No.34 - God's people God's word

Preaching prep and a church filled weekend away.

Verse of the Week

'For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.'

Mathew 16:25

We can be confident that real life, real satisfaction, is found in living for Christ. If we seek to fill our lives with the pleasures of this world apart from Christ then we will lose our life. The joys of this world cannot satisfy us and pursuing them apart from Christ will cause us to forfeit our souls. But choosing to lose our lives for the sake of Christ, choosing to make living for Christ our greatest treasure, will lead to us finding real life. In Christ our souls can be satisfied. In treasuring Christ above all else our souls will not be lost.

Praise the lord, we can have real life in Christ!

Encouragements

We had the real Joy of getting to spend a long weekend away with the 10am St Helens congregation. It was wonderful to get to know them more. There is something special about being around God's people all the time. It was so encouraging to be able to look around the hall at meal times and in meetings and see lots of people who really love Christ

On the long weekend, we also had lots of great teaching. I really enjoyed being stretched to think more about the church and the sacraments. Praise the lord for all the hard work that went into all the wonderful teaching.

The weekend was also a refreshing time out of our normal routine. Praise God it was able to be refreshing as well as very full on.

Apart from the long weekend away, most of my time has been spend working on my sermon. It has been great to start to apply it to myself and let God use it to change me. And I'm excited to share what I've learned with my congregation.

A Little Update

Here are a few of the things we've been up to and some of what we've got coming up. Praise the Lord for his kindness!

The Last Week

• Prepared for - Preaching (1 Corinthians 15:1-11),

• Attended the 10am Weekend away - Thursday-Sunday

  (The 10am, St Helen's 10am, is the Church that I will be spending the next year training at as a Ministry Associate. Luci and I went on their weekend away to build relationships and benefit from the teaching, ahead of moving in the summer)

• During the weekend away we:

  • Attended 6 talks covering Church, Baptism and The Lord's Supper

  • Attended a seminar on Anxiety

  • Attended a meeting about running the Church

  • Spend lots of time getting to know the 10am Church family

The Next Few Weeks

• Mid-day bible study, Life group, Cambridge bible course, Christian book study group

• 6th June - Leading an Evangelistic event

• 6th June - Meeting to study the Westminster Confession of Faith

• 8th June - Preaching at Grace Church on 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

• 10th-11th June - Attending a Presbyterian Christian Conference (Catalyst)

• 12th June - Leading sung worship at my Grandma's funeral

• 13th July - Leading our Church meeting for the first time

Prayer Requests

I would very much like your prayer as I finalise my sermon that I will be preaching this coming Sunday. I appreciate prayer for wisdom on how best to clearly and faithfully convey the truths of 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, in a way that moves the congregation's hearts to seek to hold fast to Christ's resurrection.

Thank you so much for all your support.

Love and prayers,

Joshua & Luci.

P.S. - If you want to hear more about how I've been delighted by Christ over the last week, feel free to listen to the video below. I hope you may find it encouraging :)