A Psalm for Our Time: Psalm 133

[Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning everyone it is so lovely to see you to see people here in the room and i would really encourage those online if you haven't ventured back in here yet you can do it there are a few spaces and we'd encourage you to do that but if you're not able to that's fine as well and it's just wonderful to see everyone here today either in person or online or maybe you're going to be watching this later and equally you are incredibly welcome to our time together this morning it's great to have you here uh with us for those of you who don't know me my name's fran and i've been part of this church for nearly three years now and i'm going to be leading us through our time together today we're introducing a new series this week it's called assam for our times and i don't know about you but i love the psalms i really do there's something about the psalms that really speak to one as an individual that express human emotion and and the stuff of everyday life even though they were written centuries ago they still um resonate for many of us as individuals and you know they are songs they are poetry they are full of wisdom um they are full of lament as well what uh an appropriate thing for this time to be looking at psalms that actually where people express their sadness and their confusion and their anger at this god and their perplexity and not really understanding what on earth is going on and why bad things happen in the world and the psalms really are just a mix of raw emotion i don't know doggie determination you know those psalms where you can almost uh hear the psalmist with gritted teeth saying i don't understand you god but i believe you are good and getting to the place where actually um the psalmist can say with conviction um they're full of jubilant worship as well aren't they and celebration and um affirmation of belief so the psalms are great for such a time as this because whatever you are feeling today whether god feels a million miles away and totally unreal and you're wondering what on earth all this christian faith business is about or whether you the other end of this spectrum and you're feeling that sense of celebration and wonder and or who god is the psalms actually capture that and actually everything in between as well so if you haven't read the psalms recently i really would encourage you um to dip into them and also to listen in on a sunday morning over the next few weeks as we explore some of the different ones the other thing about the psalms i just want to remind us of that is so often they're not just about the individual they're about the people of god together they're about community faith community um struggling together working out things together in the nitty-gritty of relationship and worshiping god together so today this morning what we're going to be doing is we are going to be mirroring some in some way um what the psalms are like so um and expressing so in a minute we're going to say some words together a simple liturgy where i will say something and then you will say something in response if you would like to um and that the liturgy actually expresses what it means to be the body of christ together the people of god together then we'll have opportunity to sing a bit behind our masks or if you're home i always when i'm at home watching this and i sing on my own the the dog always gives me a very strange look um and i always feel a bit silly um but actually you know we've got an audience that's god so if you want to sing along that is fine don't worry um about that but please if you're in the room don't take off your masks um you'll need to sing behind your mask sort of fairly quietly um we're going to do some singing together we're going to look at a video a short video together about what's happening in india we'll pray a bit and dave is going to speak to us this morning and one of the things we're going to do a little later is actually say a psalm together which is what the people of god used to do they used to speak out before god and sing before god um what they believed about him so without uh further ado we're going to actually start with um no we're not hang on um is that up yet yeah great now um you say together the things in orange no the other way you can tell i haven't done this for a while okay just wave at me when i get it wrong all right and those of you at home you know i can't see you waving at the screen but do okay so i'm saying the orange bits am i dave okay are you ready let's try this together we are the body of christ justice seeking bread breaking hymn singing risk taking body of christ baptized by one spirit we are members of one body many and varied in race culture sexuality age class and ability we are members of christ's beautiful body none of us can say to another i have no need of you for only together can we find wholeness for we are connected like muscle and bone if one suffers we all suffer if one rejoices we all rejoice come in all are welcome come into worship come with your longings your questions and your fears come with all your dreams of a better day one with dignity and justice for all thanks be to god who in christ has made us one let us worship god hallelujah amen to that and um part of our togetherness is um this wonderful section we always have on a sunday morning or in our services which are called the notices if you if people at home could see the faces the people in front of me the there's not a lot of enthusiasm for this uh actual uh point in the service actually we have very few notices um just one um just want to remind you if you're not part of a small group here in the life of the church can i really encourage you to think about exploring that possibility um if we're going to be singing about and considering what it means to be the body of christ but part of that is about being connected with one another and sharing something of our lives with one another and through our groups we're able to do that if you'd like to know more please contact dave and what's your email address dave dave at onechurchbrighton.org if you'd like to explore actually being part of a small group and you're not already and some of us need to just connect back in as well um if you've been part of one in the past i know you'd be very welcome so what we're going to do is i'm going to hand over to mark and we're going to worship together so let's do that we're going to um this morning singing a couple of songs that have uh come directly from psalms as we think about um these uh these this part of the bible um and so we might have some throwback to have some new ones um but here we go we're going to sing better as one day first how lovely is your dwelling place oh lord almighty [Music] for my soul and even things for you [Music] for here my heart is satisfied within your presence i sing beneath the shadow of your wings [Music] your courts it's better it's a one day in your house when there is a one day in your courts and thousands elsewhere thousands elsewhere one thing i ask and i would see to see your beauty to find you in the place your glory dwells one thing i asked and i would seek to see your beauty to find you in the place your glory dwells [Music] [Music] my heart and flesh cry out for you the living god your spirit's watered to my soul [Music] i've tasted and i've seen come once again to me i will join it to you i will draw near to you [Music] cause better is one day in your courts better is a one day in your house better is the one day in your courts and thousands elsewhere brenner is a one day in your courts it's better is the one day in your house better isn't one day in your course and thousands elsewhere cause better [Music] better is a [Music] elsewhere we'll get chance to sing a little bit more uh later but what we're going to do now is actually read a psalm together now be thankful that it's not psalm 119 because if any of you know how long that is but i don't know how long that is it just goes on for pages in my bible this is one of the very short psalms actually and it's the one that dave is going to be speaking about this morning it's psalm 133 and we thought it would be just good to do what the people of god used to do in ancient times and indeed many denominations still do today christian denominations and that is actually speak out the words of the psalms and uh so i thought it'd be really good if we just read this together we'll take it reasonably slowly sometimes we gallop through these things don't we i don't know it's a bit like i don't know about you but when i drive somewhere i can't remember how i got there um in in the sense that um it's so automatic that it doesn't the journey doesn't register with me so let's take a little bit of time over this psalm so the journey through the psalm registers with us and let the words sink in these words have been said down through the centuries by countless millions of christians we are part of this amazing uh bunch of people in the biggest sense of that word bunch who over the centuries have celebrated something of what god is and what it means to be his people so let's read this together let's start with this how good and pleasant it is when god's people live together in unity it is like precious oil poured on the head running down on the beard running down on aaron's beard down on the collar of his robe it is as as if the dew of hermann were falling on mount zion for there the lord bestows his blessing even life forevermore our men are men and the fact that we are part of this um not only generations old body of christ down through the centuries but we're also part of the international body of christ and what we're going to look at um just briefly we're going to watch a video and i'll give the guys time to get it up while i explain a little bit about it the person speaking on this video is a woman called dr kieran martin i have known kieran for years we are good friends and i have been out in delhi with her on many occasions alongside her and the people that she works with in the slum areas around the city of delhi she recorded this now over a week ago and you'll therefore you'll find that some of the statistics were out of date actually um bbc news yesterday over 4 000 people were recorded dead yesterday from covid in india and that is just a fraction we all know that's just a fraction because the official figures are far out for sync if you like with the reality of what's happening there and and kieran started this particular project initiative called the usher project in one slum as a young doctor on her own she took her toddler with her and set up a table right in the heart of the slum in in the main area and just started treating people and over 25 years later they're now working in over 91 slums around delhi it's an absolutely amazing initiative they are christians they are inclusive they do it because they love god and they love people and they work to empower women and children in particular in what they do so listen to kieran as she shares the reality of the situation in delhi now hi everyone ah my name is dr kiran martin i am the founder and director of asha that is working among 700 000 slum dwellers in the city of delhi i am here to tell you what is going on with regards to the crow with crisis in india and in the city many of you may have heard that india has recorded over 350 000 positive cases in the past 24 hours delhi itself has recorded about 25 000 cases within the same period ah there are no hospital beds and there is no oxygen and therefore patients are lying on the ground outside all the major hospitals desperately waiting for a bed and a lot of them are gasping for breath and expiring simply because of the lack of oxygen we have no idea when this crisis is going to ah come to an end as of now it is not possible for any patient requiring hospital admission to find a bed or even a place to lie on the ground in any of delhi's hospitals with regards to asha within the 700 000 population that we are covering we are determined to do the very best we can to look after every single patient that has been placed under our care all through the 91 slums we are doing this with the help of our asha team that is made up of doctors nurses paramedics health assistants health workers and social workers in addition we are also using the services of our kovid warriors of which we have more than 300 these are young people from delhi university that have been helped by asha however as you know this particular strain is a double mutant strain and it is called b 0.1.617 and this double mutant strain is highly contagious and it is affecting young people it is also affecting children therefore it is all the more laudable that these warriors who are young are not shying away from going out into the communities and going at the front lines the entire asha team and warriors are going from home to home lane to lane and street to street this is so that we do not miss a single patient which has symptoms right now we have many many patients in all our communities having fever and other symptoms which are very highly suggestive of code and we again once again appeal to you i ask you to help us at this time to buy all that i have just mentioned you can go to www dot asha dash india dot org and on the home page there is a donate button when you click the donate button you will be able to make a donation for our covet work by being directed towards the country that you are from we will be more than grateful for this type of in-kind assistance please remember that we are looking at after 700 000 people in 91 slums it is a huge population to cover and every single asha member is fully committed to being at the front lines to fight this covered war we hope that you will fight with us and together we can overcome this thank you funny watching someone on a screen because um what we perhaps don't see is just the daily toll upon someone like that and those that work with her in in what they're seeing and what they're doing and the the warriors as they call the which i always think is a funny name but these are all students who are not from nice middle class families who automatically have got into university these are all young people who come from slum communities themselves that the usher project over the last 10 years has invested in them and helped them to gain the education that they need and to learn what they need to learn to get over the barriers that exist for people from slums to actually get into university and this is these young people saying we want to give back for what we have received is it's wonderful and i heard yesterday that they have just ushered a project has just received um confirmation that all of those young people can be vaccinated become a priority to be vaccinated because of what they're doing which is brilliant because there's so few vaccinations to be had so i suggest that we just stop and pray now this may seem a million miles away to us and for some of us we have things on our hearts that are far more immediate um in terms of what's going on in our own lives or in our families we have people in the life of our church community who are battling with the whole issue of loss of family members at present and there may be stuff going on and what i thought would be really helpful rather than just leaping into prayer let's just take a few moments to be quiet and to bring um the usher project and kieran and the others but also anything on our hearts to god then i'll just pray about one or two things and i will stop um after i prayed about something and i will invite you to say with me like a good anglican um the the words lord in your mercy hear our prayer don't worry if you don't get it right but it's quite a good way of reminding ourselves who we're talking to so let's just be quiet for a few moments so i will pray and invite you to respond with lord in your mercy hear our prayer father we do pray for for kieran and all those working with her as they day in day out seek to get alongside and make a tangible difference in the lives of people across the slums of delhi that are struggling with this awful awful sickness of covid we thank you for them we thank you for their dedication and their commitment and we pray that you would protect them and that they would know much success as they seek to treat and support those who are sick and father we pray for the government in india for prime minister modi and others that they might be gifted with wisdom and fast-sightedness in knowing how best to deal with this terrible pandemic in their own country lord in your mercy hear our prayer and father we pray for our own united kingdom in the aftermath of elections we pray for individuals disappointed that they've not been elected we pray for those that have been and pray that they might be people of justice and compassion and integrity that you will help them to make good decisions that will benefit and bless the people whom they serve lord in your mercy hear our prayer and father we pray for christians around the world struggling with knowing how to respond to covid we pray for churches grappling with the opportunities and challenges that this all brings and seeking to know how to be churched together in the midst of this and in the days to come and we pray for our own church for all those that are part of near and far part of this community of one church brighton and we pray lord knit us together as your community in this time in this place we pray for one another as we deal with the stuff of our everyday lives help us lord to have courage hope and comfort lord in your mercy hear our prayers amen amen we're now going to sing um two songs and then dave will come straight up and share with us from psalm 133 thank you yeah we're going to sing a couple of songs now um they might be um a little bit unfamiliar perhaps a little bit newer first one is a song called on and on and it's based on psalm 139 um and then we'll sing after that song called us for them which we sang a couple of weeks ago as well um and sort of talks of the unity um that psalm 133 that we read earlier and talks about tea deeper than any ocean your love goes on and on and on and on higher than any mountain your love goes on and on and on and on your love goes on and on and on where can i run from your presence [Music] where can i flee from you [Music] know even if i hide on the highest mountain you are there [Music] where can i run from your presence [Music] where can i flee from you know even if i lie in the lowest valley you will find me there [Music] and deeper than any ocean your love goes on and on and on and on your love goes on and on and on and on and on and on [Music] and if i clothed myself in shadows [Music] would i fade away from you know even if i fall to the deepest darkness love surrounds me still know even if i fall to the deepest darkness your love surrounds me and deeper than any ocean your love goes on and on and on and [Music] and on than any mountain your love goes on and on and on any ocean your love goes [Music] and there is no ending to [Music] deeper into love that holds on and won't let go love that won't lead me on my own and there is no ending to your love that holds on and won't let go love that won't leave me on my own and i'm falling deeper into your love that holds on and won't let go [Music] and deeper than any ocean your love goes on and on and on and on and higher than any mountain your love goes on and on and on and on and on and on [Music] when the lines are drawn when you're in or out when it's us so then and we shame the doubt it is all alive all we ever really need is love there's no need to shed more blood look upon the cross and look upon the cross and see the face of christ see the mercy in his eyes every valley shall be lit high and now our enemies are blessed [Music] his judgment is low [Music] there is no more kills there is no more shame [Music] blessed are the poor all the lonely broken lost [Music] of the lord [Music] like dust and his judgment comes to us and his judgment is low his judgment is low [Music] [Music] we will not fight their wars we will not fall in line cause if it's us or them it's us for them it's us for them we reject the i [Music] it's us for them we will not fight their wars we will not fall in line cause if it's us for them it's us for them it's us for them we reject the [Music] anymore cause if it's us or them it's us for them it's us for them [Music] he holds the earth like dust and his judgment comes to us and his judgment is over his judgment is low [Music] so star trek good morning everybody oh get lost then um it's lovely to see you all and it's good to be here today and this psalm that we're going to look at i think is just uh brilliant can you hear me okay shall i use the other mic tony that'd be better is it all right can you hear me okay yeah you're still awake brilliant i'll crack on so psalm 133 and i just love this song i love it um you might not have picked up coming whether you said fran but people who are speaking on sundays coming up are being given kind of free reign to pick a psalm and it was kind of easy for me to choose this one of my favorite psalms i'm not sure it's one of the best known sounds but it's it's beautiful in its simplicity i think it's the shortest psalm out of all 150 it wasn't the only reason i chose it but it is a kind of preacher's dream because it's not just the sentiment is brilliant that we're going to come to but it's structured so brilliantly it's just beautifully done and i i feel like a lot of work has gone into this song french philosopher blaise pascale once said and i have to remind myself of this he said i would have written you a shorter letter but i ran out of time which sounds kind of funny and witty but is so true you know the best talks i've ever given are the shorter ones i know you're all nodding um but saturday could be long but um you know that ability to just uh distill from lots and lots of wisdom and get it into something that is obtainable is a real skill all right one of my favorite songs of all time is by the water boys the whole of the moon do you like that song i just love it and uh recently mike scott who wrote that song released some pictures i think on instagram of his original uh writing of that song it's this incredibly lyrical brilliant song hold the moon i think it's i think it's prophetic and brilliant um but it was amazing to see this song emerge and in the margins just hundreds of similes and rhyming words and thoughts that he had and if you know the whole the moon it's got it's got loads and loads and loads of interplay within it and yet if you see the original he's had to get rid of hours and hours of thought and that's my feeling a bit with psalm 133 that in the margins david who who that this army is assigned to um has got hours and hours and a lifetime actually of his working to come down to just three verses so i think it's a very special psalm i think you mentioned psalm 119 and even psalm 139 that one of those songs are based on these are kind of long flowing psalms they're beautiful and brilliant there's real gold in them but this feels like he's managed to get rid of all of the waffling and he just gets to the heart and so you have these three verses and they do three things and i want you to think about this and track with me as i go through the first thing is it tells us about something that is good and pleasant i really wish the niv didn't use that word one of the most insipid words do you imagine somebody sent you the thing i like about you most is you're pleasant i had a really pleasant day today it's the most underwhelming word um but other places it's translated is beautiful just this kind of sense of brilliance just something that is beautiful and brilliant something that is fragrant just think about your favorite thing to do or your favorite glass of wine or whatever your thing is or or meal the good and brilliant thing so first of all it tells us about that secondly it tells us how to achieve that thing and then thirdly it tells us what is achieved by that thing and it does it all in three verses so the first verse how good and pleasant it is when uh brethren or i think in the in the version that we read was people people again bit flat classic niv a bit flat other versions say brethren other russians say brothers how good it is how good and pleasant it is when people live together in unity again a bit flat a lot of the versions are when they dwell together in unity the word that is translated as brothers in some or people is this hebrew word which means everybody and it means brethren is a good kind of phrase but we don't use it very much anymore people feel a bit flat some say brothers and sisters when brothers and sisters but basically when everybody dwells together it's a catch-all word yes it has kind of a masculine kind of history to it but when it's used it's talking in this term of the brethren the people when the people gather together and they dwell together there's something beautiful about the word dwell not just living together but dwell stay sit be with together there's something beautiful about that so that's the thing that it's telling us is good and i think that that is true i don't think i can overstate this that i think it's something that used to be a value that people held higher than they currently do i think it's undeniable that we live in a time of what somebody's called hyper individuality that individuality is the kind of goal of our day it's held up as this most important thing that actually if you're reliant on other people that feels like a very old-fashioned value where we relied on one another where we needed one another and so much of our society has been built to teach us this kind of the most important goal of our day which is that you as an individual are what matters most in the world your rights your opinions and there's lots of truth in that thing there's something really good about us freeing ourselves from the shackles of feeling like we're just a mob who are told what to believe from on high but the flip side of it is it's created this hyper individualism where we feel isolated and alone and i say that in a room where we're all wearing masks and sitting apart even just as mark and sarah was singing then i was just thinking about the day and i'm not somebody who's mad on sort of singing maybe i am actually it's because it's been taken away from us i just sat there and i thought i can't wait to be back in a room where we all sing together not just church but going to a gig or whatever it might be joining your voice with other people there's something beautiful and profound about it and we are becoming more and more isolated and the pandemic has kind of done this x-ray upon us where actually a lot of us are learning to live even more individualistically even more isolated in ice isolatedly there's a word there somewhere isn't there even more in isolation it's become normalized i went to the supermarket yesterday and i was thinking as i was walking around it wasn't that long ago in the history of humankind where you didn't have shops you know you bartered i know this sounds like such an old man thing to talk about but there was a time when the only way you got something that you didn't have was to swap it with something that you did have that thing that you had you either had to create yourself a make or you had to grow yourself or it was given to you as gift and then i might come to sarah and i might say oh sarah you've got eggs i've got i was going to say chickens that would make any sense if you've got eggs and i've got chickens i'm better off i've got a bike i don't know this is i should have thought this i should have thought this illustration through i've got i've got something and you've got something and we agreed to give some of that and argue some of that in that moment two human beings have just interacted with each other we've had to negotiate each other and we've had to come to a position of trust that the deal i'm getting is as good as the deal you're getting that was the way that the world worked for most of human history if i want to build a house i'm going to have to make some friends because they're going to help me build the house and you know what the payback of that is i'll probably at some point have to help them build their house loads of human interaction loads of trust building i went to the supermarket yesterday i pulled some prawns off a shelf and as i went to the self-service checkout and as i beat across i saw that those prawns came from honduras can you imagine what has gone into the chain of those prawns being caught being packaged being flown i hope they were flown no that sounded i meant that just to get here quickly i didn't mean i hope they were flown but um you know but they they're there on a supermarket shelf in hove and i have managed to walk out the shop without speaking to another human being because we have moved so far that i can get products from the other side of the world with no knowledge of who the fisher people were official people and i'm trying to be politically correct yeah no knowledge of who they were no knowledge of how it got here no knowledge of the supply chain the people involved in getting me a packet of prawns and me walking out of the shop with i didn't have to make a relationship with any of them and we think that's progress nowhere was i forced to build relationship and the comeuppance of that is that we live in a world where people feel more lonely than i think they have ever felt and i genuinely don't exaggerate when i think other than climate change and the whole globe okay i realize that is the big issue issue of our time because actually none of this matters if we don't have a planet to live on but for people individually the most problematic part is their individuality is that we are lonely people feeling alone people feeling isolated if you look at the rates of mental health issues i don't need to convince you of this do i it's out there it's common knowledge it's looking us in the face that the rates of suicide are soaring self-harm these terrible terrible issues that the roots of them are isolation and loneliness that's the root of them even for people who are surrounded by other people all the time it is a terrible destructive force and yet we struggle to be connected to other people and right at the beginning of this psalm it says it's a beautiful thing when what people live in unity we might think that that's just a nice kind of thing i'm here to tell you it's not nice it's essential it's life-changing to be able to list some people who you live in unity with i think is the difference between a life and just living and yet we invest so little time in it and the opening salvo in just a handful of words david says it's a good and beautiful thing when people live in unity but how is it achieved and what he does is he gives us two similes two illustrations which may not mean very much to us but i think for the readers of the time we're just so helpful and i can tell you in very very few brush strokes and hopefully it will make sense to you he talks about oil and he talks about jew and you might think what on earth has that got to do with unity the first illustration is an odd one even as we read it together i felt the room just slightly go this is a bit weird this is about like oil that flows down from aaron's head down his beard over the collar of his jacket and by the way this is a shacket so that you don't come and ask me afterwards um but that's that's the illustration number one oil flowing down on some bloke called aaron's head down his beard for the listeners at the time they would have known exactly what this is and i should have said that again this is called a psalm of ascent because the psalms of ascent were the psalms that the people sang when they made their way up to the festivals of jerusalem and i love this image of little villagers who say come on we're going to go up to jerusalem for passover or whatever it might be and as they went they sang and i have this beautiful image that more and more people gathered on a bit like that coke advert in the 70s coca-cola and and these different villages but they all know the same song and as they come together in trickles they begin to get more and more as the roads around jerusalem fill up and they're singing these songs and this is islam of ascent going up towards jerusalem and what they're singing about is aaron and the oil that's flowing down on him they would have known straight away in fact if you know anything about your old testament in leviticus in exodus and numbers all three of those books contained detailed descriptions of what is going on here which is the very first priest aaron who doesn't deserve it i don't know if he knew that it was coming he didn't apply for the job god said i want you to anoint aaron and his family and and then god says this is how you're going to do it you're going to get some oil and leviticus goes into great detail in fact it gives the name of the four different um herbs or things which make the oil smell beautiful that you're to mix with this oil and then you warm it up so that it becomes more fluid and then you put it onto aaron's head so that it flows down upon him this is this image of anointing we've lost it in our society we never really do that when i say we never really do it we don't do it has anybody recently been anointed with oil not just like a little bit but this oil being poured upon you and i want you to think about why is why is that image used well picture the time you know the thing we know we don't have to uh you know look back or think about it too hard but the middle east has always been the same way it's hot and it's dry and it's dusty and as a beard wearer myself you know beards particularly get dry and scratchy and itchy and you can imagine the kind of dryness but when this oil comes down on the head of air and as he's anointed everything softens all the sharp edges are taken away and this beautiful image of a softening from what was harsh and it's this incredible image that david holds out for us that says that when we live in unity for me to look at somebody and and view them harshly or to judge them or to have an opinion about them but actually to let that image soften i'm sure is one of the things that he's getting it but even more profound than that is he's saying that when you dwell in unity when you love people in the way that i want you to what you're doing is you're anointing them and it wasn't just any priest this is aaron the first priest who didn't know what he was going to be and it took others it took god to say this is who you really are you might just think you're moses is spokesperson and that's what you put on the planet for but actually i'm going to call you priest in other words as the oil is poured a kind of new identity is given to this person and if you've ever been able to do that to somebody it's one of the most profound things there's been a few moments in my life where i spent time with somebody who i loved and you're in the middle of a conversation and they're not satisfied with the life that they have and you've ever had those moments where you just say have you ever thought about and you speak something to them that they say years later that changed my life that was such a moment that chat in the pub where my life was going one direction and remember we had that conversation and i went away and i did something different that's what's happened here when you anoint somebody you're saying that you might feel this about yourself you might believe this about yourself but i see in you something that you can't see yourself that's what that's the way we're going to live in unity that we're constantly looking for that thing and what the thing is is actually the god image in every person that you ever meet that we we believe in this doctrine that i don't think many of us understand but throughout the new testament we're told to be encouraged to believe in this priesthood of all believers that actually everybody that you're going to bump into in this community of this church is a priest you probably don't feel like that as you sit there you might think it's easy for me to believe it because i get to stand up here and do this priestly stuff i don't feel it i feel like a failure most of the time and those rare moments those lovely moments when somebody anoints me by saying i see that in you and i'm grateful in you it doesn't have help when was the last time you anointed somebody when was the last time that your words were like a softening beautiful fragrant warmth the other image that he gives is of jew and uh it's an interesting thing it says that the jew of mount heron hebron on mount zion which is a really weird thing because hebron is right in the north the northern most part of israel on its borders and his high high mountain doesn't matter how hot it is in that part of the world there's snow on the top of that mountain i think it's 2800 feet more than twice the height of the highest mountain in the uk that's in the north and mount zion is like a little hill to the south of jerusalem and what he's saying is is that you know that hill to the south of jerusalem mount zion this very special place it's great and it's anointed by god but it's dry and it's dusty and nothing really grows there well actually when you live in unity it's like this beautiful image that can you picture it in the north there these great big high mountains where this jew comes and the jew forms on the mountainsides and the jew settles in snow which melts which comes down the mountain which trickles down in all these teen little bits that seem insignificant and nothing but eventually they form themselves into rivers rivers that feed this incredible kind of fertile delta that is that part of the middle east and what what david is saying is that when you're kind to people when you want to live in unity those little words those little kindnesses actually build to something that brings fertility and life and that to me i just find so inspiring the other thing about you is that it's new every morning why doesn't he say like the rain on mount hebron he says it's like jew it's new every morning and the problem is for many of us the reason that we struggle with other people is because we've we held on to something that happened yesterday that we should let go today there's some that thing that they said to you that really annoyed you and i'm talking about how we live well together here i'm not trying to trivialize issues of trying to forgive people who have really hurt and harmed you what i'm talking about is the daily getting on with the people around you where that that person that you work with who just annoys you what would it look like to anoint them and what would it look like for tomorrow you know give them a new start just like that due is new what would it look like i need to wrap up but i just kind of love this image of us anointing each other and giving us new starts and this image of particularly with the jew image is that it's gift they didn't have kind of scientists and tv programs to explain the way that the water cycle worked and everything they just saw gear was just undeserved gift and and the image of the of aaron you know it starts at the head and flows down this image of this big mountain and flows down is this lovely image of if we're going to get on with each other we have to have received ourselves this grace that has flown down to you and i love i think that philip yancey talked about that grace flows down like water it will always find the lowest point you know if we were to spill a glass of water at the back of the room there some of it would immediately just get down into the cracks in the floorboard some of it would flow down here but what we know is it would find the lowest point and that's grace that's the love of god that finds you however low you feel right now grace is flowing down to you and all we're being asked to do is to share some of that that's flown to us to share with others desiring unity not like unity movements they're sort of unions they we've lost some of the beautiful kind of intimacy of what it means to be united with another person with other people and that last part i said that comes what what is achieved by doing all that and there's this just profound almost throwaway line that's where god commands his blessing even forever more if you want to be blessed by god who wouldn't want to be blessed by god anybody fancy somebody being blessed by god no i'm not bothered you know why would you not want the maker of the universe to bless you well it says that the maker of the universe blesses you when you live in unity with other people and then it has this lovely little kicker even forever more it's a strange kind of phrase some versions it's translated for eternity and the hebrew word again if you look through the old testament it's interchangeable with words like everlasting so when you read about from everlasting to everlasting for eternity forevermore it's the same word and the image isn't just of what is going to come the image is actually of what has always been from everlasting to everlasting and that's where we get this beautiful kind of convergence of good theology where the reason that we're asked to live in unity is because where we came from we believe in the trinity not a god who sits lonely and decided one day to create the world because he was bored but a god who was always in relationship that there's always been community unity there's always been a community of the godhead we were created to join that unity because it's where we're heading the very best way to bring some heaven on earth is for us to live as though we're in heaven and in heaven this is just a mind-blowing thought you will get on with everybody even you even you tony well that was cruel wasn't it it's the loveliest man i know but you'll get on with everybody and everyone will get on with you all of the rough edges will have been smoothed away the anointing oil will be done its job so beautifully that everybody you meet you're going to find the most loving person in front of you because you will be the most loving person all of the brokenness will be taken away all your insecurity that stops you loving people now will be taken away or your jealousy all of that whole kind of what's that phrase that the uh comparison is the thief of joy you're never gonna have to compare yourself with anybody because you're gonna have everything and more and that generosity is what heaven looks like i think that's what it was like that's what it's going to be like and we live in between and for those of us who are followers of christ our number one goal i honestly believe that our number one goal is love that says the people i'm going to meet today and tomorrow and the members of my family these people who have those edges how do i anoint them how do i speak to them in such a way that polish is the best version of them how do i give them new starts just like the jew comes every morning how do i get let them have a new start every morning imagine if we were a society that treated people like that that treated immigrants like that people who you might be here now you might not have been born here but you're here and you belong here and we want to dwell with you imagine if we did that imagine if we treated people whose mental health issues meant they were out of work and struggling to find housing imagine if we actually lived that way that said i'm going to honor you because you are a beautiful human being made in the image of god and you are worth everything to god i'm going to pray for us and then fran is going to wrap up for us but let's just pause and this is always a kind of dangerous thing to do and i hate it people do this to me but maybe there's just one or two people in your life at the minute who who you view with some pretty harsh edges and you just need to have that image of of actually the oil that is anointing you grace flowing down on you right now in such abundance that you're able to pass it on we've talked a lot about abundance and scarcity over the last few months but this is what we believe a god who says no no no there's abundance and a world that says no no there's scarcity that's why you've got to fight for it you've got to fight you've got dog eat dog world look after yourself you only do that if you think the scarcity but when you believe in the abundance of grace around you then you can pass that on who is it that needs your grace i was right in the middle of preparing this talk and i was annoyed with somebody and it was just so helpful to go through to the i won't tell you what it was but to go through to a room in a house somewhere in brighton and say i'm sorry i know i was just asking with you then i'm sorry because i wanted to anoint them and that's life done well if you can keep on doing that short accounts let's just be quiet for a moment think about where there is a lack of unity in your life do you feel lonely and isolated what does god say to you in your loneliness you've got to pray for us today wherever we are right now i pray that we would have a sense that we are being anointed by you that the face that looks on us has a smile upon it not a judgmental parent but a loving friend who pours grace onto our lives who tells us that we are enough and we have enough who tells us that there is enough peace to drive away our fears there's enough love to drive away our hatred there's enough joy to overcome our sadness and i pray that we would learn somehow to pass that on to others around us this week i pray in jesus name amen a lot to think about there and take on board um i was just thinking i can't remember how many sermons i've heard over the years and if i just put one bit of one of them into practice so i'd be super christian by now probably um and so my encouragement to myself as well as everybody who's listening and to this is don't let this just wash off us let's cooperate with god and do some of the work that's involved in this because this stuff isn't easy either and it takes a bit of work so to help us with that work um we're going to close by saying the words of the grace together and again it's it's a prayer that gets prayed week after week after week and many of us can recite it without looking at the words but it is so amazingly rich isn't it it's actually saying god grace all these people god may all these people know your love and we're actually praying into place those very things that dave has been sharing with us so we'll close by doing that but before that um i want to remind you about our small groups um if we're going to dwell together um with one another in unity that's one of the ways of doing it even if it's at the other end of a zoom camera it's still part of that dwelling experience of connecting with one another i want to say a big thank you to dave sometimes i don't think we thank him enough for all that he gives and invests into the lives of others so a big thank you dave for this morning big thank you to our techy guys who just week in week out make this possible for many of us so thank you to you and thank you to our lovely worship leaders as well that was that was wonderful this morning and thank you everyone who watches this or shown up this morning for actively being part of who we are as one church we need each other and let's pray the words the grace now as an expression of that may the grace of the lord jesus christ and the love of god and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with us all evermore amen for those of you looking at this on the screen what you can see are people trying to look at each other around the room um and it's trying to look meaningfully um from from the nose upwards which is really quite difficult to do but i think we caught the sentiment there so that's brilliant um thank you are we all fair now no you

Channel: One Church Brighton

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Keywords: one church brighton, onechurch, 1 church, church, baptist, social, community, sussex, brighton, 1 church brighton, florence road, florence road baptist church, brighton baptist church, uk, england, christian, christianity, charity, ocb

Id: ZqdVeX54uGQ

Length: 73min 0sec (4380 seconds)

Published: Sun May 09 2021