• SENT 1 > ‘Give freely’

    New series today on what it means to be SENT > 

    How do we understand this, how does it play out among us, where are we SENT from and what are we SENT to do?

    Those are the bigger questions guiding this series, but here are a couple of starter questions for you today:

    Do you ever feel like a ‘sheep without a shepherd?’

    Or maybe even a ‘suffering sheep without a shepherd?’

    Intense line of questioning there, I wonder if and when you’ve felt like that – it can happen in many ways, many contexts, out in the world and even inside church community as well.

    At times in life it can seem we are sheep without a shepherd.

    What does that look like?

    Being on our own, without a guide or leader to help us. Relationship breakdowns, even a lack of relationship can be part of this sense of being sheep without a shepherd. Maybe even competing voices and different motivations too…

    I’ve seen this in some of the soccer teams I’ve been part of > 

    Where there are competing voices, some interested in the overall performance of the team and others more interested in their own performance at the expense of the team, and a lack of clear direction or guidance coming from the coach or leadership of the team to bring the team together and align towards the same goals together. 

    As I said a few weeks ago talking about the best teams, the best teams are collectively working in the same direction, towards the same goal, and when it all starts to click we know what that looks like – we can think of the Brisbane Lions in the past two AFL seasons, the Broncos of 2025 (not so much 2026 as yet but that’s ok!)

    And stepping back into church space, do we want to be a team that works together with the same goals in mind? Of course there are some big differences in church where God is already at work and he works through us through the Holy Spirit and the gifts given to us, but a team of people working together towards a common goal that serves the needs of their community is always a good thing! Working together to serve the needs of our community – I don’t know about you but that’s the sort of team I want to be part of.

    Back to being ‘sheep without a shepherd’ > 

    This can also feel like being lost, being unsure, lacking a purpose or meaning and even lacking a future… But if there is a clear direction, working together to serve the needs of a local community, that’s where these great things like purpose, meaning and future can all start to come in. 

    What about the suffering sheep, not a nice place to be. A place we would rather not be.

    It’s not good to be suffering, let alone suffering without a shepherd. 

    We hear about this in our second reading today from Romans 5, one of the great passages of scripture we hang our hats on: suffering producing perseverance, perseverance character and character hope. 

    There is and there will be suffering – reality check for us there. 

    And there are different types of suffering > 

    There can be suffering that comes at us like health battles or things we didn’t see coming in our personal lives, relationships, lots of things we could go into there. 

    These things we ask for God’s help in, we find support in our community and loved ones around us, these things we don’t choose, that come at us, and lead to suffering.

    But there are also other types of suffering, types of struggle that we do choose to take on, that we willingly participate in, that are actually part of the Christian life, that are part of doing something and going somewhere as Jesus calls us to follow him.

    There’s a self-help author I’ve read a bit of who says something on this topic, in terms of the struggles of life >

    He talks about the choice we have to avoid struggling in life, or the choice to know or to find out what we are willing to struggle for…

    And this actually ties in pretty well with this line in Romans, when we know what we are struggling for we can see more clearly how that struggle, that suffering produces these good things like perseverance, character, hope. We could add in resilience there too, iron sharpening iron, gaining experience and knowledge that informs us and we can then share to help others. Very good things!

    To avoid this type of struggle is actually missing out on what it can produce, where if we take on a struggle with a clear direction, good support around us, knowing why we’re doing it and where we want to go – then we can see how God produces these good things in us and through us, and in and through other people as well.

    One other sporting example for you today – if you follow the AFL there was the Big Freeze game last week where funds are raised to fight MND, Motor Neuron Disease. 

    The man behind all this – former footballer and coach Neale Daniher – recently passed away after a long battle against the illness, and in his story we can actually see the bringing together of both suffering that comes at us and we don’t choose – his MND diagnosis – but also his significant efforts – the struggle he chose – to raise money to fight the disease, not just for his own benefit but people across Australia fighting it too. Amazing story and one the AFL world continues to be inspired by. 

    Let’s jump across to a few lines from our gospel reading now, where Jesus – the ultimate suffering servant as he is sometimes known – does something and he also says something, two very significant things for us to know and remember:

    First > he sees the crowds, and what does he do? 

    He has compassion on them, because they were ‘harassed and helpless,’ like sheep without a shepherd.

    Jesus knows when we are like sheep without a shepherd. 

    He sees it, he knows it, he knows our suffering, whatever type of suffering it might be.

    And he does something about it, he has compassion on his people which leads him to act >

    What does he do? He ‘sends out workers into his harvest field.’

    That’s us – the people Jesus sees, knows and calls to be his own SENT people, out into the world to love, to serve and to share the good news. 

    It’s incredible in this passage where the disciples are sent out to ‘drive out spirits and heal disease’ – amazing to see how Jesus gives them that authority, and the miracles that can and still do occur because of him. We can take this more as spiritual healing that happens for us today, where we are renewed in body, mind and soul by Jesus’ grace, but that doesn’t mean physical/mental/emotional healing doesn’t also continue to happen among us, and we continue to pray for that as we come up against it.

    So Jesus sees the crowds and he sends out people to be among them, and second > he says this line which really stands out to me in this passage:

    ‘Freely you have received, freely give.’

    ‘Give freely, because I have given freely to you’ Jesus says. 

    How else can we take this? 

    Don’t hold back! Be ‘dared to move,’ what I was saying a few weeks ago in our COMMUNITY series. 

    This good stuff you have is not only for you, but is also for them, for others, for people in desperate need out there. Not exclusive to us but inclusive for all people, that’s what Jesus has done for us and continues to offer us and all people. What we’ve just witnessed being ‘freely given’ in Baptism today! Forgiveness of sins, a place as a seen, known and loved child of God, beautiful stuff!

    So if this is what we are called to do – to give freely as we have freely received, in Jesus’ own words, we need to hear it. 

    As individual people we need to hear it. 

    In our everyday lives we need to hear it. 

    As church, we need to hear it. Freely you have received, freely give.

    So as Jesus GIVES FREELY to us, we can be encouraged, supported, inspired even to GIVE FREELY of what has first been given to us. 

    The beautiful thing is that we have access to our good shepherd, we’re not alone, we’re seriously never without a shepherd! Even if we feel ‘without a shepherd,’ Jesus is there, he is with us.

    And that gives me confidence, it can give us confidence as we step out in faith, as we love and serve others as God calls us to do, as we consider the needs of our community and seek to speak life into what we see around us. 

    We’re not doing this alone, even when it feels like it. 

    Even if there are relationship breakdowns or even a lack of relationship with people around us, God cuts through that. 

    He is big enough, his also close enough to us – to cut right through to our core and change us, to be more like him.

    The good shepherd cuts through our weakness, our shortcomings with his strength, his provision, his ongoing presence with us and for us. 

    We are not without a shepherd, Jesus is with us.

    And if we are suffering, chosen struggles or not, Jesus is with us.

    And because of his presence with us we can freely give, as we have freely received.

    Lord we thank you for your free gifts, that you have won for us new life in you, that we can be changed to be more like you, that we have roles to play in loving and serving those around us and in our local community. Help us in the suffering, in the struggles, you know what they are for us. Remind us of your presence with us and your provision for us, and lead us to have compassion as you have had compassion on us, which leads us to step out in faith in what you have done, are doing and call us to be part of as church together. Amen.

    //

  • led by the SPIRIT

    What does it mean to be ‘led by the Spirit?’ 

    Led by the Spirit,’ as we heard today in our second reading from Romans.

    Let’s take a step back first: what does it mean to be ‘led?’

    Dictionary definition: to be led is to be caused to go somewhere, to be taken somewhere, to be directed, set in motion, a ‘route of access to a destination.’ To be brought, to be carried along.

    There can be varying degrees of being led as well – there are heaps of different ways to understand leading, leadership, being led. This is a big topic to get into! Today we’ll just start with the question of what it means to be led, following on from our series on being together in community.

    What are we doing when we are being led?

    We follow, we are following. We follow what we are led by. 

    We are set in motion by the things we follow. Brought along, carried along.

    So the next question is, what does it mean to follow?

    It means to go, to go after, to move or travel behind. Following what we are led by is a logical consequence isn’t it.

    So we follow, we are led. But what are we following, what are we led by? 

    Paul calls us here to be led by the Spirit, but there are many other things we are led by, we follow. There are many things that are heaps easier to be led by, to follow.

    Examples? Paul talks about the flesh, as in being led by, following the flesh. 

    Flesh meaning ourselves, our own desires and wants, being focused on ourselves, our sinful nature takes over. We are all easily led by – we are led astray by – our own selfish interests and desires. There is no way around that, we all fall victim to ourselves! 

    And there are so many things competing for our attention! We are pulled in so many directions, it’s hard to prioritise what we should be being led by, what we should be following. 

    What are some of these things?

    Ourselves, what we want and desire for ourselves.  

    The needs of others, people close to us, the needs of family and loved ones.

    All the noise out there! TV, news, advertising, social media, rumours, gossip

    And of course the devil, who lurks in the shadows and tempts us away from the call God has placed on our lives. 

    Plenty of different things competing for our attention! 

    When you add that all up there’s a fair bit stacked up against us isn’t there. How are we supposed to figure it out, how are we supposed to know how what our priorities are in the midst of all these competing things??

    Something that complicates matters is not knowing what we are being led by, not knowing what we are following in the first place. 

    How can we get our priorities straight if we don’t know what they are, how can we navigate rumours and gossip if we don’t first recognize, acknowledge what rumours and gossip are, the damage these things can cause us and other people?

    We need to equip ourselves for this battle. We need to be prepared. 

    We are going nowhere if we just turn up and see what happens. We need to be aware, we need to seek to learn and grow here. All of us, from the youngest to the oldest, from the most experienced and qualified to the least. We all have learning and growing to do – and learning and growing to share with others, helping others to learn and grow as well – it doesn’t stop! And this is a good thing, none of us can ever be so well prepared that we won’t struggle in the face of all these different things to be led by, to follow. 

    And before we look at what it means to be equipped for this battle, it’s important to remember that this isn’t just about head knowledge.

    It’s good to have head knowledge, as in to know things, to be educated, to know what it says in our bibles – very important  of course – but not the only thing. 

    We need heart too. 

    If God’s word isn’t working on or hearts, our souls, we are left wide open to the devil’s attacks, all these examples of different things competing for our attention. 

    That’s why we pray for God to reach not only our minds but also our hearts, to go right to the core of us. That’s where he has lasting impact, where we can know him deepest.

    So to be led by the Spirit… What does that mean, what does that look like?

    Let’s have a look through some verses that speak this:

    Isaiah 30:21 – ‘Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”’

    That little voice! That little voice behind us, that little voice in our heads. But not just any little voice – pay attention to what it says – ‘This is the way, walk in it.’

    Being led by the Spirit is to hear that little voice, then test that little voice against what God says in his word – not just take it and run with it but to check it against who God is and what he says. Test it against that sure foundation, that’s a solid way to follow.

    Galatians 5:18 – ‘But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.’

    Led by the Spirit means no longer under the law, no longer under the law means we are under grace, as it says a bit earlier in Romans. No longer condemned, no longer guilty. God says innocent, free. God changes our status. To be led by the Spirit is to live a new life, a new life freely gifted by God’s grace.

    2 Peter 1:21 – ‘For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.’

    Peter tells us here how God’s word came about! Not through human will but through being ‘carried along by the Holy Spirit.’

    As church we NEED to be ‘carried along,’ we ARE carried along! 

    Comforting thought there, we’re not working this out on our own or as we go, we are carried along by the Spirit, called to step out in faith, called to trust in God’s provision and follow where he calls us to go.

    John 4:24 – ‘God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.’

    This brings it together, a good one for this Trinity Sunday! God is spirit, God is three in one.

    And we, his worshippers, those who receive his good gifts in thanks and praise, must worship in two things: Spirit and truth. Being led by the Spirit, which is to be led by God, by God’s word, by God’s truth.

    And finally back to verse 6 of chapter 8 of Romans:

    Verse 6 – ‘The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.’

    ‘Minds governed by the Spirit,’ good way to be! If we are governed by life and peace we can serve each other humbly, in love. Pretty good result there.

    If we are led by the Spirit, if we are led by life and peace, the results are a network, a community of humble, loving service. That’s what the church should be right! A connected, supportive ‘web of stubbornly loyal relationships’ we’ve had in our minds these past few weeks.

    So we need God to be in control of our hearts – not the world, not our own desires, not the pressures of this life we live, obviously not the devil. 

    We need our hearts to be renewed, time and time again, by God’s word. By the work of the Holy Spirit. 

    By the presence of Jesus in our lives, having a relationship with him.

    And to finish today what does following the Spirit lead to?

    Being God’s children.

    Being heirs, co-heirs with Christ (v17). Which means we share in Christ’s suffering, but also in his glory. 

    The suffering of this world – our own selfish interests and desires, all the different things that compete for our attention, all the things that can mess up our priorities, all the temptations that are easy to fall into – reflects the suffering of Jesus as he died for us on the cross. 

    These things don’t go away, but in Jesus we know that we are equipped to face them. He doesn’t leave us alone in all the mess and complication of life. 

    He has already done the work of saving us and making it possible for us to have new life. 

    He has given us the Holy Spirit to guide and lead us. 

    He has a place saved for us, alongside him, in his glory when he comes again. 

    So as church, as community, as a gathering of people, let’s be people who are led by the Spirit.

    Let’s come back to him, return to him. He remains, constantly with us, through whatever comes. 

    Let’s seek out what it means to be led by the Spirit, let’s dwell in God’s word, let’s be in community together, helping and encouraging each other.

    Let’s call on Jesus’ name. 

    Let’s lean on God’s word as our source of strength, of life, of peace and of hope. 

    Let’s do that right now as we pray.

    Heavenly Father we thank you for the Holy Spirit. Lead us by your Spirit so we can know new life in you, the peace you give and equip us to serve each other humbly in love. Thank you for your amazing grace, your gift that we are called your own children. Help us to live in that gift, and to share that gift with others. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

    //

  • COMMUNITY series.4 – Prayer

    Rounding out our series on COMMUNITY today, we’ve been walking through that the past four weeks, looking at these four key aspects of Christian community: church, wise counsel, accountability, and today we finish on PRAYER >

    We’ve covered how ‘church’ is this “web of stubbornly loyal relationships in complex and challenging situations” yes, but also it exists for the purpose of “practicing the way of Jesus for the renewal of the world.” And the beautiful words from 1 Peter 2 that say God’s church is his CHOSEN people, his SPECIAL POSSESSION and we are ‘called out of darkness and into wonderful light.’ That’s what we get to be!

    We’ve covered in the context of Christian community we’re going to need some ‘wise counsel,’ not only counsel but the wise counsellor himself, the Holy Spirit gifted to us by Jesus himself. 

    And we’ve covered how ‘accountability’ is really essential for church to function as a team, both celebrating each others’ wins and walking alongside each other through the losses as well, many benefits of seeing church as a team, where a culture of accountability to what our God has given us is learned and lived out together.

    And today we’re looking at what PRAYER is > already one of the ‘Big 4’ things mentioned in Acts 2:42, our means of communicating with God directly, hearing from him, a vital way we are called into relationship with him and also with each other.

    And our focus on PRAYER today actually fits very well with it being Pentecost today, this celebration of the Holy Spirit coming over people, uniting people in this miraculous way, and we think of this as the birth of the church, led by the Spirit and overflowing out into the world. 

    We have access to the Spirit through the word, and through prayer > We pray to Jesus, we pray to our heavenly Father, and the Spirit is our means of connection to God and the means through which God works in us and in the world.

    So a question for you to think about as we get into this today, for you > 

    What is your GO-TO personal prayer??

    What are the words you pray the most, what words do you fall back on in challenging times, what are the words you were taught and you have since taught others…

    Maybe your prayers are centred around a particular theme at the moment, like a health or relationship challenge, or something you’d love to see happening but is not happening right now…

    I might have shared this before but this is a form of a prayer my mother-in-law often prays, you may have heard it or used it yourself, only three words long:

    ‘GIVE ME STRENGTH’

    You might not think that’s an actual prayer, but for a person of faith it is actually a prayer > there’s no word count on our prayers – it’s more about what God’s doing than what we’re doing as we know.

    We might categorise ‘Give me strength’ more as a venting of frustration than a prayer, but actually the ‘venting of frustration’ is absolutely part of prayer! Again we don’t have to get all the words right all the time in our prayers, we are allowed – actually encouraged – to tell God how we feel, to tell him how it actually is for us > if you want examples of that there are literally hundreds of them in the Psalms for a start.

    And we know he already knows how we feel and what’s going on > prayer is not useful for God, it’s useful for US > to know him, to spend time with him, to be in relationship with him, for us to notice the work he’s doing in our lives and the lives of those around us. And it’s also useful for us as COMMUNITY, praying together and praying for each other is essential to the life of our church, essential to doing this thing together.

    In the past few years I’ve found myself taking on my mother-in-law’s prayer myself > it’s easy to pray, it can be said anywhere anytime, it applies in more ways than one, this prayer for what I need and what God gives > I need his strength to be a pastor, to be a husband, a father, an uncle, a son, a brother, a friend, all these different aspects of life. And with faith I can trust that God will give me strength, because he says he hears our prayers and will be with us forever.

    So that’s a bit on our GO-TO prayers > I’d love to know what yours is!

    What about our GO-TO prayer as church?

    We’d probably all say the Lord’s Prayer > these words from Jesus, where he tells us how to pray – and what to pray for as well. Solid, reliable, covers everything we need and what God has to give us. 

    And Jesus has more words for his disciples today, we hear about the coming of the Holy Spirit but before this event Jesus had these words for his disciples: 

    Words from John 20: 

    Jesus says, ‘Peace be with you!’

    He says, ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’

    And he says, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’

    He also talks about forgiving and not forgiving sins, outlining the accountability we have to the forgiveness we’ve received and the forgiveness we are called to give to others. 

    So what did the disciples get out of this, what do we get out of this?

    PEACE, PURPOSE & PRESENCE.

    That’s what we get, that’s we get at Pentecost, that’s what we get through prayer > a lot of P words today! 

    Peace, purpose & presence, at Pentecost, through prayer. There’s a line to remember today!

    We get PEACE very simply because Jesus says so! He gives it to us, it is ours to receive. 

    We get PURPOSE in that Jesus was sent by the Father and now he sends his disciples, he sends us – you and me are sent by Jesus, we are given roles in this story, not alone but with peace and also with the Spirit – that’s the next bit.

    We get the PRESENCE of the Holy Spirit, our own personal wise counsellor, the one who connects to our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus, and the one who holds together this ‘web of stubbornly loyal relationships’ we call our church.

    So there’s a few ‘birthday presents’ to receive on the birthday of the church today! 

    PEACE, PURPOSE AND PRESENCE, literally gifts that keep on giving, gifts that play out among us as we heard in our second reading on the gifts of the Spirit, given out to all those part of his body, the church, practicing the way of Jesus for the renewal of the world.

    I want to finish today with another prayer, some words that we’ve got on the wall above our coffee machine at home > I may have mentioned this before as well!

    This prayer is called ‘The Ritual of Morning Coffee’ – a very important ritual for us in our household – and I’ve tweaked it a little bit to fit our context today, let’s pray:

    Meet us O Christ, in the stillness of this moment.

    Move us O Spirit, to quiet our hearts. 

    Mould us O Father, into who you call us to be.

    Where there is discord, we ask for your peace.

    Where there is discouragement, we ask for your hope.

    Where there is weariness, we ask for your strength.

    Where there is doubt and uncertainty, lead us to put our faith in you.

    Where there are wounds and damage has been done, bring your healing and restoring love. 

    Let us enter each new day aware of our need, and awake to your grace. Amen.

    //

  • COMMUNITY series.3 – Accountability

    Today’s message is brought you by the word ‘ACCOUNTABILITY.’

    How do you take that word, it’s a big word, an interesting word, different ways we might hear it and understand in different contexts… what does it mean, what are we talking about here?

    Responsibility, ownership, accepting and taking responsibility for our words and actions. Who we report to, who we’re accountable to, who we’re working or serving under. How we relate to other people around us > are we accountable for our own words and actions in our own church community for example…

    We might think of accountability in terms of making sure we’re doing the right thing, we’re saying the right thing, we’re being seen to do the right thing in line with who we say we are and what we say we believe. 

    We might have a bit of a negative take on this word, where accountability means we HAVE to report to someone above us or we HAVE to make sure we’re doing the right thing, or else we’ll be in trouble!

    But a really important note on this word today, accountability in terms of our faith and community life together is much more than something we HAVE to do, not just something we’re told we must do to keep someone else happy.

    It’s actually very positive, very helpful, very useful and very important for us, for us as part of this ‘web of stubbornly loyal relationships in a complex and challenging situation’ > we’re continuing to hold that definition of Christian community in our minds through this series.

    Let’s see how that works, what God has for us in his word that tells us how vital accountability is as we do Christian life together >

    We can jump straight to the end so to speak with Romans 14:12, where Paul says – 

    ‘Each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.’

    This is an image of the end isn’t it, the end of our earthly lives where we’re standing in front of God and we’ve got to give an account of ourselves > What we’ve done, what we haven’t done, where we’ve gone wrong etc etc. 

    If we literally had to do that we would struggle! There are too many things to list across a lifetime, too many things that we can’t even remember all of them. Mistakes, bad moments, sins, times when we saw what God was calling us to do but we didn’t answer, the list goes on…

    We might think of this as the ‘final judgment,’ when God decides who’s going to heaven and who’s going to hell… But there’s so much more to this, so much more to how God sees us!

    And it’s clear straight away in this chapter or Romans if we read around this one verse > what does Paul say? 

    Does he say ‘God’s going to judge you, so you should go and judge others’ – no! It’s the direct opposite of that actually.

    If we read on in this chapter Paul says God will judge you, so that means DO NOT judge others! That’s in God’s hands, not ours. We are called to LOVE, not to judge. Very important point there.

    So we are not judges but we do have callings, we have VOCATIONS don’t we! We know this word, our vocations, our callings as God’s people, simply put to love God and to love others, as he has first loved us. We have a responsibility to our vocation, we’re accountable to our God-given vocations.

    In our second reading today we hear what accountability, what a solid network of support, is useful for > it’s helpful for handling the world out there, the fiery ordeal / strange things out there Peter mentions. 

    It’s a fiery ordeal out there for sure, but we shouldn’t be surprised Peter says > we should rejoice he says, as we participate in the sufferings of Christ. Not rejoicing because we like suffering, but rejoicing through suffering ‘so that we may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed’ (1 Peter 4:13)

    And we do this together > if you’ve ever tried to handle a ‘fiery ordeal’ in your life on your own, you will know it’s very difficult to do. And yes it can still be very difficult when we share the fiery ordeal with others, even when we have others with us on the hard road, but what’s still missing there? 

    We also have Jesus with us, walking alongside us through every single ‘ordeal,’ fiery or not, that comes our way. 

    Accountability helps us to remember that, to rest in that, to trust in the presence of God alongside us in all we do. 

    With accountability, with a network of meaningful support around us where we can share how we’re really going, we can share what we’re struggling with and we can share our mistakes and our sins and our wins and anything else in between, God reveals himself to us > 

    This is an extension of the fellowship and breaking bread parts of Acts 2:42, really apostles teaching and prayer too, where we’re stronger together, we’re supported together as we support each other. The team approach, we’re on the same team, we’re on Jesus’ team and he’s on ours! 

    What happens in a team environment? 

    I know a little bit about this having been on many different teams in my time, sporting teams / work teams / volunteer teams > 

    Yes there is encouragement and support and connection and belonging as well in the best teams, but along with that comes the challenge to improve, to get better, to learn and to grow, and to share that learning and that growing with others. Going somewhere together, a sense of intentional movement.

    Teams ‘collaborate together to achieve a shared goal or purpose’ (google definition) > the best teams are marked by a culture of accountability, where mistakes can be admitted and also forgiven (much easier said than done!), where mutual encouragement and care is provided, where people are empowered to bring their best and help each other do the same. The best teams are characterized by hard work > it doesn’t happen by accident! 

    Back to our setting as church, who’s done the hard work for us? Who’s done the hard work for us so we can be on his team? 

    We didn’t earn a spot on ‘team Jesus,’ he won it for us. 

    He won it for us and he also calls us to be part of it, to live as a ‘team player,’ to share in his good gifts together and to share them with others, that’s the shared goal or purpose we have there.

    So some good things about being ‘part of this team,’ being accountable to our God and to each other, having a responsibility to live out of the good gifts he has given us.

    But the hard truth here, the other side of this is:

    If we’re not operating as a team, we’re going to struggle. 

    If we don’t have networks of support or a culture of accountability, we’re going to struggle.

    If we put ourselves and our own comfort levels ahead of the shared purpose we have of being and doing church together, we’re going to struggle.

    Serious challenges for us there, important realities of our context to be aware of if we’re going to know how to live out of God’s gifts for us in our specific contexts. 

    I can tell you it’s a challenge for me in my role, to advocate for a culture of accountability – this is a challenging space, not only for how we do church together but in terms of being a pastor in our district, in our nation – how do you ensure there are supportive networks, channels for finding and giving support, healthy boundaries, good communication – especially when in most cases the only person on staff, certainly full-time staff, at any given church is the pastor! It can feel like a ‘team of one’ at times!

    But that’s where the accountability of the ‘web of stubbornly loyal relationships’ comes in, SO important to have ongoing relationships of support for me as a pastor and just as a person, and I’m extremely grateful to have a few of those in my corner!

    And of course there’s the MOST LOYAL relationship we can have, Jesus alongside us knowing exactly what we’re facing and walking through it with us > this is where our prayer life is so important too, we’ll touch on that to close out this series next week.

    So for us, here in our church, how does a culture of accountability play out in our ministries, our relationships, our church council and volunteer teams, in all the ways we be and do church together?

    God’s grace is the starting point, the point we keep coming back to, the point that goes with us.

    The call our God has placed on each of our hearts, that thing we love to do, that thing we’re good at, that gift we can use to show love and care for others – spend some time with God this week to remember that or even discover what that is if you don’t know!

    Our community being a safe place, where people can find support when they’re doing it tough, they can connect and belong and be part of the same team. 

    And we can also acknowledge when something has gone wrong, when something could be better, working through challenges together rather than letting them slide or avoiding the issue! That’s taking the hard option over the easy one there! Hard option but it is what God calls us to, and he goes with us, leading the way through hard roads.

    I’ll finish with some words from 1 Timothy 6:12, a powerful word on how God calls us to receive his call and live out of his grace:

    Here we are called to ‘take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.’ 

    Not sit back but TAKE HOLD, our God who has taken hold of us calls us to take hold of him as we do life together in this ‘web of stubbornly loyal relationships, in a complex and challenging situation, who are committed to practicing the way of Jesus together, for the renewal of the world.’ 

    Lord we need your help on that journey! Amen.

    //

  • COMMUNITY series.2 – Wise Counsel

    Question for you: Can you think of a piece of ‘good advice’ you’ve received?

    Maybe it was personal, maybe to do with health or finances from your doctor or your accountant, maybe it was in the little things like what team to tip in the footy – I’m backing the Panthers to beat the Raiders today, there’s my hot tip for you! We’ll see if that turns out to be ‘good advice’ or not…

    For me there are two pieces of ‘advice’ I think of, coming from my high school principal and an old footy coach.

    From my principal it was always simply ‘tuck your shirt in!’ 

    He would roam the grounds and he was very hot on this rule, shirts must be tucked in, even at recess and lunch! You had to be ready for when he walked around the corner, you did not want to be caught out!

    And my old footy coach – I may have shared this before – every time we got in the huddle he would always say – without fail – ‘Like I say, the onus is on you blokes.’ Every time, and of course there were a few other colourful words thrown in there as you might expect!

    And thinking of Mothers Day of course today, we might have some good advice we’ve received from mums or mother-figures along the journey – maybe some things like ‘don’t forget to wash behind your ears,’ ‘eat your vegetables,’ ‘don’t forget your lunchbox’ some we may have heard.

    Now that’s a bit from me, but because we’re thinking about COMMUNITY, I’ve actually gone out this week and tapped into the community around us, I’ve been asking people this week in different settings across our community about the good advice they’ve received from mums and mother-figures over the journey.

    Here are some responses I got:

    ‘Do to others what others as you would have them do to you’ > the golden rule! 

    ‘Never give up, just do your best’ > good strong encouragement there.

    One around church things: ‘Don’t stay in the pews’ > as in living out our faith, responding to God’s call, putting our faith into action. Good one.

    And this one is interesting > ‘If you don’t listen to the whispers of your body they will turn into screams’ > powerful one there, a lot of aspects to that!

    The person who shared this also mentioned the classic, ‘do as I say not as I do,’ that we may have heard over the journey as well!

    Mothers may have reminded us the Christian life is not just Sunday morning, it’s 24/7! And songs, hymns, our customs and traditions, faith itself have all been passed on down the generations.

    So why are we talking about this today? 

    We’re in the second week of our series on COMMUNITY today, and we’re thinking about this theme of WISE COUNSEL > not only ‘good advice,’ but WISE COUNSEL. What is that, where do we find it, who can we get it from…

    Two passages to touch on around that today, two passages that speak not only to WISE COUNSEL but to the WISE COUNSELLOR we all have access to, the Holy Spirit is our WISE COUNSELLOR. 

    And this WISE COUNSEL we receive is very useful in community life, in community building, in connecting and belonging together as Christian community.

    _

    WISE COUNSEL

    In our second reading today from 1st Peter 3: 15 & 16 we hear a few good bits of WISE COUNSEL >

    ‘In your hearts revere Christ as Lord’

    ‘Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have’

    ‘But do this with gentleness and respect’

    Good advice there, WISE COUNSEL > and the order of these things is important too.

    First and foremost, we ‘revere Christ as Lord in our hearts.’ 

    This is where we start, where we keep coming back to, what empowers us and strengthens us as we do life in community. 

    To be a community where Christ is revered as Lord in our hearts, that’s the sort of community I want to be part of – same for you?

    ‘Revered’ as in having reverence for, deep respect, even fear of the Lord as in knowing that God is in fact God, he’s the creator of the universe and our own personal WISE COUNSELLOR as well > we’ll hear more on that shortly.

    This is not ‘revered’ as in being ‘scared’ – I was probably a bit scared of my high school principal in the example I shared before! Our relationship to God is not about being afraid as we know, it’s about being comforted in his love, very different things! Comforted but also in awe of how great and how intimate our God is.

    So important for us as a ‘web of stubbornly loyal relationships in a complex and challenging situation’ that we have Jesus is our hearts, we have relationship not only TO God but WITH God. That’s where we start, that’s where we return to, that’s who and what goes with us.

    And then, with Christ in our hearts, then we move to the next point:

    Being prepared, being ready to answer when someone asks a question about our faith, when someone challenges us on the word of God, when we look around at the world around us and wonder how on earth to handle all the challenges we face, all the challenges people are facing.

    Get ready, be prepared Peter says – wise words there – so we can know and live out of the hope we have.

    This is knowing how to use, how to live out the hope we have > it’s not just something we hold in our own minds, even our own hearts. We share this, it’s for all people to know and receive! 

    We are not ‘owners’ of this hope, we are only custodians, ambassadors of hope. This is about community, being in and building community, where hope is not withheld but it is freely and lovingly shared > very important for us as church, as community, as beacons of the light of God in the world!

    So we’re ready, we’re prepared, and we have Christ in our hearts > good! What’s next?

    Gentleness and respect. 

    NOT coming in all-guns-blazing, impatient, anxious, stressed, pressurized.

    We take a breath – remembering Christ is in our hearts and that’s no small thing, that’s a ‘holy charge!’ A ‘sacred calling’ we all have. Serious stuff here.

    This is considering others and their needs, not just our own.

    Meeting people where they’re at, not where we want them to be > that second part very hard to do, we need God’s help with that!

    Remembering this is not about us, but about the hope we have in Christ > of course that’s the perspective we’re going to have when we have Christ in our hearts.

    All COMMUNITY things there, things to depend on, to build community on. 

    Communities of love and hope, of gentleness and respect, with Christ at the centre. 

    That’s where we want to be, where God calls us to be and to go from, very good place to be.

    _

    WISE COUNSELLOR

    Today we’re not only hearing WISE COUNSEL from God’s word, but we’re also hearing about a WISE COUNSELLOR > 

    I mentioned before how God is our WISE COUNSELLOR, so we have the what and the who coming at us through God’s word.

    The WISE COUNSELLOR is not any one person or leader or influential figure in human terms. 

    The WISE COUNSELLOR we have is the Holy Spirit. 

    Jesus says this in our gospel reading today, the ‘Spirit of truth’ Jesus says, the Holy Spirit will be with us forever, wherever we go > 

    The Holy Spirit is our ‘advocate to help us and be with us forever,’ so that means we have an ongoing connection to not only some WISE COUNSEL, but also to a WISE COUNSELLOR. 

    That’s how God’s word goes from head to heart, the Holy Spirit makes that happen!

    So the work of the Holy Spirit here is a bit mysterious, hard to quantify or measure, but this is how the Holy Spirit works.

    Jesus hints at that when he says ‘the world does not see him or know him,’ but who does know him? 

    WE DO. 

    What a privileged position we’re in > We GET to know the Holy Spirit, we are invited into this relationship, this is for all of us. 

    Again this privilege is not just for us, it’s not EX-clusive it’s IN-clusive, for all people. 

    Sharing and growing together and with those around us, essential aspects of what it has always meant and what it continues to mean to be and to do Christian community together.

    Lord we thank you for your wise counsel and your wise counsellor who is always with us. Guide us to hear what you have for us and sustain us in community by your word and Spirit. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

    //

  • COMMUNITY series.1 – Church

    Today we’re going to handle TWO WAVES together >

    Have you ever been at the beach and you got bowled over by a big wave you weren’t ready for?? 

    Hopefully we’re not getting bowled over today, but we’re going to navigate two waves, the first wave is a quote about COMMUNITY, and the second wave is a section of our 2nd reading today from 1st Peter.

    So last week we had ‘The Big 4,’ and now we’ve got another 4 things to look at as we kick off this new series on COMMUNITY.

    We’ve had a good set-up last week with a look at The Big 4 things of being and doing church > and they’re always there for us to remember every time we walk into our church building!

    Now we get to a different angle that we’re going to explore over the next 4 weeks, another 4 things that church is, thinking about this in terms of COMMUNITY…

    With Acts 2:42 we come at that as people who have a bit of prior knowledge > you have to know what the apostles’ teaching is to be able to understand Acts 2:42, you have to have an understanding of fellowship, of breaking bread and of prayer > we bring some prior knowledge to this, it needs some thought, some reflection, some education, some explanation.

    But in terms of church as COMMUNITY, things open up a bit more there > 

    Generally speaking there are people who don’t want a bar of church, they want nothing to do with what happens here. They might have had a bad experience once – that’s a difficult one to come back from! 

    Or they might be busy doing other things on Sunday morning, they might not really know what goes on here, what this is all about. I think for a lot of people ‘church’ doesn’t even enter their mind, it seems to be thought about less and less in the world around us, whether people have actually experienced anything to do with it or not.

    The word COMMUNITY might hit a bit differently to the word church > 

    Of course when we speak about Christian community we are talking about church, the church is God’s people, on Sunday morning and through the whole week, takes many forms with many different people as part of the body of Christ.

    But if were using the word COMMUNITY > who do you know who DOES NOT want or need a sense of community in their lives? 

    Who do you know who DOESN’T want or need to have a sense of belonging, a sense of being part of something, sharing life together with other people??

    People may not want ‘church’ but it’s pretty likely they DO want community…

    That bring us to our first wave today, this quote from Jon Tyson, Aus-born US-based pastor.

    This quote is found in something called ‘The Marriage Journal,’ something Evie and I do together and have done on and off since we were married, 7 years ago now. 

    It’s a devotional book, also with guided questions about key themes on looking after your marriage, checking in with each other, all through a Jesus-lens, very helpful, grounding resource for us > come and talk to me if you’d like to know more about the Marriage Journal.

    So here’s the quote, and we’re going to sit with this for the next few weeks as part of this series:

    ‘Christian community is a web of stubbornly loyal relationships in a complex and challenging situation who are committed to practicing the way of Jesus together for the renewal of the world’

    There’s a lot in there! Take your time reading through that, I’ll read it again for us…

    First thoughts?

    We’re in a ‘web.’ We have ‘stubbornly loyal relationships’ going on > that sounds like family doesn’t it! You might ask why this quote? Because it speaks to marriage and it speaks to church community, the two have a lot in common > ongoing relationships, commitments over time, sharing love and life together, plus all the challenges that come with it, we know about this!

    Absolutely there are complexities and challenges, and then we get to this bit:

    ‘Committed to practicing the way of Jesus together for the renewal of the world’

    We’re committed, we’re practicing the way of Jesus, we’re together, and this is for the renewal of the WORLD > we might more often say the renewal of hearts and minds, but Tyson opens it up to the world here, not only our hearts and minds but the hearts and minds of the world…

    I don’t know about you, but I reckon this is a pretty inspiring quote here, it’s affirming, encouraging and inspiring for us

    It acknowledges that yes there are challenges, it’s not easy.

    It acknowledges our stubborn loyalty, we all have certain people, certain values and beliefs we are stubbornly loyal to!

    And the inspiration and encouragement comes in the togetherness and the renewal parts, not just our sense of togetherness and renewal here in the people among us today but the whole church, the whole body of Christ, all the seen and unseen things going on as part of expressions of Christian community.

    So this is good, it covers a few things, good words to be affirmed and even inspired by.

    That’s the first wave, and now here comes the second one!

    Here’s where Christian community comes from, who’s making it happen, here’s who sustains us in the face of complex challenges:

    1 Peter 2:9

    ‘But you are a CHOSEN PEOPLE, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s SPECIAL POSSESSION, that you may declare the praises of him who called you OUT of darkness into HIS WONDERFUL LIGHT.’

    How’d you handle that wave?! 

    Pretty amazing passage here from Peter, we know Peter is a man who knows what the church is! If anyone’s going to tell us what church is, what it’s all about, it’s Peter! 

    The man who followed Jesus personally, the man who denied Jesus but was then restored to be the rock on which the church is built. Flawed, foolish yet forgiven, empowered by Jesus for the renewal of the world.

    The church is what we talked about last week – where God calls together a group of people and there is commitment and devotion to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to breaking bread together and to prayer – and the church also gets to be these things: 

    CHOSEN people, God’s SPECIAL POSSESSION, and not only that but we get to be CALLED OUT of darkness and into HIS WONDERFUL LIGHT.

    I don’t know about you but I read that this week and it hits you like a wave, a wave of God’s love >

    God telling me I’m chosen, I’m his special possession, I’m called out of darkness into wonderful light. Same for you as you hear it today: YOU are chosen, YOU are his special possession, YOU are called out of darkness into his wonderful light.

    How do you hear that today…

    Maybe you don’t really feel like you’re chosen, or that you’re anything special, or it seems a bit dark around you right now and it’s hard to see this so-called wonderful light.

    If we go back to the web image of the first wave, maybe you feel like you’re STUCK in a web, the negative view of this, being stuck in a web where it’s hard to move, you don’t have control, it’s sticky and messy and someone else is calling the shots > the web of family life can be like that, the web of Christian community can be like that too!

    But if we lean into Peter’s words here there is a sense of MOVEMENT > 

    Moving from darkness to light, so we’re not stuck in darkness but set free into light.

    The web image here is about being connected, moving in and out of connection with other people, not a web of being trapped but a web of being connected to the source and to each other > who else is in this web with us?

    We look around and we see other CHOSEN people, other SPECIAL POSSESSIONS of God, other people who are like us called OUT of darkness and INTO light, not just any light but WONDERFUL light, other translations are MARVELOUS, ASTONISHING light. Not just a glimmer or a spark, but a high-voltage WONDERFUL LIGHT, a light for us and for all to see!

    So we’ve handled two waves there, and as we cruise back into shore we can hear a last word from Peter, 1 Peter 2:10 which says this:

    ‘Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’

    More movement there, from NOT a people to THE PEOPLE OF GOD, from NO MERCY to ALL MERCY

    Whatever happens around us, whatever complexities and challenges come our way, whether we’re feeling stuck in a web or we’re enjoying the connection of a stubbornly loyal Christian community, God says this about us:

    We are CHOSEN.

    We are his SPECIAL POSSESSION.

    We are HIS POEOPLE, and we HAVE received mercy.

    We are called OUT of darkness into HIS WONDERFUL, MARVELOUS, ASTONISHING LIGHT.

    That light’s always on and our God’s always home!

    Lord we thank you for your wonderful light that guides us and reveals to us who you are and who you say we are. Help us in the complex challenges of community life. Help us to get and to stay connected in a spirit of togetherness, not only being church together but inspired towards the renewal of the world. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

    //

  • The Big 4

    In years gone by here I’m making an educated guess I think that there’s been some discussion on this verse! Of course there has, it’s literally written on our wall out there!!

    What are these 4 things, what do they mean, how do they happen, what are they based on… 

    OVERVIEW

    Important to remember the context of Acts 2 > what’s happened before this? Pentecost, the Holy Spirit appearing in tongues of fire, people speaking to and hearing each other in their own languages, the Spirit of God being among people and bringing them together in this amazing way > more to come on that in a few week’s time!

    That bit of context helps us remember IT’S NOT ALL ON US > these 4 things are not about us, it’s not like ‘we achieve these 4 things = then that means we’re a good church,’ or ‘we’ve done our job’ or something like that > it’s actually really important for us to guard against that way of thinking, as if being and doing church is ticking a number of boxes or crossing off things on a list. That couldn’t be further from the truth! 

    To think that way and to operate that way is actually putting limits on God, it’s actually trying to put God in a neat-and-tidy box that we can open up on Sunday morning and then close up again for the rest of the week > if that’s what we think church is we’ve got a serious problem.

    The Holy Spirit is the instigator and enactor of faith, not us. God shows up and we receive from him. We cannot possibly limit God – but we all try to. We are the ones who are limited, limited in our understanding, limited in our capacity of what we can do on our own > which in spiritual terms is actually NOTHING without the work of the Spirit. 

    We are guilty of thinking TOO SMALL > all of us fall into the trap of thinking small, as if our church and our friends and family and the people we interact with are all there is, when if fact that’s only a tiny percentage of who’s actually out there around us, in our own backyard, connected in to our church around our local area, state, country, even overseas > all that and we haven’t even mentioned those who’ve gone before us in the faith, much to learn from there.

    We tend to think SMALL but God calls us to THINK BIG > Only thinking small leads us to look down, to look inward only, to miss what else is happening around us.

    Thinking big is to open right up, to think about not only ourselves but how we all fit into this world we’re living in > when we do that our perspective shifts dramatically, we start to see all the other ‘sheep’ out there, all the other paddocks, not limited to our own little patch… more ‘not only what IS but what COULD BE’ / God is a God of POTENTIAL not LIMITATION…

    Onto the Big 4 things, what are they are how do they play out among us?

    ‘APOSTLES’ TEACHING’

    What is apostles’ teaching??

    Simplest form: what the apostles taught, what Jesus’ followers taught, which is not teaching that they came up with themselves but teaching of Jesus given to them and given to us. What evidence do we have of apostles teaching? New Testament > Gospels, Paul’s letters, other letters from other apostles, and then we have our confessions and statements of beliefs which are based on these teachings.

    So we have A LOT of content! This is NOT something that we learn once and then we know it, we don’t ‘graduate’ from knowing apostles teaching, all of us are always learning because what the apostles teach is that God’s word is revealed to us in Jesus through the Spirit, who is active in our lives and the lives of others > ongoing learning journey all through life.

    That’s why we continue coming back to the Word again and again, we always have more to learn and we always need God’s help.

    ‘FELLOWSHIP’

    We can think of this as the environment for this ongoing learning, this lifelong learning journey.

    This is where it happens, community together, being and doing church together. Participating together, sharing together is the original sense here. We’re not consumers, we’re participants – church is not like going to the shops to get a product, and it’s not like sitting on the couch at home and watching a TV show, it’s a community to belong to – much deeper purpose, connection there. We are not meant to be just on our own, working this out for ourselves > this is a shared thing, as hard or as challenging as that may be at times. 

    Who knows Bonhoeffer’s ‘Life Together’ book? One of the things he talks about are our two modes, ‘the day alone’ and ‘the day with others.’ 

    That helps us see the purpose of time on our own and time with other people, both are important, necessary for our walks of faith. And the key point is both modes are with God > the day alone is actually with God, and the day with others is also with God. He is always with us, whatever mode we’re in.

    ‘BREAKING OF BREAD’ (How is this different to fellowship?)

    Not a coincidence that we hear Isaiah’s (53:5) words today > ‘By his wounds you have been healed,’  by Jesus giving his body and blood for us > that we receive together in the bread and wine of communion > we are healed – who needs some healing today?! This is a good thing, a very important thing for us to receive as we continue to do.

    So the ‘breaking of bread’ is in the bread and wine, Jesus body and blood broken and given for us. 

    And it also happens in our fellowship together, us doing life together in community, when we share a meal together, when we share morning tea after worship – this is our first opportunity to live out who God calls us to be! Receiving from God, then giving to and receiving from each other in community. When we catch up with an old friend, when we meet someone new, all these everyday interactions that happen and we have a chance to be in community > God reaches us there, God has designed us to live in community and he shows up there.

    ‘PRAYER’

    And this is how we communicate with God, how he speaks to us and how we speak to him.

    I can share with you some thoughts from our district bishop who’s recently been on retreat, great to have opportunities to retreat and to park some of the everyday things to be able to spend time with ourselves and with God >

    ‘Prayer does not begin with us, but with God’s command and promise’ (Luther)

    God calls us to pray, and he promises to hear, to listen to what’s on our hearts.

    ‘Prayer is as essential to the life of the soul as breathing is to the life of the body’ (Thomas Merton)

    Beautifully put, we have to do this! It’s so important! We get to do this, we all have direct access to the creator of the universe at any time – right now, on a random Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of the night – through the Word and through prayer, we’ve got to make use of this.

    Like our bodies will struggle without water and good food, our souls will only struggle if we don’t have prayer, if we aren’t connected to the one who made us and sustains us.

    ‘Prayer is as natural and as real as conversation between good friends’ (Bishop Mark’s own reflection)

    Think of a good friend you can talk to about real things that matter to you in your life – that’s what it’s like to talk to Jesus, even better he is not only your friend but your Saviour, he gives you new life and he gives you those good friends as well! We have to lean in to this, it is so good and so important for us.

    So to sum up, NONE OF THESE THINGS are our work, our own efforts, none of this is independant of God, he is the source and sustainer of it all!

    God is NOT saying here’s the content, now you go do it. No, he’s saying here’s the content, now let’s be in relationship and do this together > big difference there.

    We have the APOSTLES TEACHING, words from Jesus himself, words to live by, be empowered by and keep coming back to.

    We have FELLOWSHIP, the environment we find ourselves in for this ongoing learning and trusting journey we’re on together.

    We have the BREAKING OF BREAD, which is Jesus’ body and blood broken and given for us, and all those opportunities we have for being together over a meal, a coffee, a walk, all these ways we can find connection and community with each other.

    And we have PRAYER, our way of hearing from and speaking to Jesus himself, as important as being ‘essential to the soul’ but also as natural as a chat with a good friend. 

    So let’s trust together in what we have received, where God calls us to be, how God reaches us and how God calls us to reach others – this is the sort of stuff you write on a church wall!

    Lord we thank you for teaching us, for giving us people to do life with, for what your Son has done and won for us on the cross and that we can have direct access to you, our maker and our sustainer. Help us as we journey together as your people, not limited by what is but inspired by what could be. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

    //

  • Foolish yet Forgiven

    When was a time you did something foolish? 

    I’m sure most of us can think of a time, maybe we did something silly or embarrassing or maybe a bit immature, a bit thoughtless, a mistake in a bad moment…

    We all have these moments, part of life, no matter how hard we try we will all do something foolish or silly or thoughtless, because we are human. It cannot be avoided!

    We can be foolish in life, and we can be foolish in God’s eyes.

    I can share a time when I was a bit foolish, when I was I think 17 or 18 years old and I’d just got my drivers licence. 

    I was driving my mate from school down a winding country road in my first car, a green Mazda 323, and we were stuck behind a truck > you know that feeling, single lane road and a slow truck blocking your way. 

    So, I decided I wanted to overtake this truck > but there were no overtaking lanes on this road, and there was also no visibility because it was a winding road and you couldn’t see what was coming around any of the corners. But being a 17-18 year old P-plater I wasn’t thinking about that, I was thinking about getting around this slow truck.

    So I pulled out onto the wrong side of the road on a corner, without knowing if anyone was coming around the corner towards me or not, and overtook the truck. I got around it and got back onto the right side of the road again, luckily before anyone came speeding down the other side towards me.

    I had been extremely lucky, this was a foolish thing to do and I was lucky my error had not had terrible consequences. 

    I only realised how foolish I had been later on, when my mate and I were comparing our driving styles, and I asked him what he thought of mine > he said he thought I was crazy!

    So that’s my story of being foolish > funny how we don’t always realise we’re foolish until someone else points it out for us! 

    As humans we need a bit of help to realise these things, we need a bit of help to get a better perspective of things > while I might have thought I was being a slick driver what I was really doing was endangering the lives of not only myself but also my mate in the car with me, sobering thought there. 

    This leads us to what Jesus says to these two travellers today, on the road to Emmaus. 

    He calls them out doesn’t he, he says they are ‘foolish,’ that they are ‘slow to believe.’ 

    But this is not actually a bad thing, to be told you are foolish and slow to believe by Jesus > this is actually a very helpful thing, a very useful thing, an example of how Jesus teaches us what we need to know, how he can reveal a whole lot more perspective than we can find ourselves…

    And we know Jesus doesn’t call us foolish and leave it there does he, he calls us foolish so he can tell us what he can do for those who have been foolish… 

    THE STORY

    The road to Emmaus is such an interesting passage, where Jesus is with these two guys walking down this road, but they don’t know it’s him because he hasn’t revealed himself.

    Jesus asks them what they’re talking about as they discuss the recent events in Jerusalem, and they are amazed that he wouldn’t know! Everyone knows about what happened with Jesus of Nazareth they say.

    And you can’t really blame these guys, they’re trying to make sense of all this how Jesus was put death while they were hoping he was going to ‘redeem Israel,’ and then the women and the men went to the tomb but no one could see Jesus. They were probably confused, disappointed, a bit lost, a bit unsure among other things.

    But in the midst of that Jesus comes in, calling them ‘foolish’ and ‘slow to believe.’ Jesus doesn’t say ‘yeah wow that sounds like a crazy time, you guys must be feeling a bit confused, disappointed, lost and unsure!’ He says they are ‘foolish’ and they are ‘slow to believe.’ 

    It’s all there in the scriptures Jesus says, if you knew what the prophets had said about what the Messiah had to suffer you would not be surprised! And he goes on to give them a lesson in exactly what the scriptures say on this – I can’t help but wonder how long that lesson went! 

    As they’re coming to their destination they convince Jesus to stay with them, and then this is where all is revealed > of course Jesus chooses to reveal himself in the breaking of the bread. ‘Their eyes were opened and they recognized him’ it says, and then just like that he’s gone. 

    Their eyes were opened, and as they reflect on what’s just happened they notice their ‘hearts were burning within’ them as Jesus ‘opened the scriptures ‘for them > a few really important points there.

    THE MEANING

    Their eyes were opened >

    They could see him, they could recognize him. How did they recognize him?

    Through the breaking of the bread, and the hearing of the word. Simple as that, simple ways Jesus reveals himself. 

    Jesus tells them they are foolish and slow to believe, and because he says this they realise it’s true > they would not have realized this on their own, they needed Jesus to tell them how it is so they could know how it is.

    So their eyes are opened, but also:

    Their hearts were burning >

    That’s a strong description isn’t it, strong feeling, deep sense of the importance of what’s happening. When has your heart burned, interesting one to think about for ourselves…

    Jesus words causes not only ‘eyes to be opened’ but also ‘hearts to burn’ > these are important words! Powerful words, life-changing words. The literal translation here is ‘slow – of heart – to believe’ – not only head-knowledge but heart-knowledge, impact on the mind, body and soul going on here.

    So we’ve got opened eyes and burning hearts, and

    OPENED SCRIPTURES, the scriptures were opened to them > 

    The word of God is revealed in the person of Jesus, he is the word made flesh, he has come to be among them. 

    This is a really significant indicator for us of just how we should read, how we should hear, how we should interpret the scriptures, the bible, God’s word, and how we should think about what it means to be part of God’s church > with a Jesus lens. 

    Jesus opens their eyes and opens the scriptures, and he does the same for us. Through Jesus we can know God’s word, God’s word is revealed to us in Jesus. 

    Whenever we read, hear, interpret God’s word we need to use the Jesus lens, the Jesus filter if you like, to know what God is saying to us. We can test our interpretation against who Jesus is and what he’s done, always keeping that in mind whenever we open a bible or hear a reading or reflect on what it means to be a Christian. 

    That’s exactly what these guys on the road to Emmaus needed, that’s exactly what we need. 

    Lastly we can look back to our first reading from Acts today, where it says this:

    Acts 2:38 – ‘Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’

    So we are foolish, we are slow to believe. 

    We get caught up in our own interpretation, we forget to apply the Jesus lens, we are distracted by the noise of the world and we miss that Jesus is right there with us.

    But Peter’s words are comforting for us > in Jesus we can receive the forgiveness of sins, we can receive the gift of the Hoy Spirit.

    We are foolish, but we are forgiven. 

    We miss when the Spirit is at work, but that doesn’t stop him being at work.

    We are slow to believe, but Jesus will be there. He remains, he continues to walk alongside us, even when we’re too foolish to see him.

    Jesus calls us out, so he can call us IN > foolish yet forgiven.

    Heavenly Father we thank you for forgiving us, and for gifting us the Holy Spirit – help us to appreciate what you’ve done for us, what you’ve won for us, help us to trust in your ongoing presence with us in all times and all seasons. Remind us that even though we are foolish, your forgiveness remains. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

    //

  • EASTER 2026 > From dark night to bright new day

    On Maundy Thursday, the entry point into the Easter weekend, we hear about a ‘man of sorrows’ – who is this man of sorrows? 

    We know it’s Jesus, this man who is going through significant challenges on this night, where he is betrayed by his own in Judas and also misunderstood by his own in Peter, who does not understand what Jesus is teaching him in these moments.

    So sorrow is one of the dominant themes here, Jesus is experiencing sorrow around what’s to come, and soon those around him will be in sorrow at what has happened.

    These words from the song ‘Man of Sorrows’ that we’re going to hear in a moment really capture what this is all about, what Jesus has done and what it means for you and me >

    Now my debt is paid, it is paid in full

    By the precious blood that my Jesus spilled

    Now the curse of sin has no hold on me

    Whom the Son sets free is free indeed

    There is incredible joy in these words > this is a song about a ‘man of sorrows,’ but in these words there is great joy, great hope, an incredible sense of the weight of all this. The life-changing nature of of Jesus’ death and resurrection for you and me. 

    We also hear about freedom in these words, another major theme for us tonight. 

    We have sorrow and we have freedom, two seemingly unrelated things that Jesus brings together! His sorrow earns our freedom, the cost of our freedom is his sorrow. Without his sorrow we would not be free, we would be stuck in sorrow!

    But by his loving sacrifice for us, we are no longer in sorrow. 

    By his loving sacrifice for us, the debt has been paid, the curse of sin has no hold on us anymore.

    By his loving sacrifice for us, we are set free!

    This ‘man of sorrows’ gives up his life for the freedom of his people. 

    //

    And then we come to Good Friday, and we see a man in the worst time of his life – not only a difficult period but a ‘dark night of the soul’ we might call it.

    But not just ‘a man,’ this man is the Son of God, God come to be among us in human form. It’s the worst time in his life, things are going from bad to worse as we know.

    This is a king who has come into the world, but his kingdom is not of this world. The only one who really knows what’s going on here is the one who is being subjected to it, all on his own, rejected, betrayed and misunderstood by those who knew him best. That’s a ‘dark night of the soul’ right there.

    This is the point where it seems all hope is lost, there’s nothing more to do, it’s all over. 

    Even Jesus says so, when he says ‘It is finished’ on the cross. 

    But what’s really finished here?

    Is it hope that’s finished, or is it actually sin and death that are finished?? Is it the ‘dark night of the soul’ that’s finishing here, to make way for something new…

    We might be tempted to think it’s all over. As we hear again Jesus’ journey to the cross, how it only goes from bad to worse, how Jesus refuses to take the easy way out and goes all the way down the hardest road, this is a dark night of the soul indeed. 

    Jesus goes to hell and back > that’s actually what happens as we confess in our creed, he goes to hell and back in this dark night of the soul.

    And for what? 

    Is it because our God is defeated, is it because our hope is gone, is it because God has given up on his people > he has every right to, going by the way we reject, betray and misunderstand Jesus time and time again. 

    No it’s not because our God is defeated, it’s not because our hope is gone, and it’s not because our God has given up on us > far from it, our God wins the ultimate victory here, we have more hope than ever before, and far from giving up he’s gone ‘all in’ on us!

    This is how God wins, how God makes new, how God redeems > not in ways we would expect, and not for people who deserve it either.

    But that’s how God bridges the gap > he bridges the gap between us and him because of our sin, by filling that gap with his love! He goes the distance for us, he shows us how much we mean to him despite our flaws and our failings, Jesus endures this ‘dark night of the soul’ to make way for something new…

    And if we’re in a ‘dark night of the soul’ ourselves, if things are not looking good, even it’s looking like hope is gone > we can know we have a God who has gone all this way so we would know he loves us, we would know he is with us, we would know we have hope in him. 

    We can talk to him, we can ask him for help, we have a God who turns his ear towards us and hears our cries, who does not leave us, even in a ‘dark night of the soul.’ 

    //

    And finally, the MAJOR SHIFT of Easter Sunday morning comes…

    So far there’s been a fair bit of quiet introspection, reflection on how much we needed what Jesus has done for us through Lent, through Maundy Thursday and through Good Friday as well. Important to do, good for us to sit with and to dwell in a little bit.

    But today there’s a MAJOR SHIFT > it’s a BRIGHT NEW DAY! 

    We’re no longer in the sorrow, no longer enduring the ‘dark night of the soul’ > we’ve moved through those two in the past few days, and now it’s a BRIGHT NEW DAY. 

    We see this BRIGHT NEW DAY shining through as the penny drops for Mary in the garden outside the tomb, and she goes from sorrow and darkness, to the INCREDIBLE JOY AND LIGHT realizing that Jesus is alive, she has seen the Lord!

    I remember back to Easter Sunday last year, a particularly special one personally having Zeke’s baptism that day > on days like that it’s a similar feeling to what Mary must’ve had > I have seen the Lord! Joy, hope, seeing and experiencing first-hand the good things of God. I hope you’ve had experiences like that, special times, planned or not, where like Mary we are hit by the unmistakable presence of God in our lives.

    This is the good stuff, these are the THINGS ABOVE that Paul talks about in our second reading today.

    What does he say in Colossians 3:2 – ‘Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.’

    THINGS ABOVE, not earthly things. 

    This is not saying ‘have your head in the clouds’, ‘day-dream,’ ‘ignore what’s right in front of you’ > NOT what’s going on here. How do we know that?

    Because we’re on earth, God reveals THINGS ABOVE through earthly things. This is how God reaches us.

    Both THINGS ABOVE and earthly things co-exist, God has made the world and we are called to live within it, while we’re here.

    And if we’re a bit unsure we’re to put our focus, what’s the anchor point for us here as we look to THINGS ABOVE > Hebrews 12:2 gives us some help on that – ‘fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.’

    This is always our focus, always our main direction > fix our eyes on Jesus. Like Mary, she couldn’t look away, she had seen the Lord!

    And ‘fixing our eyes on Jesus’ is not to ignore what else is going on around us, it’s to see how God speaks into our world, how what Jesus has done for us matters here and now in our real life.

    So because of today, we get to be resurrection people – if we’re going to claim to be resurrection people, people who believe this has really happened and it really matters for our everyday life, not just for us but for all people, then we’re going to keep our eyes on the prize, the prize that is Jesus, what he has DONE and WON for us.

    He is the pioneer, he is the perfector of faith, the one who brings THINGS ABOVE into the real world we’re living in today //

  • PsALM SUNDAY

    Have you ever thrown something away, only to want it back again?

    I used to own a BMW e46 coupe a number of years ago, I really liked this car, but it was not practical or affordable or sustainable (among other things), so I don’t have it any more – even though I would love to have it sitting in the garage!

    So when you throw something away, you can’t get it back again, various reasons may apply.

    Can’t be done, it’s gone… 

    But with God, it’s different. 

    As we’re about to hear at Easter, something that we thought was gone, done and dusted was actually not gone or done and dusted, it actually makes a triumphant return – that theme of triumph we see in Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem today.

    God can bring back what was gone > not thinking in terms of material things like stuff we used to own but don’t anymore, God goes deeper than that.

    God can bring things back, he can bring life out of death, he can take a stone from ‘rejected stone’ to being the ‘cornerstone’ of a whole new project! 

    Speaking about stones and new projects > I’m not a builder so I don’t know much about this but I believe there may be a builder or two in the house today, people who have built things, made things, put things together > are you familiar with what we hear in Psalm 118 today, about ‘the stone the builders rejected?’

    So the image is you’re building something, and you come across a stone that isn’t going to do the job. It isn’t the right shape, it doesn’t have the right qualities, and so you throw it away, you REJECT it because you don’t need it. 

    Makes sense > if something’s not going to do the job you thought it was going to do, why would you need it any more?!

    But then we hear in the rest of our theme verse today, that very same stone that had been rejected has now become the CORNERSTONE of the whole project… How on earth does that happen??

    We threw that stone away, we didn’t need it any more, it was of no use to us by our own thinking and our own judgment. But now it’s the foundation that the whole project is built on, the most important stone of the lot! That doesn’t make sense to us, what on earth is going on here…

    This is where we can bring in the scene of Jesus entering into Jerusalem today, on PsALM SUNDAY as we’re calling it today, where the words of Psalm 118 – written many years before these events come to pass – line up with exactly what takes place through Holy Week and into Easter.

    What did the people think of Jesus as he was riding in on that donkey?

    They laid down their cloaks for him, palm branches too, they sang and shouted ‘Hosanna to the king!’ They’re welcoming in their king, who has finally come to restore to kingdom > but the kingdom they had in mind was not the kingdom Jesus was there to bring…

    Jesus did not come to restore the kingdom of Israel, as it was in David or Solomon’s day. He did not come to overthrow the Romans, to take on the authorities with a great army > we get a hint that the kingdom Jesus is on about is very different to what the people would’ve expected by his choice to ride in a donkey of all things – definitely not cruising through in his BMW e46! Jesus comes in HUMILITY, not in power, at least not earthly power as we might expect.

    So this is where the people start to second guess the situation, where the doubt creeps in > questions start to come up like ‘why have you come then Jesus, why have you come if not to overthrow the Romans and restore the ancient kingdom, to take us back to the good old days??!! That’s what we want, what are you doing here if not that??’ 

    Very tempting for us to crave the ‘good old days,’ the times we hold as the best times, the times we look back on fondly but seem to not be happening any more…

    And this line of questioning and doubt leads to what? 

    The VERY SAME people who welcomed Jesus in, shouting Hosanna and praise to the king, in the space of a very short time end up doing what? Calling for this VERY SAME Jesus to be put to death, to be handed over to the Roman authorities to die on a cross. Sobering thought there, it goes from ‘praise to the king’ to ‘crucify him.’ Serious turn of events.

    And the even more sobering truth is that we’re in exactly the same boat here.

    We are like the builders who reject the stone, because it’s not what we want. It’s not what’s going to work based on our assessment. This stone isn’t the right shape, it doesn’t have the right qualities in our opinion, so we throw it away.

    We are people who reject Jesus. 

    We decide that what Jesus is on about is not what we want. We would rather have our own kingdom than HIS kingdom. This is human nature, our sinful nature that says I don’t need Jesus, I can do it myself! We all do this in many different ways, none of us are immune to what our sinful nature says or desires.

    But here’s the REAL HOPE of EASTER that’s about to come in > the stone the builders rejected has become the CORNERSTONE. 

    We threw Jesus away, we forgot how good our God is, we thought we were on par with God, or even better than God. We thought we knew best, we knew what was good for us!

    All of us are in that boat, we’ve all done that > and this is bad. This is a serious problem, because it means we are separated from God. Cut off from our own creator, our own heavenly father who dearly loves his children. God knows how bad this is, but as we know he goes to the furthest possible lengths to change it all.

    He forgives us. 

    He forgives us for our selfishness, our ego, our self-importance, our lack of action, our lack of faith. All of these things, and more!

    Jesus faces all the rejection that could possibly be thrown at him, even from us, people who call ourselves Christians, who call ourselves his followers.

    He took all that on himself, in the process becoming the CORNERSTONE of a whole new project > what’s this new project? It’s NEW LIFE for you and me. 

    Ultimate humility and ultimate generosity, ultimate grace there as Jesus dies for people who would not even claim to follow him in the heat of the moment – like Peter when he denies ever knowing Jesus three separate times – let alone die for him, as he does for us. 

    When our faith is tested – like the faith of those around Jesus at this time – it’s easy to fall away, to tap out, to shift the blame. Very easy to do, and we’ve actually become very good at doing that as the human race over the years!

    But when Jesus’ faith is tested, he doesn’t bat an eye. Incredible.

    And because of his faithfulness, the goodness of the Lord that endures forever, even in our faith-LESS-ness our God is faith-FUL to us. 

    Even though we’ve made the fatal mistake of rejecting Jesus, he remains as the CORNERSTONE of this new project, project NEW LIFE for all God’s people. 

    So as we head into Holy Week and Easter, starting on Thursday night, we can lean on this CORNERSTONE. 

    Not worried about the ways we’ve rejected Jesus, not consumed by our own failings, not stuck in the same patterns of hearing about Jesus on the outside but not letting him into our hearts, where it really matters. 

    We can be open-hearted to the incredible faith-FUL-ness our God has shown us, and still has to give us day by day as his own dearly loved children > this ‘love that endures forever.’

    Let’s pray, some words out of Psalm 118:

    Lord we give thanks to you, for you are good. Your love endures forever.

    You are with us, we don’t need to be afraid.

    We take refuge in you Lord, you are our strength and our defence.

    The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, you have done this Lord and it is marvelous in our eyes!

    You are our God and we will praise you.

    We give thanks to you for you are good, your love endures forever. Amen.

    //