St Columb's Sermons: Recent Episodes
St Columb's
The foreword to the series can be found here:
https://stcolumbshawthorn.blogspot.com/2021/05/1-peter-living-in-hope-foreword.html
We were made by God to experience God's peace i.e. his unqualified well being (v 19, 21, 26). Peace is not just no war, no personal conflict or relaxing at the beach. We can have Jesus’ peace despite the persecution of the world (v19).
The peace of Jesus comes from receiving the Holy Spirit (v22) who empowers all believers to be sent out into the world for gospel mission. The heart of this mission is to communicate the gospel of the forgiveness of sins (v23) through the death of Jesus for our sins (John 1:29).
Thomas’ scepticism about Jesus was not a place of peace for him. Notice the change in Thomas from unsettled doubt (v24) to settled peace and worship of Jesus (v28), when he believed. If you have doubts, don't just accept that you have to live with them, like a chronic pain. Seek the truth of Jesus and find his peace. Stop doubting and believe! Thomas moved from doubting to worshipping Him as “my Lord and my God”.
We find peace by believing that Jesus is God's rescuer, the Son of God. Thereby we receive eternal life now, and in the age to come (v31).
Geoff Milton | Locum
James, in the final section of his letter returns to the themes he began with, the truth that so much of our walk as disciples of Jesus Christ is an exercise in waiting and the stunning thought that it is in the waiting, during the hardship, where the growth occurs. Praying for wisdom to know how to use the hard seasons to form the fruit of God in us (1:2-5). It takes faith to be a Christian. Faith that the path God commends and guides us to is right and true and just. Faith that endurance, maintaining our integrity, values and convictions will produce a harvest in the end.
I think the thing that stands out for me most in James’ final words are that he expects us to do this life with Christ together. To rejoice, to sorrow, to reconcile, to pray for healing, to do mission and witness, to work, love and weep - together. As we do this James expects we will see results. We will see answered prayers, we will see the fruit of the beautiful and wise life (3:1) growing amongst us.
Worry
“Let the worries of today be enough for the day” said Jesus (Matthew 6:34). We do not expect pragmatism from Jesus, especially when so much of his teaching, at first reading, seems to be idealistic. Turn the other cheek, give up your anger, live without hypocrisy looks unreal to the world we live in. Yet, it is not. Jesus means his teaching about anxiety and other topics to be practical because it turns out the life the nations choose in anxiously and continually storing up wealth (6:19) is what is unreal. It is not that he is saying we should not work for a living, the birds of the field work for their daily food (6:26), or that we should not be concerned for our economic needs (6:32) or even that somehow Christians are removed from the worries of life (6:34).
What he asks is that we not add to the anxieties of life the worried and restless striving the nations of the world pursue. They do this because they feel they need to hold their own lives in their own hands, they do this because their master is wealth (6:24) and that turns out to be a cruel god, they do this because their treasure is in what they can see, touch and own (6:21), they do this because this is the guiding light they have to live their lives by (6:22), they do this because they leave God off the balance sheet. Jesus says, human life is much more than that (6:25). Human life is more valuable than that. Life is held by a good Father who wants to provide for us as his image and especially as his people.
I really enjoy how practical Jesus is in dealing with worry. He does not say: ‘stop worrying’ - he give us something practical to do, a new focus, a better treasure to set our hearts on, a better light to live by, a better master to serve. Strive, in all we do, to seek first his Kingdom and his rightness not merely to heap up for ourselves on earth. Live and work for a bigger purpose and trust him with the rest. Trust him to provide the grace that is needed for today - not for everyday ahead of us, but for this day. Now.
This is more humane than the anxious economics we see around us. This is more sustaining for the days of trouble ahead. This is realistic because, unlike the busy work of the nations, it does not leave God or our purpose and humanity out of the equation.
Mike Flynn | Vicar
We reconnect with the latter of James and what the wisdom from God looks like versus the wisdom we normally know.
We continue learning from James' letter to all the churches how our words are one of the most significant parts of following Jesus Christ.
We continue with the letter of James and his very clear discipleship program. Will faith that has no measurable or objective outcome in our lives actually work to save us?
And no - not about being judgemental! James' teaches us to be wise in our relationships with others.
Continuing our series in the letter of James, we learn more from his boot-camp discipleship course on authentic Christianity.
There are three men called James in the New Testament: James the son of Zebedee (Mk1:19, Acts 12:2; etc.) who was one of the inner circle of apostles; James the son of Alphaeus, likely to be James the younger or ‘little James’ (Mk 3:18; 15:40) and James, son of Joseph and Mary, the Lord’s brother (Mt 13:55; Acts 12:17; 15:13ff; 1 Cor 15:7; Gal 1:19; 2:9).
As you can see from the references, James, the son of Joseph and Mary was a significant leader in the early church and was well acquainted with Paul’s work, which we see reflected in this letter. James the son of Zebedee was martyred in 44AD, James the son of Joseph and Mary was martyred in Jerusalem between 62-67AD. There were not many, after Paul had written his major letters, who could write a letter to the church everywhere (the twelve tribes of the dispersion 1:1) and simply sign it ‘James, a servant (lit. ‘Slave’) of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.’
James’ letter sometimes reads like preaching notes, seeming to change topic quickly only to return to an earlier theme. In this way it reads like the wisdom literature of the Old Testament (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, some of the Psalms, Job and sections of other books) where the abrupt change in direction and the abrupt language is a foil designed to make us think hard and link the concepts that otherwise appear to be separate.
We come to the end of our time in the book of Esther and the feast of Purim which is the joyful celebration of the subtle but effective work of God in our world and our lives.
We continue our journey through the book of Esther to learn how the themes of secular Susa apply in secular lockdown Melbourne today.
We are continuing our series on Esther and we have arrived at the heart and high drama of the book. Here is an inspiration for our own courage.
We continue our series on the book of Esther and learn about the consequences of long term enmity.
We continue learning from the book of Esther how to act and think and trust in hard times. Even if we are strangers in a strange land.
We consider the last word of the teacher in Ecclesiastes as he tells us how to respond to uncertain times with action with risk taking wisdom, enjoyment with reverence, remembering the limits of our lives and fear of God's words above others.
Ecclesiastes explores the limits of wisdom in order to teach us how to use wisdom wisely so we may become resilient in an uncertain and changing world.
Worship service for 19th of June 2020. Ecclesiastes teaches us about the joy that is held out to us in our daily lives - if we can receive it.
‘They might hate this book.’ I thought as I began preparing our new teaching series on the book of Ecclesiastes. It is true that I have been asked by mature Christian people in the past why is this film noir book, this existential pessimism about life is in our Bibles at all? It is so negative, so downbeat. I have had people ask me in the past to please cut to the answer and side line the painful questions the book insists on asking and illustrating. And I agree, reading Ecclesiastes can be more depressing than reading a news feed from the BBC!
The opposing voice in my head comes from the people I have met who began their conversion to Christ through Ecclesiastes. In fact, in our secular context, a book that begins: ‘Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher. Everything is meaningless!’, will find many non-Christians agreeing with it. Then they will be shocked to think that they are agreeing with something in the Bible, then they will wonder and want to read more about this gritty realism because if the Bible can face our essential meaninglessness so boldly then perhaps it knows what to do with it.
Of course, Ecclesiastes is part of the ancient Hebrew school of wisdom training. If Proverbs will seek by every means to bribe, plea, seduce, mock, encourage and warn us into wisdom then the task of Ecclesiastes is to disillusion us into wisdom. Why? To cause us to despair? No. To protect us from it. To cause us to lose motivation? No. To motivate us with the joys God actually holds out to every human being. To take away our purpose for living? No. To teach us the humble purpose we have before us but often neglect because we are pursuing grander schemes.
I think the days ahead will require more wisdom to navigate than what we are normally capable of. I am glad we have these ancient resources to call upon both for the days of plenty and the days we may need to face.
Shalom, Mike Flynn - Vicar