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Bambi’s chains

“Bambi’s chains”

Romans 8:26-39

A few months ago there was a notable news item about herds of deer on the border of what used to be West Germany and Czechoslovakia. That border marked the line between the Warsaw Pact countries and the NATO alliance of the West. Not long after WW2 a fence was built by the Communists to stop ‘migration’ to the West. The ‘fence’ was actually three fences of high and vicious barbed wire, fully electrified. Armed guards constantly patrolled its entire length. Apparently more than 500 people died along that border as they sought freedom from that oppressive regime.

They were not the only casualties. For century upon century herds of deer had freely roamed the forests of Europe in that area. Once the death-dealing fence was in place the deer quickly learned to avoid it. Deer on the Czech side moved through the eastern forests up to the fence, along it on well worn tracks, and away again. On the German side the herds of deer learned to do the exact same thing. East was east, and west was west, and ne’er the herds did meet.

Now here’s the thing… The herds still don’t meet. It is now 25 years since the wall came down and the fence was removed. In the years since then observers were astonished to see that the deer adhered (!) to the tracks they had learned. Since scientists began micro-chipping the herds only two, both male, are known to have ‘crossed the line’, and one of those returned the same day and never ‘re-offended’. The herds are stuck in their learned patterns of behaviour in spite of the fact that not a single deer alive today was alive when the electric fence was doing its dirty work. As one report had it, ‘The wall is still in their heads!’ No other animals are limited in the same way. (Thanks to Pastor Fred Veerhuis for this article and his insights).

We belong to a church which prides itself on its convictions about Gospel freedom. We love Galatians 5:1. ‘For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand fast then, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.’ (RSV) Most certainly the Gospel bestows the gift of freedom through forgiveness, for Christ’s sake, by grace, through faith. With it comes that delightful and cherished confidence that there is now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Being placed ‘in Christ Jesus’ puts the children of the heavenly Father beyond any accusation that could ever be raised according to law. Nothing, repeat nothing… nothing in all creation, nothing… can ever separate us from the love of God the Father revealed in Jesus Messiah our Lord. Nothing!

And in that revelation, we are free to be the person we want to be, because Christ has set us free.

Nelson Mandela after apartheid was abolished said that the only thing that now remained keeping his people in bondage was the fear of freedom.

For us, born free in our country that may sound a little strange. But what if we think of those things that we are slaves to, regardless of our need not to be.

Excess wealth, status, keeping up with “Jones’” and all manner of things that shape our way of life that don’t necessarily enhance it, but restrict it.

If only I didn’t have to worry about……..imagine the freedom.

The Freedom that two rich, intelligent and wealthy stock brokers strived for.

Not a desire of freedom from their riches or work pressures, but the freedom that they desired so great but could not do either together or alone and so developed Alcoholics Anonymous in which the basic premise is that without help from a higher God, they cannot sustain the battle against alcohol.

We are free in Christ, yet in some ways, still trapped in ourselves.

If Christ was not Christ He might answer for us to have a look at ourselves and get our act together.

Thankfully Christ is Christ and instead of passing opinions of matters He does not understand, does understand and sees that things are not easy for even those that know the truth of the freedom they have in Him.

Michael Jordan, maybe the greatest basketball player in history after hearing people comment on his brilliance remarked that I wonder if they would think the same if they saw the amount of times I miss during my practicing over and over again for hours every day.

In our Jordan moments when we hit the target Christ sees His good and faithful servants at work. The same when He sees His good and faithful servants bowed down lying with an empty bottle on the street asking for forgiveness and begging for an end to the horror.

When Christ walked this earth He did miracles, raising people from the dead, healing lepers and so forth. Absolute miracles that if we were the recipient of one would never give short thrift to.

But for me, the miracle is that, again and again, are the spoken Gospel words that is Jesus Christ who comes to us amongst society and indeed our own opinions of ourselves, that whether at the both at the “top of our game” or at the bottom, comes to us with the exact same words “that nothing, nothing of this world nor in powers seen or unseen that we know little , not our failures to be that person we want and know we should be, not our failure in ourselves and nor our failure in serving Him as we should-nothing because of Christ can ever separate those who know who He is and what He came for can ever be separated from the love of God.

Those who know Christ and what He came for are saved.

Romans 10:9-13

“because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

For there is no distinction between Jew or Greek-For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

No distinctions: Be it those in the concrete mountains of wall street or those wallowing in rags under a bridge in Dubbo/Gilgandra and should either have been freed of their invisible jail cells or not-everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Acts 13:38-39

Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

In our lives here, our freedom within can feel both the journey and the destination. But in Christ-His journey to death on the cross was our arrival at our destiny of life in His resurrection because though we can be free today, the greater miracle is that Jesus the Christ got behind the real wall of the law, undermined it by his life of suffering glory, dismantled the accuser’s strongholds by delivering forgiveness through his own death, drove a stake through the dominating heart of the spirit of death by his resurrection, and proceeded to lead the redeemed through those shattered walls into the kingdom of his Father.

We are free today as we are, as we will be when our bodies are renewed on the last day.

And in that, we go with the peace that is not of us, but with the peace of Christ for we know, that should we lie in green pastures beside still waters, or walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we know He is with us, following us in goodness and mercy wherever our journey leads us-that nothing shall ever separate us from His promise that we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. His house, and our house. Amen.

Religion has a lot to answer for

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43: Psalm 139

I want my life to be lived with you
There’s a way everybody say’s
To do each and every little thing
But what does it bring
If I ain’t got you,

You don’t know what it’s like
To love somebody
To love somebody
The way I love you

The words from a Bee Gees song that has the effect of being at the same time both of heartbreak and of triumphant.

And words that could be from Christ himself as a reminder to the to the church and words to each of us today reminding us that no matter how much we try, we will never truly understand a love that is untarnished by sin that is the love of Christ.

Religion has a lot to answer for.

We see in the Middle East what seems to be Muslim Brother against Muslim brother. Murder and bloodshed in the name of religion.

At the completion of the first Christian Crusade” in the middle ages, a chaplain and historian present wrote of the events immediately following the capture of Jerusalem.

“Wonderful sights were to be seen. Some of our men (the more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into the flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one’s way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are normally chanted … in the temple and the porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies.”

And here, if our land of freedom-in our land flowing with milk and honey we hear of the religious leaders, Pastors and those of their flocks who have not welcomed the confused and anxious teenager carrying baby, but discarded her by way of judgment and lecture. And the church that welcomes back those lost to them, maybe that same girl with a smile, but really a smile that could be seen as a smirk as she notices the side way looks between the good and faithful.

The dictionary defines theology as “the systematic study of the existence and nature of the divine and its relationship to and influence upon other beings”, and in our own church theological discussions have been present since the reformation and hopefully will be to the end of time.

Theology-the study of the Word in history, and indeed both in our own times allows for us to hear the truth of God no matter what the winds of society otherwise suggest. The word that says yes, that thing is still a sin, and the word that says no, that no matter your condition that the present society has now labelled as unforgivable, no, that though others forgive you not- no sin is too great to separate those from the love of God who have turned to Christ.

Religion, the Church at times, some Pastors moments, you and me all have things to answer for. Retaliation of those of not the same beliefs and the judgment of others that doesn’t lift them from the shallows but pushes them into the depths. We all have something.

When young, a family stopped attending church for the very reasons I have mentioned and at the age of twelve, a boy in that family-unbeknown to anyone to this day for weeks struggled with what seemed a call to leave his mother and father and live with his still actively worshipping grandfather. The pull was immense and it seemed clearly a line in the sand had been drawn between following Christ or following self.

For the next 15 years his relationship or pull towards the Lord became dim only to be replaced with all manner of worldly ways.

A moment, and moments following that needed answering for-but was not sought for nor considered.

So Christ answered himself not in judgment and damnation, but through a seemingly chance encounter that would see him enter a church against his wishes only to be re-awakened and brought to tears that finally, he was home.

The apostle Paul through the knowledge of his own situation has told us that “But by His doing are you in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boast, boast (only) in the Lord”.

I have walked in many directions not made of the Lord, and yet even in the most wayward it was He who opened up a door. Opened door after door that in my unknowing state would see me stumble unawares to a place he prepared that once again I would come to weep in the knowledge of a love so great.

We all deserve to answer to God for our wayward ways, but as we could not, God sent us His son to answer for us.

I want my life to be lived with you
There’s a way everybody say
To do each and every little thing
But what does it bring
If I ain’t got you,

You don’t know what it’s like
To love somebody
To love somebody
The way I love you.

God answered our inability to save ourselves by sending us His Son.

Jesus Christ who though we turn from Him, does not turn from us.

The parable of the sower: “The servants said to him, do you want us to gather up the weeds. But he said to them, No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.”

Christ here gives voice to our theology, to His churches and to us. A sin is a sin and so it will be till the end of time. But though we see sins in others and in ourselves-we are not to judge prematurely by assuming we can tell the difference between the weeds and the wheat for that is not the realm of us, but of God. The realm of our God who separates the two not of what we discern, but in knowing of those who come before him with empty hands clinging to forgiveness and life eternal through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

We may have doubts of ourselves from past, present or future that cause us to pray in anxiety or even distress as to our fate on our last day. Pray yes, but fear not for we have a God, God the Father that knows you.

Our God that is aware of our sins and of our times of bodily and spiritual weaknesses. But a God that has not forsaken us, or closed his eyes and ears to us but comes to us in the midst of our storms with the assurance that: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

We all have family and friends not of the visible church which may give us reason to pray. And pray we should, but not in fear but in comfort that God, our God is not a God far off, but God our Father who is near and hear these Words from today’s Psalm 139 for them, and as they most assuredly are for you.

“”                 1 You have searched us, Lord,
and you know us.
2 You know when we sit and when we rise;
you perceive our thoughts from afar.
3 You discern our going out and our lying down;
you are familiar with all our ways.
4 Before a word is on our tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem us in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon us.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for us,
too lofty for us to attain.

7 Where can we go from your Spirit?
Where can we flee from your presence?
8 If we go up to the heavens, you are there;
if we make our bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If we rise on the wings of the dawn,
if we settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide us,
and your right hand will hold us fast….    and lead us in the way everlasting life. Amen.

A labour of Love

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Prior to today’s Gospel lesson Jesus had told His disciples: “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few” and here in this parable He gives encouragement that they continue to faithfully sow the seed. To continue to sow the seed though some goes to waste and though it would seem they are reaping little success.

Like those disciples past, we too are asked to sow the seed because in us has the seed, the Word of God landed on fertile land. The fertile land that Jesus talks of in the joining verses between today’s Gospel were He tells us that “Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear. For truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Blessed are we to know Christ the Saviour who has come to us. The Saviour who the prophets and righteous of past were foretold of but did not know. And Christ the Saviour who has come to us as He did some 2,000 years ago to those in Jerusalem as a thirty three year old only to be misunderstood and judged in His ways that He be killed on a cross in the name of religion as a fraud and blasphemer.

Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God who brought the truth of His forgiveness to the chosen race of God-the Israelites. Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God who brought His truth of forgiveness to their enemies the Samaritans. To their captors the Romans. To adulterers, thieves, prostitutes, the judged and the forgotten.

Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God. The long  awaited Messiah who having arrived brought a message so radical in its nature, that the nature of those present refused Him and tried to destroy the freedom He brought by placing both on a cross.

Yet in the seemingly victory of Sin and the defeat of Christ, those blessed of fertile ground have come to know that on that harrowing Cross was not the defeat of Christ and what he stood for.  But the victory of Christ and the deliverance of freedom from eternal death in sin, to eternal life in Christ in spite of sin.

This Thursday just gone some of us attended Wilf’s funeral in Gilgandra we heard these words from his Eulogy:

“Born in 1919 and at the start of his earthly journey he was declared a sickly baby and Doctors were sure he wouldn’t survive, but he proved them wrong”, (and went on to live a full and fruitful life).

Having arrived here only a few years ago, I have only known Wilf at the end of his earthly journey in which was in sickness as much as it started and far from proving things wrong, to me he proved things right because in Wilf, though aging and frail was a man of upbeat hope no matter the situation and I will never forget our only theological discussion when after a sermon on saved in faith in Christ alone up and against what the world and both we throw at ourselves remarked, that “I too believe that in Christ and in Christ alone are we saved.”

I do not know the details of Wilf’s life, like I don’t know all of yours or even some of my own that my mind has chosen to blot out. Yet though I do not know the details, I know the substance and for us all it is of the same manner.

For we all live in this complicated world where life is experienced through the painful tension between love and hate, joy and sorrow, justice and injustice, good and evil, hope and meaninglessness, life and death, the present and the future.

And amid all of this, we live a double life as Paul writes in Romans 8:18-23.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God. For the creation was subject to futility, not willingly, but because to him who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth….and we too grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons and daughters in the redemption of our bodies”

Creation itself, our home planet scarred, battered used and abused awaits the day when it will be replenished in the splendour it once was and was to remain. Our planet, our earthly planet that we have used and abused-yet it still endures to flourish to maintain that we have shelter, food and life.

Creation itself, those created in God’s own image-we ourselves, scarred, battered used and abused await the day when we too will be replenished to the splendour we once where in the garden of Eden and where we could have remained had not we fell to sin.

Oh to be in that day when cliffs are covered again in soil and clover and we walk without aging bodies free of pain and tears alongside those we love who have gone before us and those that we too will one day leave behind.

This is not our worldly hope, but our Hope in Christ which is not a maybe, but a certainty. A day that awaits us as certain as Christ himself and should we march, stride, walk and crawl toward that day is of no consequence because the words the apostle Paul told the Ephesians he tells us, that:

“God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. “

You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand. His workmanship that has brought “Blessing to your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear. For truly He says to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

But we have heard it, the final Word of God to us regarding our salvation and that of Jesus Christ. And though we may crawl with the weight of sin and hurt on our back, we can march bold and upright towards our heavenly reality because of Christ’s sure promise to us.

And though in doubt of our self-worth and fear of rejection we desire to retreat from those to who He places before us who have rejected Him or yet to know Him, as one we can march together with Christ and stand firm in the faith that the Word of God does not return empty.

Because in you I see the Word was not empty for the seed of His Word continues to grow in you, and will continue to do so until we not just trust in, but see, feel and touch the Glory that is to be fully revealed to us on our last day and see that these present days are not worth of compare.

You here today need no longer need search for forgiveness and salvation in a future time because it is yours today because in trust in Christ alone and in faith that He died on the cross for your sin the heavens have been opened so that you will most assuredly enter and reside with all in Christ.

The deal was done for the world on a lonely hill in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, and the deal was done for you the moment you understood that as you are, rich or poor, young or old, of good cheer or downtrodden, that no matter your sins and mistakes of past and just so your sins and mistakes that await you in the remainder of your earthly journey, that in faith in Christ the door to heaven is now closed to you. Closed not to keep you out, but to keep you in: because neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And In our mortal bodies though we still walk this earth, we March together with Christ and the Word of God to those to which Christ came for. We march as one to let those held captive to sin. To those on the streets, to adulterers, thieves, prostitutes, the forgotten and bring His truth to them as we do to the worldly elite.

We march to them as we are and meet them as they are, for we are blessed people who know both the way of the world’s deceptions and lies, and the way of Christ’s faithfulness, love and acceptance.

God gave us the gift of Jesus and eternal life. And Jesus has given us as a gift to those at whose door he still knocks, that when they open it-they too will enter and see the door close behind. Not to keep them out, but keep them in as they too see, feel and touch in faith the Glory of God in this life of hardships and struggles, while they too await His full revelation on their last day which is not of compare. Amen

We all have our song to sing

 

 

 

 

 

“I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench, an old man was sittin’ there.
I said, “Your old court house is kinda run down,
He said, “Naw, it’ll do for our little town”.
I said, “Your old flag pole is leaned a little bit,
And that’s a ragged old flag you got hangin’ on it”.
He said, “Have a seat”, and I sat down,
“Is this the first time you’ve been to our little town”
I said, “I think it is”
He said “I don’t like to brag, but we’re kinda proud of
That Ragged Old Flag”

The opening lyrics to Johnny Cash’s song a “Ragged old Flag”.

A song of patriotism as seen through this flag of stars and stripes that has been present throughout the many wars and difficulties experienced by the United States of America, and after metaphorically listing the many hits it’s taken finishes with:

“She’s been abused,
She’s been burned, dishonored, denied an’ refused,
And the government for which she stands
Has been scandalized throughout out the land.
And she’s getting thread bare, and she’s wearin’ thin,
But she’s in good shape, for the shape she’s in.
Cause she’s been through the fire before
and i believe she can take a whole lot more.

Great lyrics. Poetry. Words that if I was an American would let me raise my head when the storms of the world and life intend otherwise.

We all have our song to sing where we have hung tough against the odds. Racing towards what awaits to assist in a road accident, when in our whole self we would rather race from.

To hold firm and drop off your young child at their first day of child care or school even though your heart is breaking because of their anxious state and pleading of being elsewhere.

To see those we love in pain and sit with them in their last hours, and see your mother weeping at their grave.

We’ve all been there and we’ll be there again, where again we’ll feel those words as like Elvis Presley, that

“You know Lord I’ve been in a prison
For something that I never done
It’s been one hill after another
I’ve climbed them all one by one

But this time, Lord you gave me a mountain
A mountain you know I may never climb
It isn’t just a hill any longer
You gave me a mountain this time”

Like our physical pain thresholds differ, so to do our emotional pain thresholds differ and for some a hill may be a mountain and for others a mountain a hill and though we may through sheer personal gut wrenching perseverance and determination climb that hill, sometimes we are given a mountain that we cannot climb.

Those words of Johnny Cash: that,

“She’s been abused,
She’s been burned, dishonored, denied an’ refused,
She’s getting thread bare, and she’s wearin’ thin,
Given our personal mountain this could be us. Like in our Western world so could it be our Church, the Christian churches. Yet us in the Church, and the Church in us. Yet us in Christ, and Christ in us we follow on:

But she’s in good shape, for the shape she’s in.
Cause she’s been through the fire before
and i believe she can take a whole lot more.”

A home is not made from bricks and mortar, but from love united and pain shared.

So too is the church not of earthly structure, but of Christ received.

Christ received on our week day hills and mountains. Christ uniting Him-self to us in His love, and Christ uniting Him-self to us in our hurts.

Come what may, be we threadbare and wearin thin, Jesus Christ our Saviour 2,000 years ago was nailed to a cross that whether we be young or old we can lift our heads and see the risen Christ with us today.

With us today walking next us over our hills and carrying us up our mountains.

With us today reaching out His nailed pierced hands that though ours may be young and strong, or old and wrinkled, ours will never need be pierced for he has taken our sin on himself.

Each of us has our own song to sing, and be it of joy or sorrow-it is a song we should sing from the top of those mountains we have scaled-because on those mountains past we have come to know the Lord. To know our Lord and what He has done for us and see clearly:

“On a hill far away an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suff’ring and shame;
And we love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.

So we’ll cherish …….and we will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.

That old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
Has a wondrous attraction for us;
For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above
To bear it to dark Calvary.

On that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
A wondrous beauty we see,
For ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
To pardon and sanctify me and you.

To the old rugged cross we will ever be true;
Its shame and reproach gladly bear;
Then He’ll call us some day to our home far away,
Where His glory forever we’ll share. Amen.

Got it all together?

Think of a person you know, an everyday type of person; a person to whom you look as a role model.

This person is someone that you may have had dealings with,
but then again maybe they’re not.

They might be someone you have read about, or seen on television. They might be one of your parents, or grandparents.

This person might be a friend or someone with whom you’d like to be friends.

Perhaps they are someone with confidence, or wealth, a healthy lifestyle, successful in whatever they do, or they seem to be at peace with themselves.

Whoever this person might be, you see them as one who has it all together.
They are lords of their lives, it seems. You see them as masters of their domain.

We don’t use the language of lords much these days, when speaking of everyday people.

We no longer use the term to honour those whom we respect, and we don’t use it as a name for the rulers of our country, or for landholders, as they still do in other parts of the world.

Nor do we have a great cause to ponder the function of masters and slaves.

We might hear the word master when talking about someone skilled at the top of their trade, or when master is used as a definition of a principal, such as a master bedroom or a master builder.

When we uphold these role models as masters of their domains, or as lords of their lives;

we receive a terrible blow when these people begin to fade and struggle with life,

or when their domain comes crashing down around their ears.

When death comes to those we love and look up to, it usually hits hard.

Or when the person we have upheld as such a good example, is not who they first appeared,

the let down can leave us feeling deflated.

A harder shock for us all is when we find life harder and harder to master.

Our bodies and our wills seem to enslave us.

We find that we can’t do what we know we should be doing. Or perhaps we shudder when we find out someone else looks up to us.

Disgusted, perhaps you think, “If only they knew what I’m really like!”

We humans are very good at making ourselves slaves,

belittling ourselves, and burdening ourselves or others by our misconceived ideas as to who and what is worthy of lordship.

When we make these types of judgement, the very elements of life we uphold as being necessary, become the very things killing us and driving us to despair.

The best example of this is at funerals.

While hearing the deceased person eulogised, thoughts can arise that either crush you or confuse you.

As you listen you might wish you were as good as the person who has passed on, but go away crushed and downhearted.

Or you might wonder if you are at the right funeral, thinking to yourself, “Hang on, this person wasn’t as good as what they are being made out to be!”

And so we arrive at the reality of life.

This reality is revealed for every person at their death. Unfortunately though, it’s too late for the revelation to do anything, once we die.

However, for Christians, we who believe in, hold onto, and remain in our baptism, the reality is daily revealed why we die but also who is really worthy of being eulogised in our death, and in our being raised to eternal life.

Therefore, we find that baptism and funerals are inseparably joined.

And in the inseparability is the need for us to remain with Jesus Christ given at baptism, who is faithfully walking with us every day of our lives, and willing us to trust him for salvation even in our last breath of earthly life.

Death, and our need for baptismal living, reveals that no person can be lord of their lives, and that any mastery of one’s domain is temporary at best.

In fact we hear from Saint Paul that in our original condition we can only master one thing — that is sin leading to death.

We hear in Romans 5:19-21… For just as through the disobedience of the one man (that is Adam) the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man (Jesus Christ) the many will be made righteous. The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul then goes on to speak of our struggle against sin and the reality in which we live as believing baptised children of God.
He says… 1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:1-11)

No longer do we have to eulogise or uphold the things that end in death;

rather we can give all glory to Jesus Christ whose life we have received in baptism.

In other words we uphold and remain in the only thing that ends in life, our baptism into Jesus’ death.

In baptism we no longer have a master standing over us, enslaving us.

But we now have a Saviour who faithfully stands and has mastered sin and death in us.

In the gospel we hear,

“A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. (Matthew 10:24-25a)

We have already seen that Jesus is not our master in the religious sense.

We are not bound again as slaves doing works for righteousness.

But Jesus is our role model, the only worthy role model.

We look to Jesus’ baptism as our example as we hear John the Baptist declare,

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” (Matthew 3:11)

Jesus was baptised with water and the Holy Spirit came,

we too are baptised with water and the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit came.

Jesus endured a baptism of fire ending in death at the cross, and we too will face many fiery trials in this life ending in death.

This is the cross we all must bear. But, like our teacher, we will be raised to life, because this teacher now lives in us.

His death has mastered our sin and our death. Sin and death have no power. They now are dying slaves of Christ; serving him in us so we might have life with him forever. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, you are Lord of lords, and you are master of all dominions, powers, and authorities,

and yet you live in us and daily win the battle of sin and death in us.

Thank you precious Lord Jesus, not only do we abide in you, but you faithfully abide in us. Amen.

An offer too good to refuse

“An offer too good to refuse”

Matthew 28:16-20

Saturday morning, at the end of the Australia vs. Chile world cup soccer game in which we lost 3-1, an interviewer remarked to the Aussie goal scorer Tim Cahill that “though they had lost, he had played a great game.”

He responded “to play these games for Australia is a great honour” and then speaking metaphorically finished with “and when you’re invited, you have to turn up.”

What an honour it would be to represent our country, even if only just once in soccer, test cricket, rugby league or nik, nat, paddywhack.

To be invited and “turn up” as if our life depended on it.

What an honour it would be to soar to such heights and see all the hard work and the honing of skill had been worth it and be amongst the best of the best.

For most of us, those days have long gone and we never got to send back a RSVP and so slip back into our day to day “grind”.

If it was a dream, that’s all it was. Unlucky, didn’t want it hard enough or probably just not good enough.

Sounds like the story of my life. Maybe yours too. Not good enough, but seemingly to have been “good” enough to given an honour so much more greater and more precious than we can ever imagine when Christ tells us, that in him having been given “All authority in heaven and earth”, has turned to us and said so now you, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

Jesus him very self has sent out the invite and we need to “turn up as if our life depended on it.”

So we suit up and break from the huddle ready to break through the lines, don the baggy green of righteousness ready to take on the 150 plus kilometre thunderbolts of life and “turn up.”

And then ready to rock and roll we have our Luther moment where the powers of darkness come to us as they did to him mocking and ridiculing our aspirations with taunts of “who do you think you are,” “you’re not good enough-your nothing,” and worst “you yourself are just another hopeless sinner.”

1st Peter tells us that “our enemy the devil” with his tricks of the trade of deception and lies “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” So Peter adds be alert, vigilant and of sober mind that we hold firm.

Deceit, trickery and lies-so be alert to fend off these false accusations. We can do that because we know the truth of how this plays out. The results are in and Christ has won and we can see the lies for what they are. Faced with lies through personal strength of character and in good conscience we can turn away and think say what you want. But it’s not so easy when the lies aren’t lies, but the hard faced gut wrenching truth and see that our character is not of strength, but at best a flawed and blurred imagine of what we wish we were.

We like Luther face the truth “who do you think you are you flawed sinner to think that you could ever possibly help God do his business,” and yet, we too like Luther have been given authority to not run, but to turn and rebut not the character assignation, but to rebut the result and respond, “yes it is true, but I’m a forgiven sinner baptised and saved by grace.

Martin Luther when still overwrought by his sins and failures found the Gospel of Jesus Christ for himself-because he had too, and having found it became a great servant for the Lord. Eleven disciples, having run from Christ in his time of need are gathered together, hiding and poor in spirit from knowing they had left Him, feeling inadequate, confused and doubting. Then Jesus comes to them and says peace be with you and sends these same men without phone, Facebook or the world wide web at their disposal to take His message of forgiveness that they came to known first hand that a Church be built. The Church that now touches virtually every nation on earth.

C.S. Lewis said that “Miracles are a retelling of the letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some to see.”

In knowing of Christ’s great love and His gift to us of being saved through faith in Him, and through faith in Him alone without any prerequisites of our own goodness or abilities may not seem like miracle, but the faith to believe it most certainly is.

Martin Luther, eleven disciples, you and me have all been given the prerequisite to go and make disciples and to bring them to baptism. The prerequisite that yes it may be true that we may seem to have little to offer, but in knowing that we are forgiven sinners, baptised in Christ and saved by grace we have everything to offer and just need to turn up.

In 1994, led by the spirit a group of Christians did that in venturing to Russia to distribute Bibles. While there a local citizen led them to an old warehouse that held many boxes of Bibles. They had been confiscated in the 1930’s when Stalin was sending Christians to the labour camps as prisoners. Amazingly, they were still there. So the volunteers arranged to use them. Among those who showed up to help load the truck to earn some income was a young agnostic, being a person that neither believe or disbelieves. Soon though he slipped away from the job and when a team member went looking for him, he found him sitting in a corner with a Bible he had taken from the boxes. He was crying because Bible he had picked up from the hundreds that were there was signed by his grandmother who had been persecuted for her faith. No doubt she had prayed for her family and probably for this grandson, and now all the years later, the Holy Spirit was using her Bible to bring him to faith.

A group asked to turn up and give away Bibles, and the Lord who showed up and changed a life.

The Lord has invited us to teach and bring others to know Him in Word and Sacrament and we need only open our hand and be led to those awaiting His Word.

Our business houses, our jobs, our families, the pubs, the clubs, the Church and its work. To these we go, as we are. Maybe not great in speech. Maybe shy and reluctant. But still we can go because we have been groomed throughout our lives to come to know the miracle of faith and in that faith we can go and attest to the love of the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. And in that faith we go knowing of His promise to great and small missionaries of the past, and now to us, “That behold, (as you go) I am with you always to the end of the age.”

“Miracles are a retelling of the letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some to see.” So we go and tell the story of our Saviour and His love, not in our need to be seen to do so, but in their need that they see Him also.  Amen.

Behind your fears

Pentecost

John 20:19-23

What do we normally do when we’re afraid? Normally we try to protect ourselves.
This protection may take the form of putting up some kind of barrier, such as a wall, closing a door, or securing something with locks. For example, we might lock our precious belongings away because we’re afraid of losing them. We might lock our houses and cars. We may shut doors to strangers. We might slam doors to create a barrier between ourselves and the person we’re angry with, out of fear we’re not in control of the situation or our emotions.

We also protect ourselves by increasing our distance from danger. This might include avoidance, We might avoid going to the doctor because we’re afraid of the results. We might steer clear of people because we’re afraid of their anger, abuse, lies, or manipulation. We might stop our children from participating in certain activities or interacting with certain people because we’re afraid they might get hurt. If we’ve been hurt by a broken relationship in the past, we might avoid any new relationships because we’re afraid of more pain.

Another form of protection is attack. Because we’re afraid, we might yell at, abuse, insult, and hit out at those around us, and not always at the people who are the cause of our fears. For example, we might be angry with developers or mining or resource exploration companies because we’re afraid they’ll take away our land, our livelihood, our lifestyle or our home. Or, a church might be afraid for the future of their congregation: that they might not get a new pastor, or if they do get one, he might not live up to their expectations. Because of our fears – fears of being left out, forgotten, or of not being in control – we might be tempted to lash out at the leadership of our congregation, our previous pastors, our district, or the LCA.

Fears can control us and our actions. We build physical and emotional barriers around ourselves. We might hide behind jokes and safe conversational topics. We protect ourselves from probing questions or from revealing secrets about ourselves. We might build a wall of anger and punishment around us to protect ourselves from the things and people we’re scared of.

Many times, people won’t admit to their fears, but secretly everybody’s afraid of something. We’re afraid of losing loved ones through sickness or accident, losing respect, losing dignity through aging, losing farms and homes, losing our mind, our health, our faith, or our life.

Sometimes we may even be afraid of God. Maybe we’re afraid he won’t like us, so we might try to make him like us by doing all the right things. Maybe we’re afraid of what he says because it’ll affect the way we live, so we might try to ignore, “dumb down” or modify what he says. Maybe we’re afraid to admit we’re wrong, so we may try to disregard his words and his people.

Our fears constrict us, burden us, trap us and bind us. Our fears cripple us and make us sick with worry. Our fears control us and make us do all types of silly, irrational things. We can be ‘locked up’ by our fears, and we ‘lock’ others up because of our fears.

Then Jesus comes among us and says ‘Peace to you’. Peace?

Even though we long for peace, we can also be afraid of it. We would rather manufacture a false peace – a peace which involves barriers and distance: a peace which involves anger and punishment. Yet we also know our barriers and bravado offer no peace, just isolation with our fears.

Yet Jesus somehow gets past those barriers to offer us peace. He comes to bring us peace this morning. But this peace might scare us. This peace tells us to step out from our locked room, get out from behind our barriers, and go out again into the troubled and fearful world. This peace challenges us to trust him more than we trust our fears.

The peace Jesus offers us today, challenges and authorises us to forgive others. But we can also be afraid to forgive. When we forgive someone, we can’t hold them to ransom for the pain they’ve caused us anymore. But who are we really hurting by not forgiving? We lock up ourselves in chains just as much as the other person by withholding forgiveness. Yet by forgiving someone, we not only free them from their chains of sin, but we’re also freed from our fears. Of course, that forgiven person might hurt us again: that’s what we’re afraid of. Fears trap us: forgiveness frees us.

Jesus offers us peace even though our relationships might be breaking down, our loved ones are dying, our property is being taken from us, and our health declines. Jesus says, “Peace to you.”

Our idea of peace might be when God takes away everything we’re afraid of. We may think peace is when God gets rid of our enemies, gets rid of our sickness, gets rid of those who pick on the little guys, and makes us feel successful, whole and happy. We might think peace is when things go our way. We might think peace is where we’re free, but everyone else is restrained and kept ‘locked up’.

God’s peace isn’t like that. God doesn’t always take away all our troubles, but he still says ‘Peace to you’. God seems to let people get away with their hurtful crimes, but he still says ‘Peace to you’. God doesn’t always heal our sickness and won’t stop our loved ones from dying, but he still says ‘Peace to you’. God may delay things for us, yet he still says ‘Peace to you’. God is willing to forgive those we fear and don’t and he still says ‘Peace to you’.

God’s peace is different from what the world offers. God’s peace is different from the peace locks, barriers and distance offer. God’s peace somehow comes to us even if all the safety barriers and security blankets are taken away. God’s peace comes even when we’re terrified.

God’s peace isn’t necessarily when God takes away the people or situations we’re afraid of, but rather, God’s peace comes when he takes away our fear of them.

But how does God’s peace come to us and how does he drive out our fears

God’s peace comes to us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

That can sound a bit ‘airy fairy’ ,vague and elusive until we get a bit more specific.

For instance, God’s peace washed over us when we were baptised. If we were scared of God beforehand, we have no reason to fear him now because we’re safe in Jesus. Our sins were washed away and our name is written in the book of heaven. We’re at peace with God for the sake of Jesus. Of course, baptism doesn’t guarantee we’ll live happily ever after in this life on earth, although in one sense it does. It means that whenever we’re afraid or troubled, we can shout like Martin Luther used to, saying ‘I am baptised!’ Baptism assures us that we are God’s forgiven and saved children. Nothing in all of creation can separate us from God’s love, or from God’s peace through faith in Jesus.

We also eat and drink God’s peace in the Lord’s Supper. Jesus comes to us to give us a real and certain assurance that we’re at peace with God through Christ’s willing sacrifice for us. Just like we invite friends and loved ones to our dinner table, Jesus invites us to come to his banquet table as his honoured guests to receive an assurance of his forgiveness and peace. We’re not enemies, but dearly loved people who are at peace with God through Christ’s death and resurrection. Anything we’ve thought, said or done that might create barriers between us and God or between ourselves and those around us, are forgiven and taken away by eating and drinking in faith. In this sense, we come in peace to receive peace by eating and drinking. We then go out from this meal in peace in order to bring God’s peace to all those around us.

The forgiveness of sins is closely connected to God’s peace. God’s forgiveness drives away our fear.

When our sins are forgiven, locks are opened that even the best locksmiths in the world can’t unlock. It’s like Jesus has handed sinful human beings the keys to his own house. The heavenly house, or more so, heavenly home.

Through the forgiveness of sins, the gates of heaven are unlocked and swung open for us.

These are the tools, the instruments, or the means of grace and peace that Jesus gives his people: the Word of God, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the authority to forgive people their sins. These tools, these keys, unlock heaven for us. These are the tools through which the Holy Spirit comes and comforts his people. These are the instruments which drive out fear and replace it with peace. These are the keys to peace on earth.

Then, as God’s peace has driven away our fears and brought down the barriers of protection, we go out from this place to become peacemakers in this fear-filled world. We go out from this place with a message of peace through the forgiveness of sins. We’re led by the Holy Spirit to forgive others in order to bring God’s peace to a troubled and fearful world. Forgiveness is the key to unlocking us from fear. Forgiveness is the key to bringing a glimpse of heaven on earth. Forgiveness is the key to true peace on earth that drives out our fears.

When we go home today, it may be tempting fate if we don’t keep your belongings secure and lock them up and so still will be. It would be silly not to. But also don’t be afraid to live in the freedom of Christ. Don’t be afraid to let some of those barriers come down and those distances reduce as Jesus takes away our fears and replaces them with his peace – peace knowing we’re a loved child of God who lives under the care of Christ. Go out from here as forgiven people who are at peace with God and at peace with each other and likewise let us be prepared to unburden and release others through your forgiveness so they too may experience the peace of God as we do.

In this way, may……the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

JUST DO IT!!

“Speaking words of wisdom, let it be”

Acts 1:6-14, 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11, John 17:1-11

A rather shy man with hidden insecurities and self- loathing was talking to a lady that had become a friend through day to day encounters and though he can’t quite remember what they were talking about that night, he remembers to this day ten words from that conversation that he had never heard before or even contemplated, “You can be anything in your life that you want.”

Ten words he had never heard that had impact, but more so was the impact that she seemed to mean it.

Cathy, my wife of 21 years said that remark to me when we first started getting to know each other 24 years ago and though I didn’t hang onto those words as if they were the “gospel of Cathy”, and though it didn’t change my life and what or how I was doing things, and even though I don’t think I actually believed her it didn’t matter, it was more so the shock and astonishment that anyone could believe that of me.

The book of Kings tells us that “God gave Solomon very great wisdom, discernment, and breadth of understanding as vast as the sand on the seashore”  we hear of that wisdom as he states in Proverbs 12:18 that “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

King Solomon’s wisdom was shown through his ruling of Israel and through his words round about 950 years before Christ and now some near on 3,000 years later those who study such things have come to the following assessments:

“Negative words can have long-lasting results that spread far beyond the person to whom they were hurled. Those kind of painful hurts replay themselves for decades to come.”

Children, who are brought up in an atmosphere where harsh criticism, taunts, and mocking are their daily fare, can and will easily internalize the sentiments behind the words. They learn that they aren’t worth very much, and that if those around them think that of them, who are they to refuse the judgment?

Then when they see how their friends do not act like they feel it just emphasizes all the more that there must be something wrong with them and cements it in their mind that the things his parents or other adults say to him must be true. In his childish heart, he firmly believes the message these authority figures have said: that they are worthless and if that’s all a child knows, it is long lasting and far reaching as then, often they will do to others as they’ve had done to them, and that can have devastating effects on people who never knew the victim as a child, but who may meet him in a dark alley as an adult!”

Who knows how we have become to what we are? Some say it’s through those experiences learnt, some say simply through our born in genes and some a mixture of both. In reality we are what we are and at opposite ends of the spectrum some have grown that now as adults not even the harshest criticism seems to faze them just as for some, not even the kindest compliment uplift them.

Worldly words from outside can shape our inside to where we like Pontius Pilate may ask of ourselves like he asked of Christ, of “what is truth?”

King Solomon’s remark that “A word spoken in due season, how good it is” could be directed to any of us here today who still carry chains from the past, be from a sharp tongue or through the willy ways of the devil in his desire that we abandon the truth of Christ amongst the haze of our sin, the climate of hurt and the teachings of not the Gospel, but of the law through salvation by goodness and works.

“A word spoken in due season, how good it is”, has been heard by us today in the Words we have heard from Jesus himself and no matter what you think of yourself, these are no throw away words and unlike some that may or may not, His Words today are as life changing as they are hard to comprehend.

Pilate asked Jesus ”what is truth?” and though Jesus did not reply, in that in him then going out to the Jews again and telling them, “I don’t find this man guilty of anything”, we can see in him a vague coming to understand of who Jesus was.

If Pilate asked the same of us, we could with authority answer, that Jesus is The Son of Son who on the cross has taken our Sins on himself, that we are given forgiveness and eternal life not of our own going, but of a free gift from God.

Not vague words, but Words we can stake our lives on. Yet though we know them so clearly: from within ourselves, our sins, our hurts and the tricks of he who looks to deceive, like the disciples hearing today’s words from the Gospel just prior to Jesus arrest, we too can miss the full ramification of them on our lives.

So for a moment, let’s cast aside all pre-understandings from where ever we have got them and simply hear and understand God’s Word for ourselves given to us from Christ himself in today’s Gospel and the inspired Word of God in the Old and New Testament readings.

That as we did not attach ourselves to Jesus of our own will because we liked Him or of our virtues or lack thereof, but because of His love for us, Jesus about to be glorified on the cross now shifts His emphasis to the Father about the welfare of those that are His and prays to the Father that we may not feel abandoned, but know that God protects us by the power of his name. That the Holy Spirit counsels us as to the truth of Christ and how we can interact with God’s kind of love toward people around us.

That we cast our anxieties on Christ and though weak, in Him we are strong, firm and steadfast. Authorised to live with confidence and empowered by God to live differently.

All these words are truth and I hope they are uplifting to many. Unfortunately if I stopped there for me I would still be like that child seeing all his friends happy, but not knowing it for himself may see some of this as further proof and confirmation of just self-loathing and being on the outer.

That is until for me and maybe even for you, we are given the game changer which is this:

The gift God gives, by his grace is eternal life and while eternal life continues in heaven, we do not have to die before receiving it, because for those who trust and believe in Christ it is a present reality here today, and here today exactly as we are.

Solomon, given great wisdom from God said “A word spoken in due season, how good it is”.

Christ here today asks that we hear and trust not in our earthly wisdom of what’s seen and felt. But trust in His wisdom that tells us that no matter what the past or what to come, that be our lives be cloaked in the cold of winter or the sunshine of summer, that we not wait for in hesitation or anxiousness of heart, but accept His gift of eternal life today and live now as we know we will in the new heaven and earth and see the Glory of Christ with and before us in all situations and know that in Him we have received the fullness of a life freed from what we once were, to a life of freedom to let us be, what He wills us to be.  Amen.

Where is your mind?

An ambulance officer was talking about his most unusual emergency experience. He chose to tell about a call received from an usher at a Lutheran church. The usher said, “A man has slumped over in the pew during the sermon, and we think he’s dead.” He relates, “When we got to the church, the pastor was still preaching so we carried the man out as quietly as we could.” “What’s so unusual about that?” he was asked. He replied, “Because we had carried out four men before we found the one that was dead.”

Sometimes “doing” church, like life may seem a little tedious from doing the same old same old. Same bloke up the front, same old hymns etc. Etc. Then off to work to do the same thing as last week and the same we’ll do next week.

I once read a book the challenged the readers that if they thought outside the box and brought a part of themselves and life that they enjoyed into the work place they could do the same duties and enjoy them no matter how tedious the job was.  Food for thought.

Similar John Newton, the “Amazing Grace” guy said that church can be done however we like as long as it stays true to God’s Word and teachings.  I agree because the guts of worship is receiving God’s gifts in confession and absolution, in prayer and knowing God hears it, in Holy Communion and God’s promise of forgiveness and faith and amongst sing a few hymns and songs not about what we’ll do for God, but about what He has done and is doing for us.

Oops. I think I just described a traditional Lutheran worship. Except I forgot to say that amongst all this is Christ with us, the angels singing in song with us and when we hear the Word of God the Holy Spirit goes to work.

I’m not so worried as people falling asleep during my sermon as maybe even when the angels take a break, but in the rest of what goes on hear it’s hard to believe. Hard to believe but true.

As I said, this can be done under a tree, with a guitar, keyboard or banging some tins together if we want.

The problem comes when we fall into the trap like those standing at the base of Jesus cross who jeered Him and tempted him with “if you come down we will believe you are the messiah, the Son of God.”

There’s good reason he didn’t because of course He had to die as the sacrificial lamb and take our sins on himself.

And though that’s the reason He didn’t, He also knew that the gratuitous displaying of miracles was no any sure fire way of bringing people to faith anyway.

Look at the facts. The apostles seen it all and were still confused until the resurrection and some of those cured in Jesus travels never came back to thank Him never mind worship Him. (As far as we’re told anyway.)

Jesus did do miracles on His travels and for many it pointed to His power but not as in His destinies purpose without first dying on the cross that in Him we may find forgiveness in faith.

I’m sure miracles still happen to this day, but the real miracle is faith.

Where am I heading with this?

It is not directed to anyone or anything here because I’d hope by now you know that I’m not particularly taken aback by carpet colour, service times or any of that stuff and I’m open for any suggestions as long as they fit the John Newton model.

Where I’m heading is toward two points in today’s readings. Jesus saying He will give us another helper in the Holy Spirit and Peter telling us we may suffer even though we are off the faith.

I was once asked by a Christian if I can speak in tongues and after I said “no”, the asker was all but dumbfounded.

I wonder if those standing at the base of Jesus cross who jeered Him and tempted him with “if you come down we will believe you are the messiah, the Son of God” and those expecting the messiah to be a warrior king and destroy the Romans are that far removed from that response to my answer.

Do not get me wrong, I will never limit any of the trinity for what they can do. Because they can do anything they please whenever they want and I have no problem with people talking in tongues even though I don’t understand it-theologically or literally.

The same with churches that practice healings and so forth. Good on them.

The slippery slope comes as to when the healing is due to any part of ours such as if not healed or suffering, the problem is from our lack of faith or our poor relationship with Christ.

I’m sorry but when it gets to that point it starting to sound like the Pharisees mark II.

Miracles happen. I heard of them straight from the horse’s mouth but terms such as faith healers is very, very dangerous because by association , not healed means not good enough faith, which by association leads to doubts of salvation never mind the crap of a class system within the church.

Jesus promised a helper, the Holy Spirit and he’s good to His Word. Because here today without seen fanfare the Holy Spirit is amongst doing what Jesus promised to always be the case, and that is that through the remembrance of our baptisms, through Holy Communion and through the Word of God you are being brought to faith, or being kept and strengthened in faith that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Messiah who died on the cross that if you trust in Him for salvation and eternal life, than salvation and eternal life are yours. Believe and trust in Jesus and your home.

You can wake up NOW. Amen.

“Livin’ in the hood”

“Livin’ in the hood”

Acts 7: 55-60, 1st Peter 2:2-10, John 14:1-14

1st Peter, chapter 2, verse 9: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

“A chosen race and a royal priesthood”-Goodness me, this reminds me of the parents who after hearing of much positive feedback during their parent teacher interview asked “are you sure we’re talking about the same child.”

I wonder what the responses to me would be after a night at the pub and walking down the street in my dirty gardening cloths carrying my fully imported light sabre and “evangelising” with the words of look at me “the chosen one” might be.

I think the outcome may be similar to that as noted by a friend when after the Adelaide Crows had badly beaten Port Power and seeing a crows fan shoving it into the powers fans faces remarked “he won’t make it to the end of the street.” And he didn’t.

The thing is though, as Christians we are of those as described in that verse from 1st Peter. Martin Luther puts it like this: “Each and all are…equally spiritual priests before God…(because)…Faith alone is the true priestly office…Therefore all Christian men are priests, all women are priestesses, be they young or old, master or servant, mistress or maid, learned or unlearned.”

Haven’t Luther and I said the same thing? Well sought of.

Ten or so years ago, after an Essendon player had been labelled by the media as selfish, doesn’t do the hard things and worst of all, soft. His legendary coach Kevin Sheedy answered that if he continued how he was going, he just might send him to South Australia to play for the Port Adelaide magpies to learn what real football is about (in the real world).

In team sport while the difference between the words “I” or “we” seems subtle, the outcome is enormous. So too does the difference sound subtle, but is enormous in outcome between Luther’s and my expression of existing in the royal priesthood by way of my introduction of “look at me” verses his “Faith alone is”. There’s no I in team, but most surely there is Christ in Christian.

As a playing coach of an adult football team my mantra was “one for all and all for one” and by extension, in-order to support your team mate against the opposition and indeed against their own frailties, no one was to show weakness of mind in dropping the head or figure pointing, like nor should anyone be so self-indulgent as to display to either opposition or team mate any physical weakness or hurt.

In one game after seeing of one our players stay down after a hit, foaming at the mouth I approached to let him know in the most clear terms to get up or get off. Fortunately for me the trainers arrived and had put him and his broken leg on the stretcher before I had arrived.

Imagine his any others feedback to my insensitivity: never mind the hurt and irreparable outcomes to the team and that player had I so foolishly carried through with my callous and unthinking judgements of the person and situation.  The same hurt and anger, and I would say appropriate hurt and anger that may result if I walked down Macquarie Street pronouncing myself to be “the chosen one” and of the royal priesthood. Appropriate because those titles that Peter gives to Christians of being “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” are not designed as a right to proudly lord it over others in power and tyranny-but quite the opposite: because for one, being in that group of people had nothing to do with us anyway. More so, we were the broken one lying on the field and instead of Him coming to us to say get our act together, He came to help us. To lift us up while we were still broken and as unable to walk ourselves, He carried us with Him and then, and only then did we truly see the answer to the question that Christ placed before His disciples in Matthew 16:15: of “But who do you say I am” and say like Peter “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

It is not I or we, it’s He and should it have been any other way we would still be standing in the crowd cheering Jesus to the cross instead of kneeling at its base in repentance and forgiveness.

It’s He and should it have not been so, we would not have been like the martyred Stephen seeing and trusting in Christ while under persecution, but be the one’s either throwing the rocks or standing by like that of Saul authorising such actions.

To be a Christian is too know who we are, and that is saved in Christ alone. But it’s also to know what we were and where we came from, and in that we then see through the same eyes as Paul who after being rescued by Christ and speaking of his own ministry states in 2nd Corinthians 10:17 that “He who boasts, is to boast in the Lord. For it is not he who commends himself that is approved, but he whom the Lord commends.

There’s a worldwide group of people that communicate and meet that are united in that they have all been sole survivors of tragedies such as plane crashes where hundreds have died. The members of this group don’t meet to buy lottery tickets because of their luck; they meet because of their struggle to understand why them? Why they survived and why others didn’t and try and make sense of it.

We of the royal priesthood of believers don’t use our ticket of faith for tyranny and lording ourselves over others because we had no more control over coming to faith than that of a sole survivor of a plane crash to that of the corpse next to him.

We are saved in faith in Christ alone, not from good works or being better or less sinful than the next person, but only in faith in Christ alone. Faith that before having coming to know we did not want nor desire.

To be of the royal priesthood and saved in Christ is of as much humbling as it is as of joy and the only thing that makes any sense is that it shows the unjudging and unparalleled love of God the Father, the obedience and love of our Saviour Jesus Christ and the love and tireless efforts of the Holy Spirit towards all who walk this earth no matter how great or small.

The unjudging and unparalleled love and works of the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit that we are more to get out the way of, rather than develop for ourselves and others.

To get out of the way for ourselves and hear the message of Jesus without second guessing it. To just believe it and know it to be true for ourselves and though through our human logic and tarnished souls we are tempted to be led and think otherwise, to be led only by Him and simply accept and place our lives upon His Words and the inspired Word of God.

“That I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (and) no one comes to the Father except through me.” For “There is no one who is righteous, for all have turned away from God, all have gone wrong.”  Yet “in belief and baptism we are saved because Christ suffered, died and rose from death for us, and in belief and trust in Him alone through faith, God has forgiven our sins and declared us not guilty and has accepted us into his eternal heavenly kingdom.”

Scripture repeats these Words and themes over and over again and far from questioning them of ourselves, we need just get out of the way and trust and believe in them for ourselves and for others.  While we are still a work in progress, the contract is not-the ink has dried and it is written with Christ’s blood and the deal is done.

So what of the commandments and good works when we are told that the “law has been fulfilled in Christ”, as too that of “our Salvation is in Christ and not of good works.” And what of “the Law kills but the Gospel saves” up against yet Jesus still telling us “that  the law is good.” Are these not Words to both get us out of the way of our own salvation in Christ as they are of getting us out the way of His salvation for others?

To have no other Gods and trust in God above all things. To not use the Lord’s name in vain but call upon Him, pray to Him, praise Him and give thanks. To keep the Sabbath Holy and gladly hear and learn His Word. To honour our father and mother and honour, obey, love and esteem them. To not kill but help and befriend. To not commit adultery but love and honour one’s partner. To not steal but help, improve and protect others income and property. To not bear false witness against our neighbour but apologise for them, speak well of them and interpret charitably all they do.

Do not these Words of God lead us to get out the way of His love and desire for others to know His love and salvation for themselves?

Words not of judgement and death for those in Christ, but Words of life that would see us get our judgements, ridicules and human made rules out the way and let God be God and shower His love upon to those that  we may find hard to love and understand.

“A few years ago a Baptist minister was in Haiti checking on missionary work he supports. He went to the little Holiday Inn where he always stays the day before he boards the plane to come home. As he stepped out of the taxi to head for the entrance of the Holiday Inn, he was intercepted by three girls with the oldest being no older than 15. The first said ‘Mister, for $10 I’ll do anything you want me to do all night long.’ He then turned to the next girl and said, ‘What about you, could I have you for $10?’ She said yes as did the third girl and though her smile did not hide her contempt for him she had no option given her desperation and hunger. He said, ‘I’m in room 210, be up there in 10 minutes. I have $30 and I’m going to pay for all three of you to be with me all night long.’

He rushed up to the room, called down to the front desk and said he wanted every Walt Disney video that they had. He called the restaurant and said, ‘Do you have banana splits?’ ‘I want banana splits with extra ice cream, extra everything. I want huge ones, and I want four of them!’

The little girls came and the ice cream and videos came and they sat up watching the videos and laughing until about one in the morning when the last girl fell asleep. As he looked at the three young girls stretched out asleep, he thought to himself, nothing has really changed. Tomorrow they will be back on the streets selling themselves to dirty, filthy men destroying their lives.

Though he wished he could, he was pained because he did not know enough of their language to tell them about Christ, and while so God’s Spirit came and said to him: ‘For one night, for this night, let them be little girls again.’”

John Lennon once said that “Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.”

So too did we come to faith and Salvation in Christ when we were busy making other plans. So too can the love of God be shown to others when we meet not the lifeless and ungodly, but meet the injured and afflicted and see that we are they, and they are we and bow before them that they too may stand with us before the Father.

Through the grace of God there we once went, that now we know of what we had not, and there but through the grace of God we would have remained had He not come to us and taken us with Him.

We do not lead the lifeless and ungodly to Christ, He leads injured and afflicted to us that we may be to them and He is to us, that He himself may heed His own Words that “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

And so we ask: God, our Father in heaven, in the name of your Son and our Saviour Jesus Christ that though “we do not what we want, but do what we want not” we beg your forgiveness and ask that our Words and actions be not ours but yours, that many will join us in our worship and in your kingdom, that not we be glorified, but your name be exalted and your love, peace and salvation be lifted up on high for all to see and know that their earthly walk need not be lonely and adrift, but see you near,  your favour with them, and accept your peace. Amen.