29 March || Seek first || Pip Mclean

Point in your life, maybe somewhere you'd love to go,

maybe something you'd like to do or experience or someone you'd

like to meet. Why don't you just turn to the

person nearest you and tell them something that may be on your

bucket list? You might have to wiggle along,

Jeremy. You might have to turn behind

you or something. What have we got?

Any, any something on your bucket list?

OK, OK. Anyone want to tell us some of

those things? Anyone shout out something on

their bucket list? Pardon.

Going bowling. Brilliant.

Set the bar like this. I love that.

Go go in bowling. That's a brilliant thing to

happen on your bucket list. Anything else?

Scoring over 100 on what? In bowling.

Nice, nice, nice. Excellent.

Any other things on your bucket list going on safari?

Yeah. Nice, nice, brilliant.

I would love to see the Northern Lights.

I know that some of you know this about me.

A while ago, on a few occasions, people were lucky enough to see

the Northern Lights like here, right in the, in the UK, here in

sunny Chelmsford, some of our neighbors on our WhatsApp group

were like, Oh my goodness, did you see this at the end of the

road? And I was like, no, I didn't see

it. I don't know if I was asleep or

I don't know if I had the wrong kind of equipment, but I was so

gutted that I couldn't see it because that is right at the top

of my bucket list. I would love to see, you know,

those photos you get. It's like the whole sky is just

full of these amazing colours. That is properly on my bucket

list. It's something I want to do with

my life. So this morning we're going to

be thinking about that question, how am I going to live my life?

What's, what's the one thing that I want to do while I live

my life on this earth? And if you've been around the

last few weeks, we've been thinking about this whole thing

of numbering our days. And Psalm 90, verse 12 talks

Psalms 90:12

about teach us to number our days so that we can be wise in

how we live our lives. So if we're talking about

numbering our days or like counting them and making them

count, then I thought we just would start off this morning

with a tiny little bit of maths. OK, Sorry if that makes you

groan a little bit. OK, so here we go.

How many seconds are there in a minute?

60 Brilliant. How many minutes are there in an

hour? Oh, OK, we're on it here. 6060.

Yeah. Brilliant.

How many hours in a day? How many hours in a day?

24 Brilliant. How many days in a week?

7 How many weeks in a year? 52, Brilliant.

And everyone doing all right with this math early this

morning with one hour less sleep.

I know I've challenged you. I'm sorry.

So by the time you're 10 years old, how many weeks will you

have lived if 52 weeks are in a year and then you're 10?

How many weeks will you have lived?

If you're 10, 520, yes, amazing. Brilliant, brilliant.

What about when you're 20? So 10 years is 520 weeks. 20

years is going to be or I can literally see the smoke coming

out of your brains. You're like, this is too much

for me this morning. Sorry, big hand of applause.

1040 if you're 20. When I was younger I used to

think that being 25 was really old, like that's probably

ridiculous isn't it now? But there you go.

If you are fortunate enough to live to your early 80s, you will

get to live for 4000 weeks, about 4000 weeks.

OK, time is a strange thing, don't you think?

I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, but to me the

weeks just seem to be flying by and I can literally hear my mum

saying that, Oh, doesn't I don't fly well, that that kind of

thing. I can hear people that I know,

you know, saying that to me, but I, I really feel it now.

So 4000 weeks doesn't seem like a lot to me in my head.

So how are we going to live these weeks, these days, these

minutes, these hours, these minutes, how however many we

have? How are we going to number our

days so that we live more wisely?

Who do I want to be? What do I want to do with my

life? And in one of her poems, Mary

Oliver says this, she says, tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

I love those words. It's amazing words.

Is it what? What is it you plan to do with

your one wild and precious life? Today is Palm Sunday.

It's the day when we remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a

donkey, the crowds welcoming him with praises and shouts of joy,

saying, look, it's the king. And then in this coming week, as

we walk through these next few days, this week in the kind of

run up to Easter day, as we read and reread those passages in the

scriptures, we see that there are a whole load of different

things that happened in just that one week.

Shouts of celebration, a really intimate last dinner of Jesus

with his close friends, washing of of washing of their feet.

Disciples feeling so tired that they kind of just go to sleep

and they let Jesus down kind of when he needs their their

support the most. Jesus kind of these drops of

sweat like blood, like sweat, sweat like blood, whatever you

want to say. This kind of moment of anguish,

a kiss of betrayal, the tears of a good friend who suddenly

realized that he'd said he didn't even know Jesus when he

was one of his closest friends, just like Jesus said he would.

And all those things happen. And then Jesus dying on the

cross. And then there's this silence in

this waiting. And then there's Easter Day.

So many experiences in that one week, so many feelings that go

with them. Lighter days, darker days, the

darkest day of all, Good Friday. And then the shining bright

glory of Easter Sunday. And when Jesus rises, there's

this beautiful book, children's book, called The Patchwork

Quilt. I don't know if any of you have

seen it, but I remember having it with our kids.

I remember using it in school when I was teaching.

And it tells of a grandma who uses different materials that

are cut into different shapes to make this treasured kind of

blanket for her family. And each of the materials that

she uses represents something they, they stand for, something

they stand for a moment, something that has shaped them

as a family. And so as she's stitching it

together, it's this way of remembering what was important

to them and what has shaped them, what was important in

their lives. So imagine making something like

that, maybe for your life. Maybe you might use some

material from a special, special clothes that you wore on a

special occasion. Or maybe you might use something

from like a well loved jumper that you cozy up in on a on a

winter's night. Or maybe when you're feeling a

bit low. Maybe there's a piece in your

blanket that you use when you're celebrating something.

Or maybe there's something there that reminds you of when someone

was ill. Maybe it's something that they

wore. Each piece of those fabrics,

those bits of material speak of something.

There's something that's important to you.

So when you look at the whole thing that you've made, the

whole finished quilt, it kind of tells the story of your whole

life, the good times, the hard times, everything in between.

Years ago, my mom made this patchwork quilt.

I don't know if you can see it there.

I really remember her making it. I remember the time that it took

her. I remember how she had to cut

out each shape and first of all have the shape on a bit of

paper, then lay that paper onto the fabric, then cut round that

too and then hand sew every single little shape and then

match each single shape together.

I remember her laying it all out on the floor to decide where she

wanted to put each piece, and then she'd stitch blocks

together all by hand, and then stitch the next block together

and then fit it all together and put all the interlocking pieces.

I remember her her doing it, and I remember the time and

attention she paid to it. I remember the care that she put

into it and I think it tells the story of not only the skill of

her hands, but just that love that she had in expressing

something by by doing this. It's a beautiful thing.

I think it's like a labour of love and each of the threads

that holds it all together has been painstakingly sewn by the

Craftsman, or in this case the craftswoman.

Like creating something out of all these scraps of material and

making it into something beautiful and the whole finished

thing being like a work of art. And I think it's a picture that

could help us to look back over our own lives where we can

remember and think about things that have gone on, things that

we've experienced. And to know that all the time

God was with us, His hands, just like my mum's on this fabric,

His hands attending to us, placing things, creating

something beautiful, making sense out of all of our

experiences. God behind, God beside, God

ahead. Like whatever our life

experiences, God has been there with us, stitching, like

creating this thing with our lives.

Everywhere you look, His handiwork, his presence, his

witness, his holding of us. I remember my mum is this quite

heavy, this thing. Maybe later on you might want to

come and just pick it up and touch it, but it's a really

heavy thing. I remember it laying on her lap

as she was kind of putting it together.

There's this, you have to touch it like it's a holding thing.

And that's what Jesus does to us in every experience of our life.

He holds us and he creates this something beautiful and his

witness becomes a thing that we tell.

Like he was with me in all these different fabric Y times of my

life, like maybe the darker ones, maybe the harder ones,

maybe the lighter ones, the easier ones.

And then this is the story that we tell.

This is my life. This is Jesus with me in my

life. His great faithfulness through

it all. So this morning there are some

things if you want to keep your hands busy.

This is not just for the kids. This is also for adults who

might want to keep their hands busy.

There are some envelopes that look like this.

If you didn't pick one up on the way in there, over on that table

over there in a minute you can go grab one And inside them are

loads of different cut out shapes.

So that and you need to have one of these.

You need to have some paper, maybe some scissors, glue, and

then you can arrange the shapes and cut out your own shapes to

make your own patchwork quill on a piece of paper.

So that's some of the things you can do.

If that's a bit tricky for you, Another way of making a

patchwork quill is just to pick up a piece of paper, have a pen

start somewhere and draw any kind of line you want to, but

keep your pen on the paper and don't take it off.

And at some point, when you've got enough pattern, you take it

off. And then with the shapes that

you've made, you can create your own patterns within each little

section. So it ends up looking like a

patchwork quilt. So if you want to keep your

hands busy, that's something you can do.

Go, go and get some of those if you want to.

Now that's cool. So wait a number of days is to

look back, to remember that God is behind and to remember the

goodness and the kindness of God, to remember that He was

with us here and here and there and there.

He was with us all those times in all those different shades

and patterns, different colours of our experiences.

Oh, I forgot to say, Beth and the littly littlies on that

table. There are also some squares,

patchwork squares that you can stick on that table.

All right, there we are. OK.

If we look close enough, we can see the work of God's hands, his

careful attention to the details of of our lives as he pieces us

together and works us into this beautiful creation.

So look back at the fabric of your life.

Do you remember God's presence? Do you remember his voice?

Do you remember who he is? Do you remember that He was with

you even then? He was with you even then?

And I heard these words the other day and they said this.

Do you remember who you are? Do you remember whose you are?

Do you remember what God has done for you?

Do you remember what He has given you?

Do you remember what He has promised you?

Do you remember the way He has delivered you, saved you, and

brought you through again and again and again?

Do you remember God? Do you remember your purpose?

Do you remember His plans for you?

It's a really powerful thing to look back and see that God has

been with you. And it might be that as you look

back over something, you can't quite see that yet.

And if that's you, I really want to encourage you to have a

conversation with God about that.

I can't quite see that you were with me then.

God would you help me know that you were and, and sometimes as a

family in the church, we can help each other in those times.

Like I can't quite see that yet, but you might be able to stand

with me and hold me as we as I kind of journey through that.

So we're going to have a short break in a minute and well, I'll

tell you about some of the things that are coming up.

Some extra baskets will come round and in those baskets are

some post its and what I would love is for little bit later in

the service, just in and around when we do communing a bit

later. I would like to invite all of

you to choose maybe one or two post its from that basket.

Maybe decide what kind of colour you want to use.

And I want you to think about an experience you've had in your

life. It might be something that you

really celebrate a significant memory for you.

It might be something that was harder for you and then maybe

you might want to decorate that post it with pens.

Maybe you might just want to write a couple of words on it or

someone's name on it. But then a little bit later,

we're going to bring those bits of paper as the way that we

remember some things in our lives and we're going to bring

it as an offering to create part of a quilt that we're making

there all together. All right, I'll explain a little

bit more as we go along. But as those post its come

round, the idea is that you choose a couple of significant

things from your life, maybe something to celebrate, maybe

something that's harder decorate it or just write something on

there like a prayer. You're right, God, as I this is

the thing I'm remembering and I'm remembering that you were

with me with this or I'm struggling to remember that you

were with me with this. But I want to remember it

somehow. And we're going to add those all

together at the end as part of our communion.

So we're going to have a short break now.

Libby's going to come and just tell us some things that are

going on and then we'll come back.

Brilliant. So before the baskets come

round, if you are new or visiting or you're very welcome

this morning, we've got an information table just outside

the door here. OK, is that better?

No, hey, we're good, excellent. OK, so using those post, its

thinking about that whole thing of looking back, God's

faithfulness through all of the different seasons of our lives,

different experiences of our lives, God with us, God behind,

God beside, God ahead. And looking back helps us to

number our days because as we remember the things and we

remember that God was with us, this God that we follow, it's

with these things firmly, like grasping our hands and held in

our hearts, that we can then look forwards.

God behind, God beside with me now, God ahead, I can look

forwards. And we keep hold of his promises

that looking behind God, behind God with us, helps us to look

ahead and to God with us ahead. And the looking behind helps us

to look ahead because it rings in our ears, it steadies our

hearts. And we come to understand this

deep knowing that God has been with us, God behind God beside,

God ahead. And as we look forwards, we can

be sure that what lies ahead is defined by two things, the

presence and the promise of Jesus.

God is always with us, and that is a promise.

So when you think about what's ahead as we number our days,

Jesus says this. If you've got a Bible turns in

Matthew chapter 6, it will appear on the screen as well.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

But if you've got a Bible log, want to pull it up on your

phone, it's always good to actually read it and look at it.

Matthew chapter 6, we're going to start at verse 25 and this is

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

these are Jesus's words to the people that were listening.

So I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will

eat or drink or about your body. What you will wear is not life

more than food and the body more than clothes.

Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store

away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much more, so much more valuable than they?

Can anyone of you, by worrying add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes?

See how the flowers of the field grow.

They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even

Solomon in all of his splendour was dressed like one of these.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field which is here

today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much

more clothe you, you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, what should we eat, or what should we

drink, or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all

these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these

things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will

worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of

its own. Jesus says don't worry about

what's ahead, Remember, look at the quilt, look at what we've

been making together, look at my witness with you all the way.

Remember who I am, he says. Look ahead to Jesus.

Do not fear. Do not be afraid.

That's what he says as Jesus teaches his his friends on the

mountainside with the crowd listening in.

Jesus says over and over and over again, do not worry.

Do not worry about this or that. Do not worry about whether

you're going to have enough. Do not worry about what tomorrow

holds. Do not worry about your life.

Why? Because your Heavenly Father,

the one who knows you and loves you, the one who holds your life

in the very palm of his hands, He knows what you need.

And we have this promise of all that is to come, where

everything that is of God, everything that is good,

everything that is beautiful, will one day be all that there

is. There'll be nothing else.

It'll all be totally beautiful. So we will walk through

different shades of life, through dark and light, but with

this bright future hope of God's Kingdom that is to come.

And that even now is coming as we stay close to Jesus and let

him shape the way that we live. God's Kingdom that is setting

this world right, taking all the broken and dislocated pieces of

the universe, people, things, animals and atoms and fixing

them and fitting them together in vibrant harmony, fitting them

all together just like this beautiful quilt.

Don't be afraid, says Jesus, because I am with you.

I will always be with you. As we look ahead into tomorrow,

into the future, Jesus says to us, do not be afraid.

You belong to me and I belong to you.

You are safe and I am going to lead you all the way home and I

will fashion your life into this most beautiful thing that one

day you will be able to see in all its fullness.

Jesus has faced every human experience head on.

He knows everything that lies ahead of us.

He loves us and He is with us so we can walk with him and trust

him. God behind, God beside, God

ahead. In Matthew 28, as Jesus was

speaking to his disciples and telling them to go and carry on

his work in the world, he said go and make disciples of all

nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything

I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always

to the end of the age. That's his promise to us.

And that word always that Jesus uses here, it comes from a Greek

word that's only used on this occasion in the New Testament,

and it's best translated as the whole of every day.

Jesus promises to be present with us in every single moment

of every day, from the moment that He spoke to the disciples

back then, whenever He speaks to us now, and through His Spirit

offer as we read the Bible, all the way through to the end of

this present age and then beyond into life everlasting.

Think back to those seconds and minutes that we were counting

right at the start, the math that we did at the start.

Every single second He is with us.

He never, ever, ever leaves our side.

Just like you can count on that constant tick tock of the clock,

He is with us. Like hear that rhythm of the

clock kind of ticking. He's with us.

We don't need to be afraid because Jesus is right here.

He's behind us, He's beside us, He's ahead of us.

He's before us. He's to our left and now to our

right. He's within us and he's without.

We will never go anywhere where Jesus is not near God, behind

God, beside God ahead. There's nowhere we can go that

he's not there with us. In Psalm 139 it says this, Where

can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your

presence? If I go up to the heavens,

you're there. If I make my bed in the depths,

you're there. If I rise on the wings of the

dawn and a settle on the far side of the sea, even there your

hand will guide me. Even there your right hand will

hold me fast. So as we look forward, Jesus

says, do not worry, do not be afraid, for I am with you.

And then the second thing that we can pull out of this passage

that we've read from Matthew, Jesus says, seek me.

Look for Jesus first, look to Jesus 1st.

And if we're honest, I think it's sometimes easy not to do

that first. Sometimes we can try and come up

with a solution ourselves first or look to something or someone

else first. But Jesus says look to me first.

Seek first the Kingdom of God. Keep your eyes on me.

Keep your eyes on the King and his Kingdom that is here and

that is coming and his Kingdom that is to come.

This is how we are to live our one wild and precious life with

our eyes fixed on the King. When John sees a picture of what

is to come in Revelation, the words he hears coming from the

throne of God are these. It says behold, which means

look, look, see, pay attention. I am making everything new.

It's all in the present tense. The Kingdom of God is not

something we're just waiting for in the future.

The Kingdom of God is here. It's near, it's within reach.

We can touch it and to be a Jesus people, we're invited to

live the life of the future here and now.

The future. What we see ahead is to shape

how we are to live here. And as we follow Jesus, as we

take on his teachings, as we do what he did, we are to seek him

first and to usher in his Kingdom, to say, come in, come

and be part of this with me. And all those Kingdom things

that we do, they will last all the way into the future and

eternity. I'm just going to read.

It's a little bit of a wordy quote, but I want to read it

from a guy called Tom Wright. He's the theologian.

And he says this. What you do in the Lord is not

in vain. You're not oiling the wheels of

a machine that's about to fall over a Cliff.

You're not restoring a great painting that's shortly going to

be thrown into the fire. You're not planting roses in a

garden that's about to be dug up for a building site.

You are strange, as though it may seem almost as hard to

believe as the resurrection itself.

Accomplishing something which will become in the course, part

of God's new world. Sorry, in due course, part of

God's new world. Every act of love, gratitude and

kindness. Every piece of art or music

inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his

creation. Every minute spent teaching a

severely disabled child to read or to walk.

Every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support for one's

fellow human beings and for that matter one's fellow non human

creatures. And of course every prayer or

spirit LED teaching. Every deed which spreads the

gospel builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness

rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored

in the world. All, all of this will find its

way through the resurrecting power of God into the new

creation which God will one day make.

This is the logic of the mission of God, he says.

God's recreation of his wonderful world, which has begun

with the resurrection of Jesus and continues mysteriously

through us as we as God's people live in the risen Christ, in the

power of the Spirit, means that what we do in Christ and by the

Spirit in the present is not wasted.

It will last all the way into God's new world, and in fact it

will be enhanced there. If you want to read that again a

bit later, then come find me. Everything we do now counts.

Everything we do, like Kingdom stuff that we do now, counts and

will last. Every Jesus prompted thing that

we say. Every moment that we offer to

pray for someone at work or a friend at school.

When we give someone an unexpected gift or cook a meal

for someone who is ill. Every time we give a word that

encourages. Every time we leave this place

and serve people in our community.

Every act of kindness. Every moment we'll tell someone

about the goodness of gods. Every beautiful piece of art we

create or joy that we bring to someone else.

Every injustice that we seek to write.

Every child we listen to, every patient we go in above and

beyond for every stranger that we befriend, each time we choose

what is right over what's wrong, every moment we care for this

creation and sacrifice for those who are in need.

Every time we see a broken relationship restored, every

single time we seek first the Kingdom of God.

It's never in vain. It's going to echo right the way

through to eternity. We're invited into a life that

is full of purpose with the days that we have as we number our

days. It can be full of purpose with

Jesus. A life that is full of being

alive and awake to the hope of the Kingdom of God and the

presence of the King in the here and now.

God behind God beside, God ahead.

God is ahead of us, the God who, the more that we get to know,

we're coming to know Him, being totally faithful, the

unshakeable truth of who He is, the undeniable hope of who He is

through every shade and pattern and bit of fabric of our lives,

He is with us. So going back to that question

right at the start, tell me how you're going to live your one

wild and precious life. Paul says this in Romans chapter

Romans 12:1

12, verse 1. He says, take your everyday

ordinary life. You're sleeping, eating, going

to work and walking around life and place it before God as an

offering. And so we take this beautiful

patchwork quilt that God is making of our lives, where we

see his hand of goodness woven through over a moment where we

see his withness in all that we experience.

And we see his Kingdom, gold kind of running through it, His

beautiful presence through the hard times and the easier times.

We see that he's with us. And it's almost like this fabric

can become like a coat that we wear that speaks of our story

and speaks of God's goodness and his kindness and his love for us

and speaks of his promises, saying I will be with you.

It's like we can clothe ourselves in it.

We look for him first, we look to him first.

We tell of his kindness and his faithfulness, and we offer our

lives to the King. And then our lives are marked

with this posture of making way for the King, echoes of Palm

Sunday, the way we lay down our lives as an offering.

It looks like the laying down of coats on the ground that those

people did as they waved their palm leaves.

It looks like shouting out loud to Jesus.

I'm yours, I trust you, I know that you are with me.

Our coats clothed with the story that he is writing in our lives,

we lay them down as an act of worship to Him.

And he's known, if you think about that, that entrance into

Jerusalem of Palm Sunday. Jesus knew what the next week

held for him. Like all the difficulty of that

of that week and beyond. He knew what he was, what his

mission was. So that's how I want to live my

my life with my eyes on Jesus, looking to the King.

Barbara Brown Taylor, she's an author and a priest.

She says this. How shall we wait?

As wide awake as we know how, as fully alive as we can be, not

because we have to, but because we can.

Thanks to the one who has died, who is risen, and who will come

again and again and again and again.

So this is what we get to do. This is what we're invited into

with our one wild and precious life.

We get to do this together as well.

And in a moment we're going to have some more worship and then

we'll pray. But just before we do that,

we're going to go into communion.

And what I'd love you to do as we go into communion is before,

in a minute, I'm going to ask Nathan and Alice.

They're going to come and hold the the grape juice which

represents the vine, which represents the blood of Jesus

poured out on the cross for us, that he loves us so much that he

died for us. And we've got the bread that

represents his body. And there is a gluten free

option as well. They're going to hold those

things standing near that table. But what I really would love you

to do on the way to that table is to take the post.

Its where you've written those things or maybe you've drawn

pictures and it holds a memory for you.

And I'd love you to take those with you.

And before you get to the communion table, I want you to

add them to the patchwork quilt that has been started on the

table there. Just add them in as part of your

worship of offering this experience, this thing.

Jesus, you were with me. And as we do that, we'll be kind

of creating this thing together as well.

It's like a an very personal, individual thing.

It's also a collective thing because we join it together.

We're like all these stories, all of these things in our

lives, but you have been with us.

You are faithful, you have been attentive, you have your hands

have been stitching these things and making them into something

beautiful, not just individually, but like

collectively as a family. So on your way to worship, as we

have communion, we worship by offering these things to Jesus

as well, sticking those memories onto that piece of paper that

makes that quilt. I hope that is a picture that

makes sense to you in your minds.

And when it comes to communion, everyone who is looking to

Jesus, you're welcome to come be a part of this.

So if that's you, we'd love you to come and be a part.

So Nathan, Alice, would you come up?

That would be great. Thank you.

And then, yeah, in a moment, let me just pray, please.

Thank you that you're here, Holy Spirit.

Thank you that you're here. Lord, you know every single

thing about us, you know, every single experience that we've

been through, You know what is to come.

Thank you that you are a God who is behind your God who is beside

always with us, and that you're a God who is ahead.

And that with that ringing our ears, we can and learn to trust

you more. So would you come, Holy Spirit?

Would you minister to us as we do these things, as we do these

acts of worship together now? Yeah.

And after this, we will, we'll do some more, more sun worship

together. So why don't you in your own

time, come on up, come to the table, offer your post.

Its to the big patchwork grilt. And then come and take

communion.