15th March 2024

15th March 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (1 John 5:14-17 focus v16-17)


Message (Alan Burke)


If you fancy a wee day out you could check out the Patterson’s Spade Mill up at Templepatrick. It is the last working water-driven spade mill in daily use in the British Isles. If you go you will have a multi sensory experience, the sound of the hammers, the smell of the grit and at the end you will see a traditionally made spade that you can even purchase. If you ever thought a spade was just a spade you need to go to Patterson’s Spade Mill although if I showed you one of those spades that had been made there you would call it a spade. Imagine if I didn’t show you a photo of a spade and didn’t tell you about Patterson’s spade mill and described a spade as a “hand worked and crafted tool that will last a life time with the proper care, made by skilled craftsmen who have years of knowledge and experience, a think of beauty that you can own”. Would you know what I was talking about? I doubt it. 


Sadly when it comes to sin we don’t call a spade a spade, we package it up, call it by all manner of words and try to deflect from the reality that it is sin and the sinfulness of sin. John continues and although the emphasis remains on prayer but it moves to the sin of brothers and sisters in the fellowship. Notice what though were are told to do if we see someone who commits a sin that does not lead to death, well we are to pray that God would lead them to life. We are to bring before our Heavenly Father those around us, we are to intercede for one another. This is a call to pray for one another, asking that God would help those who are struggling with sin. Yes there is a time to pray for our needs but there is a greater focus on praying for others, we should be praying for our brothers and sisters who have got caught up in sin and that they would come to repentance. What we desire is restoration in the church, even in church discipline the desire is for restoration, that sinners would come to repentance.


While there is a sin that leads to death John leaves us in no doubt of the seriousness of all sin, he calls it for what it is, all sin is wrongdoing, and we all sin, John has already made that clear, If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (1 Jn 1:8). We all sin, and there is sin in our life that does not lead to death for we have trusted in Jesus Christ. In regard to the sin that leads to death what I will say is that if you are repentant for your sin then you have not committed the sin that leads to death, the unforgivable sin, this is not speaking of you if you are saved, if you are born again of the Spirit then you are not guilty, because you live in the Spirit and God is not divided against himself (1 Jn 3:9). 


We should be those, each one of us who come to the Lord with confidence in prayer. In what lies ahead pray that God would bring sinners to himself here in this place, pray for each other, pray for our own walk with the Lord, pray the walk of those around you, pray that God would be brought Glory in the church that we are part of, in this land and world. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q 94 What is baptism?
Baptism is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, (Matt. 28:19) doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord’ s. (Rom. 6:4, Gal. 3:27)
​