Friday 15 March 2019

Effervescent Faith

Thirty years ago, together with my wife and my colleague, Monica Cook, I started Sunrise Ministries (Rural Sunrise), now known as Rural Mission Solutions.  Over the years since then we have tried to help rural churches to be more missional. This was a logical objective since, with 12.5 million people in the rural areas, there are insufficient mission agencies but plenty of rural churches that could re-evangelise the rural communities of the UK.  But in 30 years we have barely scratched the surface.

The problem is that in the vast majority of village churches in the UK no one is excitedly sharing their faith with others. No matter what good ideas and programmes we promote through RMS, the bottom line is that people must be sufficiently thrilled with their faith in Jesus to not only want to tell others, but almost find they cannot help from doing so.

From my earliest days as a committed Christian, Acts 11: 19-21 has been a favourite passage. Luke, in writing his account of the early Christians introduces us the the church at Antioch (Syria) and the amazing missionary work that went on from that church, by explaining how the gospel reached Antioch.

The persecution of Christians in Jerusalem after the stoning of Stephen, caused them to be scattered over a large area. But wherever they went they told the story of Jesus. While this was usually focused on speaking to Jews, some from northern Africa and Cyprus also told the story to gentiles. As a result, a great number of people in this, the third most significant city in the Roman Empire, turned to Jesus Christ. An exciting cosmopolitan church was established and the second half of the Acts of the Apostles largely records what happened in and from there. The Christians from Cyrene and Cyprus had an effervescent faith.

Effervescence is what happens when trapped gas in liquids can no longer be contained and bubbles over. You may have experienced it when opening a bottle of lemonade or champagne. The energy is such that it carries with it some of the content in which it was contained. Success in sport is often celebrated by deliberately shaking bottles and releasing a soaking stream of champagne.

So, the burning question this week is, “Have we lost our fizz?”. Have we become “still water” Christians? Writing to the Christians at Philippi, Paul states that one of the characteristics defining Christians is that we boast (or glory, joy, rejoice) in Christ Jesus. To me that describes effervescent faith. If we have realised that the Almighty God loves us, and that because of that love Jesus died for us taking our guilt upon himself, we should be thrilled. It should be impossible to keep it bottled up.

It intrigued me that one of the places that Christians had travelled from to talk about what Jesus meant to them in Antioch, was Cyrene. I wonder whether Simon, who was obliged to carry the cross for Jesus, had been involved in living out the faith in his home city. We sometimes speak of being touched by the cross, but here was a man for whom it was an actual experience. Have you been touched by the cross? Has it left a mark in your life? Once faith has been combined with the power of the Holy Spirit it always puts a fizz into our witnessing for Jesus.

The good news for still water Christians is that God is able make us effervescent. Clearly, what made the early Christians effervescent was the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. According to Peter on the Day of Pentecost, what had turned him into a bold witness for Jesus, is promised for all whom the Lord will call - even to our generation.

The task of reaching the world for Jesus will not be done by merely praying and asking God to do for us what he has asked us to do for him. It will not be achieved by faithful attendance at church, or even giving out the hymn books on Sunday mornings. It will only happen when ordinary Christians like you and me get excited about the gospel and filled with the Holy Spirit. If that happens there will be a serious risk of bubbling over with joy and irrepressibly sharing our faith with others.

Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.
Fill me anew. Fill me anew.
Spirit of the Lord, fall afresh on me.
Amen.  Barry Osborne 15th March 2019

No comments:

Post a Comment