sermon archives

This past week has been one of great loss. George William Lunn unfortunately passed away on Saturday the 16th of May 2009. This is a sad loss for everyone that knew him. We do all have comfort though knowing that one day we shall all meet up again in the resurrection. Death for all of us is a hard thing to come to terms with yet one day we must all pass on. My own faith is that I will be reunited with loved ones and will again walk the earth. I have included this week the story of Lazarus.

Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha, were friends of Jesus. When Lazarus fell ill, his sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." When Jesus heard the news, he waited two more days before going to Lazarus' hometown of Bethany. Jesus knew that he would do a great miracle for God's glory and, therefore, he was not in a hurry.

When Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had already been dead and in the tomb for four days. When Martha discovered that Jesus was on his way, she went out to meet him. "Lord," she said, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

Jesus told Martha, "Your brother will rise again." But Martha thought he was talking about the final resurrection of the dead.

Then Jesus said these important words: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

Martha then went and told Mary that Jesus wanted to see her. Jesus had not yet entered the village, most likely to avoid stirring up the crowd and calling attention to himself. The town of Bethany was not far from Jerusalem where the Jewish leaders were plotting against Jesus.

When Mary met Jesus she was grieving with strong emotion over her brother's death. The Jews with her were also weeping and mourning. Deeply moved by their grief, Jesus wept with them.

Jesus then went to the tomb of Lazarus with Mary, Martha and the rest of the mourners. There he asked them to remove the stone that covered the hillside burial place. Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed to his Father, closing with these words: "Lazarus, come out!" When Lazarus came out of the tomb, Jesus told the people to remove his grave clothes.

During the course on my daily research on the internet looking at old reports I was sad to read about how the media perseve what in my term I will call lesser churches. One particular case springs to mind regarding an arch Bishop who was a former Anglican priest who has now through Holy orders been ordained with another church. It seems that unless you are with what I will term a recognized church such as the Catholic Church or the Anglican Church, then you are frowned upon. I was myself ordained as a Franciscan Priest but left the order to care for my Father who had an illness. I became involved again with my calling in about 2003. Unfortunately being divorced the Church of England did not want to know. I then became involved with an Anglo American church who welcomed me with open arms and I became ordained with that church. The whole moral of this is that religion is free for the own individual to be able to choose his path. We all believe and worship God and we should all therefore work together towards this. Not all of us wish for the confinement of such a main stream church. In my own church that I run I welcome all regardless of their beliefs. You are still free to continue with your present church or to formerly join New Horizons Uk.
Though out my week I do many wondrous jobs, whether working on a vintage vehicle or talking to people. I marvel every day at Gods glorious creation and thank God each day for the privilege of being able to enjoy it.

On my travels I often meet lots of people, some make more of an impression than others do, but this does not mean that they are any less impressionable. It is amazing how people change as they grow up from a child to adult, things that they did become memories of the good or bad times. I know of two such people one I have known for some years and the other only a couple of years and yet they have made an impact. Both started off as youngsters who were once always in trouble for one reason or another but the difference between these and others is that whatever they did no malice was intended. We know very little about the childhood of Jesus and one wonders whether the young Jesus himself got up to mischief as most young children do. Eventually we all grow up and sometimes look back on our youth with relish. For the past few weeks on the Bible reading page we have been hearing about the story of Noah and the Ark. God had become angry at mankind and saw much violence in the world that he had created and in a way he wanted to refresh what he had created. He saw that Noah was a good man and choose him and his family to renew the earth again. We know that in today’s world there is again much violence and anger amongst mankind yet we take no notice of the warning signs that God is giving to us. We must all start listening and treating one another with respect. We must start looking after our glorious creation that God has given to us. We must all work together before it really is too late.