Rom 7:14-25 - Living in the now and not yet
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Living in the Now and Not Yet
When John writes his first letter to the churches in Asia- minor he reminds them that God loves us so much that he’s made us his children; and then he says “3:2Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” In other words our future life has to shape our present life. If we’re to live with God in the future then we need to start learning to live now in a way that pleases God.
So how are you at living a god pleasing life? You don’t need to answer that out loud. Nor do you need to give yourself a score. But my guess is that if you’re like me you may regularly find yourself thinking back on something you’ve done and realising that you should have done the exact opposite if you wanted to please God? How often do you realise that you’re repeating those mistakes over and over again? And if so, what do you do about it?
Matt 26:36-46 Jesus: The Last Battle
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Take the Cup Away
We come today to the final stage of this series on prayer; to a prayer prayed in a situation that none of us would ever want to be faced with. Words poured out in the moment of impending death and suffering beyond imagining.
The scene is one familiar to us from reflections on Good Friday. Jesus has come from the last supper with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane at the base of the Mount of Olives. He knows what’s coming. Several times in the previous week he’s told his disciples that the Son of Man must be put to death and now the moment approaches.
Notice he takes with him the 11 disciples who are still there after Judas leaves. Why does he take them with him as he goes to commune with his heavenly father? Well, because he’s a human being just like us, who need friends around us in the worst moments of our lives. This is the Son of God, but he is also a real human being with all the needs of a normal human being. See what he says to them: “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Romans 6 - Radical Freedom
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
You may remember I preached on Romans 5 a couple of months ago where we looked at the idea of the peace we now have with God and potentially with those around us. Key to that was the fact that this peace came about through God’s freely given gift of grace. That gift frees us from sin and judgement and that freedom is absolute.
But now he goes on to think about what it means to be truly free. You may have noticed that Americans are big on freedom. Freedom of speech and freedom to bear arms appear to be the major ones at the moment. But how often does that freedom seem to move into a grey area of licence, of acting from self-interest and even anti-social behaviour, not to mention mass murder!
Well, that’s America but what does it mean for us to think that we’re free? Does it mean we can do what we like? Does sin matter if God promises to forgive us no matter what we do?
That’s the question that Paul grapples with in this passage today. It’s all very well to say, as Paul does at the end of ch 5, that where sin increased, grace abounded proportionately: the more the sin the more grace was applied; but does that mean that if I sin a bit more, God’s grace will just increase a bit more? Grace is a good thing, so if my sin means that grace increases, isn’t that actually a good thing?
God As Trinity
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
A simple question to start with. What do you think of when someone mentions God? What’s your image of God? I think everyone has a picture of God in their heads, even if they profess to be atheists. Whether or not it’s an accurate picture, in order to say you don’t believe in God you actually need an image of what this supposed god is like.
So what’s your picture of God? Is he the all-powerful creator of the universe; powerful yet remote? Is he the kind, forgiving grandfather figure who loves you no matter what you do? Is he the scolding father who watches your every move and disciplines you when you get it wrong? Is he not a father figure at all?
Those are just some of the many perceptions of God in our world. Each religion has its own view of what God is like. Some are single deities others are part of a pantheon of deities. But where Christianity varies from all of the rest is that every other religion sees their god, or gods, as unitary beings; singular beings around whom the universe revolves. If there are multiple gods then they’re either each doing their own thing in their particular realm of influence or they’re competing with each other for popularity or power.
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Rom 5: Peace, Perfect Peace
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
“Therefore, since we are justified by faith ...” But hang on, what’s this “Therefore” mean? This is like coming in halfway through a TV series, isn’t it? We first need to hear about the story so far.
The story begins in chapter 1 with one of Paul’s major affirmations: “The gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith - for the Jew first and also for [everyone else].” Then in the rest of ch1 he shows how people throughout history have chosen to ignore God, to decide for themselves how they should worship, how they should live; how in their desire to have their own way, make their own personal decisions, they’ve broken down social norms, exhibited all sorts of antisocial behaviour, envy, slander, insolence, arrogance, greed, murder; and the list goes on. And you’d have to say that things haven’t changed much. We live in a world where the rich get richer and the poor are simply overlooked, where people have become more and more self-centred, - narcissism seems to be the dominant characteristic of our society at the moment; “Not in my backyard” is heard much more often in public forums that “what can we do to help?” We see it in the increasing insistence on personal rights – not just the righting of social injustice that the rights campaigners began with in the 60s, but personal rights: my right to choose: whether I have a vaccination is one of the most recent; my right to choose when I die, my right to choose what pronouns you’ll use for me. God has become irrelevant to people’s decision making. The point of what he’s saying is that the world needs to be saved from itself.
Col 3:18-4:6
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- Written by: Steve Webster
Sermon by Steve Webster, Vicar, St Michaels North Carlton (Used by permission)
Have you ever noticed if you travel to another town or city that the drinking water can taste a bit “funny”? (Did anyone say Adelaide? ) Melbourne water, of course, has no particular taste to it, isn’t that right?
Colossae existed beside a bubbling stream of fresh, pure mountain water – the very one in this photograph. I’ve tasted that water! But, when I read the so-called “Rules for Christian households” in Colossians 3:18 – 4:2, “wives submit”, “children obey”, “slaves obey” – I get a “funny”, unpleasant taste in my modern mouth. Was not this the same Apostle who declared that in Christ “there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28)? Had Paul’s radically egalitarian Gospel calling people to freedom and from old inequitable structures of society changed? These instructions taste a bit off today!
- Should we join those who say the Apostle was really a misogynist and supporter of slavery? No! Paul supported women as co-workers in the Gospel. He helped Onesimus the slave to become a Christian. Unlike any of his Roman contemporaries, he addressed women, children, and slaves directly, treating them as independent, personal, moral agents.
- Should we adopt the view that God prefers males to be in charge? No! Roman patriarchy is not God’s blueprint for gender roles! Paul makes no reference to either a “natural” hierarchy or a creation order in the text. Instead, he appeals to the new nature in Christ.
- Should we join with conservatives who say, “If only we would return to the traditional Christian family model.” But which tradition is Christian? From which era, which continent, and which expression of church in history shall I find the Christian model? As I shall show, in Colossians chapter 3 Paul is helping Christians long ago to navigate inequitable legal obligations set by Roman law, not prescribing a model household.
- Should we take view that Paul wanted to protect the reputation of the Gospel by restraining Christian freedom? No! Christianity was already on the nose across the empire. That horse bolted long ago. Besides, Paul appeals to Christians to serve others humbly and respectfully as the way of life for all situations as it is the way Christ has modelled life for us.
Col 3:1-17 - Connecting heaven and earth
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- Written by: Chris Appleby
Fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed; anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive language and lying. No, this isn’t the plot of a Netflix series; nor is it a description of an average day’s viewing on TV; nor a summary of the night’s news headlines from Parliament House. Rather it’s a description of Colossae in the first century. Here was a place where the constraints on human behaviour appear to have been removed. People simply did what they liked. Free love, plenty of passion but focused in the wrong direction, greed and lust, desire running free, tempers unchecked, abuse, physical and verbal violence. You couldn’t trust anyone, because lying was a normal way of life. Factionalism and partisanship were also normal. So if you were Greek, you looked down on the Jew, or the barbarian or the Scythian. If you were a Jew you looked down on those who were Gentiles. He doesn’t mention it here, but no doubt if you were a man you looked down on women. If you were a woman and were free, at least you could look down on those who were slaves.
Sadly it could also be a description of much of the world today. We don’t seem to have progressed much in 2000 years do we?
This was a place where the grace of God wasn’t apparent. In fact the opposite: it was a place that God wasn’t happy about. He says: “On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.” But that had all changed when the gospel came. Now things were different. He says, “These are the things you did when you were living that old life, but now a change is needed.” They need to begin to exhibit the sort of behaviour that befits those who are followers of Christ.
But how are they going to do that? How are they going to overcome the habits of a lifetime? How do you go about making changes in your life? Here are a couple of ways people try. The more strong minded among us probably say, “You just resolve to do it and then get on with it!” It’s what many people do on New Year’s Eve: “I resolve to eat less chocolate.” “I resolve to stop kicking the dog.” “I resolve to listen calmly and reasonably to my teenage son or daughter and never lose my temper.” Or if you’re the teenager it’ll be “I resolve to listen calmly and reasonably to my parents and never lose my temper.”
