16 Be joyful always;

17 pray continually;

18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

19 Do not put out the Spirit's fire;

20 do not treat prophecies with contempt.

21 Test everything. Hold on to the good.

22 Run a mile from every kind of evil.

23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

We begin 2013 with a passage about dates and times. And we are going to explore the Day of the Lord or the second coming of Jesus throughout the year under the title:

Coming Soon! Jesus!

Time travel

The sign of Jonah

The thief in the night

The ancient of days

The mark of the beast

Judgement Day

Everything new!

We start the year with a three week exploration of Moses, Prince of Egypt.

Next week The making of the man Who are you , God?

Let my people go!

But we don’t leave Matthew’s “Manual for life”. This year we work through Matthew 12-16

In June/July we think about our vision for mission

9 Jun Worship

16 Jun Prayer

23 Jun Telling the Good News

30 Jun Community Care

7 Jul Fellowship

14 Jul Serving

21 Jul Discipleship

The autumn programme is based on James “FaithWorks”

The key word for this year are the verses 16-24 which contains 7 positive steps and more.

The 7 positive steps are

1. Be joyful always;

2. pray continually;

3. give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

4. Do not put out the Spirit's fire;

5. do not treat prophecies with contempt.

6. Test everything. Hold on to the good.

7. Run a mile from every kind of evil.

The ‘more’ underlines that this is a shared activity with God. We have 7 positive steps to take, He sanctifies you, he keeps you, he is the guarantor of the process. This separates God’s word from the usual run of steps to success, happiness, slimming or whatever. It is embedded in the work of the Holy Spirit. So we begin with

1. Be joyful always;

Which is impossible and meaningless outside of Christ. Seems pretty impossible even as a Christian, so what is going on. Joy is much deeper seated than happiness. Happiness is a state of mind, an emotion, transient and dependant on circumstance. Joy is a spiritual state brought on by the knowledge that God loves you and Jesus has died for your sins and you have eternal life and you have the certainty of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit for the rest of your life on earth. The challenge is to be always joyful, that is to live the life of the Spirit all the time. Not just in church or when you are fresh and full of energy, but also when your back is to the wall, when you are upset, tired, you’ve run out of energy and nothing is going well. So in those times you may not be happy but your Spirit is still anchored in the certainties of the spiritual world and that means you may not see a way forward but you are not at the end of your resources in Christ. Your God is faithful, he will do it. You are safe. So be joyful always, practise joy, be positive about life because you have peace with God, you have sins forgiven, you are on your way to heaven and you have the Holy Spirit in your life.

2. pray continually;

There is no separation between these items in action. To be joyful you need to express that joy, to stimulate that joy and to do that you need to be in constant communion with God. It does not come naturally as it is a spiritual discipline. It is not about prayer meetings or Quiet times, it is about be in continuous conversation with God. And that needs to be developed in our lives. All relationships are about developing our conversation. It is not that we are always talking, but it is about being consciously together. So when you are worrying, talk it over with God, when you are angry, debate the justice of your cause with him, when you are happy, share your happiness with him, when you are blessed, thank him for his generosity. We are not to be hiding away in church on our knees but out in the streets, in the supermarket, with Jesus. When you meet an acquaintance, pray for them, when you see sadness, pray for salvation and joy to break out. When you are concentrating on something, that is OK that you haven’t spoken to God, but you can pick up the conversation with “Sorry, where have we got to”. When you lose it, then it is even more important to talk to God, but there needs to be repentance and asking for forgiveness. This is the key discipline in the Christian life and we need to make practicing the presence of God by praying continually our number one exercise. It is more important than any other activity. Jesus said in John 15:5“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

3. give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

This closely relates to being joyful always because it is part of the transformed life –view of the spiritual person. This is not just giving thanks for every meal, or even giving thanks for every blessing whether it is a phone call from a friend, a pay cheque, the birds feeding in the garden, or all the other things that make our lives enjoyable. No this goes further and says give thanks in ALL circumstances. That is a tough one, thanks for a cold? Thanks for another hospital appointment? Thanks for a sleepless night? Thanks for a bad day at the office? Christianity is not about religious functions as we were taught in school, it is about joy in tough times, thanks for the trials of life as it is they , not the good times that produce godliness. It has to be grounded in the faithfulness of God. The conviction that nothing that happens to me is outside of his purposes in bringing about his glory and my perfection. It is in the bad times we make choices which are deeply significant. We all know people who can tell you that they cannot believe in God because of the terrible things that happen in the world or in their own lives. We also know people who discover the presence of God in those troubled times. To whom the disaster is only bearable because he walks beside us day by day. This si not about triumphalism and a sort of detached view of the real world, it is about pain and suffering and believing in God when God seems far away and the road impossible to take. It is about failure and disappointment and depression but with the knowledge that God loves you and died for you and is reaching out in your failure and depression and is holding on to you through the storms of life. The Psalmist put it this way.

⁴Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

And that is how we can come to give thanks in all circumstances, because of the company we keep. We are never alone, even though we may feel very lonely, he walks besides us and therefore we have every reason to be thankful.

4. Do not put out the Spirit's fire;

Some translators reverse this and say tend the Spirit’s fire. Not an analogy we do these days but a wood or coal fire needs to be stirred up and fuel added to keep the heat and light coming from it. The point is that this is a relationship with God and if you choose to you can suppress the Holy Spirit, ignore him, blunt your conscience by repeatedly sinning, avoid spiritual encouragement by staying away from other Christians and the fellowship and teaching of the church. Or you can make the effort to stir up the Holy Spirit within you by making conscious decisions to spend time reading your Bible, praying, talking over with God what he likes and is doing. You can choose to be with God’s people. They are not necessarily a nice bunch of people but they should be encouraging you to follow Jesus and imitate him. So we as a fellowship need to take this on board and instead of being quick to point out problems and difficulties, we should be eager to encourage one another. This is a serious problem we have to overcome. We are too blessed with hindsight and drag on those who are engaging in the tasks of evangelism and reaching out to today’s generation. I was struck by the Olympic theme of ‘inspire a generation’. Maybe we need to think this out. If the Olympics spirit is one of the gods of this world, we need to understand that we have a calling to inspire a generation with the Holy Spirit. So the challenge is are you stoking up the fire of the Holy Spirit or stoking up tradition or dissent or discouragement. We are here to tell the next generation the wonderful salvation that Jesus offers them.

5. do not treat prophecies with contempt.

We read scripture with today’s eyes. In the later part of the last century we saw prophecy both encouraged and discouraged by various factions. In some churches, prophecy is the bit of the service where spiritually minded people get up and say things which they believe they have been given as prophetic words or pictures. In other churches such things are frowned on and marginalised as we have God’s written word, so we do not need any more. Further there is a feeling that God always says nice, encouraging things. Prophecy is none of these and all of them. First prophecy is not telling the future it is explaining the present and the past. Secondly, where sin is entertained prophecy may well be a warning. Thirdly, true prophecy is going to be scriptural because it comes from the author of scripture. That is the point here, prophecy is God’s word, whether proclaimed from the platform, or said in House group or prayer meeting or received in any other way. And if it is God’s word, we must not treat it with contempt. Rather we are called to test it and adopt it if it is good. I have no idea what God is going to do or say this year, but we need to be listening and waiting for his word. Remember when the word was made flesh, he was ignored and discredited and finally crucified by the religious people of the day. Do not make the same mistake. Listen to what God says from this platform, in House Group, in prayer times, measure it up against the revealed will of God and be ready and willing to obey.

6. Test everything. Hold on to the good.

Some say, try everything and hold on to the good. That is rather random but we are rather afraid to attempt new things, or even try things that we did in the past. If we try and what we try does not achieve the purpose we invested our time and energy in, then we move on. What we cannot do is nothing. Note I say do not believe. That is the crux of James’ letter. It is our belief in a risen Saviour that motivated us to be obedient to his commands, to follow him where he leads.

7. Run a mile from every kind of evil.

Translators use words like ‘abstain’ and ‘avoid’ but the sense in the Greek is to put a distance between you and evil. The problem is we like to be worldly as our friends and that leads us to compromising on so many levels that often we are indistinguishable from non-Christians. Our 7^th step is to run a mile from evil not to tolerate it in our lives. That is not to say we are meant to be condemnatory to others. Jesus was hot about people who wanted to extract splinters from others eyes while having planks in their own. We are to live holy lives, separate from sin. Heaven is a place where nothing evil exists so if you have a taste for sin of any kind, you are out of step with your Saviour and master and that affects your prayer life and your relationship not only with God but with others. So run a mile and you will be physically fit. Put distance between you and every kind of evil and you will be spiritually fit. Your joy will be deeper and more sustained, your prayer life will blossom, you will have much to be thankful for, the Spirit’s fire will be burning brightly, prophecy will be something to look forward to and you will want to hold on the good. That is the point of all these steps, they reinforce each other. So we will not be doing one a month until we get good at it and then move on, we need to grasp all of them, sometimes concentrating on one and sometimes another, ever seeking to be closer to God than the day before.

And there is MORE.

Working on spirituality without the Holy Spirit is a sterile experience leading to disappointment and despair. Knowing that God is working alongside you to produce the very thing you are struggling to produce whether it is love or joy or peace or faithfulness or self-control, or whatever other fruit God is developing in your life. He not only wants it, he will grow it on in your life. He is faithful and he will do it. The question then is will you step out in 2013 , seeking to be