David Harrison: I thought I knew what I was going to say tonight. And having heard, Mike and Cara and Paulus, I'm now not too sure. The danger is that might mean that I talk for longer and not for shorter. But, actually, I I don't want to to to say what I was going to say. I had pictures ready, which I am going to show you, and we're gonna see how it goes.
So, the subject we're thinking of, which I think Abby had chosen both the topic and the verse, and Steve Holmes made the point last week he didn't like either. Actually, this week I quite like both. So there you go, go, Abby. That sort of you know? But the the subject was and we're gonna look at the the verses.
It's from Psalm 53 and 26, 73 even, my flesh and my heart may fail, but God's the strength of my heart and my portion forever. So where do I go with that? I had a number of conversations this past week with somebody who works with me who is really struggling not to keep comparing themselves to other people. And it's really holding them back. There's huge jealousy.
There's huge looking over the shoulder. There's huge feelings of I'm not getting the reward that person gets and yet I'm so much better. And yet at the end of it, you know that that person really doesn't have the confidence in themselves. They don't really have that belief in themselves. They really don't have the strength to be the person that I think they should be.
And it's obvious and I don't think it's just obvious to me. But this week, particularly, as things came to a head, it was several hours over several occasions of jealousy, insecurity, I want to be, I'm not sure I'm good enough and better, confusion. And yet I look at the person and think you've got huge gifts. You've got huge talents. You've got huge abilities.
Why on earth do you have to compare yourself with somebody else? And the person just doesn't have the strength to be the person I believe they should be. So nothing happens. So I guess and the pictures I obviously chose in advance, but I'm not reading what I prepared in advance. I guess one of the problems is if you look at cars today, and you can't see that close-up, but you got Mitsubishi, Audi, Volvo, Acura, BMW, Toyota.
You name it. But they look pretty similar, don't they? And people are getting paid 1,000, 100 of 1,000, 1,000,000 of dollars to design cars, and they're all the same, which begs the question of sometimes people look at us and say, you Christians, you're all the same. And that's usually not meant as a compliment. It's not meant that you're also doctrinally signed that you all say exactly the same things and you react in the same way.
It tends to be negative. You're all the same. And yet that colleague of mine at work this week didn't have the strength to be different. Didn't have the strength to believe in their own identity. And just thinking about the question of strength, and there were so many ways we could think about it.
But actually that strength that God gives to be the person he created us to be. This isn't working again. But, of course, what matters, particularly if you're Murrayfield yesterday afternoon, is that you're looking at Van demerfa, that traditional Scottish name, getting his hat trick of tries, but everyone or almost everyone is looking in the same direction. And in a sense, our strength of Christians isn't that we're all the same, looking at each other, being orthodox, being predictable. It's actually because we're all looking at the same thing.
And we're all looking at the cross. We're all looking at Jesus, but from different directions, from different perspectives, with different expectations, but we're all looking at the same thing. Which then begs the question, and I hesitate but it begs the question, if I've got a colleague who hasn't the strength to be the person I think they should be, who am I? If I'm not just another one of the crowd of Christians who does the right things and ticks the right boxes and reads the right books or doesn't read the wrong books and goes to the right places and spends more time than they ought going to meetings. If that's not what it is to be a Christian, who am I?
Am I the little squirt in the top left, or am I the the that one in the bicycle was interesting because shortly after that, I rode into a lamppost and broke my 2 front teeth. But which is the real me? And, actually, is the real me defined by meeting that young person, which is actually Jane? I'm sure you recognized her, but just in case there's any doubt, that's the older version there. I'm quite a holding her head was about to follow.
But who who am I? And, actually, it isn't as stupid a question in the way I think as it sounds because what am I in god's eyes when I'm top left at a year of age or just after that when I've survived falling through a glass door and nearly bleeding to death and getting a scar on my face or graduating or having grandchildren. Oh, which which one of those is me? Which is then the question is, who am I to god? Because surely that's what matters.
We're so often busy trying to define ourselves. Trying to think who am I. Trying to put ourselves in our context, in our world, but actually we forget God put us in the world. And God isn't the God of time. God is the God who's beyond time.
He created time. So those pictures, all of those are me, and yet in a sense, none of them are me. And yet, God created me to be somebody. And I guess the point of this evening is he gives me the strength to be that somebody. So you can say and when Nicole Yule, who many of you, of course, will will know is she stayed with us when she she worked for the church, and she used to say, what's your job?
And it was always a difficult one to answer because I have a few. And does that define me? Well, no. Of course. It doesn't.
It doesn't define me. But if you had to say to me, what is your job? I guess my job is I'm a storyteller. And if you know anything about me, you might think, well, that's not quite right. But, actually, I'm supposed to teach medical students.
And as we all know, that's just about telling stories. They're just students after all. I I do I do research. But actually, research is telling a story. You're trying to tell a story.
You're trying to convey something. I I I chair a government committee. What are we trying to do? Well, we're actually trying to give advice which is telling a story. So, actually, my job, I think, is telling a story.
Now does that define me? Perhaps not. But perhaps there's something more truthful in my identity as a storyteller in terms of what God has chosen me to be and in terms of what God uses me for. I'm a storyteller. My life is to tell a story.
My purpose is to tell a story. And god gives me strength to tell that story. But it wouldn't be true to say that I can do that story on my own. So for a research, for example, I'm useless. Just ask Inwa.
I'm completely useless. She wouldn't let me loose in the lab. I depend on Inma, I depend on Jesse. I depend on Prashma and others that you'll know. I depend on them because they're the ones who actually say, here are the pieces.
Here's the bits of the story. Put it together. I cannot be a storyteller without those other people. Actually, I depend on them. I absolutely need them and without them, I couldn't tell tell the stories.
And you think, where am I going with this? But you're not alone because I'm thinking that too. But we'll get there. So let me tell you some stories. Nice picture.
December 22nd, 2019. So my mother died in August 2019. My father was left 95 years of age coming up to the first Christmas without my mum in Belfast. And my brother had already booked to go to the US to see one of their kids. My sister, living just outside London, was looking after her mother-in-law who was dementing and the thought was what do we do with my dad?
Do we go over there? Is that going to be much fun for him? Or how about we suggest we'll come and get you and we'll come and drive down, get the ferry, bring you back, drive up to Saint Andrews, and stay at 95 year old. And he said, yeah. I'm up for it.
So December 22nd, we're sailing out of Belfast. You can see the wake of the ship looking back at Belfast. December 22nd was my mum and dad's wedding anniversary. So this was the first wedding anniversary without my mum and we're leaving Belfast. He enjoyed it.
He worked all his life in the shipyard and that young lady is Jane, by the way. So we come across 95 years of age, and you think, so what? Got to the house, settled in, fairly plucky, had a wheelchair and kiss. We needed it to push him around the place. It was a lovely Christmas, if you remember.
Cold, but absolutely bright and crisp and dry. Came a point and he said, David, I need your help. I need to have a shower. I thought okay. 95.
It's a bit hard getting in at the shower and I thought okay. I've not done that before for my father, but, okay, I'll do it. And as I did it and I thought, he's not embarrassed. I'm not sure I'm embarrassed, but I might be. And as he came out and said, I did that for my father too.
And that hit me because it was that sense of time passing, but it was also the fact that he had that complete dignity. That he was in no way diminished because he had to ask me. In other words, being dependent had not taken an iota of his self from him. He was able to do that and still say, but I am who I am. I'm still God's children.
I'm still God's child. And that really struck me because we so often have this notion that to be dependent is somehow to be weak. But just as I can't be a storyteller without people helping me, I thought it was interesting that he continued to be the person God wanted him to be. Albeit at the age of 95, he continued to be that person, not because of his physical strength. His flesh was failing.
His heart was feeling pretty good, but his flesh was failing. He was that person because God said you're special. And he was willing to be dependent. That was actually, to me, a token that he could have easily just not bothered. He could have easily not asked.
But he asked because he had the strength to be dependent and that really impressed me. The second story is, Jane's brother, Peter, who many of you have prayed for, who died on New Year's Day. And Peter had Down syndrome and, as you can see, is a character. And it was interesting in his funeral because it was packed. It was really packed.
And the number of people who weren't Christians who commented on his faith. That was amazing. Well, it wasn't because we knew it. But he was, you know, a figure in Perth. Everyone in Perth knew him.
His faith. Why? Because he talked about it. Because he obviously was happy and because he shared. Because he would actually stop people in the in the street and talk to them.
And people were amazed. But it's interesting, you know, because he couldn't join our church because he couldn't read the constitution because he's got Down syndrome. And you think, what nonsense that we have these stupid rules. And God said, no. You're special.
And God gives him gave him the strength to be the person God wanted him to be and used him. So one of his carers, who's a lovely girl, has had her own share of difficulties, had major problems, had several really unhelpful episodes of Christians being critical as Christians are singly good at doing. And really just thinking what a crowd of wasters. The thing that kept our interest was Peter because his life of strength, despite having Down syndrome, despite requiring care. His strength was actually the strength of God shining through him.
It was a challenge. We've often prayed for Genesis Sequoia in upper in Northern Uganda at Gulu, but he's part of something called Justice Livelihood Health. It's not just the agriculture work that Genesis does. Valerie Kasabe looks after health protection. There's a whole team doing things like legal justice, doing things like a clinic, with speech therapy on audiology, particularly focused on children with Down syndrome.
Why? Because children with Down syndrome actually do happen all over the world and have happened throughout history, throughout all over the world. But in many societies, they're put away. Why? Well, because they're an economic burden.
They're an economic cost. They're an embarrassment. They're seen as weak. They're seen as non contributory. And yet here in Gulu, there's a clinic to support not just the children with dimes but their parents.
That takes strength for people to do that because it's challenging culture. It's not doing what Christians are very good at which is criticize. You think, test test test. It's doing something about it because it's the right thing to do in the name of Jesus. That's God's strength.
And then more recently, those of you who get the European Baptist Fellowship newsletter, Badam Mansour, who used to be, used to have his own software company in Nazareth. He's a a member. He's an elder, in fact, the Baptist church in Nazareth, but he's also development officer, as you see, talking about the situation in Gaza. And we can become so polarized and so incredibly naive about, oh, it's right, it's wrong, like it's that simple, saying we face considerable challenges, devastation, and overwhelming sense of despair and hopeless, yet in the midst of these trials we get strength through our faith in our Lord who holds the universe by the word of his power and through the encouragement of friends as the heart of saints have been refreshed by you. Arabs are having quite a difficult time partly because they're Arab, partly because of naivety of so called evangelical Christians thinking that somehow they're to blame.
But after the the terrible events of October when Hamas murdered and and kidnapped so many, the Baptist Church in Nazareth said, we will take refugees into our homes. We will look after them. It's not easy. We see what's happening. We see the brutality of what the IDF is doing.
But they said, no. No. That's not. We are here in the strength of the Lord to show his love to those around us. A real challenge.
So our passage from Psalm 73 starts, yes, yet I'm with you always. You hold me by my right hand. And I thought that's interesting. If you hold somebody by their right hand, you're holding them with your left hand. You've still got your hand free for your torch or your sword or whatever it is.
There's that sense of being, of leading, of protecting. And God says, I have you by your right hand. I've got you covered. I'm with you. You guide me with your counsel and afterwards take me into your glory and I'll come back to that in a minute if I've got time which I might have.
You guide me with your counsel. That notion that we've already heard from Cara and from others, actually, it's God's word that is the bedrock. It's God's word that is the anchor. It's God's word that is the assurance. It's God's word that is the promise.
It's God's word that gives us the strength. That is his counsel to us. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth, there's nothing I desire besides you. To that colleague at work, I would just love that colleague to have the confidence to have god show himself.
To say, actually, I am who god has made me. I am who god has given me strength to be. I don't need anything else. I don't need what I see in other people. I only need to be what God has chosen me to be.
I desire nothing else besides you. And then our verse, my flesh and my heart may fail and Mike spoke to this but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. So it's not like it's a baby or an adolescent or an adult or you can't say which is more useful, which is more important to God. We are who God created us to be. Our portion is the portion he gives to us whatever stage of life we are at.
So often I think in the new testament we we hear about flesh and reading in Galatians this week as it's bad, you know, flesh. Flesh is all things bad as opposed to spirit which is all things good. But, actually, I think in the Psalm here, this is about flesh as in me getting old. This is about things going wrong. And the point is, it isn't saying God will make me better.
As Micah said, it isn't a question of, well, somehow it'll all be magic to a. The strength is to keep going and to still be the person god chooses us to be. Right. So a little step back. As a teenager, I'm interested in science, and I'm interested in creation.
Got a creation expert with us tonight, soon to be a creation expert. This isn't Jonathan Edwards' version of creation. Okay? But creation. And you think, well, there's science and there's the bible.
Oh, there's a problem because one's against the other. And if you're young and you're weak and you're inexperienced, that becomes an issue. And you think, well, how do I reconcile that? And then you realize, actually, there's 2 creation accounts in scripture, which is handy, and they're not the same. So that kinda means that the science bible discussion is a nonsense because actually they're not even comparable.
You can't compare them. But what is the point of creation? The point of creation is god is the creator. Not that how it happened. It's the point god is the creator and that means he's the boss.
That means everything that he wants is. That means he sets me my portion. He is the creator. And there's sin and there's rebellion, and so there's a fall. And the bit I loved because actually, to be honest, I was a little uncomfortable as a teenager that I was gonna spend eternity as a Christian floating around in a disembodied form on a cloud.
And, actually, the idea of heaven forever didn't sound great. And then I realized that the whole point of Jesus was a pivotal point in history, which would point to a new body and a new heaven and a new earth. And I thought, that's brilliant. Because actually, the creation was God walking in the garden. That tremendous picture of heaven and earth together.
And then there's sin and rebellion. And God says, no. I have a plan. And Jesus dies and he's raised. And because of that plan there is recreation and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.
That commune of people with their creator God. That I find just amazing. That's a great reason to be a Christian. So there's that positive sense, but also that sense of we're not there yet. We need God's strength to persevere.
We need his portion and his promise to be with us. But actually our flesh and our heart does fail. And that just doesn't mean how we feel. Literally, our flesh and our heart, they fail. God is our strength.
We look around Saint Andrews. You can see a number of care homes. There's Balan McCarran. There's Gibson House. There's Saint Andrews.
We know. Why? Because there are folks who need support, and sometimes those folks may even have dementia. And it goes back to this point I said about my father. Independence by our own strength isn't really strength at all.
And depending on God's strength isn't weakness. It's wisdom. And I think that in a sense is the real take home message of that psalm. God says I'm your strength even when your body and your mind fail. Actually, I'm still your god and you still have strength because you're still the person I chose you to be and I can still use you.
Laterly with Peter, he was basically not able to communicate and yet somehow touched people's lives. Amazing. People would come in and would want to sit with him. He couldn't speak, couldn't react. They wanted to sit with him because there was something of God through him still reaching out to those around.
Our strength is actually when we've got the courage to depend on God and trust him. That's our strength and that affects us at every stage of our lives. And how do we do that? Well, actually, everyone that stood up said this. We have to remember.
We have to remember. God has done that. And it's amazing when when, I mean, Abi and others who are going into Balnacarron and folks who really have forgotten everything else, they don't know where they are. And yet you say the Lord's prayer or you sing an old song. They know it.
Why? Because it's right there deep down. And the bible time after time tells us us to remember as the people came out of Egypt, God says to them right at the bottom there in verse 4, you yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. That's a white tailed eagle on 10th mirror beach. I'm very pleased with that.
On the strength of the eagle's wing, God says, I've carried you. Look back and remember. I've carried you, and I'm still carrying you. I've got you by the right hand. I'm leading you.
It's not that I'm giving you strength and then pushing you off on your own. I'm with you. I'm giving you strength to walk side by side. I think that's a tremendous encouragement, and we need to remind ourselves and remind each other. And now I'm gonna stop.
In Psalm 46, the same thought, God is our refuge and strength. A very present help in times of trouble. Not when I was young. Not 20 years ago. Not 5 years ago.
A very present help. God is our strength. Let's pray. Father, we want to just thank you that you have promised your presence with us. That you take us by our right hand.
That you created us in your image, that you've given us your image, not when we're young or middle aged or old. You've given us your image. We are created in your image. We are created to walk with your strength. And, lord, as we look forward to that recreation of a new heaven and a new earth and a new body, we want to give you thanks that you've promised to be with us.
Yes. Even through the valley of the shadow, but you've promised that you will be our very present help. And father, we just want to say thank you. We want to take time to think of how much you've done for us. And lord, we need to learn how to be dependent on you.
We need to learn how we can show your love and being made in your image as we show our willingness to be dependent on others and to give others who need to be dependent on us the full dignity that that deserves. Lord, just make us different people, better people, strong people who have the confidence to be the people you want us to be. For we ask it in Jesus' name.