Jesus is the Word of God
We begin in John 1...
Go back to Genesis 1...
and Genesis 3...
and Genesis 15...
and Genesis 22...
and Genesis 48...
And Exodus 1-3.
We hear about Christ as Present, Promised and Patterned in the Old Testament.
And we finish at the burning bush with the great I AM - the One who has always met us in our affliction.
Two people come to Jesus in their needs.
They are very different:
There's a named, powerful, rich, respected man who has had 12 years of joy with his daughter
There's an unnamed, unclean, impoverished woman who has had 12 years of suffering
Tragedy brings them down to the feet of Jesus.
But Jesus drives them down further before raising them up.
This is the way of the cross.
This is where Jesus is known.
We begin in John 1...
Go back to Genesis 1...
and Genesis 3...
and Genesis 15...
and Genesis 22...
and Genesis 48...
And Exodus 1-3.
We hear about Christ as Present, Promised and Patterned in the Old Testament.
And we finish at the burning bush with the great I AM - the One who has always met us in our affliction.
What does God's power look like? Acts 4:23-37 gives us four surprises:
We think God's power means an absence of suffering;
Actually it Embraces Easter.
We think God's power obviates the need for prayer;
Actually it Prompts Prayer.
We think God's power is all about miracles;
Actually it Makes Missionaries.
We think God's power is enjoyed privately;
Actually it Creates Community.
A sermon given in a baptism service.
Just as Paul speaks with parental love for the Thessalonians so we should all seek faith and love as the great signs of spiritual growth.
Two boys at work in a field. (Gal 4:1-3).
They look the same, but they couldn't be more different.
One is a slave, the other is a son. One is property, the other is heir. One calls the owner "Boss". The other calls him "Daddy."
But from a distance you can't tell.
In church, slaves and sons sit side by side. And, from a distance, you can't tell which is which. But actually there is a profound difference in their relationship to the Father - and this difference is decisive.
Paul writes Galatians 4:4-7 to sort out the slaves from the sons.
At the heart of this difference is the trinity. If we understand the trinity and our union with Christ, if we understand our adoption into the very life of God, then we'll be sons. If we miss this, we will live as slaves.
The trinity really is that important.
Older Text below...
Evangelism is far above our heads - in Christ. (Philippians 2:5-11)
Evangelism is far beneath our feet - in serving others. (Philippians 2:12-18)
It's not "in our hands" as though we can be self-possessed, polished communicators.
How long since you last ate something? Or drank something? Anything? How long before you’ll eat or drink again? For all of us, some bread and wine is on the menu within the next few minutes. After that, a tea or a coffee, a biscuit. Maybe home and have a snack before bed. Then up for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks in between, deserts, coffees, a biscuit here, a piece of fruit there. How long are we ever awake and not eating?
Hunger is written into our humanity – from Genesis chapter 1, humanity has been born hungry. Born needy. Born dependent on something ELSE to give us life. Every day we need food or we die. And every day we feel our hunger.
These days we don’t feel hungry for very long. We tend to graze don’t we? We’re never very far from food so we don’t often feel our hunger. And when we do we feed ourselves pretty quickly, but even that constant eating shows our dependence. Human beings are weak. Within a few hours without food we can become frail, lethargic, despairing... When my blood sugar’s low, the world is coming to an end. Emma has to tell me, “Don’t worry Henny Penny, the sky’s not falling you’re just hungry.” Just hungry. We’re all hungry, all the time. And our hunger preaches to us. It tells me, on an almost hourly basis: “Glen, you are NOT self-sufficient. You are NOT independent. You do NOT have any life in yourself. You have very limited reserves and if you don’t quickly replenish them, you will die.” LIFE must constantly come to us from OUTSIDE OURSELVES. We have no life within us, we are empty, needy, weak, dependent creatures who MUST RECEIVE or we die.
Some people try to resist this necessity. Have you heard of a small sect called the Breatharians? They believe they can exist without food, through learning secret techniques they claim they can live on air and light alone. Last year a 65 year old Seattle woman held out for 47 days without eating. She had only water and tea (which itself is cheating really, but still 47 days is hugely impressive). Nonetheless she was aiming for a one hundred day fast but she called it off after receiving what she called "a message from the universe that it was time to stop."
A message from the rest of the world says “Don’t be so stupid! You cannot escape your need for food.” You cannot learn special techniques to generate your own sustenance. There are no special exercises or achievements or performances that give you life. You can’t earn life, you’ve got to RECEIVE it, from OUTSIDE yourself.
In the Old Testament, the Israelites got a powerful lesson in dependence. They were saved from slavery in Egypt, brought through the Red Sea miraculously and promised a land of milk and honey. But in between their freedom and their future they had to pass through a howling wasteland. Millions of grumbling Israelites had to survive in a desert with no earthly possibility for food. So what did God do? Did He teach them Breatharian methods so that their own spiritual techniques would get them through? Did He make them SELF-sustaining through their own religious practices?
No, God never wants us to be SELF-sustaining. He feeds His people with the Bread of Heaven. Manna in the wilderness. Every day the LORD supplied this food, like morning dew, it was freely available. It couldn’t be earnt. Even if you went out to gather lots and lots, you didn’t get more than anyone else. If you tried to store it up, it went off. If you went out on the Sabbath, you wouldn’t find any – God provided double on Fridays so that everyone could rest properly. This bread was a PURE GIFT. In NO SENSE was this bread earned. And a whole generation of Israelites REALLY learnt how desperately needy they were and how wonderfully generous God is....
