7th May 2023 - Communion Service - Yasmin Chaffer - Powered by a pause

Good morning. So the title this morning sermon is powered by a pause.

When's the last time that literally stopped? If you press paws online with all

its busy activity. We talked about this recently in the daytime by the study

about to challenge. Someone was given on a retreat some years ago to stop

and look at something in nature for fifteen minutes, a tree, aflower,

whatever. It was a struggle to stay focused, they said, for that

amount of time, and it took a number of attempts to succeed. But

fair play, they persevered and didn't give up. This is what challenged them.

Prompted me on Sunday to have a go. I was sitting outside in

the gone because amazingly, here in England it was actually young enough for me

to sit out for it. And our neighbors have a lilac tree out like

less who are sense and the blossom on it was absolutely beautiful. It was

a fibrant, deep thing. It's in its element as it were, So

I decided to take a big didn't limit a challenge. It's hard. We

are so used to just mentally darting around and multitasking, the senses being stimulated

from different directions at once, but I actually only managed that from period,

so I need to practice. But I found myself in the time when I

did do it, praising God simply a further color of that blossom. I'm

so enjoying that five on color. And not only that, but then I

realized, I know what I've been invented that color and it was a real

simple pleasure, just a littit it of feliness. And I realized how less

still it was to set aside the habit of a busy mind to pause and

focus on creation, especially when we don't stop there but allow it to draw

us back to the Creator without rushing or striving to do so. That men,

the rest is so refreshing, feel free to try it a hope.

So as this combined with the recent brilliant course that we've done on the daytime

violence study looking at pep Reread's teaching on Lectio divina, that brought me to

the idea of being powered by a pause and going to come back to the

idea of letino divina. But first we want to look briefly as the word

celan. This even word cela is found primarily in the Book of Psalms,

the Psalms a collection of one hundred and fifty songs of pods, originally intended

and used as worship songs for congregation or individuals, and it appears sumptial times

in it, for example, at the end of some three, so some

three and their s eight in the amplified by all the red salvation belongs to

the Lord. May your blessing be from your people Selah. There's a lot

of uncertainty about the meanest cela, and because it's not a familiar word,

it's easy to go sober it and ignore it. Most versions of the Bible

don't attempt to translate it, but simply putting as it is. But since

Art has ensured its inclusion in his word, it's good to make an effort

to understand it without going into it to academically. One way of understanding it

is that it could be alternately ap pausing the music, or stop and consider

these things. In other words, what you've disrecd plesis I could be both.

In other words, pausing the music to stop and consider our God.

We are designed to pause and stop and consider our God and his word.

It's in that is in the Bible for a reason. Only time when we

do it, it will help us to reset or reboot, putting in nineteen

terms. So let's briefly stop and consider psalm free and verse eight. Salvation

belongs to the Lord. May your blessing fear upon your people seem our salvation

belongs to the Lord. What is salvation? The definition of the original people

word includes deliverance, victory, and prosperity. Whilst the meaning is quite broad

and it makes panks that it belongs to the Lord, it often includes being

saved from spending eternity with the devil to come without God of perfect, loving,

heavenly Father, who chose each one of us before the foundation of the

world. As it says in the Book of Ephesians, Chapter one, verse

four, if there's anyone present and are watching live and listen to all past

later, and you've never asked Jesus into your heart, now as the perfect

time. Jesus, the Son of God came to earth as a baby.

He grew up to die briefly nailed to a cross, to take the punishment

of our sins, yours and wife, the sins of the world. In

other words, every time he break the law of love, love God,

love others, love ourselves, praise God. Jesus rose again, and in

doing so he made a way for all people to live this life on earth

even with Almighty God who reason us, and afterwards to go to Heaven to

be with Him forever. As it says in Roman's ten verse line, if

you declare with your will Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that

God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You can pray

that right now Heaven, your Father, I declare that Jesus is Lord,

and I believe in my heart that you raised him from the dead. Thank

you for coming into my heart by your famous spirit, as you promised the

Lord in my life. So back to p. Three, their say,

salvation belongs to the Lord. This versus clear that salvation, in other words,

deliverance, victory, prosperity belong to our Lord. You won't find it

in anything or anyone else. You may have searched for it elsewhere, and

spent a lot of energy doing so, and found some performment in other things

and other relationships, but nothing more truly completely fulfill will sustain us except the

Lord and our relationship with him. This psimon is addressed to God is the

psimist, the writer talking to God. Talking to God is normal, is

how we designed this silence made Your blessing be upon your people. See you,

what is God's blessing? To put it simply, it's not gracing flavor.

It's something we can't own, but that He loves to give us.

Your blessing be upon your people. In the Old Testaments, it's clear that

God made himself a nation Israel through Abraham, and the New Testament is clear

that all believers in Jesus are part of that, whether they have your charitage

or not. We are God's people. We belong to him. The head

of our spiritual nation is Jesus Us, as it says in Evisions One,

verses twenty two to twenty three the New Living Translation, God has put all

things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for

the benefit of the Church. And the Church is his body. It is

made full and complete by Christ. We are avocet people. Jesus is the

head of his Church, and we are his body here on earth. With

the Holy Spirit living inside us connecting us to him. We are one with

Jesus himself. See our we stop and consider that it's so tempting to take

a lot longer to stop and consider that we are one with Jesus himself.

But that's not all the law advances to do. Right now, get the

point we've all beer, very briefly a bathing instruction. See how really,

anything that brings us back to pause him to focus on God, be it

through his creation like I did last Sunday, or through his word the Bible

is going to really refresh us on which I pusn't be that. So it's

easy to see how we can be powered by a pause. So let's return

to something I mentioned earlier, Lectio divina, as taught by Pete greg that

we looked at in amusing daytime final study. Peter is the founder of that

trying to call seven friend movements, the senior panist of a church in min

Surrey, and author et cetera. And I made no apology for sharing so

much of what I've learned on the course, because if you really were sharing,

does anyone know what lectio divina is? I didn't have a clue until

we did the study. It's a Latin term lectio meaning reading, and devena

being divine, so divine reading. It's a contemplative, slow way to read

the Bible with a heart more than the head, not instead of, but

more than the head tradition, with four steps to guide you through it.

The aid is to get more out of the Bible and give God more clearly,

and the results include expiritcing a lot more peace. It's a bit like

sitting down to enjoy a meal during your food properly, rather than bolting down

your food of the run. A twelfth century month systemized lecto diveana into four

steps. Lectio reading leedeitatia excuse my pronunciation for anybody in the spook flattering,

meditatia, meditation, allowing them mind to explore the meaning of what you're reading.

Latia, prayer, turning your thoughts into prayers, and Contemplatia contemplation,

moving your focus away from scripture to Christ himself. Read, meditate, pray,

contemplate. It's good to think that as a helpful guide, something fluid

rather than fixed. Steps to tip off the Father to do this. In

the first of the video, as we watched, he spoke to contemporative None

about her experience a lectio divina she's been practicing at daily for over twenty years.

She does it alone in her room, and she said, a personal

encounter with Christ is guaranteed. I have to say. The truth of her

works and the effects of her experience were obvious in her face. She flowed.

She just emanated pace of joy. When asked how to do it,

she helpfully gave a couple of ticks. The first one was cut out distractions.

It's very practical for many of us that one example might be turn the

pane onto silence, put it out of reach if you can. The second

one is disposition. How you prepare yourself, and it starts with faith.

You have to believe the Bible is the revealed word of fond You have to

believe it's align and it's active, and come with an open It's spoket in

heart and with love, because it's the word of love. There's an interesting

thought even before you start, how do you approach spending time with the Lord?

And you thought about how you managed distractions or might manage them better if

there's a reason why you can't eliminate them entirely, And you thought about how

you prepare itself. Starting the starting point of faith might be a given for

many of us. The Bible is the word of God. It's a life.

But do we consciously come with an expecting heart and expect him to leave

with the Lord He's in his word. Do we come with love because it's

a word of love and because he is luck and we love because He first

loved us, as it says in the first of a joint chapter four,

verse nineteen. Then as the lun said, begin start by invoking a homely

spirit. He is the one who helps us to receive the Word of God,

who enlivens our hearts and minds and so fair. It doesn't need to

belong, but it's just an alignment of our dependency on the homely spirit and

our desire for him to receive what the Lord wants to say to us.

Strength through this word, as we create this habit and eliminating distractions, comparing

ourselves to faith, expecting and love, and pry the from the home spirit.

It won't take as long as it might sound. So after preparing,

go to the passage you want to read. Read it straight through, then

have a time of silence. It's God's word, doesn't need to be long,

but it's about consciously remembering that He has a plan for you. He

has something wants to say to you in that passage. It might be something

new to you, it might not, even though you may have read the

passage tents and times. It's again about an attitude of expectancy. It's so

important in matters of faith. Then go back to the beginning of the passage

again and read it through verse or at first, and that what the nun

said, That word is capable of changing me. But I have to ponder

it, engage with it. The intentive or a detail us an interaction.

You might think about who's in the passage that I'm appeared, maybe if it's

a questible what festival's going on. To help understand the literal meaning of the

scripture, then the nun said, she starts to understand the passage at a

deep, a spiritual level, at which God wants to say to her through

it. The KeyPoint is that left to the interleader in dialogue are speaking to

me, then I respond to him. It's also important to note that it's

not about quantity. We're not talking about reading chapters at a time. It's

however long or shorter passage the home sphere indicates to you each day or if

you follow a final reading notes, whatever passage is indicated, don't think you

don't have time like a lung to spend hours doing this. The four steps

are only a guide, not a tick box. Can forwards exercise, so

don't you put off and not even try it. The number that it's so

clearly God's limited only by how much I can hope and believe in him.

She didn't say that much time I have how much I can hope and believe

in him. If I hope to receive allmice nothing from him, his hands

are tied from me. But when I hope to receive everything from him,

he can give me unlimited treasure. The nun suggested starting with something easier,

for example the New Testament the Gospels, and not because I would something like

I don't know a long list of names like in dyalogy in the first week

chapters of Chronicles, or how to build a temple unless you plantive. The

nun also suggested write down questions that may come up for me, because you

very always understand everything straight away that we read, but the Holy Spirit will

answer later on. So that's basically an overview of Lectio divina. And I

just want to look really briefly at the different sets involved. So the first

one is read. When it comes to hearing God, the Bible is the

primary way in which he speaks. Nothing he says in any other way will

ever override, underline, or contradict what he says is scripture. Learning to

hear his voice starts with reading the Bible. Let him divina as a way

of viewing God's world through God's word, Jesus, Life, Death, and

the Resurrection. Read phrase everything I love what Pete says. The Word of

God is first and foremost a person and known secondly a book. When I

ask the Lord, what else you want to you to say about reading the

Bible, he said, do it, and do it. You're always planting

a seed of truth in your spirit when you read the Word that will sustain

and strengthen you, no matter how well you understand it at the time.

It's a building block. So the second step is meditate in our words,

to ponder or concentrate, focusing on thoughts on Jesus, on the Scripture.

It's nothing to do with emptying our minds, but filling them with God's word

of truth. In Joshua one first eight in the UK, and James's version.

It says, this book of the Law shall not depart from your wrath,

but you shall meditate in day and night that you may observe to do

according to all that is written in it. But then you can make your

way prosperous, and then you will have good success. This is referring to

the Torah or Book of Instruction, which is what the Israelites had at the

time. But now, of course we'll have their field and new Testaments.

The benefits are clear. The more we meditate on the word of God,

the more it will permeate our hearts, and the more I will rise up

in response to the situations that you come across. The reason the Law wants

us to do this is because He wants us to prosper and be successful in

life, and no part to play in them. This is not about striving

to perform well to peace God, but surrendering to him in his world.

How he gained three keys interruption, intuition, and imagination. Biblical meditation involves

embracing interruption, in other words, slowing the eye intellectual meatnalism. And this

requires patience. And now that's almost a swear word amongst some of us.

But anyway, it does require patience, intuition, closer attention. Pay close

attention to any word or phrase that captures your attention and go with it.

It can lead to fresh revelation and the third one of his imagination, seeming

to heed one's voice with our hearts as well as our heads. We can

be nervous of embellishing his word, but one example is to apply all five

senses to the text. What I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, what I'm

tasting, touching, or smelling. This made me think of the passage in

Luke chapter eight about the woman who had suffered from heavy bleeding for twelve years

and came up behind Jesus to touch the fring of his outer row by faith

that she would be too as instantly healed. Jesus was on his way somewhere,

and it says in Luke chapter eight, verse forty two, and the

crowds were nearly crushing him. This reminded me of one time when I was

in London on the day and came out of the in Street tube station,

and I'd already done some shopping, so I had some bags and it was

so jump packed you couldn't move. I actually let go of my bags and

they didn't drop because for a few minutes, then slowly things started to move

again. But I imagine that kind of crowd around Jesus, the the success

of crowds to really crushing him, and I have an idea of what it

was like. It would have been hard to make any kind of forward progress.

Depending on the time, for time of year, it might have been

quite as sweaty experience as are. I'm fragrant. So when I start to

think of that, I don't think of the courage, the determination, and

the perseverance of this lady to get through this crowd closing up to touch the

hand of Jesus. Roment. This was no small feet give him A crowd

was so great that they were really crushing him. Then I think that this

lady had suffered for twelve years with heavy bleeding, with all the physical,

psychological and social impact that I would have had on her. If this ordinary

lady can have that kind of courage, determination and perseverance to reach out to

touch Jesus, surely I count I don't even need to press through crowds.

Emmanuel is one of my favorite names for Jesus, meaning God with us.

This means that Jesus is with me now and I can sit and sew from

his presence. It doesn't matter whether I feel it or not. It doesn't

change the fact that God is with me. He's with you, and I

can simply say, thank you Jesus that I know that you're here. You're

always with me, and I am so grateful. This is just a short,

simple of example of meditating from God's word, using your imagination to engage

more deeply, more personally with a passage, and how this can draw us

to prayer and the time of just being in God's presence, even if you

only have a really short time to do it. A clinical and neuropsychologist was

interviewed by Cleete Brad who explains something about the brain taking time to read a

passage. Starts with using the logical part of our brains, but as we

engauge our imaginations, for example, using the five senses, it allows the

part of the brain for the limbic system to start accessing past memories, emotions,

etc. Which enables that personal interaction with what we're reading. Some people

trust logic that think imagination is dangerous, but and emotions are not. Mutually

exclusive the humans. They live together. It's good and okay to use all

that God has given us to understand his voice. We can keep going back

to God asking what do you want to tell me or show me about this

text and anchor imaginations in the written world. If we make mistake, God

is big enough to handle it and ours back someone as our hearts remained teachable.

So the first few steps of let your Deviana are read and meditate,

and the third one is pray. It's a response to what we've been reading

and meditating on me the two way conversation with God. The Bible is meant

to be prayed and lived, even if it's for example, Lord problems makes

sense of this. We are made for conversation with God, to walk and

talk with him constantly. This isn't about striving to make conversation, but increasing

awareness of his presence, talking to him, listening and responding. Not a

false, longstop monologue. As Song said on the teaching video, prayers never

die. They're just a keen minute. The fact that you don't necessarily see

answers immediately doesn't necessarily mean it's not God's will. It doesn't mean he doesn't

want to answer, or that it's not heard. When I was preparing this

and wrote the above, I felt I only want to leave it there,

so I asked the Lord what else to add? Of course I actually practiced

when I'm preaching. I listen to me, and it wasn't the media.

I had to write a short one. And then he said to me the

first book of John, chapter five, I've read for this, or I

didn't know this was there. I haven't read it recently. This is what

he's saying to us now one John five, verses fourteen to fifteen. This

is the confidence we have an approach of God that if we ask anything according

to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears

us whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of

him. So read, meditate, pray, and lastly contemplate, rest,

even for just a short period in God's presence. Linger after praying, to

enjoy God's love in presence. This enables us to absorb God's words, so

we become it for a world we may not read the Bible. Sir John

of the Cross, the sixteenth century priest, summed up lecture Divina like this.

Seek in reading and you will find in meditation not in prayer, and

it will be open to you in contemplation. That is so good. Seek

in reading, and you will find in meditation nothing prayer, and it will

be open to you in contemptation. In closing, I do want to appreciate

that I that some of you might be put off by the amount of time

that Lecto divina might take. What I would say is do what you can

start somewhere, rather than don't start at all. I found even just reading

the Bible more slowly beneficial, and I didn't speed read it before. It's

about allowing ourselves that time with the Lord in the world where doing is equated

with ruthfulness. So to summarize, see love, pause, stop and consider

that. Consider what God is pointing out to you, be it fi as

something nature or something you just read in the Bible, and lecture divina divine

reading, read, meditate, pray, contemplate. These are ways in which

waten slow down a bit, pause and spend time with the Lord and be

refreshed and carry on with life powered by that cause. Thank you,