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It is hard to be confident sometimes. It is hard to be sure of the world’s future, our church’s future, the whole Christian church’s future. It is hard to sure of my own future when it come to my health, aging, my relationships with everyone. 

Isaiah is God’s mouthpiece to a people who have lost it all and probably think they have no future at all. They are already in exile in a foreign place. They have lost their community, their lands, their business, farms, worship life, city and temple. They probably feel as though they have lost their God too.  

Isaiah is a truth-teller. He says the reason they have found themselves in this difficult place is not the Lord’s fault. It is squarely theirs. They have turned their backs on the covenant relationship with the Lord by failing into religious outward ritual devoid of real heart, corruption and injustice in how they tret the vulnerable in their society, and into moral failure many times over. 

What will give them any confidence that they even have a future, given all the turmoil in which they find themselves. This is maybe a good question for us in our current turmoil whatever you turmoil is at the moment.

Isaiah has good wors to say into this kind of place. The Lord delivers right words that encourage the weary each morning, including this one. They are words that awaken me so I am eager to learn from his teaching again.

Praying the Spirit awaken faith in your heart by this Word we hear and sing and pray today so that we trust that our protector and rock-solid sustaining power of hope and love is with you, and us. 

Unity among any people of any group is so fulfilling. Unity in a team makes it so much fun and is so crucial for any ‘success’. How much the more for a fledgling new community of the resurrected Jesus in a hostile world?!

Paul continues recounting his story to try and call the people in the Galatian network back to what he first taught them, - that the gospel of Jesus’ dying and rising for the forgiveness of all sin and new life for the whole world is all they need to be fully fledged, hope-filled people in Christ with a bright future together in him.

They do not need the ‘gospel +’ anything else, like Jewish law; customs, dietary rules, sabbath rules, work rules or circumcision etc… Paul will recount a very big moment in his life and in the life of this first church that would echo on into our day.

It is the account of the day when unity in the gospel won the day. This ‘victory’ was not certain. If those Jerusalem ‘capital A’ apostles had allowed any hint of ‘gospel +’ Jewish law to be the foundation of our new life in Jesus’ new creation, then it would have been ‘all bad’. But they ‘walked the walk’ and here we are: people who have received the same freeing gospel from the same wonderful Saviour. Praying you bask in the unity you share with everyone gathered and those all over the world and even those Jerusalem Apostles.

Pastor Adrian

God has his plans, but can they ever change? Are we on some unchangeable schedule that is set in concrete that can never be undone and re-shaped?  

Seems that in the account of this conversation between Jesus and a gentile woman way out in gentile territory, things are not so set in concrete when it comes to living a life faith in Jesus’ love and authority.  

This woman is a mum, and she has a daughter wo is suffering some kind of debilitating disease or demonic oppression that is not good for her.  

We hear a conversation between a Jesus looking for some anonymity and respite far away from his home region and a needy mother who is quite persistent even though she seems to get a firm ‘no’ for her initial request for freeing of her daughter.  

Jesus does listen and he does seem to allow for his plans to change to meet this need as expressed by this person in great need.  

Maybe we are being encouraged to pray because God will listen and change his plan to meet us where we are at – but it may take some time……… 

These are changing times for anyone living life as part of a local church. it feels like it is all new and we have to try and figure out the 'silver bullet' that will fix all our problems. Of course, there is no silver bullet, but there are some wise things to consider. One is the need to pivot from a clergy centred/led supported by the people kind of church to a people of God led wit clergy support as we live in the grace of God together. 

Problem is that pivoting in this way means getting off the spectator seats, jumping the fence and getting into the game in our work, family, and life in general......

In the pressure cooker of a rapidly changing world where it seems we are all somehow supposed to now not RECEIVE our identity but MAKE our OWN identity based on our own experiences, values, feelings and thought, what does define you and who chooses you to love?

And what about that Christian thing called 'Baptism'. Did that happen to you in your personal history. if so, so what? What does that say about who you have been created to be rather than what you are supposed to make yourself to be?

God’s Decision for you

Isaiah 43:1-4 and Luke 3:15-22 

But now, this is what the Lord says—
     he who created you, Jacob,
     he who formed you, Israel:
 “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
     I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 

I was baptised 58 years ago in the Spring, in a small Roman Catholic church in the eastern suburbs of Perth. I had only the word of parents, siblings and one small photo to show for this great event of God.  

I spent about 1/3 of my life so far not really understanding knowing or believing anything much about this miraculous intervention of God. No one taught me about it. No one reminded me about it. The gift was on the shelf gathering dust while I was going nowhere with no awareness of who I had been created to be in Christ... 

But, like those Samaritans we heard about, through everyday people of God in this everyday LCA, God made the gift come alive again. 

 For this other 2/3 of my life I often ponder what my baptism means now. I know it means that I have been adopted into God’s new community of grace and that have been called to play a little part in his expansive mission to gather all the world to himself.  

And so, I often wonder what God is really up to with the life he has given me. He seems to only reveal what he has been doing, what he is doing and what he will do in me and around me one little piece at a time. I suppose that’s why we Christians live by faith that comes from God’s Word, rather than by only what we see within and around us.  

Where were you baptised and how do you look upon that event now? Do you see that historical event as a gift of grace or something not too great now? Is your baptism something that happened in your past, or does it still keep shaping your now? Is your baptism something you often ponder, or something a little old and out of the picture now. Does that simple act that we have often seen performed here have much to do with the adult world of you, in all its complexity?  

There is great debate about what Jesus knew about his baptism at the Jordan by the hand of John.  

• Did he know that it would re-shape his life up to this point? 
• Did Jesus know fully that his baptism would signal the beginning of full-on public ministry? 
• Did he know that it would mean huge demands on his personal resources and his time? 
• Did he know that the baptism he received and the public affirmation that his Father gave for all to hear would make his whole life step up several notches in terms of service to people? 
• Did he know that baptism meant responsibility before God and to others and all the demands of living as God’s child in the often demanding, unforgiving, needy and dark world? I am not really sure.

 Faith says that Jesus knew plenty and yet he was fully human and immersing himself fully in our time. Whether he knew what his baptism meant for him or whether he only had a rough idea, it was what he needed to live his life.  

His baptism was his beginning, his seal of family membership, his identity as a person of God, his foundation for what lay ahead and it was a wonderful

John 1:6-8,19-28

God entering our human flesh and bones in this Messiah long-promised, chooses a fellow human of the same flesh and bones to point to his move, his presence, his light, his Star of Christmas. 

Makes me wonder that if there is no John the Witness, we might miss Jesus the Saviour? If we don’t hear John’s witness, we might miss the bold move of God to truly be ‘Emmanuel’; God with us.  

You are not a stand-alone individual needing to do life your way. You are deeply connected to and loved by the God who has come near to you and still does. 

Titus 3:4-7

Christmas actually does things to us because this Saviour-child did things and is still doing things he began back in that shed.  

Of course, it is safer to keep Christmas happy and traditional family time. Nothing wrong with family or tradition. But if that is all this celebration is for you who have been on the receiving end of the kindness and love of God, that is short-changing God and this Christ-Child. 

So, what is Christmas meant to do for this local Christian community?

Revelation 21:1-6a 

This picture of the 'sheep and the goats' at our end always seems to come across as an angry God finally getting his payback on people. 

This is no mere piece of art imagined by a mere human being pondering great mysteries unsure of who God actually is. This is God giving the vision of how it actually is and how it will be. 

Even more, this is a vision of the final point in human history told by a real person; a person who claims to be God himself in his own human history and place. He is the baby in the box born for the cross.

Only the skilled Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep in love knows who is who. Only he can draft these animals accurately. Only he really knows them and sees them inside and out.

What and why this Child? Luke 1:26–38 

Mary is not feeling the glow of Christmas lights or the warms and fuzzy vision of a family Christmas lunch! Mary is terrified at the arrival of the news.  

But in her fear, she finds a crucial question. What child is this? 

And even more: Why this child?

Why lies He in such mean estate,
 Where ox and ass are feeding?
 Good Christians, fear, for sinners here
 The silent Word is pleading. 

‘The silent Word is pleading”. Is that Christmas for you. 

I Am Legion

Luke 8:26-39

26 They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes,[a] which is across the lake from Galilee. 27 When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!” 29 For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

30 Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. 31 And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.

32 A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission.33 When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, 35 and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. 36 Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. 37 Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them,because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left.

38 The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. 

I can’t help but think of people I have come across or heard about with huge mental illness challenges when I hear of this Geresene man living outside of town in the graveyard without a thread of clothing, in a constant state of fear and alert, and scars all over his self-harmed body.  

What has happened to this man? How did he get like this? What went so wrong and where are his family, his friends?  

And what on earth is Jesus doing out here in this danger zone of death. He is a Jew in unclean, unknown Gentile territory on the far side of the sea.  

We are watching this happen with the silent disciples. They say and do nothing in this whole account. Maybe they are still shell-shocked after that scary night on the sea they have just experienced – when even the wind and sea obeyed Jesus’ command to be silent. They are silent now…

We don’t even go into town. Instead, we head out to the fringe of thins fringy place. We meet this dangerous man who cannot be chained by chains but is totally chained by the dark side, the demonic, the pain the isolation, the self-harm, the lostness.  

“Legion”. His own name does not count anymore. He is ‘Legion”  

For people in the ancient Roman world, “Legion” had only one meaning: a unit of approximately six thousand occupying, seemingly all-powerful Roman soldiers. Romans rule. Roman control. Roman take your freedom and use it for their gain. Same for demons. They

We all want this final affirmation for living now with some clarity, some hope, some meaning some joy. I want to ‘enter in the joy of the Master’ who knows what I am doing and have done and will do, so that in the end he ticks my contribution as good, useful, meaningful, gospel good news in a very ‘un-gospel’ world. 

Press On toward the goal: Into the Water

          1 Peter 3:18-22 The flood a symbol of baptism

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 19 After being made alive,[a] he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits – 20 to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah  while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolises baptism that now saves you also – not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience towards God.[b] It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand – with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him. 

 Mark 1:9-15 The baptism, temptation, and preaching of Jesus

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’ 

12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted[a] by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. 

14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’ 

Friends, as we enter another Lent, we begin with water; the water of Noah’s flood and the water of your baptism into Jesus in the water.  

Peter speaks about both ‘waters’. He does this to speak God’s grace into your heart as you ponder God’s heart of love for you in the innocent suffering and dying of his Son these forty days.  

Peter is speaking to people suffering some kind of “fiery ordeal”. Some say this is something like a mild persecution in their region – being excluded from life in the community because of their faith in Jesus.  

I don’t know what kind of ‘fiery ordeal’ you may be facing at the moment. But Peter says this ‘water’ is the cleansing stream that will enable you to get through well.  

On the experience of suffering, Peter asks the question: Is it better to suffer for evil or to suffer for good? 

Some might say, “Who cares!? I just don’t want to suffer!!” Fair enough. But there is a bit of difference between suffering for something evil you have been engaged with or suffering for doing only good.  

If you suffer for evil, you probably deserve it. You are getting your just reward. But if you suffer for good, then you probably don’t deserve it and are not getting what is just.  

Peter’s little question might have come from well-known words of one of the famous philosophers lots of people in his communities would have known. From Plato:

“To act unrighteously is worse, in that it is more disgra

We Are His Building

John 2:13-22

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!’ 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’[a]

18 The Jews then responded to him, ‘What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’

19 Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’

20 They replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. 

What Jesus did this day in the Temple area must have made quite an impression. All four gospel writers recall it.  

John tells us that at the time, they did not really know what Jesus was doing. It is only after the resurrection that they recalled that the Scriptures say that ‘zeal for the Lord’s house’ would consume the Messiah and that the temple Jesus was speaking of on this day was not the temple they were standing in but the new temple of his own body.  

John tells it differently to the others too. He does not share it as being a trigger for the final lead up to the crucifixion at the end of Jesus ministry like the others. John remembers it being at the very beginning – right after the wine at the wedding in Cana. John is saying something different to the others about this.  

When Jesus enters the temple area, nothing is unusual. The whole sacrificial system of animals, birds, grain and exchange of currencies have to be done somewhere. The Jerusalem temple is a huge open market space in the centre of the city.  

Why is Jesus zealous enough to personally make a whip-chord, turn over tables of foreign exchange merchants and rattle the cages of those doves!? He does not call the place a ‘den of robbers’ as Matthew, Mark and Luke tell it. This does not seem to be a protest about malpractice or corruption. It seems to be bigger… deeper.  

For John, Jesus seems to signalling the dismantling of the whole thing – building, system, practices…..  

This temple, this building with all of its associated roles, stories, symbols of religious identity and even national pride is no longer necessary. Jesus is not talking ‘reform’, he is talking complete revolutionary shift. It is being demolished to be replaced by something bigger and better. That is BIG!  

Everyone knows that this is God’s building. What could possibly be better?  

This building was originally established at the Lord’s direct command - first via Tent of Meeting in the Exodus wilderness, then by Solomon, then rebuilt to part of its former glory by retuned exiles under Nehemiah and Ezra and then finally made great again by Herod for his own political purposes and personal ego. We hear that it has taken Herod 46 years to build so far. 

Like security people at the footy, when Jesus disrupts the whole show, the keepers of the Temple are on the job straight away.  

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The Spirit is Working

Acts 7:55-60

55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’

57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep. 

We have been celebrating the greatest moment that changes the world and created a whole new community in the world this season of Easter. And even is what has been a tough vintage, we have been trying to enjoy our Vintage Festival and Thanksgiving celebrations.  

But now, without warning, we are confronted with this violent episode of the Stephen, the first person killed for faith in Jesus in those first heady days of that first gospel community.  

The whole deadly affair sounds similar to what had happened to Jesus just a short time ago. The great victory over those in power maybe was only short-lived? 

How did Stephen arise?  

The first gospel community in Jerusalem was made up for Greek speaking and Hebrew speaking people – The Hellenist (Greek language and culture) and the Jewish (Hebrew language and culture) disciples.  

Luke tells us that a dispute arose. In the immediate generosity that broke out in this fledgling community, a system of allocating income and food to the more vulnerable people in the new community came to be. Those who had gave to those who did not. A fair percentage of those who were vulnerable were women who had lost their husbands. They had no rights and very few options. Therefore, they often had to live on almost nothing.  

The dispute was about seeming favouritism in the daily distribution.  

The Greek speaking people complained to the Jewish speaking people about their widows being overlooked in this daily distribution.   

Wisely, ‘The Twelve’ – Those 11 eye witnesses of Jesus, plus the one who came into the group to replace Judas (Matthias) took quick action to settle this dispute.  

They appoint overseers of this welfare ministry who would make sure the whole thing was done fairly.  

One of those seven people appointed as Stephen. 

They were all “full of both the Spirit and wisdom” (6:3). But Stephen seems to be recognised in the community as being very gifted. Stephen is the first one named in the group, and the only one to receive specific praise as one “full of faith and the Holy Spirit” (6:5) and “full of grace and power,” doing signs and wonders among the people (6:8).  

Stephen is most annoying to those who hold all the power in the city synagogue community because, like Jesus, he speaks in a way that his detractors find impossible to dispute (6:10). This is just how Jesus said it would be in Luke 21:15 as he speaks with The Twelve before they became ‘The Twelve’; 

15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 

So, bold Stephen speaks in front of the powers that be.  

Stephen does not hold back! His sermon is long. It is a lot longer than Jesus’ ‘Twitter’ length responses to those accusing him. It is longer than Peter’s Pentecost Day sermon a little while before this one. This sermon is longer than Paul’s sermons.  

Stephen goes throug

The Treasure We Live and Leave

1 Peter 1:3-9

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

 Peter breaks into praise years after those heady days of the resurrection as he writes to encourage his people. 

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,  

 He speaks of a trusted inheritance that reaches back into the present struggle of life to give joy and hope in that struggle.  

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us ….. an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  

Peter begins with that great event – the Resurrection from death by Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah.  

Everything he says and everything good and worth struggling for is founded on that resurrection of Jesus.  

I think a lot of people who do any serious thinking about Christianity soon bump into the news of this resurrection. They then realize that because Christian faith is founded on the resurrection, it is an all or nothing faith and life. Accordingly so many choose the ‘nothing’. It is easier and safer.  

The close circle of people around Jesus got that truth right up close and personal when the resurrected Jesus appeared and greeted them with the all- encompassing peace of God for their new life with him. 

This faith we live is not something you manufacture on your terms. It comes by the grace of God on his terms and for his purposes in your life.  

Jesus is a matter of the heart, not just of your thinking or your will.  

I reckon a lot of people know this and stay away. They don’t really want a Saviour because that would overtake your heart and that would shape your thinking and your will, your decisions, your choices, your decisions – and that is a direct challenge to your very self and your whole life.  

Jesus always knew this. Do you remember that day on the grassy slopes by the Sea of Galilee when he launched into a description of how things would eventually be in this new creation he was here to inaugurate? It is called the ‘Sermon on the Mount. 

 “You’ve heard it said…… But I say….”. 

“You have heard it said (by your parents, your synagogue leaders, your legal people, your priests and your whole community all your life) that that it is an eye for an eye…. But I say, love your enemies,,,, 

Jesus is telling t

We seem to have settled for ‘church’ being a building more than a people, where the building is an end in itself and not a tool for different people, where the church we belong to is more a fixed institution than an adaptable movement, only a weekly gathering more than a daily relating, something we ‘attend’ more than a life we ‘do’ together; a spectator sport we watch rather than a sport we actually play. 

As a result, the focus is often not so much building community but maintaining a building; keeping the known community going way more than seeking the unknown community around us; living OUR vision rather than the one here, with or without a building.  

But, God’s mission still stands:

…. [that] through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Christians always have four things to ponder as they live their faith in the face of an overwhelming non-Christian or even anti-Christian society. They could either;

Go along, Go underground, Give it back, or Give it up.

What if there is a fifth way to live it well?

Jesus' close friends found out just how Jesus can shine. No matter how we might try to hide him or dismiss him, or how much we struggle to live in him, he will always find a way to shine. 

Whatever happens in my life, he is in it. Jesus will be heard, and his kingdom will continue to come close to me. Whatever happens to us as a church, he will speak and some people somewhere sometimes will catch a glimpse of his love and his light and his love and be lit up themselves. 

Real complaint to God, brings real clarity from God.

Job sees. He sees his own limit, weakness, lack of power and certainty and he sees God’s unlimited goodness, power and commitment to the world. Job sees God as Giver:  everything the Lord lists here is gift – gift for life, gift for human life, gift for Job. 

In Job’s suffering the sun rises, the clouds form the rain comes the stars shine the wind moves and life is sustained for Job. 

Nothing has changed when it comes to the gracious sustaining gifting of God….. Paul says;

Romans 12:3

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

We remember Paul and Peter who became big names for the first Christians and all Christians since those first heady days of the Jesus movement in the world. 

We live in a righteousness that does not come from achieving, performing, being good or bad, but comes as gift from Jesus' achieving, performing being holy and true- enough for us all. 

Any lasting peace, unity, confidence and conviction to speak and do his love by faith comes from his love for me, not my love for me or anyone else’s. 

 Hear his love for you that gives you courage to stay the course in whatever you are facing today:

 I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. ….18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.

 There is life that has been won and one day it will be a complete win. Jesus is that complete life, now and then. 

 And so, we share the Call of Peter and Paul. For Paul it was this:

 15 ….. God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles (Galatians 1:15)

 Friends, safe passage in the love of Jesus is assured, no matter what. 

What do you need when you are under heavy pressure at work, in your relationships, your study, your family? You need someone important to you to tell you have their approval and support no matter what. 

 Even better when this respected person; the boss, the teacher, the lecturer or your spouse or parent or child says these affirming words.. and even  publicly. 

 Like when the boss comes into the meeting and gives a word of praise and affirmation of how able you are, and how well you are doing your job, in front of everyone. Everyone hears the affirmation. It helps them trust you. 

 That’s the Father’s intention here. By these words of affirmation said publicly, the Son gains courage from this public affirmation of his calling and the people gain a reason to trust the Saviour.  

This is especially clear the way Matthew tells it. He does not put it as other gospel writers put it;

 ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’(Luke, Mark)

but

‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’

I suspect we want to know we did something good, we made a positive difference with all we were given. We all want and have wanted all along to breed love and joy in our kids, our families, workplaces, present friends and associates. We know the world needs joy, hope and love.  

We all want this final affirmation for living now with some clarity, some hope, some meaning some joy. I want to ‘enter in the joy of the Master’ who knows what I am doing and have done and will do, so that in the end he ticks my contribution as good, useful, meaningful, gospel good news in a very ‘un-gospel’ world. 

But when I hear this parable about the end of it all – me and the world, I always find myself feeling pretty uncomfortable. That last guy gets very harsh treatment by the Master! It makes me wonder what sort of God we have if God is like this Master! 

Nathaniel was found by the fig tree. He was looking for new hope there. it weas not in the tree. it would be in the man who would give his life on a cursed tree so we be free!

I listened the Luther on this and it made sense….. 

 The Lord …… compares it (the Christian community - us) to ten virgins. Five are wise, five foolish. 

 The foolish virgins are those Christians who give the appearance and impression of being godly. They want to be good evangelicals (Lutherans) and are able to say much about these things. They praise the Word and say: “Yes, it is a splendid thing. This is what it means. It cannot possibly be otherwise according to the Scripture, etc.” Paul speaks of these people in 1 Cor. 4:20: “The kingdom of God is not in only talk, but in power.” It consists not in speech, but in life; not in words, but in works. Although they are able to say much about many things, they are in reality unwise virgins who only have the lamps or the vessel, that is, the external equipment, and they behave according to their nature, as Matthew writes (7:22), saying, “Lord, Lord!” The mouth is there, but the heart is far away (Matt. 15:8). 

 The oil is not in the lamp, that is, faith is not in the heart. 

From Martin Luther...
“….it comes to pass when you hear that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, has by his most holy touch consecrated and hallowed all sufferings, even death itself, has blessed the curse, and has glorified shame and enriched poverty so that death is now a door to life, the curse a fount of blessing, and shame the mother of glory. Suffering has been touched and bathed by Christ’s pure and holy flesh and blood and thus have become holy, harmless, and wholesome, blessed, and full of joy for you. There is nothing, not even death, that his passion cannot sweeten.  (Luther, LW, Vol. 42, pp. 141-142)

O that so many Lutherans in the Barossa (including me) could hear the sound of that cracking whip-chord and the coins tipping off those tables and the flight of spooked doves! And then be with Jesus sipping wine transformed from water at a wedding, eating fish and bread on the grassy slope be the sea, smelling the strong scent of perfume around that room as she anointed him for his burial, ate more fish on the beach with a risen Jesus doing the cooking, hearing the rapid words of a woman who no one ever saw or wanted to see in the village inviting everyone to come out and ‘meet a man who told me everything I ever did’ (John 4:29).

If they did, they would hear the New Temple say this:
21 ‘Woman,….. believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…... 23 … a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.’              
                                                                                                                                                          (John 4:21-24)

Ten young women: five with 'oil', five out of 'oil': five accepted five dismissed. What is the oil!?

Is Jesus is saying that the oil is not our love or faith or patience or anything we can do or manufacture or achieve ourselves? What if instead, the ‘oil’ is a gift; gift to be received that makes us ready, not work to be done that hopefully makes us ready? Then this parable speaks of pure wonderful grace and fires our hearts in thankful faith and solid hope for what is to come because it is not based on me – but founded on Jesus.

There is a song for every occasion. There is s spiritual song for every step of this spiritual journey with Jesus. The Psalms are those songs and this one is a 'banger'!

We come to the end of this little journey in this little letter of First John. 

 We have heard of the broad sweep of what God has done for the word he loves in the Son he gave for the life he calls us to live. It is very grand in scale and yet practical in the living of it. Faith, love and obedience to what the Apostles reveal of God from what they saw and heard and touched in Jesus of Nazareth is the life to which John calls us. 

 Today we hear this rather abrupt and very direct little directive in the last sentence of this letter.

 21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

 I wonder why John ends his letter speaking of idols? 

 Idols are part of this anti-messiah world that have their pull on our heart strings. John did warn us not to give our hearts to the world because this will destroy love and hope. John has also shown us that God’s heart for us is lavish in scale and that this can make our hearts lavish in love for each other. Idols must be a threat to this love. 

 We will reflect on idols and John’s remedy for how we guard giving our hearts to them and instead, keep our heart firmly attached to God’s truth in Jesus so we can love.

 May you know God’s heart of love for you today so that your heart is full of love for people around you. This love between people is how the world comes to know Jesus’ love and hope. 

John has said some world-changing and people-changing things about God future now at work in our present drawing us on to that great day when we shall finally see Jesus as he fully is and find ourselves more like him than we currently know. 

To really try and grab your full attention and bring home all of the truth about who Jesus is and what he is doing in this anti-messiah world, this anti-messiah human heart we all share and against the fallen Anti-Messiah himself, John now stages a courtroom scene and calls upon three witnesses to testify to all that he has been proclaiming.

The three witnesses are water, blood and Spirit and they are called to firm you up in his three foundational ways of living in this new era of Jesus: faith, love and obedience.

May you be re-affirmed and re-confirmed in who you are, in how you have come to be who you are and what you are to be and to do in the life of love you have been gifted and called into, by the love of God lavished upon you in Jesus the Son of God in human flesh and blood for the life of the world.  

We are still working our way through the words of the Apostle john in his little letter of love to his people under pressure. 

Today we get o what many might see as the core message John is wanting to encourage his people with as they live their lives in this new beginning for God’s creation which began the day that death died under the resurrection life of Jesus the Messiah.

Our home text for the year has been

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.

This text is right here today, in its full context. We might need to pause to have a good listen to it because I suspect we mostly mis-hear it. We might hear it as just anther word of demand, or more expectation, or more reason to despair because we know we just cannot fulfil it enough: we struggle to love eve though we know love comes from God!

Rest assured, this word is not more overwhelming expectation or impossible task for you who have been ‘brin of God’ and given his Spirit! This word is doable and needed and we are involved with Jesus in it. 

John knows the mis-hearing and moves to allay our fears of punishment to be replaces by the letting love live in our day, in our homes, our families, our work places and community. He says it is essential business for us and for the community in which we have been placed. 

May your fears be allayed so you can know love, receive love, and do love so they can see love and maybe finally know the love of God.

We keep on nudging forward in this little letter of the Apostle John to his local church communities. As we do, we also welcome 14 people into membership in our church. Praise the Lord for new people!

John is doing all he can to give us confidence to trust that in all circumstances the Spirit is at work transforming us into the likeness of the Son whom we will one day finally see as he is and truly know ourselves as he knows and loves us. 

Today John calls back a wonderful Old Testament account of the prophet Elisha to encourage to trust that whatever happens around us that threatens or weakens our faith, ‘He who is for us is greater than the one who is against us. 

John leads us back to faith which says that whatever suffering comes our way, whatever false teaching we may hear or even be attracted to, our weak faith or lack of love is no match for God’s truth and greater love. We can bank on God when it feels like we are surrounded!

One of the skills John passes on today is that of discerning false teaching. There is plenty of it surrounding us and it can be quite hard to pick. John helps us today to listen long and well to get to the truth of what people teach us about ourselves, God and the world and its future. 

New or long settled, young or older, may you be drawn to the truth of Jesus today so you can trust that he is ore then anything or anyone that assails you or even your own lack of faith, love and good attitude. 

We are travelling at a slow pace ‘smelling the roses’ of this little letter of the Apostle John (1 John). We have heard him announce the breaking on of God’s whole new covenant world of grace in the Resurrection of Jesus that created a whole new community in the world, of which John is an Apostle. 

We have heard that this truth of God’s grace creates the coin of faith and love. 

John is a realist. He knows that we live in an ‘anti-messiah’ world in which there is plenty of false teaching and false teachers. Today he holds up a marker flag across no-mans-land to which he says, ‘run’. 

The marker flag is our sure future that is ours already in part. But one day in full when this battle with this wayward anti-messiah self, this anti-messiah world and the Anti Messiah himself is fully completed and ‘we see him as he is’.

This for John also means, that we will finally see ourselves in all that we have become. We are becoming that person already. 

This is hard to believe when there is so much false teaching on life and so much suffering we know of and experience. 

Today the Lord will reassure us and hold up that marker flag for us again, and all so that we continue in the call to let love live. 

We have embarked upon a slower journey through a little letter in the New Testament of the Bible. It is the letter the Apostle John wrote to his local communities of disciples of the risen Jesus (1John). 

Today we hear John speaking of ‘the world’. He actually urges us to ‘not love ‘the world’ or anything in it’. 

This may seem a little confusing coming from the Apostle who gave us that most famous bible verse of all bible verses:

“God so LOVED THE WORLD that he gave his only Son so that all may believe and be saved……”.

John means something a little different than we might expect when he speaks of this ‘world’ in which we are called to live out the truth of the gospel by faith and in love. 

He is very aware and very realistic about the forces at work in ‘the world’. He urges us to be aware of who we are in Jesus, and what our identity and purpose of living ‘against the flow’ still mean. 

May you be given a great anchor point for living in this interesting and often deceptive world and all that is coming at you puling you away from the ‘new world’ of light and life in Jesus the Anointed Saviour of the world. 

We have begun a longer, slower journey or diving deeper into a little letter in the New Testament. We are journeying through 1 John. 

John has begun his letter by announcing that he has seen God’s future for us and his world in Jesus, and it works! God’s future works because God himself has worked it and he invited is into this future that already begun; this life of close fellowship with the Father and Jesus, the Son, enabled by the Spirit. 

Today we hear John delve into this issue of our ability to deceive ourselves when it comes to God’s love and our living of it. 

He shows that there is a big difference between knowing love and doing love. It is one thing to know the love of God, it is another to actually do the love of God. This difference comes from this problem we have of tricking ourselves into stuff or out of stuff. 

He urges us who live in the new creation of Jesus’ love to let love live and points us to what enables us to love more fully; more consistently, more in the way Jesus’ has and does love us. 

May you know that love again today and be directed, challenged and encouraged to simply let that love live in your relationships wherever they are. 

As we let love live love will live and this joy of close fellowship with the Father and the Son will enable us and other people yet unknown to thrive in this new creation community founded on Jesus’ love for us. 

We have embarked upon a little journey in one book of the bible. We are engaged in taking some time to hear what the Apostle John says in his first letter (1 John).

 Our home text for 2023 comes from this little letter. 

 Let us love one another because love comes from God.   (1 John 4:7)

 We all know that love is something every person longs for and needs to flourish in living this human life. So, how do we love and what happens when we don’t and how does God love us and when he calls us to love each other, what does he mean? These are the questions to address to the Apostle because he speaks of God’s love all through his letter.

 Last week we began hearing that God has a future of love and his love works because he is the one who works his love.  

 Now John named the ‘elephant in the room. God is love but we struggle to love. In fact, so often we love self, way more than others and this disrupts our fellowship with our God, Father, Son and Spirit and as fellow ‘children of God’. 

 John will name this besetting problem and show us how to live in this struggle to love today. It will require some honest appraisal of you by God. It is worth the vulnerability, because it leads back to this love for which we all long. 

 May the light of Christ’s love fill you and encourage you in your loving of others and yourself this day. 

We are beginning a little journey these next several weeks. We are openning up that little letter of 1 John from which our home text for 2023 comes. 

Let us love each for love comes from God.      1 John 4:7

We have shortened this home text to ‘Let Love Live’. We are doing a week-by-week deep dive into this letter to hear what the Spirit says to each of us and us as a whole Body about Letting Love Live in our lives. Lord knows, we all need more love as does our community.

We are praying that as we engage in listening to what the Spirit says in 1 John, we are renewed in our trust in the Lord and how much each of us are love by him in Jesus. We know that his love drives out all fears and gives renewed sense of how his love is better than life itself and worth giving your life to.

So many of us seem convinced that we will never amount to much and that whatever we do in life has to come from within ourselves because there is no one else calling, inviting, welcoming, offering a new thing and bigger thing to which we can move and flourish.

 Enter Matthew’s little telling of the day he found mercy..... 

it is easy to glory in the beauty of mother nature, in a great win, a beautiful person, a strong love, but is there really any significance, and 'glory' in our suffering? According to God, there is. 

We all experience strong feelings, particularly when life is full of suffering. I guess it all depends on what God kind of God you have as to whether you could tell him everything, and even in the strongest words and highest emotions you have. The prophet Jeremiah does this and invites us to do the same to God of the Bible. There is joy in the prayer of sorrow.

The Shepherd who is also the Lamb who never stops seeking the lost sheep, the black sheep or any other kind of sheep seeks you still. 

If you have been unwanted or abandoned by anyone, this one is for you. there are no orphans in God's grace. 

Often it is very hard to find a true centre to remain poised and balanced as life comes at us. Easter Day re-centres us again on the central event and person who gives us all the poise and balance we need.

It can seem that God is not at work for our good when tragedy and injustice come at us. In the execution of the first ever martyr for the faith whose name was Stephen, we see that even there the Spirit is working to draw all people into the orbit of Jesus' grace and truth. Maybe God is atr work in your challenges as much as your wins.....

Is absolutely everything forgivable or are there some things that are not? Has even God got limits on what he can forgive. A lot of people seems to believe that there are limits on their forgiveness... and God's. 

There a few things that you feel compelled to do - pay that fine, pay your taxes, lose some weight, stop smoking, get organised...... But in God's grand plan to bring all people into his beautiful new creation, we are also compelled to speak and do his bidding. 

It is so easy to have a very small and only human view of what a local church actually is and is meant to do. God helps us lift our eyes to see ourselves and our mission from his grand reality.

Maybe it is good to not figure out what Christmas is meant to mean but to receive what Christmas does for you?

The gifts he gives are the gifts we all really need. Enjoy the gifts and us them well!

Jesus seemed to meet all their expectation of hat the world needed but then he didn't. Peter, the "Rock' was bold and beautiful, but then at time reduced to dust by Jesus. And yet, there was always a rebuild - a return to a solid trustworthy way to be.