washed clean and sterilized. Spiritually spotless jars, filled with His love, his righteousness, His holiness, the inheritance, the promises and the blessings. All tightly packed in and sealed shut with His love by the Holy Spirit. Nothing can contaminate that spiritual work. Nothing can spoil it. It is eternal, it lasts forever because Jesus did a perfect work in you. One that lasts. Extract from Jim’s preach on Dec 11th ‘Chocolate Gateau and Salvation’
Reading from John 14:16–20: Jesus’ promise to His brothers and sisters. Jesus said ‘I will talk to the Father, and He’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you.
This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!
I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back.
In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.’
Because I have a Iceland loyalty card they gave me a gift voucher. It said ‘One free jumbo chocolate gateau’…. I’ll come back to that later.
In Paul’s letter to the Ephesian Christians he repeats the phrase ‘In whom’ seven times. By ‘in whom’ Paul means in in Christ. When you think about it it’s a bit of an odd thing to be in Jesus I often find myself in trouble, in Nina’s bad books, in dickeys meadow. I know exactly what those things mean. But what does ‘In Jesus’ mean? When Paul wrote that letter to the Christians in Ephesus he told them about the revelation the Holy Spirit had given him which he called ”insight into the Mystery of Jesus Christ”. We live in the natural world whereas Jesus lives in a supernatural realm. We need something beyond our intellect to grasp more about the mystery of him. I believe that knowing the nature of Jesus only comes through experiencing Him. He increasingly reveals Himself to us in ways that are personal to each one. That’s revelation in small chunks. So the phrase, “in Jesus” has to be seen in a spiritual sense. Jesus, born an ordinary man stepped into our world with an invitation for us to step into His world…into His realm. Humanity, because of the sin of unbelief, distrust, had lost their connection with God and were separated from Him… But God had a plan to redeem the situation. He bought back fallen humanity by giving the perfect sacrifice… His Son. His son died in Humanity’s place. His Son paid in full the redemption price to bring us all back into connection with God That makes me think of my chocolate gateau voucher…. I can exchange this voucher for a chocolate gateau… a jumbo chocolate gateau. Free! I didn’t have to do anything to earn it. All I’ve got to do is trust that at Iceland I’ll receive my a jumbo chocolate gateau in exchange for a piece of paper. It’s already fully paid for. That’s a clear explanation of redemption… when every Christian gets to heaven they give their voucher in. On it reads ‘This person knows and loves Jesus. Jesus has paid the full admission price’. Marvellous…we’re in. … And that’s because verse 7 of Eph 1 says that … according to the riches of God’s grace… your sins are forgiven… Jesus has paid the redemption price. There is a second result of spiritually being ‘In Jesus’: Ga 3:29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s spiritual descendants, and heirs according to the promise. Paul got excited about this inheritance. Like the voucher we have our inheritance right now. And our inheritance is the ability to share in the divine nature of God himself. The Apostle Peter confirms it in 2Pe 1:4 …’He has given us (Notice given, a gift they cannot be earned) his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature’
So there it is. We have the promise that we share in Jesus’ divine nature. Jesus has shared his very nature with us… The nature that allows us to know God and to love Him and to know, his love for us.
The promises are made to all God’s children. All are involved. No human being or human organisation has to power to block those promises that come from God Himself. Which takes me back to the beginning and the apostle Paul’s experience of… ”insight into the Mystery of Jesus Christ” As Jesus promised in tonight’s reading… you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.
The mystery of Christ is within us… His divine nature… His Qualities and His characteristics As we live in faith, as we live trusting Jesus and growing in our trust of Him there are times when his qualities and characterises, his nature, come alive in us. It is that divine life and nature that can reveal Jesus to others who don’t’ yet know Him. We become bearers of his life as others meet Him because of us and discover his life for themselves.
Extract from Jim’s preach on 27th Nov ‘Equals’
Reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: Ephesians 1:1 – 7 To the saints and faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace
Jesus said to His disciples ‘We’re going to celebrate the Passover. I’ve hired a room with all the facilities where we can have the feast’ ‘Mrvlus’ they all thought. From my understanding the Jewish Passover it’s a time of celebration. It’s a bit like our Christmas festivities. The difference was that roast lamb was on the menu. When I was a child money was short and my family mostly ate offal …liver, heart, tripe that sort of thing. As we became more affluent we began having a leg of lamb for Sunday lunch a family occasion and it felt like a feast. My mouth is watering at the thought! Passover was just that, a family feast. In Jesus’ time they were incredibly poor and taxed to death by the Romans and the religious leaders. Lamb was not something they could usually afford and having lamb at Passover plus wine, the drink of the rich was something special. Passover was celebration of freedom. It was a joyous, sometimes riotous, family gathering. A festive occasion. A once a year party not to be missed!
So the disciples turned up at the upper room expecting a fun night but they found Jesus stood in the doorway with a bucket of water and a flannel ready to wash their feet. The foot washing was usually carried out by someone inferior like a servant. It was never done by the head of the family. Jesus explained to the disciples, or as I like to think of them, the dirty dozen, why He, the Son of God was washing their feet. But I believe they just didn’t get it. Jesus was saying ‘I’m the Messiah, I’m the Son of God but I’m not greater than you. I count myself as your peer, a person who is of equal standing to you before God. We are each others servant. There are no masters here, no-one with authority over another but all are equal, even Me.’
He served them and showed them the mutual giving and serving of one another that is there in a love relationship. Has the church missed this message just as the disciples missed it? Do we consider ourselves as spiritually equal with Jesus the Christ before God ? The whole Passover meal was a demonstration of equality, of brotherhood, of family. The equal sharing of the bread, the sharing of the lamb, the sharing of the wine. But these were only symbols and symbolic of a sharing Messiah, the Son of God who had laid aside His Majesty to become truly one of them. But first to be truly like them He had to die. And for them to become truly like Him He had to live again. Jesus was born again by the Power of the Holy Spirit. He was the first born of the new creation to reign in majesty and splendour. But not to reign and rule over the family of believers but to share his life with them. They were and we are His Bride to be. Repeatedly scripture tells us that together, as Christians who know and love him, we are the Bride of Christ and He is our bridegroom. A true marriage, whether of a same sex couple or an opposite sex couple is more than an exchange of rings or a paper certificate. It is a lasting commitment to love each other and share each others lives. It is a giving of everything you have and are to your partner and in return they give everything they have and are to you. The Reformer Martin Luther wrote; “The believing soul can boast and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own and whatever the soul has Christ claims as his own. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation. The soul is full of sin, death, and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sin, death, and damnation will be Christ's while grace, life, and salvation will be the soul's. For if Christ is a bridegroom, he must take upon himself the things which are his bride's and bestow upon her the things that are his. If he gives her his body and very self, how shall he not give her all that he is? And if he takes the body of the bride, how shall he not take all that is hers?” Jesus as our bridegroom has taken our sin, our shame on Himself and freely, out of love, given us His grace, his life and his very self. We become part of him. We come into his life. His life comes into being in us. As it says in I John 4:17 …’As He is so are we in this world’. Think about it, repeat it … ‘As Jesus is so are we in this world’ John recorded in his gospel what Jesus’ prayer for us: ‘That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, that they also may be one in us.’. Jesus is beloved of God, Righteous, Holy, set apart. Now so are we. You can’t get more equal than that! Extract from Jim’s preach on Nov 20th ‘Saints’
Reading from Colossians 1:12- 22 ‘….giving thanks to the Father, who has given you the standards and requirements you need to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the complete forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation……. all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Once you were separated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your erroneous deeds and thoughts. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.’
My mother used to say on the numerous occasions that I annoyed her… ‘You’d make a saint swear you would’…She would be referring to the men and women declared sacred or holy by the pope. But in scripture all Christians are called Saints. ‘Saint’ means ‘holy one’. The Lord is Holy because He is separate from His creation. ‘Holy’ means ‘separated out’ and ‘belonging to’. The Lord has separated you out to be His beloved. You belong to God. That makes you holy. It’s belonging in the sense of life partners like Karen and Sam, and Richard and Mark belong to one another. They are bonded in love and special to each other. They hold a unique place in each other’s lives as we hold a unique place in the Lord and in His life. The Lord has chosen each one of us and separates us from those who don’t yet know him and calls us beloved and sacred. We hold the position of being dearly loved by Him. Being holy is not living a puritanical life. Holy is what you are now –no matter what issues you struggle with in this life. You are holy now because He makes you so. In our humanity we do not all have equal abilities but in Christ we are all equal before God. He wants you to enjoy the freedom that sainthood brings. Freedom to be who you are without having to strive to be something better to please Him. Because He is already pleased with you. He Himself has already done everything needed to make you holy. We are chosen, separated out, dearly loved. In the words of the writer of ‘The Shack’, the Lord is ‘especially fond’ of all His holy ones, His saints. The Apostle Paul always started his letters to believers in a similar way. I reckon if Paul were writing a letter to the believers in Liberty he would begin with the same words like this… ‘To all who are at Liberty, beloved of God, chosen to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.’ God’s Grace overflows to us and that’s what enables us to know His peace and His joy. Jesus was despised and rejected of men (Is 53:3). Despite the contempt He was treated with He Jesus never lost sight of who He was. He KNEW He was God’s son. He knew He was the Messiah. He KNEW He was the Saint, the Holy One as foretold to His mother by the angel Gabriel. He knew right to the end. Even when God was silent and Jesus felt forsaken and felt deserted by God He still KNEW. His last words were ‘into Your hands I commend my spirit’. He trusted right to the end even when trusting went against what He felt. He KNEW who he belonged to. Now you may have been despised, treated with contempt, singled out for abuse or ridicule and rejected even by Christians. But we must all remember who we are in the eyes of God. We are His saints. We are because He said we are. We belong to the Lord God Almighty. We are His holy ones. In His eyes we are without blemish. He Himself has made us free from accusation. Because Jesus our friend, our brother, our lamb, our sacrifice who died in our place, has made us so. He who has a name which is above all other names, He has made us worthy in the sight of God. I don’t know about you but I don’t care what anyone thinks about me or Liberty. I know what the Lord thinks and feels about us. He is ‘especially fond’ of each member of this His church. The Lord has given us the right standing with Himself. It is the Lord who has given us our rightful share in the glorious inheritance of the saints. The inheritance is equally shared. No one is greater than the other. No one has a larger portion than the other. He considers you very precious and He wants the inner you, the real you, to Himself. That’s why He has made you a saint, a holy one, separated out and belonging to Him. Without you even knowing it, when you first came to know and trust Him, He formed and fashioned you into His child, His holy one, His saint.
Hayley spoke about her faith journey.
Hayley came to faith through a gay Christian. When she began to attend church she was shocked by the prejudice she saw against LGBT people and she stood up against it at every opportunity. This led to her being marginalised in church and she experienced the pain and hurt of rejection from people she had thought were friends. Hayley spent time praying and interceding for the gay and LGBT people in Blackpool and prayed specifically for a heterosexual couple to start a church for the gay community here. She felt if a straight couple started it they could not be accused by other Christians of doing it to make themselves feel better but would be doing it because they felt passionately that wanted to reach out to the gay community here. Some years after she had left Blackpool she was emailed by a friend who told her that what she had prayed for had happened. We regard Hayley as the first building block in the foundations of Liberty Church. Well before Jim and Nina felt God call them to found Liberty Church, Hayley was praying for exactly that. We were delighted to have her among us – for her to see what she had been praying for and to hear her account of her ongoing determination to stand up for LGBT Christians in the face of prejudice. Some years ago Hayley wrote a poem called ‘My Sweet Lord’. My sweet Lord, How do I share You with women Who hurt at the hands of men And their wives, Those other girls with their highlighted curls And the boys who have to look twice? My sweet Lord, How do I compare You with Christians Who crucify my brothers and sistersAll their lives, Blocking the path to Your light and Your love and the way to Eternal life? My sweet Lord, How do I tell them that You care, That You love them to the very depths Of their souls? How do I extract YouFrom the lies that surround You And let the truth be known? My sweet Lord, Why don’t they just see how You love me And let it all go so that You can change their lives? Jesus, Lord! Won’t You shine Your light On Your children; Please set them free, Like You did for me, Don’t let the churches Stand in Your way, Lord, Mighty Saviour, set them free. From the blame. My sweet Lord, How do I share this love that lights Up my life and soothes away Bitterness of life? My sweet Lord, How do I paint a picture of the Perfection You have brought Into my heart, Lord Jesus, where do I start? Father God, Holy Ghost, Lord Jesus Christ, Take my hand, don’t let it go, Lead me to the place where this work Can go on and on and on…
Extract from John’s Testimony
John spoke about attending a Catholic Church as a child and being confirmed there but not actually knowing Jesus. The Catholic Church taught that being gay was wrong and John believed it and suppressed his orientation. He was even homophobic to a friend who came out to him. As he grew up and when he was 20 years old and had moved to Accrington he was more able to accept himself being gay. He found the Liberty Church website and came to be in church with other gay people. It was a big change from the church he had been used to and at first he thought it was weird! However he kept coming back as he felt drawn. The third week he came he felt he saw Jesus in people’s eyes. During worship he felt a wonderful peace inside. He felt so full of this beautiful peace he felt floaty and slightly dizzy and almost a bit drunk with it. That night at home he started to say his catholic prayers and found himself speaking in tongues and didn’t know what it was but it felt wonderful and again there was that peace. Soon after, at church Jim spoke about getting out of the boat, daring to really trust God. That night John asked Richard and Nina to pray for him. He ‘went out in the Spirit’ i.e. felt so incredibly relaxed and heavy with peace he sank to the floor and lay there bathing in this really relaxed, warm, gorgeous feeling. It was like being filled completely with peace, from the ankles, up to his knees, and up through his body. Then he felt joy bubble up inside and he started laughing and laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop. Afterwards he felt he now really knew Jesus and his tremendous love. All his life he had felt there was something missing and now at last he had found what it was. It seemed the laughing had caused him to let go of lots and lots of things that had restricted his life. He went home and had the BEST night’s sleep ever and woke up feeling free to be completely himself. He went to WH Smith’s and openly bought a copy of Gay Times. Before he had always asked someone else to get it for him and had hidden it. Now there was no guilt or embarrassment. He felt free. A few days after, at home he shouted out ‘I love you Lord’. It was the first time John had said he loved Jesus. Then, for the first time he felt able, not only to accept himself but to love himself. Soon after this John had a picture in his mind’s eye. It was of him dressed in a magnificent white robe. Nina told him it was a robe of righteousness and showed him Isaiah 61;10 that talks about these robes. John could see that Jesus was not looking at what was wrong in him but was looking at him dressed in the righteousness that Jesus himself had given him. John said: ‘I used to think if you were a priest or a ‘High Up’ you were holy. Now I know that we are ALL equal in his sight and He makes ALL who trust in Him holy and worthy to know Him.
I thought I was a Christian before but I wasn’t. Now I KNOW Jesus. He’s everything to me. He’s my God, my Friend he’s everything. He’s awesome!’ Extract From 'Rejection' (On Liberty Church Podcast. See Top of Page) Jesus knew from an early age that he was different from other boys. Under Old Testament Law Jesus, along with eunuchs, would have been disqualified from the congregation because Joseph was not his true father. His true father and mother were not married and that made him illegitimate. He had to keep this secret or face being ostracised by his community and bring shame on his family. The law rejected and condemned what he was and he experienced self-condemnation from knowing his peers would view him as unworthy to stand in the congregation of the Lord. When he returned to Nazareth to preach he was rejected by members of his family and rejected by people he grew up with and worked with. His friends rejected him when he was arrested. He was denounced by the religious leaders because he wouldn’t deny who he was and what he was. When he appeared before the King, the highest court in the land, an injustice was done with mockery and rejection. His rejection by his fellow Jews fulfilled the scripture that he would be rejected by men. He experienced the desolation of an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and when a cry to God ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me’ seemingly went unanswered. The final rejection. That rejection was too much, He died feeling desolate and alone. Scriptures used De 23:2. Joh 7:5. Mt 13:54-57. Mr 15:13,14. Mt 26:56. Mt 26:65. Lk 23:11. Is 53:1-3. Mt 27:46. His prayer was answered when he rose from the dead. God had not rejected his child. Jesus was the Son of God. He had died to his past and its rejection and now he had entered into a new life. Jim explained how the Lord can identify with the rejection experienced by many people today from the law that brings self condemnation, family, friends, community, religious leaders, those who you should be able to trust and receive justice, even feeling rejected by God. Jesus himself went hrough it in a profound way. The Lord touched the hearts of those listening who have been deeply wounded by such rejection. Some of the pain of this was expressed in the tears that were shed. Expressing the pain is part of the healing process. In His time and in His way He will bring each one to a place of healing the pain of rejection and into a new phase of life free of the burden of hurt. Jesus will never reject you. 1Pe 2:4 Come to Him...rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him. Rejection. CD’s or tapes are available free of charge. Contact Us
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