High Hopes...

Last Sunday we began our preaching series for the autumn: ‘High Hopes – Believing God for breakthrough in a world that’s breaking down.’ As leaders, we’ve been gripped lately by the Christian doctrine of ‘hope’ and I trust that this series will prove to be of great value & encouragement.

Frustratingly for me, it wasn’t till a few hours after I’d preached that the words of an old hymn came to mind that summed up what I had been trying to preach –

‘My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness...'

I then looked up the background to that hymn and read the following: ‘One morning it came into my mind as I went to labour, to write an hymn on the ‘Gracious Experience of a Christian.’ As I went up Holborn I had the chorus, ‘On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand.’ In the day I had four first verses complete, and wrote them off…..
So wrote Edward Mote in 1836. A baptist preacher, he is quoted as having said at one point in his life, ‘the day I stop preaching Christ, put me out of the pulpit’!

I am increasingly anxious to be more Jesus focused, to make Him known, to speak of Him and direct people to Him. WWJD? is a really valid question to ask. Many of you will remember Henry Tyler, my predecessor at Kings, he would regularly say to me ‘Goff, always make sure, whenever you preach, preach Jesus!’ And coming back to our new preaching series, it was Henry who wrote that great little book on Christian’s joy, ‘Jump for Joy!’ There is, of course, a connection.....
‘This accords with the glorious gospel of the blessed (happy) God that was entrusted to me.’ 1 Timothy 1:11

By the way, I hope you're enjoying our new publication, 'The Loop'. There;s more on 'Hope' in there!

Goff (Hope)