Let the earth hear his voice!

Please note:

This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission, as it was prepared before the service was broadcast. It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors that were corrected before the radio broadcast.

It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events

Song 1: Crown him with many crowns

Leader:

Welcome to the Keswick Convention in the heart of the English Lake District. Now stretching over three weeks each summer, the annual Convention welcomes some 12,000 people from across the denominations, from many different countries, and from all age groups. And for 130 years this annual event has gathered Christians to hear God’s Word through the Bible, to celebrate his goodness in worship, and to commit ourselves to serve Christ more fully.

Our theme this year is the ‘Word to the world’. Throughout the week we’re looking at how God’s word is at work in our lives, our nation and around the globe.

And so, in today’s service we rejoice in that gospel of Jesus Christ which is being proclaimed all around the world. Our prayer and aspiration is expressed in the theme of this service: ‘Let the earth hear his voice!

Our next song invites people from every land to proclaim that good news and to rejoice with one heart and voice. But before we sing, we pray together:

Let us pray:

Prayer:
Our Father, we thank you that, through Jesus Christ, the living Word, you have spoken clearly to our world. We thank you for the Bible, your word written, which points us to him. And we thank you that, across cultures and generations, men and women are hearing your voice and are responding to your call. As we gather today, may we too hear your Word, meet your Son, and be encouraged to proclaim his good news to a needy world. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Song 2: Come People of the Risen King

Leader: One of our guests at Keswick this year is Dr Helen Roseveare. Her previous visit to this event nearly 40 years ago was highly memorable, as Dr Roseveare described her missionary experience in the Congo. Since then she has travelled worldwide in proclaiming the gospel, and through her books, her teaching and her example, she’s encouraging Christians everywhere to commit themselves to the cause of Christian mission.

Leader: Welcome, Helen. Your life’s been varied and colourful…

Helen Rosaveare: Yes… I suppose that’s very true. I was brought up in an ordinary, happy ‘middle-class’ home. We were a church-based family but, quite honestly, we didn’t know the Gospel. And I went up to Cambridge University in the last year of World War 2 – not one! – and there were Christian girls up at University and they were tremendously helpful - they gave time to show us where we could buy books, where we could get a cheap midday meal – they were just always kindly; there was a generosity of their friendliness. And it gave me a hunger in my heart to know what makes them different from others. And they began to talk with me, I went to their meetings, and slowly they introduced me to the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, I was just overwhelmed to think that the Lord God – the great creator – both knew me and still loved me and loved me so much he was willing to die for me. And in the end this drove me to seek his forgiveness. And that wonderful night, God met with me and all I can say is that I fell in love with Jesus. And from that minute, I knew the only thing I wanted to do with my life was tell others.

Leader: And Helen, we know something of the personal costs over these 60 years of your service – was it worth it?

Helen Rosaveare: Yes! Wonderfully, wonderfully… People talk about cost: there isn’t any cost – it’s all privilege. To be saved is privilege. To be invited to serve Him is privilege. And he called me to go out to Congo which meant leaving my family, changing cultures, learning a new language… It did lead to a lot of loneliness and an overwhelming sense of inadequacy – particularly medically. And then there was the events of the civil war of central Africa in the 60s when I was held 5 months. I was a prisoner of guerrilla soldiers. Like many others, I was raped and I was beaten... it was horrific. But never… never once in all that we’ve been through did we ever lose the conscious that God… God so loved us that he gave his life for me. Was I not willing to give my life for him? And his love never, never left me. And I never sensed any desire to do anything other than go on being a missionary and telling others of the love of Jesus.

Leader: Thank you very much, Helen. [applause]

Let’s listen now to how the apostle Paul explains the heart of the Christian message in our reading from his letter to the Romans chapter 5, verses 1-8. It’s read by Maria Gikas from Athens, who with her husband is sharing this good news with university students in Greece.

Reading: Romans 5:1-8
Reader: Maria Gikas

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us.

Song 3: O precious Sight

Leader: We’re delighted to have two Asian Christian leaders with us this week: Dr Ajith Fernando from Sri Lanka, who will speak to us shortly, and Dr Patrick Fung from Singapore, the General Director of the OMF International.

Patrick, could you tell us a little about your background ….

Patrick Fung: I was born in Hong Kong from a traditional Chinese family. I am a medical doctor by training, first in Australia then in the UK. I became a Christian when I was a medical student in Sydney. In 1989, my wife, Jennie, who is also a medical doctor, and I went to Pakistan and served in a local hospital for about 7 years. That was a wonderful time - though with many challenges. We appreciated the deep friendship with the local people. They were often interested to find out why we came to serve them. They were also curious to know why Chinese could be Christians. And often the local people's concept of Christianity is as a Western religion. They were surprised to know that there are many Christians in China today; it is notoriously hard to put an exact figure on it but a conservative estimate suggests that 50 million Christians in China today.

Perhaps many from the West are concerned about the persecuted Church in Asia. However, I believe persecution is not the biggest threat to the Church in Asia today, or may I say anywhere. But rather, it is a diluted gospel – that is the biggest threat to the Church. It is the gospel that does not embrace suffering – that is the biggest threat. For the cross is central to the Christian faith. It may seem odd to some but I believe being willing to suffer is the acid test for the authenticity of our Christian faith. Many Christians in Asia today - or even other continents - live in the midst of suffering as the cost of commitment to Jesus Christ in a hostile environment. Perhaps the greatest need on the part of the Christian Church in its task of mission is holiness, with integrity before God and integrity before men. Otherwise there will just be growth without depth. And what is the point of church growth that is miles wide but only an inch deep? The gospel is not just to be proclaimed, but it must also be lived out in word and deed. That is the biggest challenge to all Christians whether you are from the west or from the east, or anywhere in the world.

Leader: Thank you Patrick very much. [applause]

Leader: Our next song reminds us of the story of God’s actions through history, and of the work yet to be done in bringing the good news to every corner of the world. We sing together, ‘By faith we see the hand of God.’

Leader: Each morning this week, Dr Ajith Fernando is teaching us from the book of Jonah, a reluctant missionary who was asked to speak God’s word in his day. Ajith is the Teaching Director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka, but travels widely in Asia and beyond, teaching the Bible and explaining the good news of Jesus Christ. He speaks to us this morning about the heart of the Christian message, from the passage in Romans 5 we read earlier. Welcome Ajith.

Sermon: Ajith Fernando

I will never forget a conversation I had with one of our drug rehabilitation workers as we were travelling together to our rehab centre. He himself had been a drug dependant and had served time in several of Sri Lanka’s eight prisons. He told me that when he reads the words of the apostle Paul he can’t help feeling that Paul also had been a drug dependant at some time. Paul's writings, he said, were so relevant to the experiences that a drug dependant goes through; the way, for example in chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans, Paul describes his desperate struggles with sin… “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do”… it’s an oppressive battle with temptation which is very similar to the struggle a drug dependant has with addiction.

Now, I don’t believe for one minute that Paul was a drug dependent, but I was struck by the fact that my colleague had found the Christian message to be so close to his life.

The theme of this service, "Let the Earth Hear His Voice," may suggest the idea of a distant God bellowing an irrelevant message to an uninterested world. That idea can’t last too long though when we realise that the primary way the voice of God has been heard in the world has been through the life and work of Jesus Christ. And for Paul the key to the message was "Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Paul himself recognised that this message would not initially be palatable to most people. He described it as "a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles." Yet he spoke about the message of the death of Christ as something that is both powerful and appealing.

Maria read to us from Romans 5, verses 1 to 8. It’s a passage which describes the heart of the Christian message, drawing out the implications of the death of Christ. In the first two verses Paul describes the consequences that flow from Christ’s death. For one thing, ‘we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ He means that we’re no longer God’s enemies, but his friends. And Paul develops this: we now have access to God, as children to their loving Father.

Then in verses 6 to 8 we come to a foundation statement of the Christian message – the heart of the good news! In v6 Paul writes, ‘For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.’

Our human dilemma ultimately arises from our broken relationship with God – the source of love and harmony. Many people seek to overcome this dilemma through religious activity of all kinds. But Paul is at pains to point out: we are powerless to help ourselves, we are incapable of solving the problem. We stand guilty before God and deserving of his judgement. But the good news of the Christian message is that God himself has taken the initiative, he has acted at just the right time in the person of his Son. ‘God proves his love for us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us.’

I was once speaking to a small group of people about the death of Christ. The message seemed strange to a lady who was there. Her reaction was similar to that of a lot of people when they’re told that Jesus died for them. How could someone else die for me? How could someone else be punished for the wrong things that I’ve committed? If anyone should be punished, shouldn’t it be me?

This lady had a son with a marked limp because he had contracted polio when he was a little boy. I asked her whether anyone considered it strange that she stayed up night after night when he was sick, making so many personal sacrifices in order to care for her son. “No,” she replied. I told her that our creator God did something very similar to this. Seeing the hopeless condition we were in, he sent his Son to make the supreme sacrifice for us - someone entirely innocent who could stand in our place. In the person of his Son, God stepped in to take the punishment that we deserved. When Jesus died, God placed on him the full weight of our sin and all of its consequences.

We are also compelled by that love to proclaim the good news to others. His love is the motivation for declaring this good news throughout the world. Christians in different continents and cultures share this same experience, and proclaim that same message. Their longing is that everyone should know this incredible good news: ‘God proves his love for us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us.’

Song 5: When I survey

Leader: Our prayers this morning are led by Judith Stobart, who is on the staff of the Convention, and Fiona Overend, wife of our Operations Manager, who lives here in Keswick. When Judith and Fiona say the words ‘Praise you Lord’, we respond: ‘Let the earth hear your voice’.

Intercessions:
Father, we give thanks for the way the gospel is advancing all around the world. We thank you for all those who have heard and obeyed your call and today we pray for those places where the gospel has yet to be heard. Please enable your people to be light in the dark places of this world, and to share the good news of Christ.

Praise you Lord: Let the earth hear your voice

Father, we pray for those places in the world where those of faith are under pressure, either because of opposition to their message, or because of challenging social and economic circumstances. We especially lift to you the peoples of East Africa, in their crisis of drought and famine, and pray for your blessing on all the organizations and individuals who are trying to show your love to people in great need in this area. And we pray for the small Christian communities caught up in the Arab Spring; that they might serve you faithfully through the periods of social upheaval which they are facing. We pray for your peace, justice and love to prevail in the unsettled countries of the world.

Praise you Lord: Let the earth hear your voice

We pray for communities here in Cumbria, for those who are still experiencing the effects of the tragedies of last year. May they know your peace and comfort. We lift to you the people of this town of Keswick, especially those experiencing economic difficulties in the present climate, and those families struggling with the stress that this causes. Help us, your people in this place, to reach out to those around us with love and understanding.

Praise you Lord: Let the earth hear your voice

We say together the prayer that Jesus taught us:

Congregation:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name,
Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
As we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power and glory are yours,
Now and for ever,
Amen.

Leader: And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us and all of God’s people around the world now and for ever,

ALL: Amen

All that we’ve considered in this service is something to be lived out in today’s world. And so let’s continue our worship in the week ahead, committed to proclaim that word and live that life, for the glory of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.

Song 6 to play out: I will sing the wondrous Story [t.hyfrydol]