25th April 2025

25th April 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 1:3-6)


Message (Alan Burke)


I was sharing at our evening service a few weeks ago how I was learning the harmonica. What happened was that not long after I was installed and ordained in Lissara some years ago my mum brought me up some of my many boxes of junk that I’ve gathered over the years and in that was some of my dads stuff which she didn’t know what to do with so they came to me and then a couple of weeks after they arrived something happened that meant that I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. It all seems a bit surreal looking back on it but at the beginning of my house arrest I took out the harmonica and decided before this was over I was going to learn how to play that harmonica. It hasn’t happened, they are sitting in my study making me feel guilty because when I say I was learning the harmonica I still haven’t learnt it and doubt I ever will no matter how good my intentions are. If you’re wondering what on earth does this have to do with this passage before us it is because of those words that come in v6, how he who has began a good work in you will bring it to completion. If salvation was dependant on me, on my works or endeavours I can guarantee it would just be like that harmonica in my study that confronts me every day with just how much I have failed to do what I set out to do, if salvation was about me and dependant on me I would have fallen by the wayside years ago. 


There is a wonderful comfort in what Paul says here, a great encouragement for all of us who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether you feel that you have failed as a Christian, whether you are filled with doubts and fears or you have confident assurance that you are his, God who has begun a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. You might be filled with fear that you will fail to reach the finish line, that when this life is done we will not be destined for Glory but instead hell, because you’ve not done enough or you’ll fail along the way. It is easy to always be second guessing ourselves, can I do enough, will I keep going. But it is not about us, our works, endeavours, it is about what God has done for us, because of that Paul can clearly rejoice. 


Say you fell into six year ago, it cannot separate you from the love of God, or that sin that you can’t seem to get shot off, it cannot can separate you from the love of God, nothing can. This should be a wonderful comfort to us as believers, for nothing can, nothing can separate us from the love of God, we will persevere, because God will preserve us, nothing will be able to snatch you from the hand of the saviour. This is the teaching of scripture known as perseverance of the saints and it means that our confidence, our assurance comes not because of us, it doesn’t rest on who we are or what we have done or can do it rests on the Lord Jesus, what the triune God has done for us. As we are reminded in the Westminster Confession of Faith when it says, “They, whom God has accepted in his Beloved (the beloved being Jesus Christ, His only Son), effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally nor finally, fall away from the state of grace; but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved” (WCF 17.1). Those who truly believe will preserver, they will be preserved by the Lord, none that has been given to Jesus can be snatched from his hand no matter the sin, no matter the denial like Peter. This should be such a comfort for you brothers and sisters, that he who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion, that the Lord Jesus shall loose none of all that he was given by the Father, none of his sheep will be able to be snatched from his hand, we will be sustained to the end so we will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (Phil 1:6, Jn 6:39, Jn 10:28, 1 Cor 1:8). 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q67 Which is the sixth commandment? 
A. The sixth commandment is, Thou shalt not kill.
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