The Portrait of a Prophet

LIMAVADY BAPTIST CHURCH

SERMON NOTES SUNDAY 20 JULY 2026 – PASTOR BRYAN CRUISE

2 Kings 3 verses 4 – 20 – The Portrait of a Prophet

We open in the middle of a crisis. The king of Moab, King Mesha has paid an enormous annual tribute to the king of Israel, 100,000 lambs and wool of 100,000 rams. But the moment King Ahab dies, King Mesha the King of Moab decides this is a good time to rebel. But in response Ahab’s son, King Jehoram forms a military coalition – himself, the King of Israel Jehoshaphat the King of Judah and also the king of Edom. To go against this uprising in Moab. Edom has long been an enemy of God’s people descended from Esau but now they are subject to Judah. So they join the fight. Jehoram and Jehoshaphat well they are connected through marriage. Humanly speaking everything appears to be in their favour. These 3 kings and their sizeable army and carefully considered battle plan set out for Moab. Their campaign begins to unravel almost immediately. They make their way through the wilderness of Edom. A harsh desert region south of the Dead Sea. Well known for its rugged terrain, its rocky cliffs, its intense heat and they are travelling. Verse 9 tells us they fetch a compass, they went a round about route, not the conventional way. To get into Moab. Humanly speaking strategically brilliant coming to Moab from the south. Difficult to fight against, unexpected. After 7 days in the desert the army is dying of thirst. In a matter of days human confidence becomes human desperation. Brought to the brink of disaster. Only then when these 3 kings reach a end of themselves that they seek the Lord through his prophet. It is at that moment the spotlight falls on one of the most significant men in the Old Testament. In the midst of frightened kings, fading hope and failing plans we see Elisha as a striking portrait of what a servant of God ought to be.

 

Elisha’s character. In response to the drought and desperate situation the king of Israel Jehoram cries in despair. The first word he says is “Alas” verse 10. “Alas the Lord has brought these 3 kings together so they may be defeated.” You will notice that this is the first time the Lord is mentioned in the chapter. Not in prayer. It is in complaint. In our chapter Jehoram the king never speaks to the Lord, he only ever speaks about him. Never to him. That is the difference between King Jehoram and the Psalmist. The Psalms don’t take too long for me to see myself in them. The Psalmist brings his confusion, his fear, his disappointment, his desperation. He brings his complaints to the Lord. Jehoram is different. He complains to other people about God. Psalm 42 “why are thou so cast down my soul.” Psalm 13 “how long oh Lord will thou forget me forever.” Psalm 52 “my God my God why hast thou forsaken me.” The Psalmist knows where to go with his problems – to the Lord. Your fears, your disappointments, your unanswered questions, your tears – bring them to the Lord because the Lord is never offended by the honest prayers of his children. That is what Jehoshaphat does in our passage. He asks the right question. He does not speculate God’s will. He wants direction. Verse 11 “is there not here a prophet of the Lord.” Jehoshaphat was already aware of Elisha’s ministry even though his ministry was in the northern half of Israel. Jehoshaphat knows about Elisha and he knows that his greatest need in the middle of a crisis is no the change of circumstances but it is direction from the Lord. So he enquires in our passage about Elisha. The other interesting thing is in verse 11 the individual who knows where Elisha is, is not a soldier, not a counsellor, not a king, it’s an unnamed servant of the king who knows where the prophet is. Throughout scripture unnamed servants become instruments of God’s providence. The most beautiful example is found in John 2. The first miracle of the Lord Jesus in Cana of Galilee where he turns water into wine. Who knows where it came from? The other guests didn’t know, the master of the feast didn’t know. Verse 9 the servants knew where it came from. The most humble individuals in the gathering knew were the ones who knew where the power of the Lord came from. They witnessed it. We can see that in our passage. You are a servant of the Lord and never think that your quiet service is insignificant. Your prayers that no-one hears, your acts of kindness that no-one applauds, your cups of tea, your words of encouragement, your visits to the sick, your faithful attendance in the assembly, your faithful work, your faithful labour that no-one else seems to appreciate – God sees your service. In fact in our passage Elisha is identified by his service. Verse 11 how he is introduced. The unnamed servant doesn’t say “well Elisha is near by. He is the prophet who parted the Jordan Sea by hitting it with Elijah’s mantle. He healed the waters of Jericho.” No the unnamed servant says first “He poured water on the hands of Elijah his predecessor.” He remarks that Elisha did a menial task, the work of a servant. He poured water on the hands of another. Elisha’s greatest commendation from the mouth of another. It was his service, his servanthood. On that great and awesome day when you stand before the Lord Jesus Christ he is not going to say “well done thou good and faithful deacon, elder, Sunday School teacher, youth worker but servant.” Your service is what people ought to know of you. Your service for the Lord. There is a beautiful irony in our passage. The kings, their army and their animals are literally dying of thirst and the servant of God is introduced as a man who poured water. Not only do we see this regarding his character. The description continues in verse 12. It is said of him “the word of the Lord is with him.” Think of the description that C H Spurgeon gave to John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress “Prick him anywhere and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the bible flows through him. He cannot speak without quoting a text for his soul is full of the word of God.” If only we were people like that! Would you bleed the bible if you were pricked today? Colossians 3 verse 16 “let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom.” The word “dwell” means to take up residence, to lodge. Does the word of God dwell in your heart? Does it dwell I your mind? Does it dwell in your life. The word of God should live in you and you in it. It shouldn’t be a guest, a visitor, a weekend accommodation for an hour on Sunday. We are to thoroughly acquaint ourselves with the word of God. We must not consult the bible merely in moments of crisis. The bible is to be systematically read and studied. It is to be the thing to shape our thinking, to govern our lives. There must come a point in your walk with God when it goes from being highlighted in your bible to being highlighted in your life. That people can point to you and say “there is a disciple of Jesus Christ.” Psalm 119 verse 11 “Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against you.” Job 23 verse 12 “Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.”

 

Elisha’s confrontation. Next what happens is whenever these 3 kings approaches Elisha he confronts them – verse 13. Elisha refuses to flatter King Jehoram. He addresses the king with astonishing boldness – “what have I to do with thee?” He is saying “Jehoram what common ground do you and I share? Go back to the prophets of thy father and thy mother, the prophets of Baal.” He is saying “go back to the prophets of Baal that your mother fed in 1 Kings 18 and 19. Go back to those bootlickers who were in your father’s court in 1 Kings 22 verses 6 to 8. Why are you here seeking me?” Elisha calls out his two faced religion. He has one religion when everything is going well and another when things are going tough. 3 kings stand before Elisha, they command thousands of men and here they are in front of him. Humanly speaking they are the most powerful men in the region. Elisha does not back down. He doesn’t soften his message because he is standing before royalty. He does not flatter the king to gain favour. He does not mince his words to preserve his own life. He is courageous before them. The very next verse gives the answer – verse 14. Elisha speaks and “as the Lord of hosts liveth before whom I stand.” These words are more or less identical to Elijah’s words in 1 Kings 17 verse 1 when he stood before king Ahab. You can see the type of man Elisha is. He does not say “as the Lord liveth” but he invokes the name “the Lord of hosts.” Yahweh Sabaoth. It is used in scripture when God’s people are threatened, when his purposes are opposed, when his glory is challenged. When God himself uses that title he is not counselling his people. He’s going to war on their behalf. Sometimes we think of angels when we read that title. It is far more than that. Hosts means everything in creation. Your God, my God, is the God of angel armies but he is also the God of galaxies and stars. He is also the God of every natural element upon the earth. He is the God of every army, of every nation and he can send them any direction he wishes. Our God is the Lord of hosts. He is the commander and chief of everything in existence. That is why Elisha invokes his name. Standing before 3 kings and their vast army says “it matters not because I stand before the God of every army. You are not intimidating because I stand before God.” Like his predecessor Elijah before him he occasionally stood before kings but he knew he stood before God continually. He knew his audience ultimately was ever heaven. Every believer must remember he serves God first and not man That perspective changes everything. A man or woman who spends their life conscious of God’s presence will never be overawed by the greatness of man. Crowns, titles, influences, authority all have their place but one day we will stand before the King of Kings. In verse 14 Elisha is very frank. “I am only speaking to you because Jehoshaphat is with you.” If it were not for him you would not be here. I would not be here to see you.” Jehoram receives an answer from the Lord not because he deserves one but because Jehoshaphat is standing beside him. One righteous man brings blessing to others. The presence of a righteous, a godly individual brings blessing to those in their company. Jehoram benefits from another man’s godliness. God often extends mercy to others because of the presence of his faithful people. Think of Potiphar’s house. When Joseph was there his house prospered because of him. Think of those on the ship in Acts 27 when Paul is on board. Those individuals were saved because of his presence. 1 Corinthians 7 tells us the children of a believing parent are holy, set apart, blessed in a way that children of unsaved parents aren’t. Their presence blesses them. Think of Mark 4 verse 36 when the Lord calms the sea of Galilee. Verse 36 it was not just for the disciples in the boat with him but other ships with him. They were in God’s presence. One believer walking closely with God can have influence far beyond what they realize. Maybe you are saying to yourself “I am only one person. You don’t know what it is like in my work, in school. They begin to joke and to jibe. They are rebels.” But this passage reminds us that in God’s providence one faithful believer can have influence far beyond what we realize. Wherever you may be – in work, school university – take a stand for God. You be the odd person in the meeting. When someone says a crude joke you be the awkward silence. When someone gossips about someone else you be the one who speaks a wholesome word. You be the one that is different. The one who blesses individuals. Is that you? Are you the godly influence. In our passage today after Elisha takes his stand he orders for a minstrel to be brought to him – verse 15 “now bring me a minstrel.” Before he brings God’s message he orders a minstrel to be brought to him. This is not an instrument, it is a musician. The same word in its root comes from the word “min” like a minister. Serving others by their music. A musician. He summons him to come. 3 kings are waiting, thousands of soldiers are waiting yet Elisha is not pressured to speak immediately. He says “bring me a musician”. And they wait. There is a powerful lesson here – never allow urgent circumstances with respect to replace dependence on God. Never feel pressured to speak or act before you have sought the Lord. I remember hearing about Helen Ewing. She lived in Scotland. A diligent evangelist. Whenever travelling evangelists came to an area to mission they would invite her to come and sit at the back of the meeting and pray. Missionaries knew she had died because their work was not as effective any more. Depend on the Lord. In our passage Elisha knows it is better to pause rather than speak. Why did he bring a musician? Around Israel at this time in our story pagan religions often had frenzied music, ecstatic rituals and self harm in an attempt to force their false gods to respond. Here the picture is different. No frenzy, no manipulation, no spectacle. Quietness and then God speaks in his own time. The musician disappears from the narrative as soon as God speaks. We never learn his name, never hear another note – why – because he quietly fulfilled his purpose and then fades into the background when the word of God takes centre stage. It fed into the ministry. It was not the ministry itself. The word had its proper place. Music was not central. It is best when it draws attention away from itself and toward the word of the Lord.

 

Elisha’s counsel. There’s a world of difference between human advice and divine counsel. The king had already received human counsel now he needed God’s counsel. That is what Elisha gives him. That is what God gives him. Verse 16 “thus saith the Lord make this valley full of ditches.” Those words change everything. Up until this point we have heard the king’s strategy, the king’s despair, the servant’s report, the prophet’s rebuke, now for the first time God speaks and everything changes. God commands ditches to be dug before the water can come. Imagine the soldiers – they are worn out, 7 days marching on rugged terrain, no water, exhausted, dehydrated yet God charges them to “dig ditches”. Imagine how hard it would have been to dig ditches in an arid land with rocky soil and yet they did because God commanded it. This is often how God works in scripture – Noah built the ark before the flood, Israel stepped onto the Jordan before the water parted, the servants filled the water pots to the brim before the wine came. Faith obeys God’s word before it sees God’s provision. Every stroke of the spade in these ditches was an act of faith. The men who dug couldn’t make the water come but they could be ready when it did. You and I cannot manufacture God’s blessing but we can prepare ourselves through prayer, obedience and faithful service. Then when God is pleased to work he finds a people ready for his provision. Maybe you are in a waiting season and it is tough and yet you are preparing for yourself when the blessing will come. Are we a ready people? An expectant people? The most spiritual thing a believer can do is keep digging when the valley is dry. When God speaks about when he will fill the ditch with water he says in verse 18 “this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord.” The armies were in an impossible situation, they are dying of thirst, they are seeking the Lord to give them water and the Lord says it is a light thing, it is a small thing for me to do this for you. What seemed impossible to man was effortless to man. Dale Ralph Davies remarks “this is too trivial a matter in God’s eyes. Rehydrating Israel’s parts, troops and packed animals is a piece of cake for God so he will limit himself to such trivial work but he will also hand over victory against the Moabites as well.” Not only does God address the immediate problem, the need for water but he solves the dilemma ahead of them. He promises them victory against the Moabites. Towards the end of the chapter they do defeat the Moabites. What about the water? What happened? It did come in verse 20.”And it came to pass in the morning when the meat offering was offered that behold there came water by the way of Edom and the country was filled with water.” God miraculously brings water and it comes from Edom. Where did the army come from? What terrain did they take? They marched through Edom. Not a drop of water. They marched through this arid desert wilderness and saw no water for 7 days. It came from back the way they came. God brought it. The route that nearly became their grave became the direction their salvation arrived. The water comes from the very direction they travelled. How often does God not turn the place of your deepest trial into the place of your greatest blessing? How often does God not work in that way? In the place that your struggled. The valley you found so tough does God not bless in the end? Verse 20 the water did not simply fill the ditches but the country. The country was filled with water. The ditches were dug and they were filled with water but far more. For the entire region now flowed with water. God’s provision is not meagre today. What God supplied for them was far greater than anything they could have produced for themselves. God will do exceeding abundant more than we could ever ask or think. Dig ditches – why – because then he will fill the country. You ask for God and he will do more than that. That is why so often we pray for God to meet our needs and he does do that, but far more. He meets our need but he exceeds the need.

 

Do not seek to imitate Elisha today but learn from him. A servant of God is shaped by the word of God. He knows that he stands before the face of God and he knows that he must faithfully proclaim the whole counsel of God for the church. The church has never ultimately needed clever strategies, larger armies or greater resources. She has always needed servants in whom the word of God dwells richly. The God who filled the dry valley is still able to 2026 to fill empty hearts. To strengthen weary saints. To revive churches. To supply every need of his people. God’s resources are never exhausted. His promises are never failing. His provision is not meagre but it is overflowing. What a God we serve today. The appropriate response is our adoration and our praise. 

Keswick at Portstewart - Friday 10 July 2026 - Clive Bowsher

 

KESWICK AT PORTSTEWART – FRIDAY 10 JULY 2026 – CLIVE BOWSHER

BEING UNITED TO JESUS

This evening we're going to think together about being united to Jesus. 

As a much younger married couple, I remember Kerstin and I going to listen to a speaker in the Corn Exchange in Cambridge and this speaker was quite well known and he was coming to talk about idols and idolatry and you're thinking great date night, right? And I remember it was packed and you know we were queuing for quite a time to get in. It was quite difficult to find a seat and you know we sat down we waited for the speaker to come on. And as I was sitting there I just felt a bit sort of fidgety you know and a little bit irritated if I'm honest. And you know, I kept thinking to myself that I felt a little s underwhelmed. And you know, we sat and we listened and then we filed out quite slowly.  By the time we got to the place we were going for coffee I was in quite a bad mood. And I remember sort of trying to unpick the arguments, and you know, find the gaps maybe in in what was being said. And it's a little bit I don't know if it's exactly amusing looking back but the reason for this I think was that you know at the time I was just kind of too heavily invested in the particular career that I was doing and you know our life projects, those things that we are partially leaning on to prop us up and very often they're glory projects. They don't like to die, you know, because we're kind of relying on them. Hence my fidgeting, hence my rather bad mood. Hence every kind of objection that I could find to avoid concluding the rather obvious thing that this this guy had a point. We I think invest in you know these things that we go after for a sense of glory because we are actually wired each one of us for a kind of glory. We want something that really tastes. If you dig a little bit deeper into what's going on when we, you know, try to build up our own glory, you know, it might be all sorts of different things. It could be career, it could be sort of respectability, could be reputation that they're always things I think that are seeking kind of glory and good opinion from other people, rather than from the only one who can give it. But when you dig deeper, it's very often, isn't it, that we want to know that we are valued. Dig still deeper, you know, even deeper. And it's actually that we're longing to know we're loved. And that longing for what really tastes, that longing for glory can have us going in all sorts of wonky directions if we go looking for it in the wrong place. And if we try to establish it for ourselves, you know, my reputation, my respectability, my CV, whatever that might look like, you know, degrees, sporting accolades. Sometimes it can just be like what the neighbours think, right? But there is a glory that we are wired for. And here's the thing, you don't have to create this glory for yourselves. It's something that is given to us. It's something that we receive because glory isn't about comparison. It's not about being better. Glory is about belonging. Glory is about being valued enough, about being important enough to be brought in by the only one whose view matters really fundamentally, right? There's a glory that you are wired for. And this evening, there's a sort of open armed invitation from God himself to step into that if you've never done that for the first time or maybe to step deeper into that.

We're going to begin by having a look at a little episode in John 8 and then we're going to go back to the farewell discourse and have a look at a chunk of John 17.

John 8 verse 31

Jesus is talking to a group of people who have believed what he's saying intellectually. They believe in their heads.  He's talking to these people who are descended from Abraham and he says to them, verse 31, "If you abide in my word," which is very close, isn't it, to saying, "If you abide in me, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." But immediately these people are kind of indignant that Jesus might be suggesting that there's a kind of freedom that they haven't yet known, a truth that they haven't yet appreciated, and a freedom that they haven't yet stepped into. And so immediately their kind of their own glory project kicks in a little bit. And you can see for them what that is. It seems to be linked to their ethnic descent from Abraham because they say straight away to him, “you know, we're we are offspring of Abraham. We've never been enslaved to anyone.” And you go Exile, Babylonians. If you're thinking historically, you go, "What about the Roman occupation at the moment?” Sometimes we're pretty blind to ourselves, aren't we? But they're so wrapped up in in their identity having been descended from Abraham that their ears are kind of closed to what Jesus wants to say to them. “You know, how is it, Jesus, that you can say to us that there's a way for us to become free? We don't have a problem of being bound by anything.” They're indignant. And so Jesus says to them, "Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” Jesus says the great robber of freedom is sin. You know, sin promises freedom and then you know once we take the bait we discover the hook and if we carry on that way, if that's what we're living in we discover that the Father is far away. The very glory that we're longing for, the very freedom that we're longing for is far far away. And so Jesus tells them a short powerful story here. It’s kind of like a little parable. He says, "Okay, there's a house and in this house there is a slave and a Son. And the slave is under obligation to the master, right? It's contractual. It's economic." And the thing is Jesus says the slave does not belong to the house forever. He doesn't remain forever. It's insecure between the master and the slave. It's not permanent. It's not great. He doesn't belong. The slave verse 35 does not remain in the house forever. The Son remains forever. Jesus the Son remains in the Father's house forever. Right? We know that, don't we? The Son, you know, in the Father, the Father in the Son, the Son belongs. The Son relates to the master of everything as Father. But then verse 36 blows you away. Because Jesus says, "This Sonship that I have, this place that I have in the Father's house, I share with you." In verse 35, you wonder which Son he's talking about, don't you? It's not immediately obvious who he's talking about. He's certainly talking about himself, but the jaw-dropping thing is that he's also talking about you and me who have trusted in him. And so he says, "If you've trusted in me and so I've set you free, I've given you the same sort of freedom in the Father's house that I myself enjoy." When the Son sets you free, you are free indeed. You know, when the Spirit unites you to Christ through faith, he brings you into the Father's house to share the Sonship of Jesus, to stand where Jesus stands, to have the same access to the Father that Jesus enjoys, to know the very same freedom.  Jesus is the one who has dwelt in the Father's house since before the foundation of the world. He's the Son who remains forever. And because we're united to him, he brings us into the very same place. If you're a Christian this evening, can I ask you, do you know deep down that sort of belonging to the Father? You know, Jesus isn't just telling a sort of pretty parable here. He's saying for real, it is true for you this evening that through faith in me, Jesus, you have the very same access to the Father that I enjoy. I've brought you right into the most holy place. That takes some drinking in, doesn't it? You know where you're seated right now. You are in the Father's presence, that immediately you are held in the Father's embrace that securely. You can never lose it. When the Son brings you in to his own Father's house in this way you are free indeed. You have absolutely everything. When the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.

I grew up in a non-Christian family and I came to know about Jesus in my late teens and I remember when I first encountered the gospel, it felt to me like the need to escape judgment. I knew that I needed to repent. I was glad of a way of escape, but it didn't feel like freedom to me. I had no idea how God felt towards me. I had no idea what Christ wanted to share with me. And so, the Christian life felt like a long list of dos and don'ts. Do you know that feeling? It's just me. You know, it felt rather contractual, rather like that slave in the house in Jesus' little parable there. It felt more like obligation than delight. I wonder if the Christian life has felt like that to some of us in some seasons. And I remember a fortnight as a student when I tried, you know, like seriously tried to be like Jesus in every single thing that I did. I came from this kind of background where you set goals and you strive to achieve them. I read all the way through the New Testament a few times. I hadn't done that before. And I'm thinking, okay, so you know, God must be interested primarily in what we do. It’s about behaviour. It's about dos and don'ts. And so I'm going to see if I can make the grade. And so for a whole fortnight originally, you might be able to guess how far I got. But you know, I was going to try to really do this, to really be like Jesus. It sounds quite naive as I stand here and say it to you all, but this was the goal. And I was absolutely horrified. I had no idea what my heart was really like, you know, and so I think I got about I don't know, I probably got an hour in or half a day in. And the problem was I hadn't understood that actually what God really wants with each one of us is fellowship and relationship. It's first and foremost about behaviour. He doesn't want me to work my way up to him. It was a bit like my Kenyan friend. You know, it seemed to me at that time like God was up there, I was down here. He was separate from me and to be reckoned with. And I couldn't see his smile. And there was little power to change. God wants to share his heart with you, not a rule book. He wants to share his very house with you and he's invited you in his Son. What I was doing during that fortnight was looking to God purely as master and I was going to do exactly what he said and I just did not know his love. I hadn't heard that invitation to freedom. God is saying this evening that his intention, is for you and I to live and dwell with him in his house in the way that Jesus does. That is the freedom that Jesus is talking about in John 8 here. And if you've never said yes to that for the first time, can I encourage you to do that this evening? He's not throwing a rule book at you. He's not interested in a sort of outward behaviour and being shiny on the outside. He's not interested in you trying to build up your own sort of capital with him and establish some kind of reputation. He's interested in you saying yes to this invitation to come into his house and do life with him in his Son in the power of his Spirit. It's life in his house, not just for what is to come, but in the here and now as well. And you know, pretty much the only thing we need to do to accept that is to lay down our own glory projects and to receive from him. Doesn't that sound good? If you've accepted that invitation, you already belong in the Father's house. You're in his presence each and every day in Christ. You are in his full affection. So the first heading is - you get to share in the Son's glory.

You might be going, "Whoa, that sounds perhaps a little bit radical. What exactly do we mean by that?" Come with me to John 17, and I'm going to read verses 1 to 10 to us. This, of course, immediately follows everything that we've been looking at in the farewell discourse, John 13 through to-16.

There's a lot of talk about God's glory in those verses, isn't there? God's house, of course, is full of his glory. It's not a harsh sort of unapproachable glory, the glory of God. It's the glory that our hearts are actually wired for. It's the glory that our hearts long to taste. God's glory is his abundant outgoing love. God's glory is his overflowing fullness, his selfgivingness. It's the glory that the Father and the Son share. And did you notice in verses 9 and 10 here Jesus says something really interesting. He says “I'm not sorry I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world but for those whom you've given me for they're yours. All mine are yours and yours are mine and then the key bit. Jesus says “I Jesus am glorified in them.” And just to apply it, “I Jesus am glorified in you sitting there.” You know, as the Father is glorified in the Son and particularly so at the cross and you see that all the way through those verses we just read. As the Father is glorified in the Son so the Son is glorified in you and me, his people. Well, there's only one way that can work, isn't there? And it's exactly what Jesus says in verse 22, if we can just skip ahead. He says to the Father, "Father, the glory that you have given me." And that is the glory that the Father and the Son have shared since before the foundation of the world. “Father, the glory that you have given me, Jesus, I have given to them.” Now, that should have you kind of, you know, stepping back. What's Jesus saying here? Is he really saying that that the glory that the Father pours out on the Son, all the fullness, all the love, so that is poured out by the Son into his people? That is exactly what he's saying and you can see here that is what makes us fruitful in mission. That is what enables us to love one another with the love of Christ. That is what enables us to be one so that the world will see because it's seeing the glory of Christ that the Father sent the Son. The Son shares his life with you because you're united to him. The Son shares his righteousness with you because you're united to him. The Son's Father is your Father. The Son's house, the Father's house is your house. And you get to share in receiving his glory, too. Paul says that, doesn't he? You know, just as we've been justified, we're glorified. We're not saying that, we're an originator of glory in the way that God is. God's glory is his outgoing fullness. But we're recipients of it. As the Father has glorified the Son, so the Son glorifies you and me. That means that God deeply values each and every one of us, doesn't it? And Jesus is passionate about this. It's why he's praying about it here. It's why he's talking to the Father about it. Verse 24 of chapter 17, he says, "Father, I desire that they also whom you've given me." He's talking about believers throughout here, I think.  Not this split original disciples and later believers, although there's something of that going on as well.  I think that all he's saying here in verse 17 applies to all of us who have put our trust in him. He says, "Father, I desire that they also whom you've given me may be with me where I am to see my glory, to share in my glory that you've given me because you love me before the foundation of the world." We've already been brought into the house. We've already been brought into this glory and the consummation is coming for sure. Already you have a full place in the Father's house. You get to enjoy life there in the Son and by the Spirit already. And this is what I want you to really get this evening. Already God's glory rests on you. He's valuing you, you know. He says, "You're the apple of my eye. You're my beloved.

I remember a particularly sort of draining period in pastoral ministry a few years ago and I woke early one day praying. I was so under pressure. I was praying. I was sort you know how you curl up in bed and I had this sense of sheltering in God and you know the pressures were so extreme at the time. The workload was so extreme. Some of the difficulties that we were working through were extreme. I said “Lord you need to do something.” And about an hour later, a good friend, an elderly lady in the church where I was the pastor, rang up and said that she'd been praying for me. And you know, she explained when she'd been praying. And actually, it was pretty much exactly the time that I had called out to God. And she said, "Clive, I pictured you sheltered in and immersed in the glory of God." And as she said that to me, I thought, "Ooh, you know, that's a little bit unusual."  I thought, I wonder how scriptural that is. I think I better go and test that, you know. And so, you know, eventually came to John 17. Jesus says to you that the glory that the Father has given him, that rests upon you. And you know, God's house is full of his glory, isn't it? We see that, you know, in the Old Testament as his glory fills the temple. And somehow I had always thought, well, you know, that's not really the kind of place that that I can step right into. But the point is that in Christ that is exactly where we are right able to sit in the most holy place. Able to sit immersed in, showered by the glory of God without fear. Absolute, to the contrary with sheer delight, able to in a sense come into the family living room led there by the Son. In him we are able to drink in the love of the Father and stand in glory. That means you are completely welcome, doesn't it? Means you belong fully. Means you could not be more accepted. This is lifegiving glory. This is the love of the Father for the Son.

And that brings us to our third heading which is you stand not only in the glory of the Father and the Son. It's not a glory but it's a glory we get to bathe in. We get to stand in that glory and to stand in the father's full affection. One commentator says this, "God wants for us what? God wants us to know the full dignity and honour of sonship. But my heart keeps whispering that I should settle for being a hired servant." You know that slave in the John 8 parable. Do I truly want to live as one so totally forgiven and accepted that a new freedom opens up? You need to be in this place with the Father, that Jesus is describing. This place of complete freedom is also deeply vulnerable, isn't it? This commentator says, you know, it requires a willingness to let God be God and to fully trust his promise and goodness. It requires a willingness to let God do the restoring and the reshaping. He goes on to say, "Do I want to radically break from my way and surrender myself absolutely to the love of God?" The glory that your heart longs for is a glory that you don't have to strive for. It's a glory that you receive. It is a value. It's a value that you receive from the Father having been welcomed into his house. The Father's glory, his delight, his value of you rests upon you. He's made you his child. He's brought you in. And this is another key way to think about being united to Christ. He's brought you in to share the sonship of Jesus, to stand where Jesus stands. And I believe that God this evening wants to counter every voice that may have spoken against your dignity as a human being and as a person, to counter every voice that may have spoken against your future and against your potential. Perhaps even some religious voices. The Father has invited you into the fullness of his house. Christ has invited you to come in and share his sonship fully, his eternality of life, his righteousness and his very fellowship with the father. The glory that your heart longs for is Christ in you and you in him glory. It's in one another glory.

And so you get this this logic through these verses, verses 20 and 21, us in Christ, us in God. Verse 22, the Father's glory and Christ's glory in us. Verse 23, why is that? Why? Why is God's glory in us? It's because Christ is in us. And get this, verse 23, we are loved in just the way that the Father loves the Son. You stand in Christ in the Father's full affection. His word to you is that you are the apple of his eye. That you have the full dignity of sons and daughters of God. That just as Christ is his beloved, so are you. You belong in the Father's house, you share in the Son's glory. You stand in the Father's full affection.

 

Keswick at Portstewart - Wednesday 8 July 2026 - Clive Bowsher

KESWICK AT PORTSTEWART – WEDNESDAY 8 JULY 2026 – CLIVE BOWSHER

BEING UNITED TO GOD AND FLOURISHING

Yesterday evening we thought about being united to Jesus and our togetherness with him even our oneness with him. And this evening I'd like to talk under the title being united to Jesus and flourishing. Being united to Jesus and flourishing. I want to ask you a question. What is it that makes you feel really alive? You know, what is it that that really gets your heart beating? There are some things that drain us, aren't there? You know, for me, it's stuff like household admin. Does anyone else hate household admin? On the other hand, there are things that really get your heart beating. Apologies if it's admin that gets your heart beating, but not for me. For me, it it's like a fast 5k run. I say a fast 5k run, it's a little bit slower than it was a decade ago in my case but I just love the freedom of it, you know, the sense of freedom as you're running along, you don't really need to think about anything else. In my case, you're gasping for oxygen so much, you can't think about anything else. But a real sense of freedom. What is it that makes you feel alive? We want to feel alive. And I put it to you that if you sort of take notice of what is really motivating you, what is really driving you, what is really motivating and sort of shaping the lives of your friends and your family, right at the heart of it all is some kind of what I'm going to call life project. Right? That thing that at a heart level, sort of a functional level, you're going after because you really think that it's going to secure the good stuff for you. It's going to secure life for you. We not put it that way, but there's a life project kind of underneath the surface that motivates, that drives, that determines. And it might be good or you know it might not be so good for others of us. And I sense that this was relevant as I was preparing this afternoon. It might be that you feel a complete lack of sort of direction life project. It might be that you're feeling a sense of hopelessness, that some of the props that I don't know maybe when we were younger, you know, seem more reliable are kind of being kicked away a little bit. And you're thinking, you know, there are some big realities here that I'm facing. There's some maybe harsh realities that I'm facing. and you're wanting to feel that sense of aliveness rekindled.

The other day someone who's probably here in the tent this evening very kindly gave me a poem by a Welshman called RS Thomas. I loved a couple of lines in in this poem. It's a poem called The Bright Field. It it's about that field where you find the treasure. The pearl of great price. It's a couple of lines that sort of ask the question, what is life? How do you find flourishing? What does it mean to be truly alive?  And the poem goes like this 

Life is not hurrying on to a receding future nor hankering after an imagined past. It is the turning aside in the present like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, the burning bush, to a brightness that may have seemed as transitory as your youth wants. Maybe it's a brightness that you, you know, you fear has dimmed. But this brightness which is the presence of Christ himself, the poet says, is the eternity that awaits you. 

We long for life. We sometimes struggle to know just where to look. I think sometimes we go running after it in all sorts of crazy directions, but we long, don't we? For real life, for life that tastes, for that for that bright field, for life that the future can't possibly rob us of. For life that stands up to the disappointments of the past. For life in the present, for the lit bush in the present, for that brightness. And the thing is Jesus, we know, wants that for each and every one of us, too. He tells us that in John 10 in the good shepherd discourse that we looked at earlier in the week. Do you remember he says, "I've come so that you may have life and have it, do you remember? Abundantly." And that word translated abundantly, it kind of means overflowingly, you could even translate it excessively. Jesus overwhelmingly wants you and I to know life in all its fullness who wants us to know abundant life and isn't it the case that it's only one who has life in himself who is able to give that right, these life projects that you and I pursue and I don't know what it might have been for you for me in the past at one time it was career maybe for you it's relationships or family or friendships or sports even or maybe even dipping in the Atlantic. All perfectly good things in and of themselves, but they're no good as life sources, are they? They're no good as life projects. They just quite literally don't have it in them. But we can get incredibly attached to them, can't we? I mean, tape work. I'm guessing if you're still in the sort of working season of life, that you want it to be enjoyable. You want it to be fruitful for the Lord.  But it can't bear the weight of your whole life, right? Just can't stand that pressure. And that's true whether you're doing vocational ministry or you're working for the Lord in in some other setting that the work itself can't be a life source, right? You want the ministry, what you're doing for the Lord to flow out of your relationship with him, right? Or take family and friends. You want to be able to give to them, don't you? You don't want to be kind of always sort of sucking life out of them. You want the life that you receive from Christ to be flowing out to them, don't you? Jesus wants to know an abundance of life that we're receiving from him. So, I've got two headings for you this evening.

The first is works in progress. First is works in progress and the second is heart pattern. And I'll show you how those two things relate. John 15 verses 1-11. 

Jesus says “I'm the true vine and my Father is the vinekeeper or the gardener.” And the vine in the Old Testament is a way of talking about the people of God. And so when Jesus says, "I'm the true vine," he's saying the true people of God are found in me. We heard about that yesterday evening, didn't we? The vine is this - there's this one vine and branches intimately joined together, united, connected. If you've trusted Jesus for everything, if you're relating to him person to person, if you know him, then eternal life, the life of the age to come is already coursing through your veins. You know, the life of the vine is already in you and you already belong fully. You know, if you take a walk, I don't know where the nearest park is to here, but I'm hoping it's full of trees. Maybe it is. And you know, you look up at the trees and it's a green tree. It's  flourishing. It's alive. And the branches are there. The branches are not worried about not belonging in some way, about somehow not being quite up to it, right? They're where they're supposed to be. That's how Jesus sees each one of us. I am the vine. He says, you are the branches. You and I are together one. Do you remember yesterday evening when Jesus was talking about his own relationship with the father, he uses the son in the Father, the Father and the son language. It's equivalent to saying that they're one. We didn't quite say this yesterday evening, but  as believers individually and together, we are one even with Christ. It's not pushing it too far to say that. Not one in substance.  You know, when you get up in the morning, carve out some space to pray, you know, and it's you and the Lord, what's the reality? I'm one with Christ. Fellowship that close. Friendship that close. You fully belong as an alive branch permanently in the vine. And Jesus is pleased to have you there. Isn't that good? It's who we are. Isn't that good? I want us just to picture what this vine looks like. I don't know what comes to mind for you. What kind of vine do you picture when Jesus is talking about this? It occurred to me the other day that the kind of vine that I've always pictured is like a perfect looking one, right? You know, very neat, lots of grapes all over the place. This vine is a little bit different from that. You know, it's green for sure. It's flourishing. It has the life of Christ abiding in it. It's bearing lots of fruit. There's actually some bits associated with this vine that are completely brown and dead because they don't have Christ abiding in them. We're going to come to that a little bit later on. It's what Jesus is talking about in verse two and verse six. But just focus in your mind's eye for a moment on the green part of the vine, the alive part, right? And even this part is not all perfect. How do we know that? Because we're told that the Father is the vine dresser and that the Father prunes every single branch that is bearing even the smallest little sign of fruit. And so nowadays when I picture this vine, I'm not thinking perfect and totally pretty. I'm thinking wonky branches in certain directions. I'm thinking some shoots that are tender and really recent. I'm thinking some branches that are more mature, you know. I'm thinking some branches that have been there and maybe got a little bit mouldy. This is not perfect. This is a vine that is a work in progress under the loving tender care of the Father. Isn't it? Isn't that what Jesus is describing here? And every branch, he says, is in need of pruning. And why does the Father prune? He prunes because he wants every branch to flourish more. Right? Isn't that what it says? That he wants every branch to bear even more fruit- verse two. Absolutely. And by the way, the fruit here is the fruit that is only possible because we're in Christ and he is in us. His life is in us. It's it it's verse 12. This fruit Jesus says, "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you." In other words, that you love one another with the love that you've already received from me. You see, I think when we read these verses in John 15, they can, if we read them wrong, create a sort of sense of anxiety, can't they? We can find ourselves almost sort of really introspecting about our fruit, you know, I don't know, trying to weigh it or something or count it, I don't know, but like how much is there and is it good enough? And, you know, but here's the thing. The fruit, your fruit is not for you. It's not really about you. It's what Jesus uses and creates in you for mission. That's what he's talking about here. It's what he uses to bless those around you. It's not a life source for you. That's not what it's about. It flows from the life that you already enjoy with Christ. So that's just a side point, but picture this vine. It's a vine that is a work in progress. It's flourishing. There's loads of fruit. There's different kinds of branches. Every branch in need of pruning. And so what is pruning? I don't know how many gardeners here. Maybe it's gardening that gets your heart beating actually. Why do you prune? You prune to strengthen, don't you? You prune. Is that right? I'm not much of a gardener, but I think you prune to strengthen. You prune to shape, don't you? You prune to deal with disease and stuff that isn't quite right. So, I've got a question for you. You think as a Christian, is it okay to be a work in progress? And that's not to sort of lessen sin, is it? It’s to be humble and to say, do you know I need to depend on the Lord and I need his grace every day? Is it okay to be a work in progress? Is it good to be a work in progress? And the reason I ask that is that there are only two kinds of branches here. There's dead brown branches with no fruit at all. See that in verse two? That's the kind of branch that's described there. a branch that bears no fruit at all. And there are branches in the alive part of the vine that is indwelt by Christ, by his Spirit. And they're works in progress. So, is it good to be a work in progress? It's got to be, right? And so, again, just like yesterday evening, doesn't that mean that you can breathe an immense sigh of relief? Doesn't that mean that you can look at your neighbour, I'm not suggesting you do this, although you might want to, and you go, "Hey, do you know I'm a work in progress. You're a work in progress." And that's good. The Lord's at work in us. Isn't that good? We don't need to wear masks. Therefore, we don't need to wear mask with each other. We don't need to wear masks with him. He's already chosen to make himself one with us. This is so good. This is the gospel. It is good to be a work in progress in the vine. And so Jesus says to you verse three “therefore this evening already you are clean”. Because of the gospel word from Jesus in which you've trusted already you are clean and it's really interesting that word clean in the original is very close to the word for pruned. Who are the branches here? Who are the people here who are clean? They're the people who are being pruned. The clean people are the work in progress people. And again, that's tremendously reassuring, isn't it? I tell you, it's reassuring for me. I know I'm just a work in progress. And I'm guessing you do, too. already. Jesus says, with your imperfections, with your need for pruning, with the weaknesses that still remain, already you are cleaned and fully accepted by me. So fully accepted, he says verse 9, that just as the Father has loved me, Jesus, so have I loved you. Now, you can't be loved any more than that, right? How could you possibly be loved any more than the Father eternally loves the son? That's just not possible. And so what that means is as a work in progress, the Father and the son already love you as that as much as they will do on that final day when they finally completed their work in you and glorified you. So as you sit there this evening, you can drink that in. You can know that you are as fully loved as that. Even with the weaknesses that remain, even with the struggles that remain, it's good to be a work in progress. If you're anything like me, you look back at the years that you've been walking with Jesus and you go, “you know, I can see that I'm not yet all that Jesus wants me to be. I'm not yet even all that I want me to be. I'm still being pruned. I'm still being formed into his image, into his likeness.” But I also see as I look back how very changed I am from what I would have been without his love, without knowing him. Just so fundamentally different. And I'm guessing that you would say a very similar thing. It is good to be a work in progress. It is a sign, a sure sign of the work of the Spirit in you. It is a sure sign of being united to Jesus through faith. What that means is that there's really only one thing that can prevent anyone in this tent finding the flourishing life that you ache for. And that is saying no to Jesus. That is saying no to doing life with him. It is saying no to sharing with him. It is saying no to letting him in and relating to him for real, right? I mean, as soon as you say yes to that and welcome him in, Jesus takes care of the rest. There's only one thing that can stand between you and the bright field, between you and life that lasts, between you and the life that you long for. It's making your fundamental life project, if I can put it that way. We started off talking about that, didn't we? Something other than Jesus himself. And the result of saying no is that there's no fruit at all. And verse six tells us that as a result of saying no, that person doesn't abide in Christ. He or she is not in Jesus and Jesus is not in them. And if they stay that way, Jesus says, then they're like a withered branch that eventually is thrown into the fire and burned. You see, the problem is that outside of that oneness with Christ, outside of it, there's just no life. Jesus says, doesn't he? No fruit at all. It's not a question of sort of degrees. It's either or. No fruit at all. But in him, connected to him by the Spirit with the very life of Christ indwelling you, there is fruit guaranteed. Jesus says verse 16, you didn't choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, that it should last. There's two ways. And the thing is Jesus wants us to have the assurance of knowing that we are united to him. That's why he says verse 11, “these things I've spoken to you that that my joy may be in you, that I myself may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Jesus isn't trying to rock our confidence here. He's trying to make sure that each and every one of us has the one thing that really matters. I was really struck when Jonathan Thomas was preaching the other evening about Mary and Martha and  s John said this this word, it kind of, you know, pinged straight towards me where I was sitting. Does that ever happen to you? It kind of hit me between the eyes. And Jesus says to Martha, "Martha, why are you so troubled? Why are you so weighed down by all this stuff? You know, only one thing is needed.” Maybe there are some here this evening going, “you know there's so much to cope with. There is so much going on.  I'm just grasping after life in in all sorts of different places and it just seems to be kind of slipping through my hands.” And Jesus says to you, “there's only one thing that is needed.” And if you say yes to it, it will never ever be taken from you. It is fully secure. And that one thing is that you know me. That one thing is that you turn your face to me and you let me hear your voice and you receive me, Jesus. First heading was works in progress in the vine. That's where we want to be.

The second heading heart rhythm. To be alive biologically, you need the right heart rhythm, right? I can't remember what you call that. What do you call that trace thing? ECG. It needs to show the right rhythm, doesn't it? What kind of heart pattern is life? Because Jesus tells us that here in these verses. What kind of heart pattern is life? How do I know myself in the alive part of the vine? You see verse four, Jesus gives us a command. He urges us to do this. He says this is the most important thing. This is the one thing. This is the heart rhythm that you must have. He says verse four, I want you to be in me and I in you. I want you to abide in me and I in you. I want you to be in me and I in you for keeps. It's all about friendship with me. Jesus says verse 15, “I'm no longer going to call you servants.” You know, the servant doesn't know what his master is doing. He doesn't know what his master is about. It's just all about orders. You know, it’s kind of contractual, isn't it, between a servant and a master. Jesus is saying, "That's not what I want with you." He's saying, "Actually, that's not enough. That is not the one thing." He says, "No, I want friendship with you. I want you to know that you have said yes to intimate friendship with me. Everything that I've heard from my Father, I make known to you.” It's about that that closeness, that sharing. You can't do Christian faith without face to face with Jesus, without relating to him for real. And verse four is really interesting, isn't it? It's a command. But like, how sweet is this? I mean, the one who is, you know, the Lord of everything, the one who is love says, “I want you so close to me that I'm inviting you. I'm saying come and be in me.” The first time you hear that, don't you go, “oh my, can this be real? I mean, you know that that's obviously holy ground, right? Are you really saying that to me, Jesus? Is that really the invitation? You want me to be in you?” You’re opening your heart and your arms and your life and everything to me in that way. As a friend, you're saying, "Be in me." And you're asking me to receive you and to receive your Spirit. Whoa. That sounds incredibly close, incredibly intimate. I mean, that's pretty real. Have you heard that invitation from Christ? He says, "I want you to be in me and to dwell in you." And you say, "That's a pretty big deal, right?" Absolutely. It's the biggest deal. Not deal in that sense, but you know, it it's the biggest thing. That's why it's the only thing that you need. And it's a command. It's urgent, Jesus says. But at the same time, how sweet is that? You know, he say a little bit further down, he talks about this love between the Father and the son. Do you remember that? Christ the son and the Father, Father in him, that oneness, that eternal love. Remember that? And he says, "That's the kind of love that I want you to stand in and receive from me. Abide in my love." And there's something, you know, abide in the love of the Father, for the son. Abiding, being always for keeps, divine love. I mean, if your heart is anything like mine, I have days when I go, ‘I just can't quite wrap my head around the fact that God loves me that way.’ Do you ever feel like that? It’s not just that he kind of tolerates my presence, you know. He positively urges me into the shower of his love and says, "Stand there always. Be in my love eternally. Receive from me." That is good news, right? We can do that whatever is going on. And there is something absolutely radical about this invitation from Jesus. And it's an invitation for everyone whether or not you've said yes to it every day for the last 10 years or however long it is, or this is the first time that you've heard this invitation, Jesus says, "I want you to draw near. I want you to abide in and drink in the love of the Father for the Son in the Spirit." In other words, you get to stand on the most holy ground possible at Christ's own invitation. And so who are we to say, "Oh, I'm not sure that you know you'll really want me to do. I want you to do this. I'm commanding you to do this. Abide in my love." And you know that is a command. It's also a sweet invitation. And it’s not an invitation to do it with bits of yourself. You know, you can you either come or you don't, right? Well, what does that mean? That must mean that if I'm going to come and stand in this love of Christ and receive from him as he just, you know, pours it over me eternally. That means I have to bring everything. The second heading could actually be whole hearts. The heart rhythm that really matters is whole hearts. You know, it's your whole self. And the thing that's completely freeing about this is that you can bring everything, right? The only way to stand here, you know, if I'm going to stand here, you know, I can't send my upper body and not my lower body, right? That's going to look really odd. It's not going to work. It means that you can bring your weaknesses. It means that you can bring those parts of yourself that you know you're uncomfortable with or that you know you wouldn't tell anyone else about. It means that you can you can bring those things that you might be tempted to hide from the Lord. He says, "I want you to step the whole of yourself, the whole of your heart into my love and receive from me." Now remember, this is the love of the Father for the son, that he's getting you to bring each and every part of your life and yourself and your heart into. Isn't that immensely freeing? Absolutely nothing that we need keep hidden from him. Absolutely nothing that he doesn't want to know about. Absolutely nothing that is too  fragile for him because he holds it so tenderly. Nothing too small. Nothing too big. Nothing impossible for him. Martha, why are you so worried? Why are you so troubled? Mary has chosen just that one thing that's needed and it will never be taken from her. Abide in me and I in you. Jesus says it's a command. It's urgent. It's a sweet, sweet invitation. Abide in my love. I think I acknowledged to you yesterday evening I'm not very good in the mornings.  I managed to prove it this morning spectacularly in our sort of little team setting at Rock House because  I was so tired I kind of even slept through breakfast. So it just goes to prove the point. But I'm so bad in the morning that I really need a shower. But the thing about showers is they are massively invigorating, right? They wake you up, you know? They're pretty lifegiving. Showers are great, aren't they? And I had this sort of this this time when I was standing in the shower and God really spoke to me, you know, the water cascading over me and it suddenly clicked with me. You know, this is what God's love is like towards me. It's a cleansing, right? It's lifegiving. It's invigorating. It's energizing and it's not just like, you know, 5 at the start of the day. It's continual. We get to stand in the continual eternal shower of the Father's love. Never turns off. It's always warm. You know, it's constant. He says to you, “you're my beloved son, daughter. You're the apple of my eye. You're as much that now as you will be on the final day. Because I see the whole picture. I know what I have planned for you. I know what you're going to be like on that day. I know. I know what we're working towards together. I know you're a work in progress. It was me who started it. I'm going to finish it. You're the apple of my eye.” Jesus says to the church, "You're my bride." He is not indifferent about us. Precious to him. So precious that he went to the cross for us. He's bound his glory and his future to us. And you know, you not only get to stand in the love of the Father in that way, you get to stand just where Jesus stands in the love of the Father because you're joined to him. Where else could you be? Did you notice verses 7 and 8?  Jesus says, "If then you're someone who is in abiding in me and me in you and so my words abide in you, here's an extravagant invitation. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit.” You see fruit flows from the friendship. That's asking, isn't it? Asking God as a friend. It's asking as a family member. But verse 16 again, just in case we didn't get the idea, you know, Jesus says, "You didn't choose me, but I chose you. I want you. I desire that you be with me where I am and to see my glory on that final day." John 17. This is what he wants. He's not indifferent about us. He wants us with him. You didn't choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit. So, it will happen therefore, right? Because fruit flows from this fellowship with Christ as we ask for it. Whatever you ask the Father in my name. It's so extravagant. Whatever you ask the Father, he will give it to you. Do you notice here the one thing that Jesus is saying is be in me and I in you - receive before we do. Friendship before fruit. So when the pressure is really on Jesus says to you “be in me and me in you.” When fear is rising, he says to us “be in me and me in you.” When we feel swamped by our own weaknesses and just how much we're still works in progress, he says it's okay. Abide in my love. It's where you belong. Like the branches in the tree, the branches in the vine. He encourages us to pray from this place of oneness with him. Charles Spurgeon says prayer comes spontaneously. It spills out from those who abide in Jesus. He says just as certain oriental trees even without pressure shed their gums. Prayer comes spontaneously. It's the kind of prayer that the Father delights in. I think it's being with him in the son by the Spirit. Prayer comes spontaneously from those who abide in Jesus, those who are united to him just as trees even without pressure shed their gums. Prayer is the outgushing of a soul in communion with Jesus. Just as the leaves and the fruit come out of the vine branch because of its living union with the stem, so do abiders ask. ‘Would you stand with us?

 

Keswick at Portstewart - Wednesday Morning 8 July 2026 - Mark Maynell

 

KESWICK AT PORTSTEWART – MORNING BIBLE READING – WEDNESDAY 8 JULY 2026 – MARK MAYNELL

 

Well, we are going to break into Colossians chapter two verse one to verse 7.

 

Now, I wonder if you have heard of Luis Carlos Dorona Cabral de Camara. Correct. You haven't heard of him probably.  I practiced that a couple of times this morning. So, that was the best yet. So, I'm relieved and I'm not going to say it again.  He was a Portuguese aristocrat who died in 2007 at the age of only 40. He was a bachelor with no siblings and at the age of 28 he made his will in front of two registry offices office witnesses in Lisbon to ensure that things would go exactly according to the plans he had set in the event of his death. And he was adamant that his riches would not end up going to the state as apparently that happens automatically in in Portugal if you die in testate without legal heirs. And so Luis Carlos had clearly a very troubled life.  He was the illegitimate son of an aloof mother. He was brought up by a nanny. He inherited a huge estate from his grandmother but had no relatives and very few friends. He largely spent his wealth on motorbikes and wine. He was liked by his neighbours and acquaintances, but he kept himself very much to himself. So when he finalized his will, he asked the lawyers in Lisbon for a phone book. He then literally picked out 70 names at random from the phone book and they were his chosen heirs. Now, when he did die in 2007, these heirs were contacted out of the blue. They had no idea that their names were in this man's will. Initially, I guess many thought it was a scam. I mean, you would, wouldn't you? I mean, it's like getting, you know, an email from a Nigerian prince saying that, you know, I just need £10,000 and then you'll inherit a billion or something. And you think, yeah, right. But actually, no, this was genuine. And each of these 70 families, either the individuals or their descendants, gained nearly €3,000. As one of his neighbours said when the news came out, and actually this news did go viral around the world, one of the neighbours said, "I'm sure that he just wanted to create confusion by leaving his belongings to strangers. It would have amused him." I mean, after all, you can't take it with you, can you? And the first that each of these 70 heard that they were the inheritors was when lawyers made contact out of the blue. Before that moment, they've been oblivious. Even though their names were recorded in a legal docent, it had been kept hidden for whatever it was 12 years or so. 

Now, we are more like that 70 than we might care to realize. We are inheritors and we have been even from the point when we were blissfully unaware of it. So let's just think about how that might be. The first point I want to make is is what I've called the revelation of the gospel. Now Paul understood this very clearly.  speaking of this Christian gospel, he says back in chapter 1 verse 5, I've become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness. The mystery that's been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people. A great mystery. Now, he's not talking about some sort of detective who done it that you buy at the station or whatever, you know, when we discover the killer on the last page. No, this is not some spooky kind of ghost story or a story of the unexplained or an P D James story or whatever it might be. No, a biblical mystery is nothing like that. It's actually more of a technical term. It’s for something that was secret that is now revealed. It now gets made known. So what is it? Drum roll, please. And then there's a trumpet fanfare. 

Verse 27, here it is. “To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you the hope of glory.” What people hadn't grasped before was Jesus, the Jewish king, the Messiah, the anointed one, the one who is the Lord of his people, will be recognized by the entire world as their rightful king. He has claims over everybody. The Lord's people, the Jews, received this shocking news. And at first, many of them struggled to come to terms with that. Even some of the apostles and disciples struggled to come to terms with that. I mean, I thought this was just for us. I mean, you know, the language, the prophecies, the culture, the role that he's stepping into is very much ours. But we're now told this is for everybody whether you recognize him or not. Now of course people in the world around the world they weren't expecting anybody to come along and say “oh actually by the way I'm your king. Most of us, you know, we might have our own political systems and our own cultures and countries and so on and that's all well and good, but to be told actually you got a king over all of that.” And even in those places that are monarchies, you got a king over your king because he's the king of kings, the president of presidents. And of course, not everybody is that pleased about it. And it's been like that since the beginning, since this king was an infant. When a particular king is suddenly told there's a king to be born, it's not surprising he doesn't feel that good about it. And of course, it's not like some lawyer getting in touch  and just saying, "Oh, by the way, you've been given €3,000." But Paul's job is to get the word out to say you are due for some inheritance. something really quite mind-boggling. Whether you're Jewish or not, but there's a king. He's your king. And you must acknowledge that. Otherwise, you don't get anything. That's what drives Paul on, isn't it? It's what he himself has come to know. And for Paul, the most Jewish of Jews, as he writes to the Philippians, the one who, you know, prides himself on all his heritage and his family tree and his education, you know, he was the Jew of the Jews. It's fascinating, isn't it? That the Lord chooses him to be the one to take it to those who before he considered utterly unclean, revolting, and completely to be avoided. It's interesting that the Lord did that, don't you think? And in fact, it is this job that Paul devotes his entire life to making sure that Jews and then for the Greeks, for the Gentiles, wherever he goes, hear about their king. But when you begin to unpack, as we have already done actually this week, we begin to unpack what this Jewish Messiah entails and who he is and what he's done, you can begin to see why he's so energized and motivated. It's not hard once you begin to grasp it. But I think verse 27 of chapter 1 gives us one of the most succinct and distilled expressions of what being a Christian believer is like in the entire Bible. It takes only seven words.

It's only seven words in Greek. It's only seven words in English. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Just seven words that can contain multitudes. “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Isn't that brilliant? Let those words echo around your mind and heart and memory. It's not difficult to memorize. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in me. Christ in us, the hope of glory. Now, not only does that work as a superb distillation of our experience, it also actually gives me a perfect structure of my talk. So, that made me happy.  And we see being modelled in Paul's ministry what it is to live this out for the Colossians to imitate to understand what it means to have Christ in me and what it means to have this hope of glory. So let's think first about what it means for Paul the Apostle. We'll touch briefly on what it means for the Colossians and then we will pick up and run with that and focus entirely on that tomorrow. But what does it mean for the apostle? A life motivated by, focused on, completed by the gospel. Remember back to the Damascus road, an event that was just so formative, fundamental for Paul and indeed actually for the New Testament church. I mean, it's fascinating, isn't it? I mean, the book of Acts is kind of misnamed, isn't it? It's not the Acts of the Apostles. It's the Acts of well, maybe two and a half apostles. That's not such a good title, probably.  But actually what is even odder is that Peter is the focus and then after Paul is converted he becomes the primary focus and think of you know the hundreds of stories and amazing things that each of the apostles and others are doing as the gospel you know the pebble is dropped in the pond in Jerusalem and then it ripples out to Jude to Samaria to the ends of the earth and in every direction things are happening the world is being transformed. Think of all the stories Luke could have contained in his book, but he focuses on just a few. In a way, that's a bit frustrating. I guess we'll have eternity to find out the rest. But we get Paul's conversion in detail three times in the book of Acts. Have you realized that? The whole story, it's clearly that significant and important. And you remember what happens? What Jesus says to the one who had been persecuted him. Acts 22 is one example. Verse 15, you will be his witness to all people. All people, not just the people of Israel. You will be my witness to all people of what you've seen and heard. So, what does that entail? Well, back to Colossians 1 and verse 8, “He the Lord Jesus is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” In a way, he he's doing what those Portuguese lawyers had to do, tell unsuspecting beneficiaries that they had the right to an inheritance. They had no idea. But there the similarity stopped because of course these inheritors, these recipients are not chosen at random in a phone book. And the inheritance is not some sort of measly financial sum. I mean, if you want to give me €3,000, I would be delighted. Just putting that on record. But that's measily compared to the greatest gift human history has ever known. A gift that lasts for eternity and is offered to every creature on earth. Why? Because this gift is not an idea, is not a way of life, is not a concept, let alone a philosophy. This gift is a person. He's the one we proclaim. Now, sure, there are things to know about him, just as there are always things to know about your spouse. There are statements that are verifiably true or false. There are perceptions. There are assumptions which may or may not resonate with your spouse's own perceptions. But in the end, that's not the point. It's not enough just to know things about It's another thing to know them. It's not news about the king that Paul introduces people to. Paul introduces them to the king himself. It's like there's someone rather special I'd like you to meet. He really is the point of it all.  the beginning and the end. And it's hard to improve from on these lines from Max Lucado. Let me just quote. He said, "If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, he would have sent us an economist. Heaven help us." If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer, but our greatest need was forgiveness. So God sent us a Saviour.” The ultimate benchmark for Christian preaching, for all Christian ministry, is Jesus. Does it point to him? It might be indirect. It might be oblique. But in the end, does it point to him? If not, then it's not Christian. End of. It really is as basic as that. And that is why Paul just slogs at it. So you know the first illustration of this, the first sort of manifestation of this is we see this in his priorities, his unshakable priorities. He proclaims that's the announcement, but he doesn't just leave it there. He’s not, you know, the human equivalent of a billboard. He's engaged. He's involved with the people he meets and mingles with. He recognizes that this makes different demands on him. People respond differently and so there's not one size fits-all.  I think that was mentioned in the notice yesterday about the Slavic gospel work that basically people have different needs and different issues and so ministry must take that into account and I think that's the kind of thing that Paul is talking about here and that's implied by admonishing and teaching everybody which is shorthand I guess for the various things required of a pastor teacher Here it does not mean he divides the world into two groups. Those who need rebuking and those who need encouraging. Although sometimes it feels a bit like that. There are all kinds of different aspects to this. There is encouraging. There's explanation. There's reasoning. There's argument. There's appealing. There's pleading. That's just for starters. A task that requires great wisdom and sensitivity. A willingness not to presume what people are thinking or come where they're coming from, but to listen with great wisdom and patience. But you see that there's more to it even than that because for all the differences that the various people we encounter in life may show for anyone this is a job that's beyond us. It's impossible. We cannot do it. think of this. So Paul walks into a city with just a handful of friends of teammates into central Anatolia which is that sort of huge land mass that we now know as Turkey or Turka despite from being from Tarsus which is sort of on the south Mediterranean coast. Many places around Anatolia would have been new to him and he would have had to learn and understand something of what it meant to live in this place and that place and this county or whatever it is. But that doesn't stop him but as we read from Acts chapter nine onwards you get a sense of the variety that he encounters and in some places people are absolutely overjoyed to find that they've got a king they can trust at last in contrast to all the rulers and emperors and provincial governors and warlords and all the rest of it. At last a leader we can truly trust. But in other towns, Paul has to leave under cover of darkness. His life literally in danger. And in fact, in some places, he is stoned to within inches of his life. People knew what death looked like. And people then sometimes after stoning Paul, they thought they'd finished. Maybe it's because I watch too many sort of detective shows and so on, but I do sometimes wonder if anyone did an autopsy on Paul's body after his death without knowing anything about him. This is a bit gruesome. I know it's early in the morning, but just bear with me.  if they did an autopsy on his body, what would it reveal? Just think of the scars, the fractures, let alone just the wear and tear of an extraordinarily difficult life. Quite apart from the three shipwrecks, I don't know how that might manifest itself on him, but you without knowing anything about him, a pathologist would have a field day as to the kind of life this person has led. But he's driven because he wants to introduce people to their king. It's incredibly tough. So, how on earth does he keep going? Well, verse 9, he tells us, "It's not me." I mean, the fact that I'm still at it, the fact that I'm still writing this letter to you, Colossians, is testimony to the fact that, well, as he says, it's all the energy that Christ so powerfully works in me. But you see, that's precisely what Christ promised would happen at Pentecost. God's power comes down on his people to bear witness to his name. And if you want evidence of this in Paul's life, just look on pretty much every page of Acts from chapter nine more or less onwards. I mean, I just thinking of, you know, I mean, I have not been stoned. I'm relieved to hear and I hope that no one is. It's not something that, you know, we don't want to have some kind of sort of martyr mentality, but if I was Paul and I'd just been stoned, I think I'd want a sabbatical after that, don't you? I think I'd at least allow myself a bit of a holiday, don't you? But, you know, I'm clearly far too soft. What does he do? Goes to the next town and risks exactly the same thing happening. And no doubt, word gets around. I mean, you know, in the age before modern communications, people still communicated and word spread. I'm sure there were people going around on the trade routes and saying, "Hey, watch out for this weird guy, Paul. You'll recognize him because he's covered in bandages and stoning markings." He gets up and does the same again. This is weird. This is supernatural. No, I don't think this is necessarily something everybody's expected to do. I think there was something fairly unique about Paul. But, you know, there are stories occasionally of people who just do the most extraordinary, even reckless things. Perhaps there's even something a bit reckless and unhealthy even about how Paul does it. I don't know. I don't want to get into that and we're all different and we all have different capacities. But Paul in quite a remarkable way is testimony in his own body and life to this idea that Christ is in us. Christ is in him, the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Paul's natural drivenness and ambition and I've no doubt that he was a very ambitious man and in its sort of ungodly pre conversion form it was brutally ugly. It was kind of psychopathic really. He wanted people dead. And God seems to take some of those attributes and transforms them not for Paul's own agenda, but for God's kingdom. I think that's why, you know, Paul has ambitions, you can see this in Romans, of wanting to take the gospel to Spain. And who knows, maybe even to the British Isles, if he'd lived long enough, it's entirely possible he wanted to get the gospel everywhere. Christ in you. I think this shows Paul himself is becoming more and more like his Lord. Paul is taking up his cross. But to what end? To what end? End of verse 8 “that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” You could translate it complete for the job to be finished for someone who is everything God intended them to be. What we were made to be and what we're saved to be. The job is done. And so that's his unwavering gold. He's on one track minded on that.

A few years ago, I was chatting to old friends who live in a country that I often go to for work and they've been committed to serving a small body of believers from the country of Turkmenistan. They first lived in Turkmenistan but were thrown out and for decades they've been living in an adjacent country and their job has been to translate the Bible into Turkman. and it's been a massive project as I'm sure you can appreciate. They got into doing this translation work because they both, studied Russian at university and that was sort of the way into serving the gospel in Central Asia. And one of the real challenges and was incredibly discouraging. I remember we were texting soon after they discovered this that there had been a New Testament, not an Old Testament done yet, but there had been a New Testament or much of the New Testament rather in Turkman. And the more they worked with it, the more they realized it really wasn't very good. And in fact, it was better for them just to junk it and start completely again from scratch which was easier than trying to sort of play around with what was there. But after I think it was something like 9 years, the project was done. The first time in history the Bible in the language of Turkman and they gone through all the necessary checks and proofreading and trials in with the few Turkman believers there are not that many but trying them in Bible studies and with preaching and all the rest just seeing how it goes and feedback and so on it's a very laborious process but just a few years ago finally the digital version was released online and then it went into physical print at some presses in Moscow and then distributed. But it's illegal in Turkmenistan itself. And so the best way to distribute it was on thumb drives and on the old dumb phones. You they had a version of it you could put on a dumb phone rather than a smartphone that was very hard to detect. And that's how it began to be spread around. A remarkable thing. It's absolutely thrilling. And it was, you know, I had absolutely nothing to do with it, but it was just amazing and inspiring just to sort of be alongside these friends that they've been slogging away for so long in very sort of laborious, often really boring, invisible work. And then finally to be able to say, "We've done it." And it occurred to me at the time, and we were chatting about this afterwards, that this is probably one of, if not the only type of Christian ministry where you can say, "It's finished." You can actually say, "Yeah, there's nothing more we can do with this. It's done." Maybe in 29 years there'll be a revision. You know, that happens. Every generation or so does things, but it is finished. The work actually is finished. And now what they've been doing for the last 10 years or so is producing all kinds of materials, study guides, all kinds of things. You know, you name it, it's needed. And it's just amazing how they're able to build on what they've already done. But that is pretty much the only type of ministry where you get to see the whole thing in every other way. And it doesn't matter whether you are someone who is a leader from the front or someone you wouldn't say boo to a goose from a stage but you're quietly getting along with people just alongside in a coffee shop or whatever. We sow a seed here. We have a word there. We help out at a meeting wherever. We assume it's part of a bigger thing, but we just don't get to see it. It's very rare that we see the whole thing. We want our friends to know the Lord. There were a couple of guys I was at university with. I was a baby Christian when I first went to university. I was converted in the February of my A level year and there were a couple of guys in the Christian Union in my year who were mature. They were enthusiastic and I learned huge amounts from them especially actually looking back because they were different from me from very different backgrounds.  But they were enthusiastic and yet one of the hardest things, it was just at the beginning of my fourth year. Both of them had fallen away and we're now 35 years on. As far as I know, neither of them have come back to the Lord. It was devastating at the time. It was the first time it had happened to somebody I knew.  To have them both at the same time was quite shocking. And the thing is, one of the things I had to learn at the time, and I still hold on to this, is that I don't know the end of the story. I don't know the end of the story. And when I remember, I still pray for them. Now, this is pure speculation. I have no idea, but I just have a hunch. And my perception at the time was one of them was doing it with a high hand, and it was just like a huge relief to them. But the other, it was almost as if that after that point, he laughed but never smiled again. Now, that's an exaggeration and it's, you know, not strictly true, but the point is I always had a sense that this second guy called Matt just always knew what he was turning his back on. I don't know the end of the story. I'm sure we've got all kinds of instances and  friends like that. But you see, it's interesting, isn't it? Paul is committed to the long term to the full story to presenting somebody complete in Jesus even after he's moved on to the next place even after he's shuffled off this mortal coil he knows that actually we do our bit and pray for the end of the story because in the end it was never about him and it was never about me or you in the first place. It's all Christ's power that works powerfully in his people. Because you see, the ultimate proof of the pudding is not cards filled in at a meeting, not even going to church for 5 years or 30 years, not even being on the church council or an elder or even being in the pulpit regularly. The proof of the pudding is on the last day, fully mature, the story finished. And because that is way beyond anything I can imagine, it reminds me that it's not up to me in the first place. And so Paul, both in terms of his own walk and in terms of what keeps him going in ministry, holds on to those seven words. I do this because Christ is in me. And I keep going because I have the hope of glory. But I do this because I want Christ in you. And I keep going with you. Even though I might now have moved a thousand miles away. Even though I know my time on earth will some soon be done, I do this that you might have the hope of glory and so that when we say goodbye, we're actually saying see you then. It gives us encouragement in the face of real discouragements because the Christian life is full of them. It's particularly painful when actually some of the discouragements hit headlines as I know that they have in this part of the world in recent months as I know they have in the last 5 years with people who led me to Christ who discipled me one of whom should be in prison but isn't. But in the end, it's not about them. It's not about you. It's not about me. It's about Christ in you, the hope of glory. So that's what drives Paul on. How does that sort of work out in the Colossians lives? You know, it's a bit like needing bread has to be needed into their lives. Well, Paul is straightforward. The acid test is very clear, very simple, and completely logical. Verse six. “So then, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and build up in him., strengthening the faith as you were taught, overflowing with thankfulness. Do you see how this precisely mirrors what Paul has said for himself? And that's why Paul mixes his metaphors. I was taught at school, never mix your metaphors. It never stops the Bible writers because they do this with abandon all over the shop. Jesus does that. So basically suddenly we're mixing the metaphor of a tree and a building. We can do that now. We have apostolic authority to mix metaphors. So go and mix your metaphors with abandon. Anyway, that's not the point. What do we know about this town of Colosse? Well, over the last years or so, Turkey has been a country I've done more work in than any other. It's a country I've grown to love deeply, and my last visit was there just in April, which was my 22nd visit to the country. And I love that going there, not least because my background was in classics. So, I love the fact that it's full of all kinds of classical relics and history, but actually mainly because of the burgeoning Turkish church. so, in the 1970s, it's thought that there were literally only 10 Turkish ethnic Turkish believers. There were other believers in Turkey, but ethnic Turks. And I remember the first time I first few times I was going to Turkey, it was very discouraging because you think all these places are in the book of Acts. Paul, you know, if he was alive today would be a Turk and it's just like all these places have lost their Christian heritage. And yes, but it's not quite like that because the Turks came from the Asian steps around 1066. or thereabouts. Around the time of the Norman conquest of England, the Turks moved westwards with Islam. So the Turks have never had the gospel. There has never been an ethnic Turkish church and they pushed people west and to begin with there was some executions of people who wouldn't bow the knee to Islam.  but what is fascinating is that the Ottoman Empire was far more enlightened in many ways than Europe was when it came to other religions. And so Jews and Christians were allowed not just to exist but even to thrive in the Ottoman Empire. And so in every town there would be many churches and synagogues. And so when in the 1970s one or two started being converted, I've met two brothers who remember being two of that original 10. And now there are about 10,000. Now think about that. That's astonishing growth in 50 years from 10 to 10,000. I can't do maths or stats. I think lines go like that or something. It's up and they're some of the most inspiring brothers and sisters I know. I just love just being with them. Anyway, I was there a few years ago and some friends of ours drove up to the Lus Valley from Antalya on the south coast where there's there are there's a guy who's planted four churches in the last 10 years in Antalya. But we drove up north about three hours drive to the Lus Valley and there’s a triangular valley where the river Lus goes through the middle and you'll find Colosse, Hierapolis Laodicea and if you stand where Colosse was, you can see the other two. They're just a few miles further up the valley. So they could the three cities could see each other and they were very close. That's explains why you see in Colossians there's communication between the three and each of these cities was bustling was lively and they you know they were like sort of triplets almost and at the end of chapter 4 we read that the Colossians great friend Aristarchus become the great sort of envoy from here actually had relations with Laodicea and Hierapolos as well. But you go to Colosse today and there's nothing there because the city and indeed the whole region kept on having earthquakes and Colosse's never been excavated. The other two have and you can go and visit them and they're spectacular. One day I hope Colosse will be excavated. But in earthquakes buildings crumble and trees fall over unless they have strong deep roots and buildings are well constructed. Oh, do you see now why Paul might just use those mixed metaphors? Be a tree with deep roots. Roots that are kind of the mirror like on your handbooks of the branches above ground. Build up carefully and slowly to make the building sturdy and strong. And the way to do that it's very very clear. Verse six and seven. Stick with where you started. I mean, if you're building a building, you build your foundations. But if the subsequent floors are slightly off, it's not strong and it'll wobble and when there's an earthquake, it'll be a jelly and just collapse. A tree without roots will just be blown away, let alone blown over. And Paul's point is, stick with Jesus. The Jesus you were taught. The Jesus of the scriptures. The Jesus who is revealed. The Jesus who was a mystery to the Gentile world but has now been revealed. The King of Kings. Stick with him because he's the only king in town. It's a tough call. Especially in a culture in a world that has grown up has done away with such phases. You know some of my family thought when I got religion at university it will be a phase. Stick with him. Christ in you the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you, in us, our hope of glory. Those roots and that construction are unbreakable.