We all spend our lives trying to work out which way to go, and as a man it’s even harder, because we men hate to ask for directions. We would rather spend two hours driving in circles than stop the car and ask someone how to get somewhere. My dad used to say “we are not lost – I just don’t know where we are!”
What does this have to do with anything? Well I want to tell you something, and that’s that some of us in this room are lost, and some of us don’t even know where we want to go, let alone how to get there. But I have good news for you, and that’s that not only can I tell you where you should want to go I can even tell you how to get there.
But before I tell you anything I thought Id tell you a bad joke.
A vicar was arriving at a small village church once and he had an important letter to post, he saw this young lad and asked where the nearest post office was. The boy told him the directions and so the vicar thanked him and said, "If you come to the Church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to Heaven." "I don't think I'll be there," the boy said. "You don't even know your way to the post office."
So lets start at the beginning… where are we going? Or put in the way that is used a lot more – what is the meaning of life?
This question is a question asked by everyone at some point in their lives, and many people say there is no answer to this. Well I have to tell you that those people are wrong, and you don’t even have to look very far to find the answer.
God created us in his image, and he created us to look after the world he created and to be best friends with God. When the earth was created everything was perfect, he was an artist who had put every little detail in place so that the earth was the exact way he wanted, every tree, every stream, every animal. He could have kept all of this too himself, his own private universe, but he wanted to share it, he created men and women, and he created them in his image and then he said “Fill the earth and Govern it!”
From the moment man and women were created God gave life meaning. That meaning can be summed up by one simple word. Love.
We were given the task to love the earth he created and to look after every part of it.
We were given the task to love each other and to look after each other.
And we were given these tasks because God loved us and wanted to share with us the perfect world he created.
So what happened, why is the world not still the perfect place he created?
Why is there more hate in the world than love?
Why is it that there is so much hurt in the world, with people beating people up and in some cases killing people for fun?
The answer to these questions, and the many others I could ask is amazingly simple, we forgot, ignored, and lost contact with the very thing that gave our lives meaning.
We all know the story of what happened. God gave one small rule, and even told what would happen if that rule was broken “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
No tricks here, No room for misunderstandings – a nice clear “if you do this you will die!” if only the story ended here, but it doesn’t does it!
Before I move on let me remind you what we had.
We had a relationship with God where we could walk and talk to him about anything
We had Gods trust and had been given the responsibility of looking after his perfect creation
We had a life with meaning – with love at its centre.
So the devil got involved and whispered
“That piece of fruit you’ve been told not to eat looks really tasty doesn’t it!”
“That piece of fruit looks so much nicer than the others!”
“Gods messing with you, hes keeping the best to himself!”
“Go on eat the fruit – you know you want to!”
“If you eat the fruit you won’t die!”
“If you eat the fruit you will be like God and know good and evil!”
Let’s face it, when something is whispered it’s so much louder and much more convincing and tempting, and yes the fruit was eaten. God was disobeyed and the result was death.
We lost the relationship with our, still perfect creator
We lost Gods trust
His creation was no longer perfect and so looking after it would be much harder
(smash glass)
Life’s meaning was shattered and we were doomed.
This time we have to be glad the story doesn’t end here.
Even though we disobeyed God and lost the very reason he had created us, which meant we were living life with no meaning, he still loved us and wanted the close relationship back.
He gave us some simple and clear laws to show us how far we were from him and to show us what we had to do and promised that if they were followed some of that meaning, that loving relationship, would be back, but we all know what happens when us stupid humans are told not to do something, we do the opposite and keep messing up.
Why did we keep messing up? Because we were searching for the meaning of life and ignoring God when he tried to point out what the real meaning was.
This left God with one option, that of punishment.
Before I continue lets have a quick recap, in-case I’ve lost you.
The meaning of Life is Love
Love of each other
Love of the world
Love of God
We messed up and life lost meaning
God wanted to give our lives meaning again but we ignored him.
Nice and simple, and it does help us to understand the world that we live in.
Over 70% of children and young people say they don’t fill loved.
People search for love wherever they can get it, with many doing whatever they can to make sure they don’t lose it when they think they have it.
The top reason for people drinking alcohol, smoking, taking drugs, having sex for the first time is often “I was scared they wouldn’t like me or love me if I didn’t!”
We were created to love and be loved, but because we have forgotten this and have lost this we have a hole in our lives. Most people know it is there, we try to fill it with so many things.
We try drugs and alcohol in order to forget that something’s missing, or to give our lives meaning, but these things destroy our lives even more and the hole get bigger and we need more to fill it, and the hole gets bigger so we take more, and then eventually all we have is the drugs and alcohol – every part of our lives becomes about getting a hit or a drink. We wake up, take a drink or a smoke, get dressed, take a drink or a smoke, eat lunch, take a drink or a smoke etc. It is no longer about filling a hole and making life easier it is about not being able to live without it and is infact the reason we live.
Its not just drugs or alcohol, it could be sex, work, money, football. I’m sure there are hundreds of things that people use in order to add meaning to their lives, but I want to tell you it simply and bluntly – we don’t need these things because they will never satisfy us!
The only thing that will satisfy us and make our lives the way they are meant to be is love – love of God, each other and the world!
You may be feeling lonely at school, work or at home – with God you always have someone and he will never leave you.
Your family may sometimes hurt you and you may not feel loved by them – with God you are always part of his family, and he will always love you.
Your friends may only seem to like you when you do things you don’t thing you should do – God will always be there for you and will never ask you to do anything that will harm you!
You may be jumping from one addiction to another trying to block out how you feel by using drugs, alcohol, sex, work, whatever – God is the only thing which will truly make things better.
The meaning of life is love
And the place we should want to go is back to God.
Earlier I said I was going to give you directions to how to get there, but before I do here’s another bad joke.
Two nuns were travelling through Europe in their car. They got to Transylvania and were stopped at a traffic light. Suddenly Dracula jumps onto the hood of their car and scratches the windshield!
"Quick, quick!" shouts the first nun, "What shall I do?"
"Turn on the wipers, that will get rid of this abomination," shouts the second.
The nun switches them on, knocking Dracula about, but he clings on and hisses at them loudly!
"What shall I do now?" shouts the first nun.
"Switch on the windshield washer, I filled it with Holy Water when we stopped in the Vatican!" says the second.
Dracula steams as the water burns his skin, but somehow manages to hang on. He hisses at the nuns even louder now!
"Now what?" screams the first nun.
"Show him your cross!" replies the second.
So the first nun rolls down the window and shouts: "GET OFF MY HOOD YOU STUPID IDIOT!!!!"
God knew we deserve to be punished for the way we were living. He had given us simple and effective rules to guide us back to him, we ignored them, we had turned his perfect creation into a world falling apart at its seams. But God still loved us.
The bible says it simply like this “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life”
God loves us so much, and wants us to live our God given lives so much that he gave up his own son’s life so that we can live!
Its hard for us to understand why God does this, because we live in a world where love is something we can easily throw away, parents choose to leave their children, husbands choose to leave their wives, love doesn’t matter other than when something is wanted.
With God, and the love that gives our lives meaning, it’s different. This is a love which will always be there.
God looked at the world he created, the people he made and loves it, even though he doesn’t like what we do. Because of this love he wants us to experience life the way he meant it.
We needed to be punished but he wanted to give us one last chance, because he loves us so much. His solution – to send Jesus to be punished for each one of us! He was sent and died for you!
Even if you were the only person that existed he still would have sent Jesus – because he loves you!
He wants to have a relationship with you!
He wants to give your life meaning!
He wants to replace the addiction you have with love!
He wants to hold you when you cry!
He wants to share your problems!
He wants carry you when you get tired!
He didn’t do this in order to create a religion, to get you to come to church on Sunday. He did this because he wants to give your life a meaning and he wants a relationship with you the way it was originally – where we walk and talk to him, and where we look after the world he created.
Gods done his part – he’s taken the punishment so we don’t have to BUT there’s one thing we need to do, we need to accept the sacrifice and offer him back our life in return.
If you go to hug someone and they just stand there it is not a hug.
If you go to kiss someone and they turn away the kiss doesn’t happen.
If you don’t accept the sacrifice made for you, say sorry for the things you have done wrong, ask for help to stop doing things wrong, and then (with Gods help) try to change the way you live then it’s a wasted sacrifice.
Today you have an amazing opportunity to change your life and to give your life a meaning.
You have an opportunity to fill the hole you have in your life with the very love that you were created for. Don’t pass up the opportunity, start living today.
The meaning of life is the opposite to death.
God wants a relationship with you today, accept it.
Let’s Pray
Lord thank you that you love us no matter what we do
Fill our lives with that love today so that our lives have meaning again
Speak to each of us and reveal you love to us personally.
Remove any addictions we have in our lives so that we can see you clearer
Take control of our lives whether the first, second or hundredth time
Friday 19 September 2008
Sunday 14 October 2007
Rich man and Lazarus
Do you know what your name means?
My name means “Gift of God”
My brother, Andrew, simply means “Manly”
My Sister, Naomi, means “Beautiful and Gentle”
When my friend told me his wife was pregnant the first thing that everyone asked him was “have you decided on a name yet?” Names are important and today’s reading from Luke is no different. We get a lot of information just from the title “The Rich man and Lazarus”.
Why is it that the rich man isn’t named but the poor man is?
I feel that the reason for this is to set out from the start what type of man the story is talking about. He is a man who defines himself by his belongings, he is nothing without his money and his belongings, whereas Lazarus has a name, and his name gives away a little about the meaning of the story as well as Lazarus means “God has helped”.
I’m sure this was no accident as Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and why. You may be interested to know that Jesus was using a story which most people around him would have known already, probably in the same was as we know stories such as the princess and the pea, people of the time would have known a story about a rich man and Lazarus. Jesus, however, did make some alterations to the story – and they were pretty major changes.
In the usual version of the story the rich man and poor man are described in life and then in the afterlife we find that the rich man is still being blessed by God while the poor man is being punished by God. The story was used to show how the wealthy and successful people are wealthy and successful because of God’s blessings and the poor and the outcast have that fate because God is punishing them in the here and now.
This story, in its usual form, taught the very opposite of Jesus’ teachings that the last will be first and the first will be last.
Let’s remember the setting. Jesus is speaking with the Scribes and Pharisees who are openly making fun of Jesus teaching while he is teaching. Jesus has been teaching about the right use of money, saying that we should reach out and help others in need as a part of being thankful to God for all God has done for us. The Scribes and Pharisees find this teaching laughable as they understand that those who are well off should not help the poor and the needy as the poor and needy are in that condition because of God’s judgment. We wouldn’t want to interfere with God’s judgments would we? No, so leave the poor to fend for themselves. They laugh at Jesus and who tells the story of an unnamed Rich Man and a beggar named Lazarus.
It is worth noting that there is one point on which both the Pharisees and Jesus agree. They are both teaching that how one acts in the here and now is a good indicator of how things will be for that person in the hereafter. The Pharisees look to the external conditions of a person as a sign of God’s blessing. Jesus looks beyond outward appearance to see the heart. While we learn nothing of Lazarus’ heart in this story, we do learn that the rich man had no room in his heart to share some of his great riches with a needy person at his gate.
Jesus, of course, turns the story on its head and looking at some of those details Jesus added. For example, Jesus describes the rich man’s lifestyle making sure we know that this man dressed in purple and fine linen. Purple was very expensive to make and while not reserved exclusively for royalty, it took a very wealthy person to afford it. The same was true for fine linen, the word here likely referring to expensive Egyptian cloth.
Jesus also added the poor man’s name, which as we’ve already heard, is very significant. The name Lazarus means “God Helps.” But what makes the naming even more significant is that that Jesus named the un-nameable one in the usual story. And then added the detail that dogs licked his wounds to make sure we knew how down on his luck this man was. Dogs were unclean animals and a man licked by dogs would have been considered unfit to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Finally, Jesus said that Lazarus rested in Abraham’s bosom—the word can mean lap as well and denotes here a place of honour. Imagine the gathered crowd’s faces when they hear that of all people, it is a sick beggar whose open sores have been licked by dogs that get this ultimate place of honour.
To make things worse, the rich man appeals to Abraham as his father, showing that he considered himself a faithful Jew, one who Jesus would say should have known how to treat a fellow human. The rich man clearly thought that he would be with God after death and now calls on his ancestor Abraham for help and makes things even worse for himself if this is possible. The Rich Man asks Abraham to send Lazarus back to talk to his family. In doing so he admits to knowing Lazarus by name, showing further that he was aware of the poor man’s desperate need, yet did nothing.
One thing I should note. As Jesus is using a known story and changing some details to make a point, we can safely assume that Jesus is not necessarily teaching that when we die we will be looking down on those we have known in this life who did not make the cut and shout back and forth across some great divide about what to do next. It’s best to leave the story as a story explaining further Jesus’ teachings on the right use of God’s blessings.
It also helps to know that in the verses leading up to today’s reading, Jesus had just told these same Scribes and Pharisees, “…God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God” (NRSV). The word there for abomination was usually used to describe idolatry. Jesus names their selfish use of God’s blessings as being a form of idol worship, making the wealth, success and blessings into the greatest good. Certainly we can see that in our own day some people will sacrifice everything—family, friends, everything—to get ahead.
Jesus warns that our aspirations to success, money and things can turn our blessings into idols. Do our possessions serve us and help us to serve others, or do we serve our possessions? The rich man could have used his blessing of wealth to help outcasts like Lazarus, but instead he used his money for fine clothes and expensive feasts. It echoes the message from Luke 12:34, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Both the Pharisees and Jesus agreed that how one acts in the here and now is a good indicator of the hereafter. For the Pharisees, it was all about honour, wealth and success. For Jesus the here and now is all about being the hands and feet of God to reach out in love. Jesus warned quite clearly that we who have been blessed by God have an obligation to share those blessings with others. He made a stark comparison revealing that it is the content of the heart that matters to God.
Does all this mean we should be giving away everything that we don’t actually need and distribute our wealth in some sort of scheme so that everyone gets an equal share? I doubt it but it does mean that we should be asking God to help change our hearts so that we find it easier to avoid turning human wealth into false Gods which lead us further away from the riches that actually matter.
Jesus told the story to point out to how far they had gone away from the teachings of Moses and the Prophets, and ended it with the line “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone raises from the dead.” We now hear the same story and have had the person being risen from the dead; the question is will we listen?
And the only person who can answer that question is you!
My name means “Gift of God”
My brother, Andrew, simply means “Manly”
My Sister, Naomi, means “Beautiful and Gentle”
When my friend told me his wife was pregnant the first thing that everyone asked him was “have you decided on a name yet?” Names are important and today’s reading from Luke is no different. We get a lot of information just from the title “The Rich man and Lazarus”.
Why is it that the rich man isn’t named but the poor man is?
I feel that the reason for this is to set out from the start what type of man the story is talking about. He is a man who defines himself by his belongings, he is nothing without his money and his belongings, whereas Lazarus has a name, and his name gives away a little about the meaning of the story as well as Lazarus means “God has helped”.
I’m sure this was no accident as Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and why. You may be interested to know that Jesus was using a story which most people around him would have known already, probably in the same was as we know stories such as the princess and the pea, people of the time would have known a story about a rich man and Lazarus. Jesus, however, did make some alterations to the story – and they were pretty major changes.
In the usual version of the story the rich man and poor man are described in life and then in the afterlife we find that the rich man is still being blessed by God while the poor man is being punished by God. The story was used to show how the wealthy and successful people are wealthy and successful because of God’s blessings and the poor and the outcast have that fate because God is punishing them in the here and now.
This story, in its usual form, taught the very opposite of Jesus’ teachings that the last will be first and the first will be last.
Let’s remember the setting. Jesus is speaking with the Scribes and Pharisees who are openly making fun of Jesus teaching while he is teaching. Jesus has been teaching about the right use of money, saying that we should reach out and help others in need as a part of being thankful to God for all God has done for us. The Scribes and Pharisees find this teaching laughable as they understand that those who are well off should not help the poor and the needy as the poor and needy are in that condition because of God’s judgment. We wouldn’t want to interfere with God’s judgments would we? No, so leave the poor to fend for themselves. They laugh at Jesus and who tells the story of an unnamed Rich Man and a beggar named Lazarus.
It is worth noting that there is one point on which both the Pharisees and Jesus agree. They are both teaching that how one acts in the here and now is a good indicator of how things will be for that person in the hereafter. The Pharisees look to the external conditions of a person as a sign of God’s blessing. Jesus looks beyond outward appearance to see the heart. While we learn nothing of Lazarus’ heart in this story, we do learn that the rich man had no room in his heart to share some of his great riches with a needy person at his gate.
Jesus, of course, turns the story on its head and looking at some of those details Jesus added. For example, Jesus describes the rich man’s lifestyle making sure we know that this man dressed in purple and fine linen. Purple was very expensive to make and while not reserved exclusively for royalty, it took a very wealthy person to afford it. The same was true for fine linen, the word here likely referring to expensive Egyptian cloth.
Jesus also added the poor man’s name, which as we’ve already heard, is very significant. The name Lazarus means “God Helps.” But what makes the naming even more significant is that that Jesus named the un-nameable one in the usual story. And then added the detail that dogs licked his wounds to make sure we knew how down on his luck this man was. Dogs were unclean animals and a man licked by dogs would have been considered unfit to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Finally, Jesus said that Lazarus rested in Abraham’s bosom—the word can mean lap as well and denotes here a place of honour. Imagine the gathered crowd’s faces when they hear that of all people, it is a sick beggar whose open sores have been licked by dogs that get this ultimate place of honour.
To make things worse, the rich man appeals to Abraham as his father, showing that he considered himself a faithful Jew, one who Jesus would say should have known how to treat a fellow human. The rich man clearly thought that he would be with God after death and now calls on his ancestor Abraham for help and makes things even worse for himself if this is possible. The Rich Man asks Abraham to send Lazarus back to talk to his family. In doing so he admits to knowing Lazarus by name, showing further that he was aware of the poor man’s desperate need, yet did nothing.
One thing I should note. As Jesus is using a known story and changing some details to make a point, we can safely assume that Jesus is not necessarily teaching that when we die we will be looking down on those we have known in this life who did not make the cut and shout back and forth across some great divide about what to do next. It’s best to leave the story as a story explaining further Jesus’ teachings on the right use of God’s blessings.
It also helps to know that in the verses leading up to today’s reading, Jesus had just told these same Scribes and Pharisees, “…God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God” (NRSV). The word there for abomination was usually used to describe idolatry. Jesus names their selfish use of God’s blessings as being a form of idol worship, making the wealth, success and blessings into the greatest good. Certainly we can see that in our own day some people will sacrifice everything—family, friends, everything—to get ahead.
Jesus warns that our aspirations to success, money and things can turn our blessings into idols. Do our possessions serve us and help us to serve others, or do we serve our possessions? The rich man could have used his blessing of wealth to help outcasts like Lazarus, but instead he used his money for fine clothes and expensive feasts. It echoes the message from Luke 12:34, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Both the Pharisees and Jesus agreed that how one acts in the here and now is a good indicator of the hereafter. For the Pharisees, it was all about honour, wealth and success. For Jesus the here and now is all about being the hands and feet of God to reach out in love. Jesus warned quite clearly that we who have been blessed by God have an obligation to share those blessings with others. He made a stark comparison revealing that it is the content of the heart that matters to God.
Does all this mean we should be giving away everything that we don’t actually need and distribute our wealth in some sort of scheme so that everyone gets an equal share? I doubt it but it does mean that we should be asking God to help change our hearts so that we find it easier to avoid turning human wealth into false Gods which lead us further away from the riches that actually matter.
Jesus told the story to point out to how far they had gone away from the teachings of Moses and the Prophets, and ended it with the line “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone raises from the dead.” We now hear the same story and have had the person being risen from the dead; the question is will we listen?
And the only person who can answer that question is you!
Monday 16 July 2007
Prayer
Someone once told me prayer is a bit like riding a bike, they didn’t tell me what it was that made them so alike, but they assured me this statement was true. The thing is, and this is just between you and me, I can’t ride a bike. Its not that I don’t want to, I would love to be able to cycle everywhere instead of walking, but no one ever taught me. This got me thinking though, maybe the same can be said for prayer, we all assume everyone can pray but if no one shows us how then how do we learn to do it?
The disciples, according to Lukes gospel saw the way Jesus prayed and the importance it had in his life and they wanted to be able to do the same so they went to him and said “teach us to pray” and he did, and we now use the prayer he taught them as a religious act which often loses all meaning and becomes more about the words than anything else. Jesus didn’t teach them a single prayer so that they can say the same thing over and over; he was giving them what today we would call a prayer guide for dummies.
We saw in the drama the dangers of using the Lords prayer too often, it becomes so religious that we forget to think about what we are praying and don’t give time to listen to God for a response, and in today’s world we hear lots about how prayer isn’t just about words and that we can pray using symbols or images as well. But this leave a question, if Jesus gave the Lords prayer as a step by step instruction manual about prayer then how do we use it in a meaningful way without losing our ability to be ourselves.
The answers simple, we use it the way it was meant, to show us what areas we must cover when we talk to God.
Our Father in Heaven… The first thing Jesus says is direct it to God. He doesn’t say sit down eyes closed hands together, he says send your prayers up to the man upstairs. When I was a child my favourite joke to do on a Sunday around our dinner table was, when asked to say Grace to whisper a really short prayer and then loudly shout Amen. Someone was then always bound to say, “I couldn’t hear you!” and the response was the funniest line you will ever hear coming from my lips “I wasn’t talking to you was I!”.
There’s an episode of the Simpson’s where things are going wrong for Homer and he simply cries out something like “God, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed will one of you help me”, sometimes our prayers can seem a bit like that and people can rightly ask who exactly were you talking to. Jesus said the most important thing about prayer is who it is directed to, God in Heaven.
Reveal who you are… A simple statement, which in my view is better stated as simply, “We want to see you and get to know you more!”
When you talk to friends the main reason you talk to them is because you want to get to know them even more. God should be no different, we should be praying to him, not because we have to but because we want to get to know him even more. It’s a choice not a duty!
I believe this is something that is often forgotten in prayer, we spend so much time talking about ourselves and our own problems that we forget to say to God “I want to know you more” Jesus was saying prayer must be about asking God to help you discover who he is.
Set the World right, do what’s best – as above below!… Pray for Gods will on Earth.
As Christians we believe that when God created Earth he created a perfect place and mankind have damaged it. Jesus says we should be asking God to help us get it back to the way he wanted it, in other words pray for Gods will to be done in every situation in the world and make Earth more like Heaven.
Keep us alive with 3 square meals… Pray for what you need, he doesn’t say “fill our stomachs up until we are stuffed full”, or “make me the richest man on earth,” he says, ask for what you need to stay alive. Do you need that new car, that PS3, that winning lottery tickets you keep asking for?
Doing this means that we are more likely to get the reply of Yes or not yet from God rather than no, as we will be asking for our needs rather than our wants, and God has promised to always provide what we need when we ask for it – of course, we do have to remember that he knows what we need and when we need it and so might not always give us the answer that we want.
Keep us forgiven and forgiving…. The hardest thing to do is forgive, but as we saw in the drama it’s worth it, especially as by doing it we are helping God to reveal himself to other people. Jesus doesn’t say this is easy but that’s exactly why its in this prayer saying forgive us for what we do wrong Lord and help us to forgive others too!
Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil…. The saying goes we are our own worst enemy and it is based on truth as through our lives we make so many stupid decisions and sometimes when we have to choose between doing something that is right or wrong the devil pops onto our shoulder in cartoon form and convinces us that we should do what we shouldn’t do. So Jesus says to ask God to keep you safe, or to help you make the right decisions not the wrong ones.
You’re in charge…. Use prayer to give God control of your lives. We know God wants the best for us, that he knows what’s best for us overall – so what better way to ensure his will is done in our lives than to give it all to him?
You’re ablaze in beauty… Tell God how great he is, we all like to hear good things about ourselves but this isn’t about boosting Gods ego its about praising God because he is so great and because he is letting you come to him and getting to know him. So Jesus is saying don’t just talk about yourself, talk about him too.
There’s one more important thing, which comes out in our first reading, the need to be consistent and persevere. If we keep taking the same concerns to God over and over again, in the way the persistent widow did, we are showing God we truly care about it and that it is a need not just something we want one day and not the next.
Of course it isn’t just about repeating the same prayers over and over in order to get God to change his mind. Its about “crying out to him day and night”, praying to him 24/7.
No where in any of this does it say prayers have to be said, or sung, or drawn, or anything else. People use many different ways to illustrate their prayers that we could talk about them all day. The thing is many of us possibly are not used to praying in any styles other than words and so we may feel put off by the idea of praying in new ways.
Prayer is an expression to God, and we all express ourselves in different ways and so the ways that we feel comfortable praying is naturally different. I once spoke to a lady who had been a Christian all her life and confided in me that she felt that prayer was something she never understood or got anything out off as it felt like she was not good with words and so always felt ashamed as she believed that prayer was so important that it should be all these big words and sound poetic etc. All this changed when someone asked her what ways she expresses her feelings etc and she replied by painting. To cut a long story short, this person suggested to her that instead of trying to find the words to express her prayers she just paints them. She decided to give it a try and from that day onwards said for the first time she felt that prayers were truly something special and was truly her communicating with God, and God communicating back.
I am not saying we should all stop talking and start painting but I am challenging everyone to remember the Lords prayer and remember that its not important what you do, where you do it, or how you do it, but what is important is: -
That it’s directed to God
Asks for God to be revealed
Asks for Gods will on earth to be done
Asks for what we need
Says sorry and asks for help in forgiven others
Asks for help to stay safe
Gives control to God
And finally worships God in all his Beauty.
If these things are at the heart of what you are doing then you are praying the way Jesus taught us, and when we do that things happen.
The disciples, according to Lukes gospel saw the way Jesus prayed and the importance it had in his life and they wanted to be able to do the same so they went to him and said “teach us to pray” and he did, and we now use the prayer he taught them as a religious act which often loses all meaning and becomes more about the words than anything else. Jesus didn’t teach them a single prayer so that they can say the same thing over and over; he was giving them what today we would call a prayer guide for dummies.
We saw in the drama the dangers of using the Lords prayer too often, it becomes so religious that we forget to think about what we are praying and don’t give time to listen to God for a response, and in today’s world we hear lots about how prayer isn’t just about words and that we can pray using symbols or images as well. But this leave a question, if Jesus gave the Lords prayer as a step by step instruction manual about prayer then how do we use it in a meaningful way without losing our ability to be ourselves.
The answers simple, we use it the way it was meant, to show us what areas we must cover when we talk to God.
Our Father in Heaven… The first thing Jesus says is direct it to God. He doesn’t say sit down eyes closed hands together, he says send your prayers up to the man upstairs. When I was a child my favourite joke to do on a Sunday around our dinner table was, when asked to say Grace to whisper a really short prayer and then loudly shout Amen. Someone was then always bound to say, “I couldn’t hear you!” and the response was the funniest line you will ever hear coming from my lips “I wasn’t talking to you was I!”.
There’s an episode of the Simpson’s where things are going wrong for Homer and he simply cries out something like “God, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed will one of you help me”, sometimes our prayers can seem a bit like that and people can rightly ask who exactly were you talking to. Jesus said the most important thing about prayer is who it is directed to, God in Heaven.
Reveal who you are… A simple statement, which in my view is better stated as simply, “We want to see you and get to know you more!”
When you talk to friends the main reason you talk to them is because you want to get to know them even more. God should be no different, we should be praying to him, not because we have to but because we want to get to know him even more. It’s a choice not a duty!
I believe this is something that is often forgotten in prayer, we spend so much time talking about ourselves and our own problems that we forget to say to God “I want to know you more” Jesus was saying prayer must be about asking God to help you discover who he is.
Set the World right, do what’s best – as above below!… Pray for Gods will on Earth.
As Christians we believe that when God created Earth he created a perfect place and mankind have damaged it. Jesus says we should be asking God to help us get it back to the way he wanted it, in other words pray for Gods will to be done in every situation in the world and make Earth more like Heaven.
Keep us alive with 3 square meals… Pray for what you need, he doesn’t say “fill our stomachs up until we are stuffed full”, or “make me the richest man on earth,” he says, ask for what you need to stay alive. Do you need that new car, that PS3, that winning lottery tickets you keep asking for?
Doing this means that we are more likely to get the reply of Yes or not yet from God rather than no, as we will be asking for our needs rather than our wants, and God has promised to always provide what we need when we ask for it – of course, we do have to remember that he knows what we need and when we need it and so might not always give us the answer that we want.
Keep us forgiven and forgiving…. The hardest thing to do is forgive, but as we saw in the drama it’s worth it, especially as by doing it we are helping God to reveal himself to other people. Jesus doesn’t say this is easy but that’s exactly why its in this prayer saying forgive us for what we do wrong Lord and help us to forgive others too!
Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil…. The saying goes we are our own worst enemy and it is based on truth as through our lives we make so many stupid decisions and sometimes when we have to choose between doing something that is right or wrong the devil pops onto our shoulder in cartoon form and convinces us that we should do what we shouldn’t do. So Jesus says to ask God to keep you safe, or to help you make the right decisions not the wrong ones.
You’re in charge…. Use prayer to give God control of your lives. We know God wants the best for us, that he knows what’s best for us overall – so what better way to ensure his will is done in our lives than to give it all to him?
You’re ablaze in beauty… Tell God how great he is, we all like to hear good things about ourselves but this isn’t about boosting Gods ego its about praising God because he is so great and because he is letting you come to him and getting to know him. So Jesus is saying don’t just talk about yourself, talk about him too.
There’s one more important thing, which comes out in our first reading, the need to be consistent and persevere. If we keep taking the same concerns to God over and over again, in the way the persistent widow did, we are showing God we truly care about it and that it is a need not just something we want one day and not the next.
Of course it isn’t just about repeating the same prayers over and over in order to get God to change his mind. Its about “crying out to him day and night”, praying to him 24/7.
No where in any of this does it say prayers have to be said, or sung, or drawn, or anything else. People use many different ways to illustrate their prayers that we could talk about them all day. The thing is many of us possibly are not used to praying in any styles other than words and so we may feel put off by the idea of praying in new ways.
Prayer is an expression to God, and we all express ourselves in different ways and so the ways that we feel comfortable praying is naturally different. I once spoke to a lady who had been a Christian all her life and confided in me that she felt that prayer was something she never understood or got anything out off as it felt like she was not good with words and so always felt ashamed as she believed that prayer was so important that it should be all these big words and sound poetic etc. All this changed when someone asked her what ways she expresses her feelings etc and she replied by painting. To cut a long story short, this person suggested to her that instead of trying to find the words to express her prayers she just paints them. She decided to give it a try and from that day onwards said for the first time she felt that prayers were truly something special and was truly her communicating with God, and God communicating back.
I am not saying we should all stop talking and start painting but I am challenging everyone to remember the Lords prayer and remember that its not important what you do, where you do it, or how you do it, but what is important is: -
That it’s directed to God
Asks for God to be revealed
Asks for Gods will on earth to be done
Asks for what we need
Says sorry and asks for help in forgiven others
Asks for help to stay safe
Gives control to God
And finally worships God in all his Beauty.
If these things are at the heart of what you are doing then you are praying the way Jesus taught us, and when we do that things happen.
The real thing
“I am the real thing, and I’m guided by God my father!” If ever there’s a way to get peoples attention making a statement like this is it and that’s what Jesus does in today’s reading when he says “I am the True Vine, and my father is the gardener!”
In my mind I imagine it a bit like this… Jesus has started becoming a popular teacher with people following him, some beginning to see him as the Messiah who is going to save them, some seeing him as the next Prophet whose teachings will help them know when the Messiah is coming, some seeing him as good entertainment value, and some thinking of him as mad. Jesus had told his close friends, the disciples what was going to happen and knew what feelings must have been going through their minds at the time. There must have been some doubt in the minds of his followers, even if it was only a slight doubt, surely any rationale human being would wonder if the man they have dedicated life to following was going a little bit crazy having recently told u what he was going to go through. Part of them probably thought, well if he’s who I think he is then surely he can stop this from happening.
Bring all this into today’s world and the same issues are always the ones that come up when discussing Jesus, all of the things that probably ran through the disciples minds back then are things which society throws at Christians when we confess our faith.
Jesus’ reaction to all these natural thoughts was this one line – Yes I am the true Vine but God is the Gardener! You are right to follow me but I’m following Gods plan.
Jesus then explores the complex relationship between a vine and the gardener, before I move on I should say I hate gardening and don’t know much about pruning vines or any other type of plants and so when I read “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful.” My initial thought is to skip this bit but I wont, instead I will use an image I understand a little bit better. One of a football team.Now I support Liverpool Football Club, and yesterday was FA Cup final day and you may have heard by now that it was one of the best cup finals ever. One of the reasons for this, from a neutrals view, is because Liverpool played so badly and made so many mistakes during the game that both teams scored goals etc. Liverpool is managed by Mr Rafael Benitez and during the game itself he saw what we all saw, that there were some players on the pitch who were not playing very well and so he took them off in order to get better flowing football. He then looked at the players who were playing well and changed the formation of the whole team in order to enable them to play even better. It worked and from being 2-0 down after 20 minutes Liverpool drew 3-3 and won on penalties.
If Liverpool’s manager had not cut out the players who weren’t performing and if he didn’t adapt the team to enable the good players play even better I may not be as happy today. That’s what Jesus is saying about God, he will remove the things which bear no fruit and work on what’s left to make it work to its full ability.
This verse on its own is, in my view, very dangerous to read on its own as it can be taken in so many different ways, and I do know somebody who uses this verse to back up his view that God uses natural disasters to “cut off” dead branches. I don’t believe this, and when read with the next few verses I believe it is talking more about living fruitful lives.
3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Jesus is the vine as we have heard already and Jesus has made us clean. If we live lives which follow his teachings we are connected to him and so will bear fruit and in turn will be blessed, however if we fail to follow his teachings we will not be able to bear fruit.
I’m told that bringing up a child is one of the hardest things to do, because no matter what you tell them to do they will always do the opposite. “Go tidy your room” then you go up and find a room messier than it was in the first place, “Go to bed and go straight to sleep” only to find them reading or watching TV in their room 2 hours later. You don’t tell them what to do for your own good, most of the time, normally you are telling them to do something for their sake not yours.
Jesus is doing the same thing. He is saying if u follow me and my teachings your life will be so much better in the same way as a parent would probably say “if you learn from my mistakes you’ll avoid the pitfalls and enjoy it even more!”
The one thing I do know about gardening is that you can see when something is producing fruit and that when plants are doing so often it makes a garden look beautiful and can result in new plants blossoming up too. So when Jesus says “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit” he is not just saying your life will be better he is saying people will notice a difference in you, people will see Gods beauty in you and you will result in other peoples lives changing too.
Before Easter I challenged the evening congregation here to spend more time getting to know Jesus and his teachings because unless we know him well we can not say whether the choices we make are things of God or things of Man. Today’s verses emphasise the importance of doing this. By living Christ centred lives our lives will blossom, maybe not in the ways we expect but in the way where we are producing God given fruit. If we don’t live in a Christ centred way, and we become separate from Jesus and his teachings then we are like “a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”
Don’t panic I'm not going to turn this into a heaven and hell talk, or a life or death talk. I believe this part of the passage tells us what in our hearts we all know, that it’s a lot harder to use something which has broken down.
If we live lives which are separate from Jesus’ teachings we will not be producing the lives which witness to his love the way he wants us to. This means it is harder for him to use us. Imagine an artist having to choose which paint brush to use will he choose the brush with equal hairs all in the right shape and size or the brush where the hairs are all over the place. Most probably he will use the first one as he has more control over it and so is more likely to get a finished picture which is closer to perfection.
There are many cases in history of churches and Christian missions who started to grow in terms of numbers and spirituality only for seemingly no reason at all to suddenly stop growing and in some cases to completely fall apart. Many times a few months or years later people have reflected on them and there is often one common factor, a church leader making mistakes which result in the church moving away from a Christ centred approach to a man centred way of life.
I recently went to spring harvest and during the week there God challenged me a lot about many things but when I came home I restarted doing something I stopped doing at university due to lack of time. I started reading the Bible and praying every night before I went to bed. For me it wasn’t a big thing, I just felt it was something God wanted me to do. Suddenly things started to happen. I started to enjoy work again, I felt more confident, I was having more conversations about God and other issues and generally my life seemed so much more on track. I’m not saying God wasn’t using me before spring harvest but it showed me that the more I walk in Jesus’ influence the more God will use me, and that’s what the passage is saying, if your not connected to the vine you wont produce as much fruit and there’s a danger you may not produce any at all, then you may as well be thrown into a furnace as you’ll be no use to God.
There is one important thing which needs to be said here. A fundamental part of Jesus teachings is that of forgiveness and 2nd chances. God has given us the ability to make mistakes and to come back and say sorry and then be made clean again and again and again so he won’t reject you if you sincerely ask him for another chance and make the changes needed to be reconnected to him again. Then you will start to produce fruit again, in Gods time not yours.
The Final 2 verses say “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
If you are walking a relationship with Jesus and know his words and have made those words central to your life then the things you want to ask for will be things that God will want to give you and so he will. This in turn will be a witness to the world of both your love for God and Gods love for us.
The Psalmist says it is a “praise—life” where you do the things that you have promised in front of everyone. He talks about how everyone is welcome and all will get their fill if they are on the hunt for God. He talks about the four corners of the world worshiping God and giving control to him no matter how old, sick, rich or poor they are. This is what I feel God is challenging us to do, to live this type of praise life with Jesus’ teachings being our guide as if we do we will produce lots of God given fruit.
This week is Christian Aid week. Christian Aid were set up in 1945 as a response to the needs of refugees and churches after the 2nd world war. Since then it has worked where the needs are greatest, irrespective of race or creed and now works in over 60 of the world’s countries.
They list their values as:
Putting Life first
Struggle for justice
Speak out courageously
Test everything against experience
Work together with others.
I believe they show Gods love through action, and whether you feel able to give them money this week, or whether you agree or disagree with the way they do things I believe we can all benefit from following their example and asking God to let you experience his love and then find a way to put his love into action so that the wider world can see the fruits of his labour in you!
The next song we are about to sing says
Bread of the world, in mercy broken;
Wine of the soul, in mercy shed;
By whom the words of life were spoken,
And in whose death our sins are dead:
Look on the heart by sorrow broken,
Look on the tears by sinners shed;
And by thy feast to us the token
That by thy grace our souls are fed.
Use this as a prayer asking God to look at your heart, your tears and your way of life and ask God to challenge you where you need to be challenge. Then ask God to show you how to show his love so you can affect others hearts and how you can use your God given fruits.
In my mind I imagine it a bit like this… Jesus has started becoming a popular teacher with people following him, some beginning to see him as the Messiah who is going to save them, some seeing him as the next Prophet whose teachings will help them know when the Messiah is coming, some seeing him as good entertainment value, and some thinking of him as mad. Jesus had told his close friends, the disciples what was going to happen and knew what feelings must have been going through their minds at the time. There must have been some doubt in the minds of his followers, even if it was only a slight doubt, surely any rationale human being would wonder if the man they have dedicated life to following was going a little bit crazy having recently told u what he was going to go through. Part of them probably thought, well if he’s who I think he is then surely he can stop this from happening.
Bring all this into today’s world and the same issues are always the ones that come up when discussing Jesus, all of the things that probably ran through the disciples minds back then are things which society throws at Christians when we confess our faith.
Jesus’ reaction to all these natural thoughts was this one line – Yes I am the true Vine but God is the Gardener! You are right to follow me but I’m following Gods plan.
Jesus then explores the complex relationship between a vine and the gardener, before I move on I should say I hate gardening and don’t know much about pruning vines or any other type of plants and so when I read “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful.” My initial thought is to skip this bit but I wont, instead I will use an image I understand a little bit better. One of a football team.Now I support Liverpool Football Club, and yesterday was FA Cup final day and you may have heard by now that it was one of the best cup finals ever. One of the reasons for this, from a neutrals view, is because Liverpool played so badly and made so many mistakes during the game that both teams scored goals etc. Liverpool is managed by Mr Rafael Benitez and during the game itself he saw what we all saw, that there were some players on the pitch who were not playing very well and so he took them off in order to get better flowing football. He then looked at the players who were playing well and changed the formation of the whole team in order to enable them to play even better. It worked and from being 2-0 down after 20 minutes Liverpool drew 3-3 and won on penalties.
If Liverpool’s manager had not cut out the players who weren’t performing and if he didn’t adapt the team to enable the good players play even better I may not be as happy today. That’s what Jesus is saying about God, he will remove the things which bear no fruit and work on what’s left to make it work to its full ability.
This verse on its own is, in my view, very dangerous to read on its own as it can be taken in so many different ways, and I do know somebody who uses this verse to back up his view that God uses natural disasters to “cut off” dead branches. I don’t believe this, and when read with the next few verses I believe it is talking more about living fruitful lives.
3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Jesus is the vine as we have heard already and Jesus has made us clean. If we live lives which follow his teachings we are connected to him and so will bear fruit and in turn will be blessed, however if we fail to follow his teachings we will not be able to bear fruit.
I’m told that bringing up a child is one of the hardest things to do, because no matter what you tell them to do they will always do the opposite. “Go tidy your room” then you go up and find a room messier than it was in the first place, “Go to bed and go straight to sleep” only to find them reading or watching TV in their room 2 hours later. You don’t tell them what to do for your own good, most of the time, normally you are telling them to do something for their sake not yours.
Jesus is doing the same thing. He is saying if u follow me and my teachings your life will be so much better in the same way as a parent would probably say “if you learn from my mistakes you’ll avoid the pitfalls and enjoy it even more!”
The one thing I do know about gardening is that you can see when something is producing fruit and that when plants are doing so often it makes a garden look beautiful and can result in new plants blossoming up too. So when Jesus says “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit” he is not just saying your life will be better he is saying people will notice a difference in you, people will see Gods beauty in you and you will result in other peoples lives changing too.
Before Easter I challenged the evening congregation here to spend more time getting to know Jesus and his teachings because unless we know him well we can not say whether the choices we make are things of God or things of Man. Today’s verses emphasise the importance of doing this. By living Christ centred lives our lives will blossom, maybe not in the ways we expect but in the way where we are producing God given fruit. If we don’t live in a Christ centred way, and we become separate from Jesus and his teachings then we are like “a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”
Don’t panic I'm not going to turn this into a heaven and hell talk, or a life or death talk. I believe this part of the passage tells us what in our hearts we all know, that it’s a lot harder to use something which has broken down.
If we live lives which are separate from Jesus’ teachings we will not be producing the lives which witness to his love the way he wants us to. This means it is harder for him to use us. Imagine an artist having to choose which paint brush to use will he choose the brush with equal hairs all in the right shape and size or the brush where the hairs are all over the place. Most probably he will use the first one as he has more control over it and so is more likely to get a finished picture which is closer to perfection.
There are many cases in history of churches and Christian missions who started to grow in terms of numbers and spirituality only for seemingly no reason at all to suddenly stop growing and in some cases to completely fall apart. Many times a few months or years later people have reflected on them and there is often one common factor, a church leader making mistakes which result in the church moving away from a Christ centred approach to a man centred way of life.
I recently went to spring harvest and during the week there God challenged me a lot about many things but when I came home I restarted doing something I stopped doing at university due to lack of time. I started reading the Bible and praying every night before I went to bed. For me it wasn’t a big thing, I just felt it was something God wanted me to do. Suddenly things started to happen. I started to enjoy work again, I felt more confident, I was having more conversations about God and other issues and generally my life seemed so much more on track. I’m not saying God wasn’t using me before spring harvest but it showed me that the more I walk in Jesus’ influence the more God will use me, and that’s what the passage is saying, if your not connected to the vine you wont produce as much fruit and there’s a danger you may not produce any at all, then you may as well be thrown into a furnace as you’ll be no use to God.
There is one important thing which needs to be said here. A fundamental part of Jesus teachings is that of forgiveness and 2nd chances. God has given us the ability to make mistakes and to come back and say sorry and then be made clean again and again and again so he won’t reject you if you sincerely ask him for another chance and make the changes needed to be reconnected to him again. Then you will start to produce fruit again, in Gods time not yours.
The Final 2 verses say “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
If you are walking a relationship with Jesus and know his words and have made those words central to your life then the things you want to ask for will be things that God will want to give you and so he will. This in turn will be a witness to the world of both your love for God and Gods love for us.
The Psalmist says it is a “praise—life” where you do the things that you have promised in front of everyone. He talks about how everyone is welcome and all will get their fill if they are on the hunt for God. He talks about the four corners of the world worshiping God and giving control to him no matter how old, sick, rich or poor they are. This is what I feel God is challenging us to do, to live this type of praise life with Jesus’ teachings being our guide as if we do we will produce lots of God given fruit.
This week is Christian Aid week. Christian Aid were set up in 1945 as a response to the needs of refugees and churches after the 2nd world war. Since then it has worked where the needs are greatest, irrespective of race or creed and now works in over 60 of the world’s countries.
They list their values as:
Putting Life first
Struggle for justice
Speak out courageously
Test everything against experience
Work together with others.
I believe they show Gods love through action, and whether you feel able to give them money this week, or whether you agree or disagree with the way they do things I believe we can all benefit from following their example and asking God to let you experience his love and then find a way to put his love into action so that the wider world can see the fruits of his labour in you!
The next song we are about to sing says
Bread of the world, in mercy broken;
Wine of the soul, in mercy shed;
By whom the words of life were spoken,
And in whose death our sins are dead:
Look on the heart by sorrow broken,
Look on the tears by sinners shed;
And by thy feast to us the token
That by thy grace our souls are fed.
Use this as a prayer asking God to look at your heart, your tears and your way of life and ask God to challenge you where you need to be challenge. Then ask God to show you how to show his love so you can affect others hearts and how you can use your God given fruits.
be a clown fish
My big word for the day, and it’s a new word for me, is "symbiosis". Symbiosis means that two things live in a mutually advantageous relationship with one another.
Both in some way depend on the other.
One example of symbiosis is the clown fish and the sea anenome.
Sea anenomes are usually poisonous to any fish that comes into contact with them. Fish that touch their tentacles are stung, paralysed and eaten. But for some reason they make an exception for clown fish. Clown fish can swim around in complete safety among the waving tentacles of the anenome. Now the advantage of this for the clown fish is quite obvious. As long as it is among the tentacles of the anenome, it is safe from other predators, because no-one else can take the risk of coming in to get them. At the slightest threat of danger, the clown fish dive into the anenome, and you see then wriggling in like a person snuggling into a warm bed.What the anenome gets out of the relationship is not so obvious. In fact scientists are not 100% sure, but there are two main theories that each have a fair bit of evidence, and may possibly both be true. The first is that the clown fish often drop bits of food gathered elsewhere into the anenome, thus feeding it. And the other is that the clown fish may at times deliberately lure other fish into the reach of the anenome, thus helping it catch its own live food. Although there is some doubt, scientists are sure that there is a mutually beneficial relationship between the clown fish and the anenome and that they both offer something to the other.I want to explore with you this morning the possibility that our relationship with God is a bit like that. We are perhaps accustomed to thinking about the things that God does for us, and the ways in which we depend on God, and we are going to look at those things in a moment, but I think that our reading from Ephesians may also raise the possibility that God needs us too, and we'll see if we can make some sense of that. The obvious theme in our reading is all the things we have to praise God for, the ways in which we benefit from our relationship with God, and therefore owe God a debt of gratitude. In fact the passage focuses so exclusively on all the great things that God has done, that God is actually the subject of every verb in it. And for those like me who struggle a bit with grammar, this means that God is the doer of every action that is mentioned in this reading. We don't do anything in this account. This is not one of those readings where I can get up and say the bible says we should be doing this and the bible says we should be doing that. In this passage it doesn't say that we should be doing anything, it just praises God for all the things that God has done and is doing for us.It can actually be a bit hard for us to take. We live in a do-it-yourself society. Walk into any bookshop and have a look at the do-it-yourself, or self-help sections and you'll know what I mean. The marketers have worked out that there is a lot of money to be made tapping into people's desire for independence and self-reliance. We don't like to have to depend on someone else to do anything for us, especially if it is all one way and they don't need anything from us. So this first passage in Ephesians, no matter how excited and enthusiastic it is, may not make us entirely comfortable. But let's have a look anyway at what it says God has done for us.First we are told that God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Now we could probably spend hours talking about what that means but we'll keep it brief. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes love, faith and hope as the three spiritual blessings that never come to an end, and the greatest he says is love. So perhaps we could assume that these would be the sort of things the author has in mind here. We might justifiably want to add peace, mercy, endurance, joy, or perhaps a few others, but whatever we see as being included, the writer is clearly saying that these things come to us from God and it is God who should get the credit for them.Then we are told that God has chosen us to be holy and blameless in love. Not only that but we were chosen before we even existed, in fact before anything existed. God chose you to be holy and blameless in love and to be adopted as a child of God. It is kind of like being born into really privileged circumstances - you've got it all on a plate. It doesn't mean you can't mess it up, but it means that you've really got the odds stacked in your favour from the word "go."
"In Christ we have redemption and forgiveness, according to the riches of grace lavished on us." It's a great word "lavished", I like it, and especially when you couple it with the word grace. The best definition of the concept of grace I ever heard was that it was extravagantly generous love. So the idea of having God's extravagantly generous love lavished on us is rather overwhelming and I don't know about you but it's not an opportunity I'm going to turn down. In that extravagantly generous love we have redemption and forgiveness for sins. God's extravagant love for us is willing to overlook anything and everything in our pasts. If we will let it go, so will God.
And redemption. Unfortunately it's one of those words which tend to become hollow jargon in the churches, but it’s a great thing. One definition I have heard for it is that "It's when you go down to the pawn shop and buy back something you gave up." And that sums up what the passage means to me. God goes down to the pawn shop and bails us out. It costs God something, but God pays willingly because to God, we are worth it. Sounds like lavishing extravagantly generous love to me.And then, in case that's not enough, God gives as a share in the future, an inheritance, a promised place of importance in the fulfilling of God's intention for the whole of creation. And as a down payment, or a first taste of this future, we are given the presence of the Holy Spirit of God here and now. Just as we will eventually enjoy the unimpeded presence of God, so we can now already experience the reality of the presence of God. This, says the writer, is the guarantee of our full restoration as God's people.All of this is God's doing. Like the watch in the pawn shop, we can't buy ourselves back. We can't give ourselves the Holy Spirit. We can't promise ourselves a share in God's future plans. God alone can do any of these things, and it is only in God's extravagantly generous love that they are done. And it is on that basis that the writer says over and over, blessed be God, God be praised, to God's praise and glory, to the praise of God's grace, we live for the praise of God's glory. I cringe a bit at that sort of language because I’m not used to using extravagant language to praise anything, except maybe football. But this gushing enthusiastic praise language comes naturally to the writer of Ephesians, and in the face of the experience of God's lavishing of extravagantly generous love it seems appropriate.I think we can perhaps personalise this list of reasons for praising God. The writer had his experiences of God's love and we have ours. Most of us can tell of experiences where God has acted in ways that have made us aware of God's love and our reliance on God. Maybe we should all make it a point to praise God more for the good things in our lives, I know I should.
There is much that we need God for, and of course there is much more that we haven't said that we could have said. What about God's dependence on us? Are there ways in which it can be honestly said that God needs us? This question would have been considered off limits once upon a time but I believe Jesus shows us just how much God had invested in what went on here on earth and how strongly God felt about what happens in our lives that perhaps we should think about what God needs from us. Suggesting that God might have needs doesn’t detract from anything we said about God before. It doesn't make God out to be some sort of cosmic wimp hanging out to see what we're going to do. All of this is still evidence of God's extravagantly generous love for us. God did not have to become vulnerable to us, but God has chosen to become vulnerable to us, and the choice is irrevocable. It is only in the grace that God has lavished upon us that we were created in the image of God and invited into partnership with God in the creation and resurrection of the world. All this in fact adds up to more and more evidence of God's overwhelming grace and becomes more and more reason for us to join with the writer in expressing exuberant praise. The God of the universe, the creator of the cosmos, the life-giver of all, has not only invited us into relationship, but has decided to make each of us so special, and so crucial to the fulfilment of the divine plan, that God will suffer hurt and frustration and incompleteness if we do not respond and give ourselves to God in that intimate and mutual relationship.I don't know if you've ever compared yourself to a clown fish before, but I reckon you can this morning. Just as the clown fish dives for safety into the protective arms of the anenome, so you and I can dive for safety into the loving and protective arms of the God who lavishes gracious love on us. But like the anenome, God needs us too, and will suffer if we remove ourselves from that relationship. God has given you the gift of an intimate relationship with the giver of all life and love. God asks in return the gift of an intimate relationship with you. Are you prepared to pay him back?
Both in some way depend on the other.
One example of symbiosis is the clown fish and the sea anenome.
Sea anenomes are usually poisonous to any fish that comes into contact with them. Fish that touch their tentacles are stung, paralysed and eaten. But for some reason they make an exception for clown fish. Clown fish can swim around in complete safety among the waving tentacles of the anenome. Now the advantage of this for the clown fish is quite obvious. As long as it is among the tentacles of the anenome, it is safe from other predators, because no-one else can take the risk of coming in to get them. At the slightest threat of danger, the clown fish dive into the anenome, and you see then wriggling in like a person snuggling into a warm bed.What the anenome gets out of the relationship is not so obvious. In fact scientists are not 100% sure, but there are two main theories that each have a fair bit of evidence, and may possibly both be true. The first is that the clown fish often drop bits of food gathered elsewhere into the anenome, thus feeding it. And the other is that the clown fish may at times deliberately lure other fish into the reach of the anenome, thus helping it catch its own live food. Although there is some doubt, scientists are sure that there is a mutually beneficial relationship between the clown fish and the anenome and that they both offer something to the other.I want to explore with you this morning the possibility that our relationship with God is a bit like that. We are perhaps accustomed to thinking about the things that God does for us, and the ways in which we depend on God, and we are going to look at those things in a moment, but I think that our reading from Ephesians may also raise the possibility that God needs us too, and we'll see if we can make some sense of that. The obvious theme in our reading is all the things we have to praise God for, the ways in which we benefit from our relationship with God, and therefore owe God a debt of gratitude. In fact the passage focuses so exclusively on all the great things that God has done, that God is actually the subject of every verb in it. And for those like me who struggle a bit with grammar, this means that God is the doer of every action that is mentioned in this reading. We don't do anything in this account. This is not one of those readings where I can get up and say the bible says we should be doing this and the bible says we should be doing that. In this passage it doesn't say that we should be doing anything, it just praises God for all the things that God has done and is doing for us.It can actually be a bit hard for us to take. We live in a do-it-yourself society. Walk into any bookshop and have a look at the do-it-yourself, or self-help sections and you'll know what I mean. The marketers have worked out that there is a lot of money to be made tapping into people's desire for independence and self-reliance. We don't like to have to depend on someone else to do anything for us, especially if it is all one way and they don't need anything from us. So this first passage in Ephesians, no matter how excited and enthusiastic it is, may not make us entirely comfortable. But let's have a look anyway at what it says God has done for us.First we are told that God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing. Now we could probably spend hours talking about what that means but we'll keep it brief. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes love, faith and hope as the three spiritual blessings that never come to an end, and the greatest he says is love. So perhaps we could assume that these would be the sort of things the author has in mind here. We might justifiably want to add peace, mercy, endurance, joy, or perhaps a few others, but whatever we see as being included, the writer is clearly saying that these things come to us from God and it is God who should get the credit for them.Then we are told that God has chosen us to be holy and blameless in love. Not only that but we were chosen before we even existed, in fact before anything existed. God chose you to be holy and blameless in love and to be adopted as a child of God. It is kind of like being born into really privileged circumstances - you've got it all on a plate. It doesn't mean you can't mess it up, but it means that you've really got the odds stacked in your favour from the word "go."
"In Christ we have redemption and forgiveness, according to the riches of grace lavished on us." It's a great word "lavished", I like it, and especially when you couple it with the word grace. The best definition of the concept of grace I ever heard was that it was extravagantly generous love. So the idea of having God's extravagantly generous love lavished on us is rather overwhelming and I don't know about you but it's not an opportunity I'm going to turn down. In that extravagantly generous love we have redemption and forgiveness for sins. God's extravagant love for us is willing to overlook anything and everything in our pasts. If we will let it go, so will God.
And redemption. Unfortunately it's one of those words which tend to become hollow jargon in the churches, but it’s a great thing. One definition I have heard for it is that "It's when you go down to the pawn shop and buy back something you gave up." And that sums up what the passage means to me. God goes down to the pawn shop and bails us out. It costs God something, but God pays willingly because to God, we are worth it. Sounds like lavishing extravagantly generous love to me.And then, in case that's not enough, God gives as a share in the future, an inheritance, a promised place of importance in the fulfilling of God's intention for the whole of creation. And as a down payment, or a first taste of this future, we are given the presence of the Holy Spirit of God here and now. Just as we will eventually enjoy the unimpeded presence of God, so we can now already experience the reality of the presence of God. This, says the writer, is the guarantee of our full restoration as God's people.All of this is God's doing. Like the watch in the pawn shop, we can't buy ourselves back. We can't give ourselves the Holy Spirit. We can't promise ourselves a share in God's future plans. God alone can do any of these things, and it is only in God's extravagantly generous love that they are done. And it is on that basis that the writer says over and over, blessed be God, God be praised, to God's praise and glory, to the praise of God's grace, we live for the praise of God's glory. I cringe a bit at that sort of language because I’m not used to using extravagant language to praise anything, except maybe football. But this gushing enthusiastic praise language comes naturally to the writer of Ephesians, and in the face of the experience of God's lavishing of extravagantly generous love it seems appropriate.I think we can perhaps personalise this list of reasons for praising God. The writer had his experiences of God's love and we have ours. Most of us can tell of experiences where God has acted in ways that have made us aware of God's love and our reliance on God. Maybe we should all make it a point to praise God more for the good things in our lives, I know I should.
There is much that we need God for, and of course there is much more that we haven't said that we could have said. What about God's dependence on us? Are there ways in which it can be honestly said that God needs us? This question would have been considered off limits once upon a time but I believe Jesus shows us just how much God had invested in what went on here on earth and how strongly God felt about what happens in our lives that perhaps we should think about what God needs from us. Suggesting that God might have needs doesn’t detract from anything we said about God before. It doesn't make God out to be some sort of cosmic wimp hanging out to see what we're going to do. All of this is still evidence of God's extravagantly generous love for us. God did not have to become vulnerable to us, but God has chosen to become vulnerable to us, and the choice is irrevocable. It is only in the grace that God has lavished upon us that we were created in the image of God and invited into partnership with God in the creation and resurrection of the world. All this in fact adds up to more and more evidence of God's overwhelming grace and becomes more and more reason for us to join with the writer in expressing exuberant praise. The God of the universe, the creator of the cosmos, the life-giver of all, has not only invited us into relationship, but has decided to make each of us so special, and so crucial to the fulfilment of the divine plan, that God will suffer hurt and frustration and incompleteness if we do not respond and give ourselves to God in that intimate and mutual relationship.I don't know if you've ever compared yourself to a clown fish before, but I reckon you can this morning. Just as the clown fish dives for safety into the protective arms of the anenome, so you and I can dive for safety into the loving and protective arms of the God who lavishes gracious love on us. But like the anenome, God needs us too, and will suffer if we remove ourselves from that relationship. God has given you the gift of an intimate relationship with the giver of all life and love. God asks in return the gift of an intimate relationship with you. Are you prepared to pay him back?
Cross centred lives
Death! Not a popular word is it. Very rarely is it something people sit around the dinner table and discuss, and when it is discussed it certainly isn’t discussed in the same way that marriage and birth are discussed, and most people certainly don’t sit there and say to their close friends and family “I’m going to suffer lots, be rejected, and then be killed”. I think if someone said that to me in such plain terms like Jesus did my reaction would be much like Peters, to take the person aside and accuse them of being a doom merchant etc.
Of course what the passage actually says is that Jesus was teaching that “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” Not only was he saying what was going to happen to him he was saying it must happen, that it was Gods plan. It doesn’t surprise me that the disciples didn’t listen to what Jesus was saying, yes he was prophesying his death but he was doing the same about his resurrection. But when someone says they are dieing most of us focus on that and stop listening to what the person is actually saying. Maybe if they had listened a bit more carefully then Jesus’ resurrection wouldn’t have come as such a surprise as it seems to.
I must admit to feeling very sorry for Peter when I first read the passage. I felt he did what most people would do faced in a similar situation and said Jesus was wrong and he didn’t have to die. Well actually we don’t know what he said as all we are told is he rebuked Jesus, but I’m sure it went along those lines. Jesus didn’t sympathise, or comfort him, the complete opposite infact – he shouted at him "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." When I first read this I thought ouch that’s harsh.
Then I got thinking, Peter had been with Jesus and the other disciples for a while, he had seen many miracles and signs about who Jesus was, he had, when asked by Jesus earlier in the chapter, said that he believed Jesus to be “the Christ” or the anointed one, and was one of a select few people who knew Jesus very closely and so should have known that Jesus wasn’t going to say things just to get a reaction, and that Jesus knew what he was talking about. So when Jesus said “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” He meant you know who I am, this is Gods plan not yours.
Would Jesus’ reaction have been the same if it was not one of his close disciples who rebuked his predictions, I suspect not, because they would not know Jesus in the same way. In today’s society how often do we rebuke Jesus’ claims? How often do we question the Easter story and view it almost as if it’s just a nice story? Obviously part of the reason for this is society is no longer a Christian society, if it ever was, but we, as the church, are the ones who are supposed to know Jesus, we are the people who claim to know Jesus as “the Christ” but the questions are how well do we know Jesus? How often do we rebuke him? And do we have in mind the things of God or the things of men?
I need to make this clear, I am certainly not saying we should not be having discussions exploring the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be debating how things Jesus said and did should be interpreted in today’s world. What I am saying is the complete opposite, we should be doing more to get to know Jesus closely so that as a church and as individuals we can say we are doing all we can to know we are doing things of God not things of men.
If we claim to know Jesus and if we claim to have relationships with him then Ephesians says we should “take on an entirely new way of life--a God-fashioned life, 23a life renewed from the inside” This doesn’t mean we should be completely separate from society, it doesn’t mean we should be abandoning our friendships or giving away all our belongings, what it does mean though is that the focus of our lives should be God, and this in turn makes us different from a world which often has its focus on material things such as cars, houses, and even TVs.
The message is simple, we are called to be different but being different isn’t simple! How often have you heard Christian preachers saying come to Jesus and your life will be better etc etc? I’ve heard it a few times and have a huge problem with that type of message for various reasons. How does that make those Christians who’s lives have fallen to bits around them feel? The same question about those whose lives don’t particularly change, things don’t get any better or worse, and how does that fit into what Jesus said when he said “"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” That doesn’t sound easy to me.
Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Jesus, save your life by losing it! Four challenges which are all very difficult to understand but even more difficult to put into action.
How do you deny yourself? I feel this goes back to the passage in Ephesians mentioned earlier, if we are to live a God fashioned life then we need to deny ourselves some of the things which get in the way of doing this.
The question most people are asked at this time of year is what have you given up for lent? Infact it has become such a common question that people often give things up without asking why. Giving things up for lent is completely pointless unless you do something with it. Lent is the time we prepare for Easter, giving things up is a part of this, not for health reasons, or to save money but it is there as a challenge to get rid of something which maybe a hindrance to your relationship with God, and to replace it by spending more time getting to know the things of God. If we deny ourselves only to spend our time thinking about what we are sacrificing then all you are doing is replacing one hindrance with another.
Take up your cross and follow Jesus. We all know the cross and what it meant in the times of Jesus, it was the ultimate way of killing criminals. It wasn’t the image that it is today and so when Jesus said take up your cross he certainly wasn’t saying things will be easier if you follow me. I feel he was saying the opposite, that in order to follow him you need to be prepared for the pain and suffering that may come from following him.
Obviously if its such hard work then we need to know it is worth it, and Jesus does tell us “whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” Once again saying if you go through all this you will receive life, but only once you’ve lost it for me. No we don’t have to all be killed for God in a physical sense, but we need to be prepared to pass control of our lives to God in order to receive the life he promised us.
This last week I read in one newspaper about a man in Iraq who had become a Christian after doing some work with a Christian support agency. His family have reported him to the police, he has been arrested and now he is waiting to hear what his punishment will be, and it could mean death. I am sure this man knows the true meaning of taking up the cross, but how can we know it when we live in a free country where our faith is accepted no matter what it is? The man has given control of his life totally to God, he is prepare to die, we may not have to risk our lives for our faith in the legal sense but what this situation should make us ask is how much of our lives will we give up for God?
The Iraqi was prepared to give up his family and friends and maybe even his life, would we be the same if we were in his situation? Who has control of our lives? In our working lives is our aim more money or do we ask God what he wants us to do? What place does God have in our family homes when he says he should be the focus but human nature says our spouse and children should be most important? Not easy questions but they are questions which we all need to answer in order to work out what losing our lives for the gospel means to us, and whether we are prepare to do so.
None of this sounds easy and none of it promises an easy life but what it does promise us is that living a God centred life will be worth it in the long terms.
Of course most of this you will hear a similar message again in 2 weeks when we celebrate Easter, so why am I sharing this message during lent. Because we must all use lent as a time of preparation. Easter is the time of the year when the miracle of Jesus’ sacrifice is celebrated and remembered and it is the time of year when we should be renewing our Christian faith but it should also be used as an opportunity to share our faith with our friends and family and society as a whole. This can only be achieved if we have “the things of God in mind” and so it is vital we use the next couple of weeks to prepare and ensure we can honestly say this.
Tonight I believe God is challenging each one of us to get our lives in order, making sure that God is the centre not just a bit on the side. He is challenging us all to accept that this might mean making sacrifices and may be difficult. He is asking us how important he is to us and how our lives show it. Finally I believe God is challenging us to all pick up the cross and follow him on his journey over lent and prepare to experience the true meaning of Easter.
Amen
Of course what the passage actually says is that Jesus was teaching that “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.” Not only was he saying what was going to happen to him he was saying it must happen, that it was Gods plan. It doesn’t surprise me that the disciples didn’t listen to what Jesus was saying, yes he was prophesying his death but he was doing the same about his resurrection. But when someone says they are dieing most of us focus on that and stop listening to what the person is actually saying. Maybe if they had listened a bit more carefully then Jesus’ resurrection wouldn’t have come as such a surprise as it seems to.
I must admit to feeling very sorry for Peter when I first read the passage. I felt he did what most people would do faced in a similar situation and said Jesus was wrong and he didn’t have to die. Well actually we don’t know what he said as all we are told is he rebuked Jesus, but I’m sure it went along those lines. Jesus didn’t sympathise, or comfort him, the complete opposite infact – he shouted at him "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." When I first read this I thought ouch that’s harsh.
Then I got thinking, Peter had been with Jesus and the other disciples for a while, he had seen many miracles and signs about who Jesus was, he had, when asked by Jesus earlier in the chapter, said that he believed Jesus to be “the Christ” or the anointed one, and was one of a select few people who knew Jesus very closely and so should have known that Jesus wasn’t going to say things just to get a reaction, and that Jesus knew what he was talking about. So when Jesus said “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” He meant you know who I am, this is Gods plan not yours.
Would Jesus’ reaction have been the same if it was not one of his close disciples who rebuked his predictions, I suspect not, because they would not know Jesus in the same way. In today’s society how often do we rebuke Jesus’ claims? How often do we question the Easter story and view it almost as if it’s just a nice story? Obviously part of the reason for this is society is no longer a Christian society, if it ever was, but we, as the church, are the ones who are supposed to know Jesus, we are the people who claim to know Jesus as “the Christ” but the questions are how well do we know Jesus? How often do we rebuke him? And do we have in mind the things of God or the things of men?
I need to make this clear, I am certainly not saying we should not be having discussions exploring the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be debating how things Jesus said and did should be interpreted in today’s world. What I am saying is the complete opposite, we should be doing more to get to know Jesus closely so that as a church and as individuals we can say we are doing all we can to know we are doing things of God not things of men.
If we claim to know Jesus and if we claim to have relationships with him then Ephesians says we should “take on an entirely new way of life--a God-fashioned life, 23a life renewed from the inside” This doesn’t mean we should be completely separate from society, it doesn’t mean we should be abandoning our friendships or giving away all our belongings, what it does mean though is that the focus of our lives should be God, and this in turn makes us different from a world which often has its focus on material things such as cars, houses, and even TVs.
The message is simple, we are called to be different but being different isn’t simple! How often have you heard Christian preachers saying come to Jesus and your life will be better etc etc? I’ve heard it a few times and have a huge problem with that type of message for various reasons. How does that make those Christians who’s lives have fallen to bits around them feel? The same question about those whose lives don’t particularly change, things don’t get any better or worse, and how does that fit into what Jesus said when he said “"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” That doesn’t sound easy to me.
Deny yourself, take up your cross, follow Jesus, save your life by losing it! Four challenges which are all very difficult to understand but even more difficult to put into action.
How do you deny yourself? I feel this goes back to the passage in Ephesians mentioned earlier, if we are to live a God fashioned life then we need to deny ourselves some of the things which get in the way of doing this.
The question most people are asked at this time of year is what have you given up for lent? Infact it has become such a common question that people often give things up without asking why. Giving things up for lent is completely pointless unless you do something with it. Lent is the time we prepare for Easter, giving things up is a part of this, not for health reasons, or to save money but it is there as a challenge to get rid of something which maybe a hindrance to your relationship with God, and to replace it by spending more time getting to know the things of God. If we deny ourselves only to spend our time thinking about what we are sacrificing then all you are doing is replacing one hindrance with another.
Take up your cross and follow Jesus. We all know the cross and what it meant in the times of Jesus, it was the ultimate way of killing criminals. It wasn’t the image that it is today and so when Jesus said take up your cross he certainly wasn’t saying things will be easier if you follow me. I feel he was saying the opposite, that in order to follow him you need to be prepared for the pain and suffering that may come from following him.
Obviously if its such hard work then we need to know it is worth it, and Jesus does tell us “whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” Once again saying if you go through all this you will receive life, but only once you’ve lost it for me. No we don’t have to all be killed for God in a physical sense, but we need to be prepared to pass control of our lives to God in order to receive the life he promised us.
This last week I read in one newspaper about a man in Iraq who had become a Christian after doing some work with a Christian support agency. His family have reported him to the police, he has been arrested and now he is waiting to hear what his punishment will be, and it could mean death. I am sure this man knows the true meaning of taking up the cross, but how can we know it when we live in a free country where our faith is accepted no matter what it is? The man has given control of his life totally to God, he is prepare to die, we may not have to risk our lives for our faith in the legal sense but what this situation should make us ask is how much of our lives will we give up for God?
The Iraqi was prepared to give up his family and friends and maybe even his life, would we be the same if we were in his situation? Who has control of our lives? In our working lives is our aim more money or do we ask God what he wants us to do? What place does God have in our family homes when he says he should be the focus but human nature says our spouse and children should be most important? Not easy questions but they are questions which we all need to answer in order to work out what losing our lives for the gospel means to us, and whether we are prepare to do so.
None of this sounds easy and none of it promises an easy life but what it does promise us is that living a God centred life will be worth it in the long terms.
Of course most of this you will hear a similar message again in 2 weeks when we celebrate Easter, so why am I sharing this message during lent. Because we must all use lent as a time of preparation. Easter is the time of the year when the miracle of Jesus’ sacrifice is celebrated and remembered and it is the time of year when we should be renewing our Christian faith but it should also be used as an opportunity to share our faith with our friends and family and society as a whole. This can only be achieved if we have “the things of God in mind” and so it is vital we use the next couple of weeks to prepare and ensure we can honestly say this.
Tonight I believe God is challenging each one of us to get our lives in order, making sure that God is the centre not just a bit on the side. He is challenging us all to accept that this might mean making sacrifices and may be difficult. He is asking us how important he is to us and how our lives show it. Finally I believe God is challenging us to all pick up the cross and follow him on his journey over lent and prepare to experience the true meaning of Easter.
Amen
life changing faith
A Month before Christmas I had a party. I gave it a name,
“Matt's Early Christmas Party”,
I invited 90 of my closest friends from all around Britain.
I took 3 days off work in order to tidy my house.
I cut down my spending the month before so that I would have some money to buy party food and drink.
I planned this party so well that it was going to be the party of the century.
Out of the 90 people invited 3 people turned up
Out of the 3 days I took off work I only used half a day to tidy
Despite my saving I didn’t have as much money as I wanted to spend.
This party was no longer a party and became 3 friends watching a film.
Life destroyed all my party plans.
Life got in the way of the 90 people and stopped them coming to the party,
life meant that I always found something more interesting or worthwhile or fun to do during my time off work,
life meant that my money still had to be spent when I was trying to save,
and Life meant the party of the century wasn’t even a party.
How often does life get in the way of our plans? Too often is the answer I would give, but then again I guess part of the problem is the way we plan and prepare for things. One important thing I forgot to mention about my party planning is that I only decided 2 weeks before the party that I was having it. So despite me planning the party really well, I didn’t really give anyone else time to plan the small things like how they were going to get to mine, who would look after their kids, who would cover for their time off work etc etc. So no it wasn’t really a massive surprise that the party didn’t work.
Our first reading in Malachi shows Gods a lot smarter than me, “Look! I'm sending my messenger on ahead to clear the way for me.” Not only was God sending someone to do the groundwork before his arrival, he even had enough sense to tell everyone about 500 years before Jesus’ arrival. Now if that’s not planning ahead I don’t know what is.
The thing is God clearly doesn’t want everyone to be preparing for a date, or a party, he wants everyone prepared for a person, for him, and so he doesn’t tell them when to expect him, or the messenger. Infact the message version of the passage says it like this “Suddenly, out of the blue, the Leader you've been looking for will enter his Temple” Why doesn’t he just say on the 25th of December in 24 years and at 2pm my messenger will arrive, surely that would have been so much easier.
I believe the reason he wasn’t precise was because he wanted us constantly prepared, because when you are prepared all the time it’s a lot harder for “life to get in your way”. He does tell us what to expect and what we are preparing for, he even tells us he is going to send someone before the event to help us prepare but he doesn’t want us to be working towards a date, he wants us constantly prepared.
So what does being constantly prepared mean to us now that both the Messenger and the Messiah has already come and how should this effect us when we, in all honesty, are all christmassed out and are just about recovered from all the turkeys etc we ate in honer of celebrating the birth of Jesus.
I was talking to someone the other day; they are a Christian but described Christmas as their most hated time of year. She said “I don’t celebrate Christmas because it is a pagan festival with no real importance to me or my faith”. A Christian who thinks Christmas isn’t important that’s shocking isn’t it, but then the more I spoke to her the more the idea of being constantly prepared kept hitting me. She prefers to celebrate Christ’s birth every day of her life than to make a big thing of it once a year. She feels that people will see God through her more if she is constantly worshiping and celebrating God coming to earth than they will from her holding a big party once a year, and she feels that not making a big thing out of Christmas gets more people talking to her about her faith than doing a big thing.
Don’t worry I certainly am not saying we are wrong to celebrate Christmas, I love it and would deeply miss it, but what I am saying is if God urged people to be constantly prepared over 500 years before the first “Christmas” then maybe, just maybe, he wants us to constantly be seen to be celebrating the fact that he came and to be constantly prepared that he will come again. For my friend Christmas is every day, maybe that’s the effect the passage in Malachi should have on us.
So what happened when the Messenger arrived then, well The Message version of out second reading tells us that “In the fifteenth year of the rule of Caesar Tiberius Zachariah's son, out in the desert at the time, received a message from God. He went all through the country around the Jordan River preaching a baptism of life-change leading to forgiveness of sins, as described in the words of Isaiah the prophet: Thunder in the desert! "Prepare God's arrival! Make the road smooth and straight! Every ditch will be filled in, Every bump smoothed out, The detours straightened out, All the ruts paved over. Everyone will be there to see The parade of God's salvation."
Let’s break this down a bit
“A Baptism of life change leading to forgiveness of sins”. This one line challenges me on its own. Now Baptism is a massive symbol in our church whether you believe in infant baptism or not, and this is because of the idea of us being washed clean, but in the context that it is written Baptism was total submersion, it was about someone being 100% submerged into water and was to symbolise the fact that their whole life was changing, they were being totally submerged in Gods love, the sins of their lives were being totally forgiven and their lives were totally changing. Clarissa went through a life changing experience when she went into the cocoon in our story earlier and she came out as a beautiful butterfly, imagine how even more beautiful the transformation is when its Gods love that we are cocooned in.
We are told what John preached was life changing stuff and then we have the details, Johns Job description, and what better job description to use than a prophesy from Isaiah. John’s job was to prepare for Gods arrival, to smooth and straighten and to make sure that EVERYONE will get there to see “The parade of Gods salvation”.
It is very easy to see why many of the people who heard and saw John at work could have mistaken him for the Messiah, as his remit is what I would expect a Saviours remit to be.
Baptise people, yeah that’s simple anyone can do a religious act like that, but to preach life changing and sin forgiving stuff, now not everyone could do that could they?
Ok so John had a hard job, but he was the Messenger it wasn’t going to be easy was it? What’s that got to do with us?
Firstly I believe that the life changing message that John preached through Baptism was the very same that we have all heard and reacted to through Jesus. This means that if we have become Christians then we should be 100% submerged and changed. There are many sermons that can be preached on how we should change and in what ways etc and I don’t feel that it is that area which God wants me to focus on today, but it is still important to remember that the event we have just celebrated, Christmas, is a life changing event and that maybe we might still have to change even if we are happy the way we are.
Secondly I believe that the job description is not only Johns, it is ours as well. Yes Jesus the Messiah has come but surely that makes it even more important for Gods people to smooth out the bumps, to straighten the bendy roads, and to re-direct the detours so that everyone will be there to see the parade of Gods salvation.
The woman I spoke about earlier has taken this job description and sees the seasonal Christmas as a potential blockage in the road which may stop some getting to see the parade and so she has gone about removing it.
How can you do the same in less extreme ways?
Is there a way you can make sure people see that Christmas should be an everyday thing and isn’t just an excuse to party once a year?
Is there something you should be doing now and in the future to improve the access and so help others on the right path?
Finally the word in the description is EVERYONE. It says very clearly that all our work is done so that EVERYONE will be there to see the parade of Gods salvation. This means even more now because society is so mixed up, because religion appears to be more about hatred than about love, because human issues such as race, sexuality, gender etc have become more important to us than God.
Sometimes in our eagerness to help in the roadwork we become another ditch or another hole in the ground which in turn stops people from getting to see the parade. We have to find a way to get beyond our own prejudices or preconceptions, to love the sinner not the sin, to avoid being judgmental, so that we are truly trying to help everyone not just those we think are worthy.
We have been given a life changing experience of a life changing faith. We are asked to be constantly prepared for Gods return and we have been given the task to ensure that everyone else is at the parade when it happens. How do you do it? That’s a question you need to ask God.
Amen
“Matt's Early Christmas Party”,
I invited 90 of my closest friends from all around Britain.
I took 3 days off work in order to tidy my house.
I cut down my spending the month before so that I would have some money to buy party food and drink.
I planned this party so well that it was going to be the party of the century.
Out of the 90 people invited 3 people turned up
Out of the 3 days I took off work I only used half a day to tidy
Despite my saving I didn’t have as much money as I wanted to spend.
This party was no longer a party and became 3 friends watching a film.
Life destroyed all my party plans.
Life got in the way of the 90 people and stopped them coming to the party,
life meant that I always found something more interesting or worthwhile or fun to do during my time off work,
life meant that my money still had to be spent when I was trying to save,
and Life meant the party of the century wasn’t even a party.
How often does life get in the way of our plans? Too often is the answer I would give, but then again I guess part of the problem is the way we plan and prepare for things. One important thing I forgot to mention about my party planning is that I only decided 2 weeks before the party that I was having it. So despite me planning the party really well, I didn’t really give anyone else time to plan the small things like how they were going to get to mine, who would look after their kids, who would cover for their time off work etc etc. So no it wasn’t really a massive surprise that the party didn’t work.
Our first reading in Malachi shows Gods a lot smarter than me, “Look! I'm sending my messenger on ahead to clear the way for me.” Not only was God sending someone to do the groundwork before his arrival, he even had enough sense to tell everyone about 500 years before Jesus’ arrival. Now if that’s not planning ahead I don’t know what is.
The thing is God clearly doesn’t want everyone to be preparing for a date, or a party, he wants everyone prepared for a person, for him, and so he doesn’t tell them when to expect him, or the messenger. Infact the message version of the passage says it like this “Suddenly, out of the blue, the Leader you've been looking for will enter his Temple” Why doesn’t he just say on the 25th of December in 24 years and at 2pm my messenger will arrive, surely that would have been so much easier.
I believe the reason he wasn’t precise was because he wanted us constantly prepared, because when you are prepared all the time it’s a lot harder for “life to get in your way”. He does tell us what to expect and what we are preparing for, he even tells us he is going to send someone before the event to help us prepare but he doesn’t want us to be working towards a date, he wants us constantly prepared.
So what does being constantly prepared mean to us now that both the Messenger and the Messiah has already come and how should this effect us when we, in all honesty, are all christmassed out and are just about recovered from all the turkeys etc we ate in honer of celebrating the birth of Jesus.
I was talking to someone the other day; they are a Christian but described Christmas as their most hated time of year. She said “I don’t celebrate Christmas because it is a pagan festival with no real importance to me or my faith”. A Christian who thinks Christmas isn’t important that’s shocking isn’t it, but then the more I spoke to her the more the idea of being constantly prepared kept hitting me. She prefers to celebrate Christ’s birth every day of her life than to make a big thing of it once a year. She feels that people will see God through her more if she is constantly worshiping and celebrating God coming to earth than they will from her holding a big party once a year, and she feels that not making a big thing out of Christmas gets more people talking to her about her faith than doing a big thing.
Don’t worry I certainly am not saying we are wrong to celebrate Christmas, I love it and would deeply miss it, but what I am saying is if God urged people to be constantly prepared over 500 years before the first “Christmas” then maybe, just maybe, he wants us to constantly be seen to be celebrating the fact that he came and to be constantly prepared that he will come again. For my friend Christmas is every day, maybe that’s the effect the passage in Malachi should have on us.
So what happened when the Messenger arrived then, well The Message version of out second reading tells us that “In the fifteenth year of the rule of Caesar Tiberius Zachariah's son, out in the desert at the time, received a message from God. He went all through the country around the Jordan River preaching a baptism of life-change leading to forgiveness of sins, as described in the words of Isaiah the prophet: Thunder in the desert! "Prepare God's arrival! Make the road smooth and straight! Every ditch will be filled in, Every bump smoothed out, The detours straightened out, All the ruts paved over. Everyone will be there to see The parade of God's salvation."
Let’s break this down a bit
“A Baptism of life change leading to forgiveness of sins”. This one line challenges me on its own. Now Baptism is a massive symbol in our church whether you believe in infant baptism or not, and this is because of the idea of us being washed clean, but in the context that it is written Baptism was total submersion, it was about someone being 100% submerged into water and was to symbolise the fact that their whole life was changing, they were being totally submerged in Gods love, the sins of their lives were being totally forgiven and their lives were totally changing. Clarissa went through a life changing experience when she went into the cocoon in our story earlier and she came out as a beautiful butterfly, imagine how even more beautiful the transformation is when its Gods love that we are cocooned in.
We are told what John preached was life changing stuff and then we have the details, Johns Job description, and what better job description to use than a prophesy from Isaiah. John’s job was to prepare for Gods arrival, to smooth and straighten and to make sure that EVERYONE will get there to see “The parade of Gods salvation”.
It is very easy to see why many of the people who heard and saw John at work could have mistaken him for the Messiah, as his remit is what I would expect a Saviours remit to be.
Baptise people, yeah that’s simple anyone can do a religious act like that, but to preach life changing and sin forgiving stuff, now not everyone could do that could they?
Ok so John had a hard job, but he was the Messenger it wasn’t going to be easy was it? What’s that got to do with us?
Firstly I believe that the life changing message that John preached through Baptism was the very same that we have all heard and reacted to through Jesus. This means that if we have become Christians then we should be 100% submerged and changed. There are many sermons that can be preached on how we should change and in what ways etc and I don’t feel that it is that area which God wants me to focus on today, but it is still important to remember that the event we have just celebrated, Christmas, is a life changing event and that maybe we might still have to change even if we are happy the way we are.
Secondly I believe that the job description is not only Johns, it is ours as well. Yes Jesus the Messiah has come but surely that makes it even more important for Gods people to smooth out the bumps, to straighten the bendy roads, and to re-direct the detours so that everyone will be there to see the parade of Gods salvation.
The woman I spoke about earlier has taken this job description and sees the seasonal Christmas as a potential blockage in the road which may stop some getting to see the parade and so she has gone about removing it.
How can you do the same in less extreme ways?
Is there a way you can make sure people see that Christmas should be an everyday thing and isn’t just an excuse to party once a year?
Is there something you should be doing now and in the future to improve the access and so help others on the right path?
Finally the word in the description is EVERYONE. It says very clearly that all our work is done so that EVERYONE will be there to see the parade of Gods salvation. This means even more now because society is so mixed up, because religion appears to be more about hatred than about love, because human issues such as race, sexuality, gender etc have become more important to us than God.
Sometimes in our eagerness to help in the roadwork we become another ditch or another hole in the ground which in turn stops people from getting to see the parade. We have to find a way to get beyond our own prejudices or preconceptions, to love the sinner not the sin, to avoid being judgmental, so that we are truly trying to help everyone not just those we think are worthy.
We have been given a life changing experience of a life changing faith. We are asked to be constantly prepared for Gods return and we have been given the task to ensure that everyone else is at the parade when it happens. How do you do it? That’s a question you need to ask God.
Amen
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