Virtue 7 - The Royal Priesthood in Action
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- Written by: Ruth Newmarch
The Royal Priesthood in Action audio (6MB)
1 Peter 2:4-12
Keep your Bibles open at 1 Peter, as we'll be looking at the passage just read, but also some sections before and after.
Last week Chris helped us see that our identity as Christians is to be 1 body, with 3 core attributes: faith, hope and love, and 9 fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control....
This opens up endless possibilities when applied to our daily lives. The apostle Peter in ch 2v5, creatively describes us as 'living' stones or bricks, but don't think of typical bricks, we're more like clay or play dough, that's alive! Because we're being moulded daily by our decisions into one spiritual house. Our lives are our spiritual offerings, which God accepts, because of Jesus. So our lives have an inward aspect, what we do 'at home' with God: worshipping God within the 'walls' of the 'house'. But they also have an outward aspect, the 'street appeal', in that a building faces the world.
We're going to look at just one way we hone our inward, 'at home' virtue of worship. Then we'll look at four ways we may hone our outward virtues...our 'street appeal': by humility, chastity, patience, and giving an account of our faith.
Virtue 6 - 3 Virtues, 9 Fruit, 1 Body
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
3 Virtues, 9 Fruit, 1 Body audio (6MB)
Galatians 5:16-23
This is part of a series of sermons at St. Thomas' largely based upon Tom Wright's book 'Virtue Reborn.'
What would you say is the best known chapter in the Bible? My guess would be 1 Cor 13. It’s the chapter so often chosen by couples to have read at their wedding. But in fact it has nothing to do with weddings, apart from being about love, that is. Paul writes about love in the context of addressing the Corinthians’ desire to show just how spiritual they are. They think the way to show that you’re spiritual is to exercise some spiritual gift, especially the gift of tongues. Well, in ch. 12 Paul discusses the various gifts of the spirit, suggesting a hierarchy of gifts where tongues is way down the bottom. But then he goes on to suggest an even more excellent way to show how spiritual you are. That is, by demonstrating the Christian virtue of love, to which he adds faith and hope.
And from the description he gives it becomes clear that first of all this isn’t just a rule to obey or a principle for life but a virtue that will take a lot of work to develop. He lists a series of characteristics that go with or are absent from love. “4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” You hear that sort of list and you think, “You’d have to be a saint to live up to that wouldn’t you?” Well, of course, that’s the point, isn’t it? This is a list for saints; that is, for those who have been set apart for God’s kingdom.
Luke 21:1-6 Kingdom Economics
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
The Widow’s Mite audio (6MB)
Luke 21:1-6
What do you place value in? What are the things that are most important for you? How do you show that you value certain things? That’s the question that we’re confronted with in today’s reading. It’s a fairly familiar passage for many of us but it isn’t just about how much we give. It’s about where our priorities lie. I’ve called this Kingdom Economics because Economics is the science of getting the greatest value from your resources.
This passage is part of a much longer set of incidents where Luke raises this question of values and priorities.
Let’s quickly look back at what’s come just before.
At the end of chapter 19 we find Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. He says: “42"If you … had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” Then he goes on to foretell the destruction of Jerusalem: why? Because they’re blind to who it is who stands before them.
Virtue 5 - Brain Surgery
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- Written by: George Hemmings
Virtue 5 - Brain Surgery audio (6MB)
Colossians 3:1-17
This is part of a series of sermons at St. Thomas' based upon Tom Wright's book 'Virtue Reborn.
Before we start this morning, I’d like you to try a little exercise. It’s designed to boost your attention and awareness, a good thing to do before we look at the Bible! [If you want to try the exercise for yourself at home, watch this video.]
We’ll come back to this later. For now, keep your bibles open to Colossians 3. It’s a great example of what we’ve been looking at over the past four weeks. It’s a clear picture of what virtue looks like. Let’s pray as we come to look at it.
Virtue 4 - The Kingdom Coming and the People Prepared
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- Written by: Ruth Newmarch
Virtue 4 - The Kingdom Coming and the People Prepared audio (6MB)
Matthew 5:3-11
A while ago Andrew and I were trained to lead marriage preparation for engaged couples. One part of the course was on handling conflict, and we were taught about different ways people express anger. It was eye-opening for us, and explained why we got into a stew or a stalemate. The knowledge was helpful, but in those moments of conflict, we found it really hard to put the new knowledge into practice. It was dis-heartening, but we began to notice what we were doing more, and de-brief the quarrel afterwards. And each time we ran the course, we'd drive home and talk more probingly about what it felt like for each other in the heat of the struggle. Very slowly, we began to form new habits of handling conflict.
Read more: Virtue 4 - The Kingdom Coming and the People Prepared
Virtue 3 - Priests and Rulers
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- Written by: George Hemmings
Virtue 3 - Priests and Rulers audio (6MB)
1 Peter 2:1-10
This is the third in a series of sermons at St. Thomas' largely based upon Tom Wright's book 'Virtue Reborn.'
I wonder what you want to be when you grow up? To give you a few minutes to think about it, we asked a few people that question this week.
[At this point in the sermon a video of a vix-pop of members of the congregation, youth group and a local school was played, each person answering the question, 'When I Grow Up I want to be....]
I wonder what you wanted to be when you grew up? What you want to be when you grow up?
Virtue 2 -The Transformation of Character
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
The Transformation of Character audio (6MB)
Romans 6:1-14
This is part of a series based largely on 'Virtue Reborn' by Tom Wright.
At 1526 on January 15, 2009, US Airways flight 1549 took off from La Guardia airport in New York bound for North Carolina. All was normal until, 2 minutes after takeoff, the aircraft ran into a flock of Canada Geese. Geese don’t do much for Jet engines and in this case both engines were disabled. The plane was at that moment heading over the Bronx, one of the most heavily populated areas of New York. It looked like a disaster in the making. The nearest airstrip was too far away and probably too short for a loaded passenger jet and the freeway just below was crowded with cars. That left just one option: land in the Hudson River. Now that’s a lot easier said than done, especially with no power from the engines. One small mistake and the plane would most likely flip over, break up and quickly sink, with huge loss of life in the freezing water. The captain, Chesley Sullenberger and his co-pilot had just 2 or 3 minutes to do everything necessary to get the plane down safely – cut off the engines, turn off the autopilot and the flight management systems, get the speed right, adjust the flaps to enable them to glide in, keep the nose at just the right angle, activate the “ditch” system to seal off the vents so it wouldn’t sink once they’d landed, etc., all while they manoeuvred the plane into the direction the river was flowing. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. But they did it all. The plane landed safely and all the passengers got off.
So how did they manage it? They didn’t have time to think through an escape strategy. No time to look up the emergency procedures. No, all they could do was rely on what many years of practise and experience had taught them to do, almost without thinking.
