Update From Your Pastors

Dear Welling Church family,

For many of us, the past few months have been quite taxing and difficult. As a country, we have been navigating the uncertain waters of coronavirus, lockdown, discussions on race, politics, protests, and riots. It can all be a bit polarising. During these times, we want to encourage you stay steadfast and faithful to the Gospel. We have the potential to make a difference in our community. The Gospel is powerful enough to radically transform hearts and minds. It can bring reconciliation between enemies and build relationships between opposing viewpoints.

As we make preparations to come together in person for worship in the next few months, we desire to make sure our church is safe, secure, and on mission. We are delaying the opening of our church building so that we can continue to invest the time and money in a high quality online streaming experience for all those who might not be ready to come back to meet in person. This will help us continue to reach more people digitally while protecting those that maybe still at risk from coronavirus.

We are continuing to follow the guidance from the government and from the FIEC (the fellowship of churches we are a part of). As we get more details, we will make a final decision on when to open. For more information, please click here.

We miss you all and are praying for each of you. If there is anything we can do for you, please let us know!

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Prayer Points

Marco has had his surgery to fix his hand and thumb. Praying that he will regain full feeling and use of it.
DD’s mother has passed away this past week and he and his family need prayer.
Alice has been having some complications that are common with having a baby and it is bringing about a lot of discomfort.

Ministry Opportunity

From 4 July you can meet in groups of up to two households in any location - public or private, indoors or outdoors. We would love to encourage any who feel safe to do so, to meet up with another family from church to watch the live Sunday service together. This is a great way for our church take a step towards meeting together for Sunday worship.

Weekly Devotional

Authentic Faith Part 3: Dealing With Doubt

When it comes to our relationship with God, all of us desire for it to be genuine and authentic. We never want to go through life having to wonder if our faith is real or not. Thankfully, God doesn’t want us to go through life wondering about this as well. When Jesus came to earth He made it possible for us to have a relationship with God a relationship that we can have confidence in.

When Our Confidence Fails

While we can be confident in our faith there are things that can happen in life that can derail our faith and cause us to doubt if it is real. Sometime when we encounter poor choices, an unexplainable tragedy, or depression the result can bring with it doubts about our faith. When doubts begin to happen in our life we need to know what to do. Thankfully, Jesus gives us the perfect answer about what to do when we begin to doubt: remember what He has done. We learn this from Luke 7:18-28 when Jesus tells us about John the Baptist, but before we get there first let's go back and look at who John the Baptist was.

Before John Was Born

John was born to Zechariah and Elizabeth a godly couple and servants of God. Luke 1:6 describes them as both being righteous before God, advanced in year, and unable to have children. Zechariah was a priest and during the time when his division was to serve at the Temple he received the honour to burn incense just in front of the veil that divided the holy place from the most holy place.

Luke 1:11–17

11 And there appeared to him [Zechariah] an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

John Was Miraculously Born

This encounter with the angel would have been an amazing experience, one that would only be topped by Zechariah having a miracle son. John was created, born, and lived with one purpose: to prepare the way for Jesus. John would be the last prophet of the Old Testament. He would bring to an end the era of the Law and get the privilege of announcing the Messiah. When John had grown up he began the ministry he was born to do and became the preacher in the wilderness that proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

John’s Message

John’s ministry was so successful that a whole nation was going out into the wilderness to hear him preach and be baptised by him. He was getting so popular and his sermons were so powerful that even the jewish spiritual leaders came to him to find out who he was. John was quick to say that he was not the Christ and just a man who was doing as Isiah said, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” The very next day after John was asked if he was the Christ, John was given the chance to point everyone to the real Christ. He got to tell the world about the Saviour who had come to take away sin.

John 1:29–34

29 The next day he [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptising with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptise with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptises with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”

John’s Declaration

John was the first person to publicly announce that Jesus was the Son of God and Saviour of the world. The amazing thing is he did not say this of his own accord, he knew that Jesus was the Messiah because God told him. When John baptised Jesus he not only saw the Holy Spirit come from heaven to rest upon Jesus but he also heard the audible voice of God. John believed in Jesus so much that in John 3 when people are no longer following John because they are now following Jesus, his response was: "He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). John goes on to say in John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. It is clear that John new exactly who Jesus was and that believing in Him was the only was to eternal life.

John In Prison

The story of John after this is not all happy times. Because of John preaching the truth about Jesus, God, and sin he ends up in prison where he will live for the rest of his life. It is here in a prison that John has an encounter with doubt.

Luke 7:18–20

18 The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John, 19 calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 20 And when the men had come to him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’”

John’s Doubt

John’s disciples were keeping him up to date on all that Jesus was doing even while John was sitting in prison. John is struggling with his faith and we can see here in verse 19 that he is doubting if Jesus is the Messiah. What!?! John who was born to tell the world that Jesus is the Messiah is doubting Jesus? John who heard from God that Jesus was his son is doubting? This is some concerning information. If John the Baptist is doubting these things what confidence can we have? The answer to this question from Jesus has never been more important.

Luke 7:21–23

21 In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight. 22 And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. 23 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus’s Response

Jesus’ first response to this question was to not answer it all, instead He kept on doing the miracles that He was doing before the disciples arrived. Then after doing all these miracles he turned to the disciples of John and gave the answer to help John in his doubt. Jesus said to go and tell John about all the miracles and teachings that Jesus performs. The cure for John’s doubt was to be reminded that only the Messiah could perform these miracles and have the knowledge to preach these messages. John needed help to change his current perspective, he needed to stop focusing on the current circumstance and put his focus back on the facts of who Jesus was.

Luke 7:24–28

24 When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 25 What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings’ courts. 26 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 27 This is he of whom it is written, “ ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’ 28 I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

John The Greatest

Once John’s disciples had left, Jesus turned to the crowd and began to talk about John the Baptist. Jesus tells us a very important and very timely truth about John, that he is the greatest man to of been born. Why tell the crowd this, and why tell us here in the Gospel? I think that Jesus was making a very important point for us today: that if John the Baptist (the greatest man to ever live) had doubts about his faith, then we can be confident that we too will have doubts. While the causes may be different for each of us as to why we are having doubts, the solution is the same: we must remember what Jesus has done so that we can be confident about who He is.

Our Response

We talked about in part 1 of this series, that faith is confidence that God is who he says he is and that he will do all he has promised to do. Our faith is based on the Bible and when we have doubts our first response is to go back to the Word of God and remind ourself what Jesus has done. Thankfully we have four Gospels that give detailed eye witness accounts of the miracles that Jesus did which prove who He is. We also have a great example of John and Jesus’ response to John’s doubt, which was to just simply remind him of all the He has done. When we doubt our faith we must remember what Jesus did.

Pastors' Update