21st May 2017 - "Just Maybe" - John Kirkly

John Kirkby, founder of Christians Against Poverty

21st May 2017

You Never Know …

[We started with a Kerith #mystory video of Alan and Ruth, describing how CAP and Christians had helped them.  It’s a good backdrop to what John has to say, so you might like to watch it on youtube at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dZdiVF1dSto]

You have no idea what happens when you do simple things – God may use you to do something that may profoundly affect a life, even a generation – and change your life too. God can, does and is using everything that happens to his glory.

John Kirkby has been a Christian for 25 years, and its 21 years since he founded CAP. 

He’s very aware that life falls into repetitive rhythms – another opportunity to give, to pray, to serve, each very like the last.  That’s true of CAP – he’s done over 1000 ‘asks’ for CAP and there’s loads more to come. It’s just as true of family life – John has had children under 10 for the last 30 years so he feels that one quite keenly too!

Even things that start off exciting, like foreign travel, can feel boring and repetitive with time.  What was once a pleasure becomes a chore, but also a stretch and a challenge to us to keep going.  If we’re to do that, we need to need to come back to God for strength, inspiration, freshness, and the motivation to keep going – or in some cases to start going(!).

John doesn’t want to get to heaven only to look back and feel there was more he could have done.

We need to be pushed in serving God.  (Again, John speaks from experience - as well as CAP, John also founded a church 9 years ago.  He now styles himself the ‘reluctant elder’). 

For some, life has quenched the fire that used to burn.  We need continually to be reminded by God to “keep the main thing the main thing”, and keep the important things to the fore. Three simple phrases can keep us going:

“You never know …”

“Just maybe …”

·         Just maybe today someone’s going to take this message to heart.

·         Just maybe today a life will be saved

“The next …”

·         Time to talk

·         Time to serve

·         Time life group meets

·          

May be significantly used by God.

There was an evening when John was keen to get home from church, but on the way home he was intercepted by someone he knew.  Reluctantly he paused to speak.  The man had a need, and a story to tell, and they prayed together.  3 weeks later someone else passed on a message from that man, explaining that things had worked out for him as they had prayed, and he was coming to church.

This week …

·         You could invite someone to church.  Yes they might say no, but “just maybe …” this is the right time and they’re keen to come.

25 years ago, one man spoke to someone who looked all together on the outside, but was falling apart inside.  It was only an invite to a BBQ, and then an invite to church – but it ended up with John being saved and later baptised.  Derek, the person who baptised him, was also an encourager and a faithful giver and helper in the early days of CAP.  Only small things, but they meant a lot.

So many people did small things for CAP - encouraging, praying, supporting.  Some people didn’t do apparently small things.  That’s OK – Jesus never left John on his own – but it’s also their loss; they were not part of something that today has helped 600000 people, and saves 1000 people each year worldwide.

Ecclesiastes 11:1-6 in the Message version (with John’s commentary interspersed):

Be generous: Invest in acts of charity.

Charity yields high returns.

                Don’t hoard your goods; spread them around.

Be a blessing to others. This could be your last night.

JK – don’t be too melodramatic, but take that immediacy on board as an attitude of heart – don’t put good deeds off.

When the clouds are full of water, it rains.

When the wind blows down a tree, it lies where it falls.

Don’t sit there watching the wind. Do your own work.

Don’t stare at the clouds. Get on with your life.

JK - I’m going to put all sorts of droplets in the air, so they can be part of the rain. Don’t just sit there watching the winds … get on with your life and do something!

Just as you’ll never understand

    the mystery of life forming in a pregnant woman,

So you’ll never understand

    the mystery at work in all that God does.

Go to work in the morning

    and stick to it until evening without watching the clock.

You never know from moment to moment

    how your work will turn out in the end.

JK - I’m going to keep on serving him - he is my Master, I will do what he wants. I help at a food bank at times, talking to those who com it.  It’s not about second-guessing what God might be doing (“is this the significant one?”), just treating people as people; talking, listening, and praying with people in need.

3 years ago, John was on holiday, chilling, and glad to be ‘off duty’.  A lady recognised him.  They didn’t speak then, but at church that evening the same lady was there.  JK wanted privacy, but “just maybe”, and so they chatted over coffee.  Today that lady is a market trader for CAP; 60 people have been helped through her, and 17 saved.

Hear the call, and remember.  “You never know”, “just maybe”, and if you want encouragement as to where those small things may lead, you need only look around at the lives that have been changed in and by this church.

Questions:

How can you keep that sense of urgency, that freshness, that readiness to believe that “You never know …” when something you do will be used by God?

How can you encourage or challenge others to step out thinking “just maybe”, and be encouraged or challenged in turn?

What can you do at “the next” opportunity to enlarge God’s kingdom?

·         Invite people round?

·         Speak to a work colleague?

·         Offer to pray?

·         Serve on a team?