Words for Worship

Ministry Today

 

Texts:

Psalms 107.23-30

Mark 4.35-41

 

They say that Hollywood

is running out

of good film scripts.

 

And I can believe

that when I survey

the number of remakes

of old movies

that are around.

 

Well, if you want

to make your fortune

in tinsel town

as a script-writer,

I have the perfect storyline

for you.

 

It has all the necessary ingredients

most notably

adversity and success,

cruelty and compassion

and a bad character

coming good.

 

Moreover, it is also

about a writer –

this time a hymn writer.

 

For our script

would be about

a one time sea captain

of a slave ship

turned preacher

called John Newton.

 

And what would

our film’s title be? –

What else but amazing grace.

 

Now it has been said

that there two phases

of seasickness.

 

During the first

you are frighten

your going to die

and in the second

you are frightened you aren’t.

 

Well John Newton

must have known

a thing or two

about sea sickness.

 

Because as a result

of the early death

of his mother,

young John

was sent off to sea

at the age of 12.

 

By all accounts

it was not to his liking

but it was a living.  

 

So after deserting

from the Navy

he ended up destitute

in Sierra Leone

before working onboard

a slave ship.

 

There is no doubt then

we can start our movie

by showing John Newton

at his lowest point.

 

Since he had fallen

very far indeed

in the morality stakes.

 

But next we see him

in 1748,

aged 23,

returning to England

from Africa

upon particularly stormy seas.

 

Worn out with the constant battering,

almost frozen

and in mortal fear

that his vessel would founder,

he began reading

Thomas a Kempis's religious classic,

Imitation of Christ.

 

And it was this book’s

solid Christian instruction

that helped turn

a fear-filled crisis

into a life changing moment.

 

Because Newton realised that

God was deeply concerned

even for someone

involved in such a depraved trade.

 

As a result,

he was amazed

that he was being saved

from almost certain physical death.

 

Yet, he also could have been amazed

by his salvation from spiritual death.  

 

No wonder he was later to write:

 

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound!

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost and now I am found

Was blind and now I see!  

 

However that word grace

is always amazing.

 

For it means

the giving of something

with no return expected.

 

Not only that

but without any merit

in the recipient.

 

That was the disciples’ experience

that stormy night

in the boat.

 

For they had no more merit

to survive the storm

than any other human being.

 

But they found out

that God’s mercy

comes not just

when we least expect it

but also when we least deserve it.

 

Indeed, it is usually

when we are in

some dark fury

that grace surprises us,

grace amazes us

and grace pacifies us.

 

In other words,

Christ stills our inner storm

and commands us

his calm.

 

Well, we can now imagine

our film fading

from a tumultuous seascape

into a dockside scene

at Liverpool.

 

In it, we see a young man

at the crossroads

of his life.

 

For Newton

had become convinced

that the slave trade

was cruel and immoral.

 

He was sure too

that his survival

through God’s grace

was an opportunity.  

 

And so he wanted

to change himself

and become a minister.

 

As a result,

he got involved

with the Methodist movement

founded by George Whitefield

and John Wesley.  

 

This movement

stressed personal conversion,

simple worship,

emotional enthusiasm,

and social justice.

 

The very sort of  belief

that focuses on

Jesus as our personal saviour.

 

The very sort of up front faith

that has inspired

so many hymn writers

we still admire today.

 

The sort of direct message

of Christ’s immediately availability

and unearned grace

that Newton crystallised

in his hymns next verse:

 

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear

And grace my fears relieved:

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed.

 

So now our celluloid epic

would depict

our reformed seafarer

working relentlessly

for his flocks

in some of the most deprived parishes

of the nation.

 

It would show his struggle

to bring Christ

into the lives

of those being brutalised

by their fears,

surrounds and experiences.

 

People literally

all at sea

in the mire of human troubles.

 

And it was in coming

to their aid

that Newton’s skills

as a hymn writer a

nd collector

came to the fore.

 

For, while pasturing

to a poor flock in Olney,

he produced a hymnal

containing such perennial favourites

as "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken”.

 

Hymns that are still around

because they communicate

God’s grace

and they offer Christ’s calm

in whatever storm besets us.

 

Indeed, they are a reminder

of the life changing truth

enshrined in Amazing Grace’s

next verse:

 

Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have come:

Tis grace has brought me safe thus far

And grace will lead me home.

 

We tend to think

of the transfer of catchphrases

from across the Atlantic

as a phenomenon

of the era of films and TV.

 

But actually that is not true.

 

For a character

in the 19th Century American novel

‘uncle tom’s Cabin’

told Tom

to “keep a stiff upper lip”;

a phrase which is now

regarded as the very epitome

of British sang froid.

 

Yet it really originated

in New England in 1815.

 

But this work

also depicts

all the horrors of slavery –

one of the greatest crimes

in relatively recent history.

 

And in it,

a verse of the hymn

“Jerusalem, My Happy Home”

is tacked into the song,

“Amazing Grace”:

 

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun;

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we first begun!

 

And so we come

to the dramatic end

of our Amazing Grace movie.

 

For John Newton

in his latter years

took a leading part

in that moral crusade

to abolition the slavery.

 

In fact, the account

he gave to Parliament

on the atrocities

he had witnessed

helped William Wilberforce

obtain legislation

to abolish the slave trade

in England and its colonies.

 

A reminder perhaps

that the singing

of hymns  of Grace

means we too

must not just relish

the receipt of grace

but must offer it as well.

 

For sure,

it will be much less

than that

which we have ourselves received.

 

But that alone

is the only way

we can show our gratitude

for being held up

when the water closed round us

and to he who guarantees

that we reach the safe shore

of new life.

 

As then the credits roll

Of the life of Newton

What is our conclusion.

 

Well at least

He was a shining example

of what God’s grace

can do for us.

 

The grace that reaches

to those in endangered vessels;

the grace that saves disciples

in peril

and that is ever our gift

even in the most difficult times.

 

But Newton is also

the bright beacon

of how that grace

should change us.

 

Above all,

he is the solid example

of how we should repay

Christ’s gifts

in our own life and ministry.     

 

A life and ministry

that with God’s grace

can conclude

one day

with the same last words

of Newton’s famous hymn

Amazing Grace:

 

The Lord has promised good to me

His words my hope secures

He will my shield and portion be

As long as life endures.

 

Amen

 

Offering

 

HYMN………………………

 

 

 

John Newton