"Our God, who sits upon the throne, has the power to save his people, and so does the Lamb."

"Our God, who sits upon the throne, has the power to save his people, and so does the Lamb."

We all have something in our lives that has died.we all have an area of our lives that is our Thabitha. Something that we cared for a part of our lives that was righteous and good.
A relationship, an attitude, a service that we offered others. Something in our past that has died because we got hurt. Felt unappreciated, ran out of energy.

Today God wants to resurrect your Tabitha.
Like the Jews you are walking through life questioning God's power to save. Because of these dead areas in your life. Like the Jews we fail to understand the Messiah because we fail to see His hand at work in our lives. We are quick to forget.
Maybe your Tabitha is just that...your memory of God's might had died because you look around at the mess of this world and say "whats the point? We have lived good lives. We have made garments of righteousness for ourselves and others. But where has that got us." We live in fear and we doubt God's power. Oh we believe in God. Only a fool wouldn't. But we doubt that His power to save is sufficient.

This morning I call you to  follow the example of st Peter and put everything else out of ypu mind and focus on your Dorcus your Tabitha...and kneel down before God and pray. This morning we are not in a talk shop...we are in the Throne room of God.right niw we are going to pray

Lord God will you clear my mind of all the things of this world.
Send out the widows that represent the acceptance of the death of the areas of my spiritual life that you want to awaken today.
Lord God reveal my Dorcus my Tabitha to me that I may see it clearly in my life.

Now give me the courage to say...
Tabitha get up...
Now give me the courage to take this area of my life into hand and to put it to work for you again.

Thank you Jesus  for rising from the dead so that you could raise me from the dead and rekindle in me the things that life had taken from me. My joy my peace my hope.
Thank you Jesus for raising my Tabitha today. And may I and many others come to believe in your power to save through this today.

Notes for a Sermon preacehed 7 April 2013

Christ is Risen:
There is a period in History called the PAX ROMANA : under Roman Rule there were roads that weren't full of potholes and Highjackers and travel throughout the empire was possible. Something that wasn't possible before . Piracy was dealt with, no not illegal copying of DVD's and music , but marauding bandits on the trade routes were dealt with, partly because Julius Caesar was once captured by Pirates and when he was able he went back and sorted them out, built quite a reputation for himself in doing so too.
But it would be true to say that for most people, Roman Rule brought peace. Well if you were a Roman, if you were a pirate or say a Jew, or a Christian life wasn't so peaceful especially in the years after Jesus' ascended into heaven. For Christians life under Roman Rule in the first two Century's was anything but what we would describe as peaceful…
Yet Jesus said - when he appeared to his disciples - peace be with you, my peace I leave with you , not as the world gives you, do I give it to you.
World peace the PAX ROMANA, was an apparent peace, it looked good on the surface but it was not an enduring not a lasting peace, it wasn’t long until the Roman Empire fell and plunged the known world into chaos…….. God's peace, on the other hand, was the real deal it is still being offered today.
There was an art competition once and the theme was "Peace" and all around the gallery were pictures of sunsets, and butterflies and landscapes of Hawaiian beaches, but one picture, had those green blue storm clouds that look like the end of the world is coming …...and in the centre a waterfall , a raging torrent, flood waters, and a judge said to the artist - I think you missed the point - the theme is peace!!
And the artist said - yes I know - look closely…
And there behind the raging waters on a little dry ledge, sheltered from the water and by the water .. was a dove on her nest - perfectly at peace…
The Disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said… Peace be with you. And then he said look at my hands, that were pierced for you! Look at side that was pierced for you….
I am peace - I come in peace, I come to give you peace - real peace, that nothing can take away from you.
All of us are locked up in our …. Well in our context we are locked up behind "trellidoors" with a button connected to Blue Security.. For fear of ….. Everything…
All of us are locked up behind hardened hearts because of the hurt that we have endured… the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the persecution of the world against us.. The weak economy, the prejudices of life experience, unrealised expectations, we are locked up behind misgivings about the promises made to us by the world and sometimes behind the misgivings about what we thought God was going to do for us…
Yes we are all together.. But we are all locked up in our way… and we are all in fear… in our own way…
But Jesus steps into our lives and says… Peace be with you.
And he says that this peace comes from God this is not a peace that comes from a realisation in ourselves that we need to be friends, this is not a peace that comes from a unity of purpose among people, this is a Peace that comes from God. It is a promise, it is a reality, it is a reminder that throughout time God has been with us , caring for us and doing what counts to ensure that we have life and life in abundance.
Like that little dove we are surrounded by storm clouds and flood waters… but we can be at peace, for God is with us and in us and around us and for us.
That Peace which God has given us comes from the fact that we are set free from the tyranny of Sin, Jesus has paid the price for us and set us free from the power of sin in our lives and we are set free to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and Father.
There is a lot going on here…
This is an interesting time on our Church Calendar as we focus on the appearances of the Resurrected Christ to the Church before his ascension. As we focus on a Saviour who has set us free by paying for us… by purchasing us, be ransoming us… in the ancient world a relative of a slave could buy the person and set them free, he was called a Kinsman Redeemer - he would purchase the person pay the going price and give the person their freedom. Many people became slaves in the ancient world because they could not pay their debt's so this is language that they understood.. Redeemer,
in the middle ages a custom developed that if someone saved your life you served them because you owed your life to them, ( you may remember a TV add that used this to illustrate their point - not that I can remember the point nor the product)
well actually the disciples really began that custom when they realised that they owed their lives to Jesus because He had set them free.
In the season of advent we focus on the two "comings of Jesus" the first as Babe in the manger and the second as the King in the clouds. But during Eastertide we focus on this period of him Being neither the babe in the manger nor the King coming in the clouds; but as the risen Christ having conquered death and quiet clearly He is the Messiah, and he is standing hear saying PEACE BE WITH you, and he breathes the Holy Spirit on the Disciples and he sends them saying as the FATHER HAS SENT ME SO I AM SENDING YOU, forgive as I have forgiven you, take this message of forgiveness of sins and spread it throughout the world.
Fascinating - he doesn’t say go and tell people about forgiveness, he doesn’t go out and say have bible studies about how people have been forgiven, he doesn’t say sing songs about forgiveness… he says IF YOU FORGIVE ANYONE they are forgiven, if you do not forgive they are not forgiven.
WOW!
That is harder than telling people hey "JESUS LOVES YOU!" or maybe having a bumper sticker to say it for you.
This takes a whole different kind of living - Jesus won forgiveness by carrying a cross and being nailed to it and in that agony saying - "FORGIVE THEM FATHER"
Forgiving others is never easy - but it is at the heart of being a Christian. We need to step into everyday life and say - "PEACE BE WITH YOU, as the Father has forgiven me so I forgive you"
I do not count…. I do not consider anything that divides us as relevant… I am not interested in our differences of opinion , we can discuss them freely because they will not divide us -
you see forgiveness is not just about wrong doing it is not just overcoming wrong actions against each other is about overcoming anything that would stand in the way of perfect harmony between us -
to forgive each other means to say - let us see each other as equals, both living under the grace of God.
Forgiving someone does not mean that we acknowledge that they are wrong or that they are inferior and that we magnanimously release them from their muddied state - forgiveness means that we meet each other down here where we are, it means that we acknowledge that we are not better than anyone else. But that we are in this thing called life together….
And we can only do this when we understand the times that we live in. We can only do this when we accept our created and redeemed state .. Created in God's image, fallen from grace through Sin and restored under grace by God's gift on Calvary… As St Paul said we need to resolve to preach (that is to live) Christ and Christ Crucified..
I have discovered that my theology of this period ( beginning at the resurrection and continuing to this day), was substantially flawed and thus the way I am living my life is deficient and thus debilitating in terms of living out my purpose.
Understanding the times is a crucial part of understanding what needs to be done. Life has a lot to do with timing. Jesus knew which PASSOVER to go to Jerusalem and the cross. If he had rocked up in Jerusalem the year before and tried to present himself as the Messiah, the story would have been quite different, as different as it would have been if he failed to go to Jerusalem that year saying - lets do it next year..
What I am saying is that with Jesus timing had a lot to do with the success of His ministry -How he got the timing right was of course by asking God: -
And yet I do not share his ability to get the timing right every time, possibly cause I don’t get the asking right nor the listening and hearing God, right.
I think that if we are to understand the scriptures as relevant to our daily lives we need to see the parallels between periods of scriptural history and our own lives.
In other words, when are we experiencing a Davidic moment or an Isaiahian moment or a Jeremiahain moment. When is the ship that we are on in stormy waters Noah's Ark or Jonah's ship sailing for Tarshish, or St Paul's sailing for Rome……. In other words our circumstances, where are they mirrored in the scriptures... or if you prefer, which part of scripture is mirrored in your live today. Do you think like that or is it just me. I kind of wake up and think I wonder which Narrative of life I am going to live out today. And half the time I cant work out whether I am David fighting for or against the Philistines.. ( You know what I am referring to) please don’t make me go of on a tangent and explain that one - just nod and go home and read about David's life… thanks.
I always struggle with whether the circumstances of life are a hurdle or a closed door. You know what I mean? Is the constraint before me an Angles like that which appeared to Balaam, trying to stop me from doing the wrong thing….or a flooded river like the Red Sea or the Jordon, which I am supposed to step into and
watch it part so that I can cross on dry land. Am I meant to do battle or wait ….
I don’t think that I am alone, I think that we all struggle to see which bible story we are in….. so to speak…. ( Don’t worry - we will figure it out together)
And for me the biggest misunderstanding I had was the same one that lead the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Scribes to have Jesus Crucified by the Romans.
In the OLD Testament Scripture there are two Mindsets towards the coming Messiah. The First was what we see in The Prophetic writings and speaks about a King of the Line of David who would establish His Rule over Israel and make Israel the most powerful Nation on earth….. in accordance with God's Covenant to Abraham, and in fact throughout time. Adam, Noah, Joshua Moses were all reminded of this covenant that God would rule over the earth.
The Second mindset we find in the Apocalyptic writings of Daniel and Ezekiel, The Revelation to St John and in a few other places. And it focused on a world beyod redemption an dthe new world that would replace it...
The Prophetic word was for this life on earth - to the extent that the Sadducees didn’t even consider a resurrection, but the Apocalyptic writings considered that this world was beyond redemption and that A New Jerusalem would be established, this world would not be redeemed but destroyed and the faithful would reign with God and the sinners would , burn in hell.
That's a nice one - unless you are a sinner…
And today we live with these two almost conflicting ideas leading to a confusion in our praxis, our action our living.
We are either so heavenly minded that we are only concerned with salvation getting us into heaven, or we are so focussed on the Gospel setting us free from the realities of life on earth that we
live in constant doubt as to our salvation, because we are still suffering even though we are saved. And so we are not able to forgive others because we are not sure that we are forgiven…
And it is into this dilemma of our daily lives that Jesus steps in and SAYS" ( Say it with me) PEACE BE WITH YOU!
Grace and peace - from God our Father who was and who is and who is to come...
Can we go to a quick commercial break - I would like to advertise our Tuesday afternoon Bible study were we will be looking at the book of Revelation and seeing how it addresses these issues of life now and life here-after, and on Sundays through out Eastertide up until Pentecost I will be addressing the same.
14h30 St Mary's Tuesday - be there.
But I need to conclude now before I do a St Paul and some poor soul falls asleep ...so let me get down to business: -
What I am saying is that we need to understand what Jesus did post resurrection to understand what we are to do till he comes again in Glory. On the cross,( and an aspect that we did not look at over Easter was that) On The Cross Jesus met both the first and second coming prophecies, because he came to set us free from Sin and to establish us as a Royal Priesthood. Let m ego through this slowly so that I don’t get confused.
The Jews expected two things to happen at the coming of the Christ, the Messiah. The one was an Exodus type deliverance that would establish the Nation with a King - salvation for this life if you want to express it like that .
The Other was the establishment of a New Jerusalem an eternal kingdom where evil would be overcome and righteousness restored.
Now at Calvary Jesus did both. He was Crucified (As we highlighted over Easter) because he didn’t seem to be overthrowing the Roman's and establishing a Kingdom.
But we know from the Early Church and especially from what we read in Acts, That it is not the Roman Rule that needed to be overthrown but Satan's and Jesus He did that. And thereafter it didn’t matter whether the Romans or the Goths or the Saxons or the Britons or the NATS or the ANC were in power.. Because our citizenship is in heaven and we are ambassadors to this world….
At Calvary Jesus also met apocalyptic expectation and created a new Order of things…. he would not reign from the Earthly Jerusalem but from the New Jerusalem.
Therefore Jesus achieved all this in the Cross and his Second Coming is not an event that will only happen in the future, although one day he will come in the clouds and unite heaven and earth the physical and the spiritual into one glorious kingdom …. But the second coming has already begun. We could say he is coming, he has begun to come and will continue to come until he has fully come.
Thus he did not come to Bethlehem and then leave only to return in the future, but he came and died, and in his resurrection has begun the Second coming …..he has commenced to dwell among us and will do so in greater and greater measure until all shall bow and all confess and all worship.
There fore we should not await his return, but participate in his presence until he finally unites us under his sovereign rule.
I pray that I have made at least a little bit of sense this morning. I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to the Scriptures, that the Risen Lord will bring you peace and joy and that as you live under God's grace that you will see and understand how wide and how deep and how high the love of God is for you.
Amen??? Are we going do this? Are we together - we going to live at peace??
Lets pray that God will strengthen his Church throughout the world to respond to the Risen Christ and give ourselves fully to this thing called life. And may we step out into the world and forgive
ourselves and each other because we have been forgiven and may we say - PEACE BE WITH YOU!
Amen and Amen.

Notes for a Sermon preacehed 7 April 2013

Christ is Risen:
There is a period in History called the PAX ROMANA : under Roman Rule there were roads that weren't full of potholes and Highjackers and travel throughout the empire was possible. Something that wasn't possible before . Piracy was dealt with, no not illegal copying of DVD's and music , but marauding bandits on the trade routes were dealt with, partly because Julius Caesar was once captured by Pirates and when he was able he went back and sorted them out, built quite a reputation for himself in doing so too.
But it would be true to say that for most people, Roman Rule brought peace. Well if you were a Roman, if you were a pirate or say a Jew, or a Christian life wasn't so peaceful especially in the years after Jesus' ascended into heaven. For Christians life under Roman Rule in the first two Century's was anything but what we would describe as peaceful…
Yet Jesus said - when he appeared to his disciples - peace be with you, my peace I leave with you , not as the world gives you, do I give it to you.
World peace the PASX ROMANA, was an apparent peace, it looked good on the surface but it was not an enduring not a lasting peace, it wasn’t long until the Roman Empire fell and plunged the known world into chaos…….. God's peace, on the other hand, was the real deal it is still being offered today.
There was an art competition once and the theme was "Peace" and all around the gallery were pictures of sunsets, and butterflies and landscapes of Hawaiian beaches, but one picture, had those green blue storm clouds that look like the end of the world is coming …...and in the centre a waterfall , a raging torrent, flood waters, and a judge said to the artist - I think you missed the point - the theme is peace!!
And the artist said - yes I know - look closely…
And there behind the raging waters on a little dry ledge, sheltered from the water and by the water .. was a dove on her nest - perfectly at peace…
The Disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said… Peace be with you. And then he said look at my hands, that were pierced for you! Look at side that was pierced for you….
I am peace - I come in peace, I come to give you peace - real peace, that nothing can take away from you.
All of us are locked up in our …. Well in our context we are locked up behind "trellidoors" with a button connected to Blue Security.. For fear of ….. Everything…
All of us are locked up behind hardened hearts because of the hurt that we have endured… the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the persecution of the world against us.. The weak economy, the prejudices of life experience, unrealised expectations, we are locked up behind misgivings about the promises made to us by the world and sometimes behind the misgivings about what we thought God was going to do for us…
Yes we are all together.. But we are all locked up in our way… and we are all in fear… in our own way…
But Jesus steps into our lives and says… Peace be with you.
And he says that this peace comes from God this is not a peace that comes from a realisation in ourselves that we need to be friends, this is not a peace that comes from a unity of purpose among people, this is a Peace that comes from God. It is a promise, it is a reality, it is a reminder that throughout time God has been with us , caring for us and doing what counts to ensure that we have life and life in abundance.
Like that little dove we are surrounded by storm clouds and flood waters… but we can be at peace, for God is with us and in us and around us and for us.
That Peace which God has given us comes from the fact that we are set free from the tyranny of Sin, Jesus has paid the price for us and set us free from the power of sin in our lives and we are set free to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and Father.
There is a lot going on here…
This is an interesting time on our Church Calendar as we focus on the appearances of the Resurrected Christ to the Church before his ascension. As we focus on a Saviour who has set us free by paying for us… by purchasing us, be ransoming us… in the ancient world a relative of a slave could buy the person and set them free, he was called a Kinsman Redeemer - he would purchase the person pay the going price and give the person their freedom. Many people became slaves in the ancient world because they could not pay their debt's so this is language that they understood.. Redeemer,
in the middle ages a custom developed that if someone saved your life you served them because you owed your life to them, ( you may remember a TV add that used this to illustrate their point - not that I can remember the point nor the product)
well actually the disciples really began that custom when they realised that they owed their lives to Jesus because He had set them free.
In the season of advent we focus on the two "comings of Jesus" the first as Babe in the manger and the second as the King in the clouds. But during Eastertide we focus on this period of him Being neither the babe in the manger nor the King coming in the clouds; but as the risen Christ having conquered death and quiet clearly He is the Messiah, and he is standing hear saying PEACE BE WITH you, and he breathes the Holy Spirit on the Disciples and he sends them saying as the FATHER HAS SENT ME SO I AM SENDING YOU, forgive as I have forgiven you, take this message of forgiveness of sins and spread it throughout the world.
Fascinating - he doesn’t say go and tell people about forgiveness, he doesn’t go out and say have bible studies about how people have been forgiven, he doesn’t say sing songs about forgiveness… he says IF YOU FORGIVE ANYONE they are forgiven, if you do not forgive they are not forgiven.
WOW!
That is harder than telling people hey "JESUS LOVES YOU!" or maybe having a bumper sticker to say it for you.
This takes a whole different kind of living - Jesus won forgiveness by carrying a cross and being nailed to it and in that agony saying - "FORGIVE THEM FATHER"
Forgiving others is never easy - but it is at the heart of being a Christian. We need to step into everyday life and say - "PEACE BE WITH YOU, as the Father has forgiven me so I forgive you"
I do not count…. I do not consider anything that divides us as relevant… I am not interested in our differences of opinion , we can discuss them freely because they will not divide us -
you see forgiveness is not just about wrong doing it is not just overcoming wrong actions against each other is about overcoming anything that would stand in the way of perfect harmony between us -
to forgive each other means to say - let us see each other as equals, both living under the grace of God.
Forgiving someone does not mean that we acknowledge that they are wrong or that they are inferior and that we magnanimously release them from their muddied state - forgiveness means that we meet each other down here where we are, it means that we acknowledge that we are not better than anyone else. But that we are in this thing called life together….
And we can only do this when we understand the times that we live in. We can only do this when we accept our created and redeemed state .. Created in God's image, fallen from grace through Sin and restored under grace by God's gift on Calvary… As St Paul said we need to resolve to preach (that is to live) Christ and Christ Crucified..
I have discovered that my theology of this period ( beginning at the resurrection and continuing to this day), was substantially flawed and thus the way I am living my life is deficient and thus debilitating in terms of living out my purpose.
Understanding the times is a crucial part of understanding what needs to be done. Life has a lot to do with timing. Jesus knew which PASSOVER to go to Jerusalem and the cross. If he had rocked up in Jerusalem the year before and tried to present himself as the Messiah, the story would have been quite different, as different as it would have been if he failed to go to Jerusalem that year saying - lets do it next year..
What I am saying is that with Jesus timing had a lot to do with the success of His ministry -How he got the timing right was of course by asking God: -
And yet I do not share his ability to get the timing right every time, possibly cause I don’t get the asking right nor the listening and hearing God, right.
I think that if we are to understand the scriptures as relevant to our daily lives we need to see the parallels between periods of scriptural history and our own lives.
In other words, when are we experiencing a Davidic moment or an Isaiahian moment or a Jeremiahain moment. When is the ship that we are on in stormy waters Noah's Ark or Jonah's ship sailing for Tarshish, or St Paul's sailing for Rome……. In other words our circumstances, where are they mirrored in the scriptures... or if you prefer, which part of scripture is mirrored in your live today. Do you think like that or is it just me. I kind of wake up and think I wonder which Narrative of life I am going to live out today. And half the time I cant work out whether I am David fighting for or against the Philistines.. ( You know what I am referring to) please don’t make me go of on a tangent and explain that one - just nod and go home and read about David's life… thanks.
I always struggle with whether the circumstances of life are a hurdle or a closed door. You know what I mean? Is the constraint before me an Angles like that which appeared to Balaam, trying to stop me from doing the wrong thing….or a flooded river like the Red Sea or the Jordon, which I am supposed to step into and
watch it part so that I can cross on dry land. Am I meant to do battle or wait ….
I don’t think that I am alone, I think that we all struggle to see which bible story we are in….. so to speak…. ( Don’t worry - we will figure it out together)
And for me the biggest misunderstanding I had was the same one that lead the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Scribes to have Jesus Crucified by the Romans.
In the OLD Testament Scripture there are two Mindsets towards the coming Messiah. The First was what we see in The Prophetic writings and speaks about a King of the Line of David who would establish His Rule over Israel and make Israel the most powerful Nation on earth….. in accordance with God's Covenant to Abraham, and in fact throughout time. Adam, Noah, Joshua Moses were all reminded of this covenant that God would rule over the earth.
The Second mindset we find in the Apocalyptic writings of Daniel and Ezekiel, The Revelation to St John and in a few other places. And it focused on a world beyod redemption an dthe new world that would replace it...
The Prophetic word was for this life on earth - to the extent that the Sadducees didn’t even consider a resurrection, but the Apocalyptic writings considered that this world was beyond redemption and that A New Jerusalem would be established, this world would not be redeemed but destroyed and the faithful would reign with God and the sinners would , burn in hell.
That's a nice one - unless you are a sinner…
And today we live with these two almost conflicting ideas leading to a confusion in our praxis, our action our living.
We are either so heavenly minded that we are only concerned with salvation getting us into heaven, or we are so focussed on the Gospel setting us free from the realities of life on earth that we
live in constant doubt as to our salvation, because we are still suffering even though we are saved. And so we are not able to forgive others because we are not sure that we are forgiven…
And it is into this dilemma of our daily lives that Jesus steps in and SAYS" ( Say it with me) PEACE BE WITH YOU!
Grace and peace - from God our Father who was and who is and who is to come...
Can we go to a quick commercial break - I would like to advertise our Tuesday afternoon Bible study were we will be looking at the book of Revelation and seeing how it addresses these issues of life now and life here-after, and on Sundays through out Eastertide up until Pentecost I will be addressing the same.
14h30 St Mary's Tuesday - be there.
But I need to conclude now before I do a St Paul and some poor soul falls asleep ...so let me get down to business: -
What I am saying is that we need to understand what Jesus did post resurrection to understand what we are to do till he comes again in Glory. On the cross,( and an aspect that we did not look at over Easter was that) On The Cross Jesus met both the first and second coming prophecies, because he came to set us free from Sin and to establish us as a Royal Priesthood. Let m ego through this slowly so that I don’t get confused.
The Jews expected two things to happen at the coming of the Christ, the Messiah. The one was an Exodus type deliverance that would establish the Nation with a King - salvation for this life if you want to express it like that .
The Other was the establishment of a New Jerusalem an eternal kingdom where evil would be overcome and righteousness restored.
Now at Calvary Jesus did both. He was Crucified (As we highlighted over Easter) because he didn’t seem to be overthrowing the Roman's and establishing a Kingdom.
But we know from the Early Church and especially from what we read in Acts, That it is not the Roman Rule that needed to be overthrown but Satan's and Jesus He did that. And thereafter it didn’t matter whether the Romans or the Goths or the Saxons or the Britons or the NATS or the ANC were in power.. Because our citizenship is in heaven and we are ambassadors to this world….
At Calvary Jesus also met apocalyptic expectation and created a new Order of things…. he would not reign from the Earthly Jerusalem but from the New Jerusalem.
Therefore Jesus achieved all this in the Cross and his Second Coming is not an event that will only happen in the future, although one day he will come in the clouds and unite heaven and earth the physical and the spiritual into one glorious kingdom …. But the second coming has already begun. We could say he is coming, he has begun to come and will continue to come until he has fully come.
Thus he did not come to Bethlehem and then leave only to return in the future, but he came and died, and in his resurrection has begun the Second coming …..he has commenced to dwell among us and will do so in greater and greater measure until all shall bow and all confess and all worship.
There fore we should not await his return, but participate in his presence until he finally unites us under his sovereign rule.
I pray that I have made at least a little bit of sense this morning. I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to the Scriptures, that the Risen Lord will bring you peace and joy and that as you live under God's grace that you will see and understand how wide and how deep and how high the love of God is for you.
Amen??? Are we going do this? Are we together - we going to live at peace??
Lets pray that God will strengthen his Church throughout the world to respond to the Risen Christ and give ourselves fully to this thing called life. And may we step out into the world and forgive
ourselves and each other because we have been forgiven and may we say - PEACE BE WITH YOU!
Amen and Amen.

Notes for a Sermon preacehed 7 April 2013

Christ is Risen:
There is a period in History called the PAX ROMANA : under Roman Rule there were roads that weren't full of potholes and Highjackers and travel throughout the empire was possible. Something that wasn't possible before . Piracy was dealt with, no not illegal copying of DVD's and music , but marauding bandits on the trade routes were dealt with, partly because Julius Caesar was once captured by Pirates and when he was able he went back and sorted them out, built quite a reputation for himself in doing so too.
But it would be true to say that for most people, Roman Rule brought peace. Well if you were a Roman, if you were a pirate or say a Jew, or a Christian life wasn't so peaceful especially in the years after Jesus' ascended into heaven. For Christians life under Roman Rule in the first two Century's was anything but what we would describe as peaceful…
Yet Jesus said - when he appeared to his disciples - peace be with you, my peace I leave with you , not as the world gives you, do I give it to you.
World peace the PASX ROMANA, was an apparent peace, it looked good on the surface but it was not an enduring not a lasting peace, it wasn’t long until the Roman Empire fell and plunged the known world into chaos…….. God's peace, on the other hand, was the real deal it is still being offered today.
There was an art competition once and the theme was "Peace" and all around the gallery were pictures of sunsets, and butterflies and landscapes of Hawaiian beaches, but one picture, had those green blue storm clouds that look like the end of the world is coming …...and in the centre a waterfall , a raging torrent, flood waters, and a judge said to the artist - I think you missed the point - the theme is peace!!
And the artist said - yes I know - look closely…
And there behind the raging waters on a little dry ledge, sheltered from the water and by the water .. was a dove on her nest - perfectly at peace…
The Disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said… Peace be with you. And then he said look at my hands, that were pierced for you! Look at side that was pierced for you….
I am peace - I come in peace, I come to give you peace - real peace, that nothing can take away from you.
All of us are locked up in our …. Well in our context we are locked up behind "trellidoors" with a button connected to Blue Security.. For fear of ….. Everything…
All of us are locked up behind hardened hearts because of the hurt that we have endured… the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the persecution of the world against us.. The weak economy, the prejudices of life experience, unrealised expectations, we are locked up behind misgivings about the promises made to us by the world and sometimes behind the misgivings about what we thought God was going to do for us…
Yes we are all together.. But we are all locked up in our way… and we are all in fear… in our own way…
But Jesus steps into our lives and says… Peace be with you.
And he says that this peace comes from God this is not a peace that comes from a realisation in ourselves that we need to be friends, this is not a peace that comes from a unity of purpose among people, this is a Peace that comes from God. It is a promise, it is a reality, it is a reminder that throughout time God has been with us , caring for us and doing what counts to ensure that we have life and life in abundance.
Like that little dove we are surrounded by storm clouds and flood waters… but we can be at peace, for God is with us and in us and around us and for us.
That Peace which God has given us comes from the fact that we are set free from the tyranny of Sin, Jesus has paid the price for us and set us free from the power of sin in our lives and we are set free to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and Father.
There is a lot going on here…
This is an interesting time on our Church Calendar as we focus on the appearances of the Resurrected Christ to the Church before his ascension. As we focus on a Saviour who has set us free by paying for us… by purchasing us, be ransoming us… in the ancient world a relative of a slave could buy the person and set them free, he was called a Kinsman Redeemer - he would purchase the person pay the going price and give the person their freedom. Many people became slaves in the ancient world because they could not pay their debt's so this is language that they understood.. Redeemer,
in the middle ages a custom developed that if someone saved your life you served them because you owed your life to them, ( you may remember a TV add that used this to illustrate their point - not that I can remember the point nor the product)
well actually the disciples really began that custom when they realised that they owed their lives to Jesus because He had set them free.
In the season of advent we focus on the two "comings of Jesus" the first as Babe in the manger and the second as the King in the clouds. But during Eastertide we focus on this period of him Being neither the babe in the manger nor the King coming in the clouds; but as the risen Christ having conquered death and quiet clearly He is the Messiah, and he is standing hear saying PEACE BE WITH you, and he breathes the Holy Spirit on the Disciples and he sends them saying as the FATHER HAS SENT ME SO I AM SENDING YOU, forgive as I have forgiven you, take this message of forgiveness of sins and spread it throughout the world.
Fascinating - he doesn’t say go and tell people about forgiveness, he doesn’t go out and say have bible studies about how people have been forgiven, he doesn’t say sing songs about forgiveness… he says IF YOU FORGIVE ANYONE they are forgiven, if you do not forgive they are not forgiven.
WOW!
That is harder than telling people hey "JESUS LOVES YOU!" or maybe having a bumper sticker to say it for you.
This takes a whole different kind of living - Jesus won forgiveness by carrying a cross and being nailed to it and in that agony saying - "FORGIVE THEM FATHER"
Forgiving others is never easy - but it is at the heart of being a Christian. We need to step into everyday life and say - "PEACE BE WITH YOU, as the Father has forgiven me so I forgive you"
I do not count…. I do not consider anything that divides us as relevant… I am not interested in our differences of opinion , we can discuss them freely because they will not divide us -
you see forgiveness is not just about wrong doing it is not just overcoming wrong actions against each other is about overcoming anything that would stand in the way of perfect harmony between us -
to forgive each other means to say - let us see each other as equals, both living under the grace of God.
Forgiving someone does not mean that we acknowledge that they are wrong or that they are inferior and that we magnanimously release them from their muddied state - forgiveness means that we meet each other down here where we are, it means that we acknowledge that we are not better than anyone else. But that we are in this thing called life together….
And we can only do this when we understand the times that we live in. We can only do this when we accept our created and redeemed state .. Created in God's image, fallen from grace through Sin and restored under grace by God's gift on Calvary… As St Paul said we need to resolve to preach (that is to live) Christ and Christ Crucified..
I have discovered that my theology of this period ( beginning at the resurrection and continuing to this day), was substantially flawed and thus the way I am living my life is deficient and thus debilitating in terms of living out my purpose.
Understanding the times is a crucial part of understanding what needs to be done. Life has a lot to do with timing. Jesus knew which PASSOVER to go to Jerusalem and the cross. If he had rocked up in Jerusalem the year before and tried to present himself as the Messiah, the story would have been quite different, as different as it would have been if he failed to go to Jerusalem that year saying - lets do it next year..
What I am saying is that with Jesus timing had a lot to do with the success of His ministry -How he got the timing right was of course by asking God: -
And yet I do not share his ability to get the timing right every time, possibly cause I don’t get the asking right nor the listening and hearing God, right.
I think that if we are to understand the scriptures as relevant to our daily lives we need to see the parallels between periods of scriptural history and our own lives.
In other words, when are we experiencing a Davidic moment or an Isaiahian moment or a Jeremiahain moment. When is the ship that we are on in stormy waters Noah's Ark or Jonah's ship sailing for Tarshish, or St Paul's sailing for Rome……. In other words our circumstances, where are they mirrored in the scriptures... or if you prefer, which part of scripture is mirrored in your live today. Do you think like that or is it just me. I kind of wake up and think I wonder which Narrative of life I am going to live out today. And half the time I cant work out whether I am David fighting for or against the Philistines.. ( You know what I am referring to) please don’t make me go of on a tangent and explain that one - just nod and go home and read about David's life… thanks.
I always struggle with whether the circumstances of life are a hurdle or a closed door. You know what I mean? Is the constraint before me an Angles like that which appeared to Balaam, trying to stop me from doing the wrong thing….or a flooded river like the Red Sea or the Jordon, which I am supposed to step into and
watch it part so that I can cross on dry land. Am I meant to do battle or wait ….
I don’t think that I am alone, I think that we all struggle to see which bible story we are in….. so to speak…. ( Don’t worry - we will figure it out together)
And for me the biggest misunderstanding I had was the same one that lead the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Scribes to have Jesus Crucified by the Romans.
In the OLD Testament Scripture there are two Mindsets towards the coming Messiah. The First was what we see in The Prophetic writings and speaks about a King of the Line of David who would establish His Rule over Israel and make Israel the most powerful Nation on earth….. in accordance with God's Covenant to Abraham, and in fact throughout time. Adam, Noah, Joshua Moses were all reminded of this covenant that God would rule over the earth.
The Second mindset we find in the Apocalyptic writings of Daniel and Ezekiel, The Revelation to St John and in a few other places. And it focused on a world beyod redemption an dthe new world that would replace it...
The Prophetic word was for this life on earth - to the extent that the Sadducees didn’t even consider a resurrection, but the Apocalyptic writings considered that this world was beyond redemption and that A New Jerusalem would be established, this world would not be redeemed but destroyed and the faithful would reign with God and the sinners would , burn in hell.
That's a nice one - unless you are a sinner…
And today we live with these two almost conflicting ideas leading to a confusion in our praxis, our action our living.
We are either so heavenly minded that we are only concerned with salvation getting us into heaven, or we are so focussed on the Gospel setting us free from the realities of life on earth that we
live in constant doubt as to our salvation, because we are still suffering even though we are saved. And so we are not able to forgive others because we are not sure that we are forgiven…
And it is into this dilemma of our daily lives that Jesus steps in and SAYS" ( Say it with me) PEACE BE WITH YOU!
Grace and peace - from God our Father who was and who is and who is to come...
Can we go to a quick commercial break - I would like to advertise our Tuesday afternoon Bible study were we will be looking at the book of Revelation and seeing how it addresses these issues of life now and life here-after, and on Sundays through out Eastertide up until Pentecost I will be addressing the same.
14h30 St Mary's Tuesday - be there.
But I need to conclude now before I do a St Paul and some poor soul falls asleep ...so let me get down to business: -
What I am saying is that we need to understand what Jesus did post resurrection to understand what we are to do till he comes again in Glory. On the cross,( and an aspect that we did not look at over Easter was that) On The Cross Jesus met both the first and second coming prophecies, because he came to set us free from Sin and to establish us as a Royal Priesthood. Let m ego through this slowly so that I don’t get confused.
The Jews expected two things to happen at the coming of the Christ, the Messiah. The one was an Exodus type deliverance that would establish the Nation with a King - salvation for this life if you want to express it like that .
The Other was the establishment of a New Jerusalem an eternal kingdom where evil would be overcome and righteousness restored.
Now at Calvary Jesus did both. He was Crucified (As we highlighted over Easter) because he didn’t seem to be overthrowing the Roman's and establishing a Kingdom.
But we know from the Early Church and especially from what we read in Acts, That it is not the Roman Rule that needed to be overthrown but Satan's and Jesus He did that. And thereafter it didn’t matter whether the Romans or the Goths or the Saxons or the Britons or the NATS or the ANC were in power.. Because our citizenship is in heaven and we are ambassadors to this world….
At Calvary Jesus also met apocalyptic expectation and created a new Order of things…. he would not reign from the Earthly Jerusalem but from the New Jerusalem.
Therefore Jesus achieved all this in the Cross and his Second Coming is not an event that will only happen in the future, although one day he will come in the clouds and unite heaven and earth the physical and the spiritual into one glorious kingdom …. But the second coming has already begun. We could say he is coming, he has begun to come and will continue to come until he has fully come.
Thus he did not come to Bethlehem and then leave only to return in the future, but he came and died, and in his resurrection has begun the Second coming …..he has commenced to dwell among us and will do so in greater and greater measure until all shall bow and all confess and all worship.
There fore we should not await his return, but participate in his presence until he finally unites us under his sovereign rule.
I pray that I have made at least a little bit of sense this morning. I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to the Scriptures, that the Risen Lord will bring you peace and joy and that as you live under God's grace that you will see and understand how wide and how deep and how high the love of God is for you.
Amen??? Are we going do this? Are we together - we going to live at peace??
Lets pray that God will strengthen his Church throughout the world to respond to the Risen Christ and give ourselves fully to this thing called life. And may we step out into the world and forgive
ourselves and each other because we have been forgiven and may we say - PEACE BE WITH YOU!
Amen and Amen.

Notes for a Sermon preacehed 7 April 2013

Christ is Risen:
There is a period in History called the PAX ROMANA : under Roman Rule there were roads that weren't full of potholes and Highjackers and travel throughout the empire was possible. Something that wasn't possible before . Piracy was dealt with, no not illegal copying of DVD's and music , but marauding bandits on the trade routes were dealt with, partly because Julius Caesar was once captured by Pirates and when he was able he went back and sorted them out, built quite a reputation for himself in doing so too.
But it would be true to say that for most people, Roman Rule brought peace. Well if you were a Roman, if you were a pirate or say a Jew, or a Christian life wasn't so peaceful especially in the years after Jesus' ascended into heaven. For Christians life under Roman Rule in the first two Century's was anything but what we would describe as peaceful…
Yet Jesus said - when he appeared to his disciples - peace be with you, my peace I leave with you , not as the world gives you, do I give it to you.
World peace the PASX ROMANA, was an apparent peace, it looked good on the surface but it was not an enduring not a lasting peace, it wasn’t long until the Roman Empire fell and plunged the known world into chaos…….. God's peace, on the other hand, was the real deal it is still being offered today.
There was an art competition once and the theme was "Peace" and all around the gallery were pictures of sunsets, and butterflies and landscapes of Hawaiian beaches, but one picture, had those green blue storm clouds that look like the end of the world is coming …...and in the centre a waterfall , a raging torrent, flood waters, and a judge said to the artist - I think you missed the point - the theme is peace!!
And the artist said - yes I know - look closely…
And there behind the raging waters on a little dry ledge, sheltered from the water and by the water .. was a dove on her nest - perfectly at peace…
The Disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said… Peace be with you. And then he said look at my hands, that were pierced for you! Look at side that was pierced for you….
I am peace - I come in peace, I come to give you peace - real peace, that nothing can take away from you.
All of us are locked up in our …. Well in our context we are locked up behind "trellidoors" with a button connected to Blue Security.. For fear of ….. Everything…
All of us are locked up behind hardened hearts because of the hurt that we have endured… the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the persecution of the world against us.. The weak economy, the prejudices of life experience, unrealised expectations, we are locked up behind misgivings about the promises made to us by the world and sometimes behind the misgivings about what we thought God was going to do for us…
Yes we are all together.. But we are all locked up in our way… and we are all in fear… in our own way…
But Jesus steps into our lives and says… Peace be with you.
And he says that this peace comes from God this is not a peace that comes from a realisation in ourselves that we need to be friends, this is not a peace that comes from a unity of purpose among people, this is a Peace that comes from God. It is a promise, it is a reality, it is a reminder that throughout time God has been with us , caring for us and doing what counts to ensure that we have life and life in abundance.
Like that little dove we are surrounded by storm clouds and flood waters… but we can be at peace, for God is with us and in us and around us and for us.
That Peace which God has given us comes from the fact that we are set free from the tyranny of Sin, Jesus has paid the price for us and set us free from the power of sin in our lives and we are set free to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God and Father.
There is a lot going on here…
This is an interesting time on our Church Calendar as we focus on the appearances of the Resurrected Christ to the Church before his ascension. As we focus on a Saviour who has set us free by paying for us… by purchasing us, be ransoming us… in the ancient world a relative of a slave could buy the person and set them free, he was called a Kinsman Redeemer - he would purchase the person pay the going price and give the person their freedom. Many people became slaves in the ancient world because they could not pay their debt's so this is language that they understood.. Redeemer,
in the middle ages a custom developed that if someone saved your life you served them because you owed your life to them, ( you may remember a TV add that used this to illustrate their point - not that I can remember the point nor the product)
well actually the disciples really began that custom when they realised that they owed their lives to Jesus because He had set them free.
In the season of advent we focus on the two "comings of Jesus" the first as Babe in the manger and the second as the King in the clouds. But during Eastertide we focus on this period of him Being neither the babe in the manger nor the King coming in the clouds; but as the risen Christ having conquered death and quiet clearly He is the Messiah, and he is standing hear saying PEACE BE WITH you, and he breathes the Holy Spirit on the Disciples and he sends them saying as the FATHER HAS SENT ME SO I AM SENDING YOU, forgive as I have forgiven you, take this message of forgiveness of sins and spread it throughout the world.
Fascinating - he doesn’t say go and tell people about forgiveness, he doesn’t go out and say have bible studies about how people have been forgiven, he doesn’t say sing songs about forgiveness… he says IF YOU FORGIVE ANYONE they are forgiven, if you do not forgive they are not forgiven.
WOW!
That is harder than telling people hey "JESUS LOVES YOU!" or maybe having a bumper sticker to say it for you.
This takes a whole different kind of living - Jesus won forgiveness by carrying a cross and being nailed to it and in that agony saying - "FORGIVE THEM FATHER"
Forgiving others is never easy - but it is at the heart of being a Christian. We need to step into everyday life and say - "PEACE BE WITH YOU, as the Father has forgiven me so I forgive you"
I do not count…. I do not consider anything that divides us as relevant… I am not interested in our differences of opinion , we can discuss them freely because they will not divide us -
you see forgiveness is not just about wrong doing it is not just overcoming wrong actions against each other is about overcoming anything that would stand in the way of perfect harmony between us -
to forgive each other means to say - let us see each other as equals, both living under the grace of God.
Forgiving someone does not mean that we acknowledge that they are wrong or that they are inferior and that we magnanimously release them from their muddied state - forgiveness means that we meet each other down here where we are, it means that we acknowledge that we are not better than anyone else. But that we are in this thing called life together….
And we can only do this when we understand the times that we live in. We can only do this when we accept our created and redeemed state .. Created in God's image, fallen from grace through Sin and restored under grace by God's gift on Calvary… As St Paul said we need to resolve to preach (that is to live) Christ and Christ Crucified..
I have discovered that my theology of this period ( beginning at the resurrection and continuing to this day), was substantially flawed and thus the way I am living my life is deficient and thus debilitating in terms of living out my purpose.
Understanding the times is a crucial part of understanding what needs to be done. Life has a lot to do with timing. Jesus knew which PASSOVER to go to Jerusalem and the cross. If he had rocked up in Jerusalem the year before and tried to present himself as the Messiah, the story would have been quite different, as different as it would have been if he failed to go to Jerusalem that year saying - lets do it next year..
What I am saying is that with Jesus timing had a lot to do with the success of His ministry -How he got the timing right was of course by asking God: -
And yet I do not share his ability to get the timing right every time, possibly cause I don’t get the asking right nor the listening and hearing God, right.
I think that if we are to understand the scriptures as relevant to our daily lives we need to see the parallels between periods of scriptural history and our own lives.
In other words, when are we experiencing a Davidic moment or an Isaiahian moment or a Jeremiahain moment. When is the ship that we are on in stormy waters Noah's Ark or Jonah's ship sailing for Tarshish, or St Paul's sailing for Rome……. In other words our circumstances, where are they mirrored in the scriptures... or if you prefer, which part of scripture is mirrored in your live today. Do you think like that or is it just me. I kind of wake up and think I wonder which Narrative of life I am going to live out today. And half the time I cant work out whether I am David fighting for or against the Philistines.. ( You know what I am referring to) please don’t make me go of on a tangent and explain that one - just nod and go home and read about David's life… thanks.
I always struggle with whether the circumstances of life are a hurdle or a closed door. You know what I mean? Is the constraint before me an Angles like that which appeared to Balaam, trying to stop me from doing the wrong thing….or a flooded river like the Red Sea or the Jordon, which I am supposed to step into and
watch it part so that I can cross on dry land. Am I meant to do battle or wait ….
I don’t think that I am alone, I think that we all struggle to see which bible story we are in….. so to speak…. ( Don’t worry - we will figure it out together)
And for me the biggest misunderstanding I had was the same one that lead the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Scribes to have Jesus Crucified by the Romans.
In the OLD Testament Scripture there are two Mindsets towards the coming Messiah. The First was what we see in The Prophetic writings and speaks about a King of the Line of David who would establish His Rule over Israel and make Israel the most powerful Nation on earth….. in accordance with God's Covenant to Abraham, and in fact throughout time. Adam, Noah, Joshua Moses were all reminded of this covenant that God would rule over the earth.
The Second mindset we find in the Apocalyptic writings of Daniel and Ezekiel, The Revelation to St John and in a few other places. And it focused on a world beyod redemption an dthe new world that would replace it...
The Prophetic word was for this life on earth - to the extent that the Sadducees didn’t even consider a resurrection, but the Apocalyptic writings considered that this world was beyond redemption and that A New Jerusalem would be established, this world would not be redeemed but destroyed and the faithful would reign with God and the sinners would , burn in hell.
That's a nice one - unless you are a sinner…
And today we live with these two almost conflicting ideas leading to a confusion in our praxis, our action our living.
We are either so heavenly minded that we are only concerned with salvation getting us into heaven, or we are so focussed on the Gospel setting us free from the realities of life on earth that we
live in constant doubt as to our salvation, because we are still suffering even though we are saved. And so we are not able to forgive others because we are not sure that we are forgiven…
And it is into this dilemma of our daily lives that Jesus steps in and SAYS" ( Say it with me) PEACE BE WITH YOU!
Grace and peace - from God our Father who was and who is and who is to come...
Can we go to a quick commercial break - I would like to advertise our Tuesday afternoon Bible study were we will be looking at the book of Revelation and seeing how it addresses these issues of life now and life here-after, and on Sundays through out Eastertide up until Pentecost I will be addressing the same.
14h30 St Mary's Tuesday - be there.
But I need to conclude now before I do a St Paul and some poor soul falls asleep ...so let me get down to business: -
What I am saying is that we need to understand what Jesus did post resurrection to understand what we are to do till he comes again in Glory. On the cross,( and an aspect that we did not look at over Easter was that) On The Cross Jesus met both the first and second coming prophecies, because he came to set us free from Sin and to establish us as a Royal Priesthood. Let m ego through this slowly so that I don’t get confused.
The Jews expected two things to happen at the coming of the Christ, the Messiah. The one was an Exodus type deliverance that would establish the Nation with a King - salvation for this life if you want to express it like that .
The Other was the establishment of a New Jerusalem an eternal kingdom where evil would be overcome and righteousness restored.
Now at Calvary Jesus did both. He was Crucified (As we highlighted over Easter) because he didn’t seem to be overthrowing the Roman's and establishing a Kingdom.
But we know from the Early Church and especially from what we read in Acts, That it is not the Roman Rule that needed to be overthrown but Satan's and Jesus He did that. And thereafter it didn’t matter whether the Romans or the Goths or the Saxons or the Britons or the NATS or the ANC were in power.. Because our citizenship is in heaven and we are ambassadors to this world….
At Calvary Jesus also met apocalyptic expectation and created a new Order of things…. he would not reign from the Earthly Jerusalem but from the New Jerusalem.
Therefore Jesus achieved all this in the Cross and his Second Coming is not an event that will only happen in the future, although one day he will come in the clouds and unite heaven and earth the physical and the spiritual into one glorious kingdom …. But the second coming has already begun. We could say he is coming, he has begun to come and will continue to come until he has fully come.
Thus he did not come to Bethlehem and then leave only to return in the future, but he came and died, and in his resurrection has begun the Second coming …..he has commenced to dwell among us and will do so in greater and greater measure until all shall bow and all confess and all worship.
There fore we should not await his return, but participate in his presence until he finally unites us under his sovereign rule.
I pray that I have made at least a little bit of sense this morning. I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to the Scriptures, that the Risen Lord will bring you peace and joy and that as you live under God's grace that you will see and understand how wide and how deep and how high the love of God is for you.
Amen??? Are we going do this? Are we together - we going to live at peace??
Lets pray that God will strengthen his Church throughout the world to respond to the Risen Christ and give ourselves fully to this thing called life. And may we step out into the world and forgive
ourselves and each other because we have been forgiven and may we say - PEACE BE WITH YOU!
Amen and Amen.

Ash Wednesday 2013

2Co 5:17-6:2

 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;  that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.

 For he says, "In a favourable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you." Behold, now is the favourable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

As we commence this Lenten journey we may have decided or are still deciding to do something different – to really deepen our relationship with God this year. To fast and pray and make ourselves worthy through a process of 40 days of self reflection.

St Paul tells us though that we are already a new creation. He says that we have been reconciled as a gift from God and that he has also given us a ministry, a ministry to bring all creation to reconciliation, through our actions, through our character through our life.

It is not enough to be less wicked then others to be less corrupt to be less distracted by the things of this world. We need to be devoted to this ministry of reconciliation – living true to the Gospel and sharing the gospel truly.

In this season of lent – give yourself time to live out Gospel values of grace, mercy, peace, hope and love these are the gifts that reconcile us to God and others.

." Behold, now is the favourable time; behold, now is the day of salvation”

Holy Father we thank you that you have reconciled us to yourself through your Son. Teach us in this the time of your favour to engage ourselves in acts of reconciliation – loving our neighbours, loving truth, and busying ourselves in your ministry. Amen.

 

 

The Church needs to be Fulfilling Scripture in our Day as Jesus did.

Sermon Preached at St Mary's and then at the Good Shepherd 27 Jan 2013 

Jesus Said: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. (Luke 4:21)

The Challenge to the Church today is whether we are ensuring that these words are true in our communities and our time. Scripture needs to be fulfilled in our time, in our lives and by our actions.

Today I’d like to explore a few things that we need to take to heart to ensure that we are continuing the ministry of Jesus and to ensure that the Good News that is revealed through the Holy Scriptures is being heard in the world.

From Nehemiah we are reminded of the centrality and importance of Scripture to us as God’s people.

From Corinthians we are reminded that we have gifts and duties that make us part of the body and how each part of the body has a role to play – a body in which one part is not doing what it should be doing is a diseased body – A body that rejects its own members and does not appreciate them is a diseased body. Each and every member of this body is vital to the successful functioning of the Body of Christ. And each of you are appreciated and loved as members of this body – as we say in the Eucharist- we are one body –for we all partake of the one bread. So you are important. You are needed. You are necessary – for scripture to be fulfilled in the world today – you must play your part.

In Nehemiah we see how the people responded to the reading of Scripture – I must admit I have seldom noticed that response during Anglican Services –maybe our readings are too short – vs 10 we seem to have mastered however: - Neh 8:10  Then he said to them, "Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord.."

Our fat and sweet wine consists of Milk Tart, and tea but it will do.

But seriously -We need to take scripture to heart as they did.

The walls of Jerusalem had just been rebuilt and the nation felt safe for the first time in a long time and when they heard the Law being read they realised that their real hope was in the Lord – their real protection was from him...

May we come to the same conclusion – may what God has done for us bring us to tears – of sorrow for our short comings and repeated mistakes, and tears of joy as we realise how deep and how wide and how wonderful the Fathers love for us is.

Tears of joy for the privilege of being part of the Body of Christ – how wonderful it is to be called Sons of God = coinheritors with Christ and to be His body that is in need of all the parts. Each called and given specific gifts for the building up of the body of Christ. 

Jesus brings us to the realisation that Scripture is real, relevant and role specific. Scripture is being fulfilled in our time, in our presence in our circumstances and situation. If we are going to see the effects of this in our time then God’s Church the Body of Christ has to be doing the right things. Jesus said that the following things were being fulfilled in the peoples hearing:

Proclamation of the good news to the poor.

Proclamation of liberty to the captives

Recovery of sight to the blind,

liberty of the  oppressed,  and

the  proclamation  of the Lord's favour."

In order for these five things to be seen in our time the Church needs to be displaying – showing forth- the truth about God: the Scriptures speak of prophecy which was not so much fore-telling as we mostly think of it in other words telling what would happen in the future- but more a case of  Forth telling- speaking the truth of God explaining his presence in the present- showing God’s presence in the world.- this is our prophetic role:-revealing the truth  that One: Jesus is the Good News of salvation, he liberates us from the effects of our sinful nature, he enables us to come to God – as we say in the Eucharist – not trusting in our own righteousness – but in the manifold love of God. We proclaim the Good News.

Two: He opens our eyes to see the things that need to be changed in our lives and when we change we will no longer be oppressed by the things of this world. Critical to the witness to the world of scripture being fulfilled in our lives, critical to our witness to the love of God is the understanding that:   

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;

persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;

Being a Christian does not mean that everything will be perfect – but it does mean that we will have the strength to endure all things, that no matter what happens we will have the courage and the wisdom  to face the challenges of every day and so we are set free from the things that bring fear and apprehension, our eyes are opened to opportunities, opportunities to be useful, to have meaning to be joyful and content.

So how do we as the Church ensure that “Scripture is fulfilled in our hearing”

In his book “the Living Church” John Stott speaks of four essentials for the Church – He says that we must be:

·       A learning Church

·       A caring Church

·       A worshipping Church and

·       An evangelising Church

Scripture tells us that the early Church met constantly to hear the apostles teach: - We too must open ourselves to the teaching of Scripture – reading it discussing it putting it into practice.

I have been told that if your hear something you forget it in about 72 hours, if you read it you remember it a bit longer – but if you do it – you will never forget it – St James says do not merely listen to the word but do what it says:

We need to be a learning church – you are never too old to learn – and we must make what we learn corporate knowledge – we must share your wisdom our understand and grow together. That is why our weekly Bible study on Tuesday’s at 14h30 is important and I’d love to us start some more as well –opportunities for studying God’s word together. 

Secondly we need to be a caring church: One of the fascinating things about the early church is how they cared for each other and for the community – our slogan is [the church in the community and the community in the church] {know Jesus and make him known}  - that means that we see that being church is not just what we do in these walls but it is what we do in the world – giving people time, listening to them, being patient with them, sharing in their joys and sorrows, being available to them asking how they are and then actually listening to the answer… in today’s world possibly this is the greatest thing that we can do – listen to others attentively. Caring meanings sharing of yourself with them  - realising that we share a common life and that when one part hurts the whole body hurts. John Stott speaks of the Art of double listening – listening to the world to hear its needs and listening to God to hear the solutions.

Thirdly for God’s word to be fulfilled in our hearing we need to be a worshipping Church. We need to be both joyful and reverent.

While working with youth in an ecumenical setting one comment that I repeatedly heard from the young people was how they were amazed by the way as Anglicans we could have fun together and joke and enjoy ourselves but that when we came to the Eucharist or prayer services we displayed a reverence. We need to learn how to be joyful and reverent.

Lastly we need to be an evangelising Church, Acts 2 tells us about the Early Church and covers all that we have spoken about this morning. And vs 47 says – and the Lord added daily to their numbers those who were being saved.

Again our slogan [the church in the community and the community in the church] {know Jesus and make him known}  -

Speaks of growing the church – and this begins by us seeing that the community of this church is not limited to the Parish Roll – but to the people who we interact with every day.

The adding is; that when we treat every person we meet with on a daily basis as if they are part of us – then we are Kingdom building.

Imagine if you treated everyone you met each day as if they were part of this congregation. You would meet people’s deepest need – to be noticed, to have their worth appreciated, to be loved, to be reminded that they matter. God loves people by having you love them. God cares for people by having you care for them – God speaks to people when you speak to them – you fulfill scripture when you share yourself with others.

 So I charge you commit yourselves to learning, fellowship, caring, and witnessing in the love of God to the world and fulfill scripture this day in the world.

Amen.