Prayer 070914 (Daniel 1)

Heavenly Father,

You created the whole world and everything and everyone in it. You are the father of the world, and we are your children through Christ. Yet you tell us that not everyone shows you the love you deserve, and the spirit of humanity is  against you, not giving you the glory you demand. We only need to open our eyes and look around to see that's the case. We live in a world racked by war, famine, poverty and suffering of all kinds, brought about by human desire, and our sinful inclination to seek what we want, and not what you want. We see sickness and struggles all around us, and we take a moment now to silently pray for those we know who are struck with these difficulties in their lives.  Give us open doors and open arms to welcome, comfort and love those in our communities who are suffering.

We pray for your people, persecuted for standing by their faith in you. We pray for Iraqi Christians pushed from their homes and their homelands, threatened with death, and then executed when they stand up for you. Give them strength, supply their needs, and be their comfort and their hope. We pray for Christians in Iran who are charged with enmity against Allah, which is punishable by death. We pray that you will let them know your peace, and that these charges will be dropped, and they will be set free. We pray for those Christians living in areas of India, Nigeria, and Uganda, where violent attacks have continued against your church, and many have been injured, terrorised, and even killed. Be with those who mourn the loss of loved ones, and bring justice to these suffering saints by overturning the powers that are set against them, and set against you.

Here in Australia, we find ourselves in the midst of the same human spirit that works against you. We pray for our nation, and for the distrust of your church, sometimes with good reason. We pray that those who have been harmed by members of the church will be comforted, and that you will show them love and compassion, and help them not to lose touch with you. We pray you will turn the tide against the rising swell of anti-god and anti-Christian sentiment that seems to pour out from our media, our scientists, our academics and our politics. We pray that your people will stand against the hatred and fear that drives our immigration and refugee policy, and that you will shift public opinion towards love and compassion, so that our politicians will have no choice but to pursue policies clothed in you righteousness and goodness. 

We pray for our own church and the many churches of Christ in Australia. Help us all to act with love and openness. Do not let us give in to the desire to grumble against each other. Instead, help us to persevere together as we are surrounded by a non-Christian world. Don't let us fall into the trap of petty divisions, or judging others based on their sexuality, their theology, or their practices. Instead, let streams of living water flow from us into this world, blessing us, and then through us blessing the world around us. Give us faith to know that through Jesus Christ, you will work to convict people of their sin, and draw them to you and to your church. Let us welcome them with open arms when you do.

It is in Jesus' name and by his authority we ask all these things, knowing that you will powerfully work out your plan. Amen.

Prayer 05/10/14 (Romans 7-8 Freedom)

Heavenly Father,

You are the Lord of all knowledge and wisdom. You know all there is to know, and you can see back into the past to the very starting point of creation, and all the way to the end of time, and past that into the eternity beyond. There is nothing you do not know, For you there are no surprises.

You are the God of all humanity. You have made us in your image, and given us dominion over the earth. You have given us the ability to make choices, to make decisions and act on them, and you allow our decisions to impact on the world around us, on our own lives, and on the lives of others. You do not force us to act a certain way, but you allow us to do wonderful and terrible things.

Father, we want to apologise. You have graciously given us freedom to think and to choose. And so often, we choose to do the wrong thing. You have given us freedom to choose you, but we choose ourselves. We're sinful and selfish, and you know it. And we suffer because of our sin, and then we cry out to you for help. Heavenly Father, we are sorry for our sin, and we repent of it. And we know that you are just, and gracious, and will forgive us. Tomorrow we might do the same thing again, but we thank you that you will forgive us again, and again, seventy times seven times. We thank you that because of Jesus dying on the cross in our place, you will never stop forgiving us, for as long as we sin.

And you have given us your Holy Spirit, God in us, to sanctify us as we live our life trying to live for you. Transform us by your spirit, and make yourself shine out from us to those who surround us. Help us to be your hands and your feet in this world.

Father, we crave freedom, but so many of us are trapped. Some are trapped by sins we feel we can't shake off - we ask that you would defeat that sin, or help us to endure it, that we might serve you in our weakness and your strength. Some of us are enslaved by sickness - we pray for those among us who are suffering from illness, and the fear and worry it can create. Give all those who are sick energy, renew them by your spirit, and give them freedom from their illnesses, Lord. We pray for those who are stuck in ruts of busyness or comfort - pry us from those stuck points, and free us to serve you dynamically. And we pray for those around the world who are physically imprisoned because of your name, both in prisons by governments, and in their homes by their families. Give them courage, and give them freedom from their chains.

We thank you that you have promised to free us all from the shackles of this world, and to lead us into a glorious eternity where we will be free from suffering, free from sickness, free from hunger, free from pain, and free from sin forever. We pray let your kingdom will come, and soon. Amen

Human value: intrinsic or instrumental?

So, I got into a discussion with a friend on Facebook (don't worry, he's one of those people who can actually talk on the internet without being a jerk) who posted an article about humans colonising Mars as a sort of race survival imperative.

My initial question to him was about why consciousness was worth saving, as well as why humans were worth saving if they were only going to blow themselves up anyway.

His argument to the second one was solid: so long as you do not view the value of perserving something as a dichotomy against its tendency to destroy itself, then self-destructive tendencies are simply a further argument for not putting all your eggs in one basket.

His position on the first, about the nature of the value of consciousness, was founded mostly, at his very gracious admission, on moral intuition. He then asked if there could be 'value' without 'evaluators'.

I stated my position to be that consciousness is not intrinsically valuable, but derives its value from existing within humanity, and that humanity derives its value from God. And to clear up a possible next step argument, asking about whether God is intrinsically valuable is a bit of a furphy, because when it comes to God, who is infinite, questions of things like value end up changing form to becoming definitional, because God isn't valuable, God is Value.

His excellent question in response to this was whether the Judeo-Christian idea of human value implies an intrinsic value in humanity, or rather simply posits an instrumental value on humanity insofar as they keep the faith or follow the law. He then posed a quandary, suggesting that this would be difficult to reconcile with God killing first born sons in Exodus 12, or making threats of terrible punishments on people who did not follow his law in Deuteronomy 28. He didn't like the idea that humanity was some sort of fungible worship device that could be supplanted by something else, so long as something was worshipping - though he could not think of anyone who had gone down that road (and neither can I, but there is nothing new under the sun).

This was a fascinating thought process, and so although I gave a summary answer on Facebook, I thought I'd do my working out here, for posterity.

My summary answer was:

The Judeo-Christian culture complex of human value is not dichotomic but compatibilistic, and establishes both an intrinsic value to humanity (though being made in the image of God) and instrumental value to humanity (by being instruments of God's glory and grace).
In terms of reconciling this view with God's punishment or threats of punishment against people by killing them, God as Justice and God as Mercy are both more valuable than whatever value human life has. However, humanity does not end at death, because there are post-death eternal consequences to be considered - and a positive eternal consequence is available to humans despite a failure to keep faith/law.

 I think there are two kinds of value involved here. The Judeo-Christian culture complex of  human value derives from humans being made in the image of God. All humans are valuable, regardless of their faith, because they are made in God's image. Insofar as humans are humans, they have this value, and so it is intrinsic to being human.

However, God is a person, who acts with reasons. Two of the reasons given for creating humanity are that glory is given to God (by the act of creating, not necessarily by the humans giving glory through worship), and it expresses God's grace (both insofar as existence is better than non-existence, and also offering the hope of eternal life with God). Insofar as God acted in creating humans with a reason that is beyond humans (because the acts are part of God's nature), there is a level of instrumental value there.

I don't think those two things are dichotomic. Humanity's existence is a means to several ends, but humans also have value because they are made in God's image, and God is Value. So there is no need for a concern about humans being fungible instruments of worship (angels also worship God, but are not made in God's image).

In terms of situations where God kills or punishes people, there are two important points. First of all, God's punishment of people for failure to keep faith/law is not due to a lowering of their instrumental value due to their ability to worship. It is because God is Justice, and the expression of God as justice is more valuable than human value.

Secondly, death is not the end point for humanity: there is an eternity afterwards. Because God is Grace, the expression of God as grace in allowing humans a positive eternal future despite their failure to keep faith/law is also more valuable than human value. So to think of death itself as some sort of termination of human value ignores that human existence does not end at death.

My rant in reaction to some article about some Christian musician called Vicki Beeching who turns out to be gay

This all starts from me having read this article. I have no idea who this person Vicki Beeching is (some Christian musician). I don't agree with her theological opinion about same-sex marriage either.

But the idea that Christians would stop singing her songs, and stop letting her come to their churches and events based on a theological opinion seems very wrong. I don't know how many of this woman's songs were pro-gay marriage. I'm guessing none though. If they had been, I reckon people would have noticed and stopped singing them earlier. Given it's Christian music, it's probably all about Jesus' love and hallelujah and the cross. They might even be good. I believe in miracles.

I'll clarify at this point. This isn't about this singer person doing sinful acts. It can't be, because if it was we couldn't sing anything written by humans. We couldn't listen to any sermons either. The Bible would be useless. So I'm assuming it's about her theological position on those acts. It's not that she sins, it's that she's not repentant. She has a theological position saying "this is not sin". So what's happening here is people are taking someone's considered theological position, and not just disagreeing with it, but saying, "If you hold a theological position I don't agree with, I can't sing your songs or let you into my church to lead music."

To forever intertwine someone's creations with their theology, and not to use the products of their labours because of it, is an untenable position. I'll make three long-winded points.

First of all, it states that an idea, concept, or creative piece is somehow tainted and unclean by that person's beliefs. I hope you don't drive a car that was made in Japan, or designed in Australia, because you'd be pretty lucky if the entire designing and manufacturing process was performed by Christians. Don't eat food either - unless you grow it yourself, I guess. If you have questions about your own theological opinions, you might just have to starve.

But okay, it's not about just any old product. It's about a creative product. So don't read the newspaper. Don't listen to non-Christian music. Don't watch TV.

Wait wait, let's be reasonable here. It's about creative products used in church. Okay. Don't use photographs in your sermon's Powerpoint slides unless you know that the creative mind behind them not only was Christian, but had the exact same theological beliefs as you. Don't use toilet paper with a fancy artistic print on it in the church loos. I look forward to your arguments about why artistic toilet paper in a church bathroom does not fall under the same category as Christian music sung in church.

I don't know about you, but my theological perspective on the question of gay marriage (or many other topics) does not pervade everything I do. I'm not a creative person like a song writer. But I've written plenty of essays in my time, plenty of sermons, plenty of public prayers, plenty of public speeches, and plenty of roleplaying games. Hell, I've even written bad poetry. Most of them no doubt have reflected my theological opinion. But not my entire theological opinion. The dragons in my D&D games don't ask you your sexual preference and marital status before they attack (not yet). My sermon on the need for a life of faith in God from James 5 had nothing to do with gay marriage. My written submissions on the multiple publication rule of defamation are not about gay marriage.

To treat those things as if they were unclean because of my beliefs is akin to not eating meat sacrificed to idols. The meat is fine. Paul says so. 1 Corinthians 8. You don't have to eat it, but recognise you're in the weak spiritual position if you don't. I should point out at this juncture that if you start saying to me, "You can't do that in front of me, it makes me struggle, and Paul says you can't!" then fine, I won't. What I will do instead is sit you down and teach you that you are wrong until you grow stronger in your faith and will eat this bacon. Because you shouldn't trumpet your weak faith around like it's a good thing to be weak in your faith. That's stupid.

No, I'm not saying you're in a weak position of faith if you disagree with gay marriage, or you're not gay yourself. I'm saying if you can't use toilet paper in church without first knowing that a Christian who disagrees with gay marriage designed the seahorses on it, you're in trouble. This is the logical conclusion of the argument.

Second of all, if we are going to stop letting people preach, or sing, or lead, or pray, or basically get up the front and do stuff because they have a different theological opinion to us, then we might as well pack up church and go home.

Following this logic, I guarantee if we started running a fine-tooth comb over the theological opinion of every single musician and preacher and leader and pray-er in our churches, I reckon we could make it so that none of them could talk or sing or lead or pray, because we would find something that we didn't agree with.

I've never hired a full-time church leadership staffer like a minister, but I'm guessing we probably don't pore over their past theology papers from Bible college. We don't ask for a history of their sermons and read through them all. It's not as if we're seeking to appoint the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. We're just hiring the person who is going to set the gauge of theological opinion in our church for the next X years.

For singers, unless they write a song called "I think abortion is a legitimate avenue for women in certain situations" (sounds like a country song), they're probably in the clear. Until they open their mouths on it, we're in the dark.

I can guarantee that I hold theological differences of opinion with the leaders of every single church I've preached in. I've pointed them out more than once to many of them. I've never been asked to stop my preaching ministry based on my theological opinion about women preaching, abortion, eschatology, Dungeons & Dragons, inerrancy and infallability, miracles, Bible translation, predestination, sin, assurance, social justice, or other things. However, I have been asked not to preach on those specific subjects before due to my theology. They usually just asked me to preach the next week, or in a month's time, when the verses I could 'misuse' were passed. Give me some nice, safe passage in a gospel or something.

And that's fine by me. You don't want women to preach in your church? Then we disagree. But I'm preaching on Galatians 1 not Galatians 3, so we're probably in the clear. Those church leaders - some of them were really, really conservative church leaders too, I might add - separated my theological opinion on one topic from my overall faith as a Christian, and my ability to preach, and asked me to preach on something we agreed on. Their house, their rules. That's fine. Usually I'd be good. Sometimes I'd stir.

We can't expect every preacher, singer, song-writer, or whatever to be perfect. They're not Jesus. But Jesus does live within them. And that's where an attitude of not letting them exercise their spiritual gifts in your church becomes pretty darn dangerous.

The argument might be made that this Vicki person has a different attitude to sin, and so that's not just a theological opinion, it's at the heart of the gospel (or something). You might notice 'sin' is in my list above. Ask me about my opinion of Christians breaking copyright laws some time. Then never let me preach in your church again.

Also under this second point, it should be clear that people's theology changes. Especially for those of us who actually think about theology. If I hold a position that you don't agree with, but then change my mind, does that mean that everything I've done before I agreed with you is wrong, but everything afterwards is okay? What if I change my mind, but change it back again, like John Stott and annihilationism? Does that mean everything John Stott said, did and wrote during his crazy years as an annihilationist is invalid? If he gave an evangelistic sermon on the gospel from John 3:16, didn't mention annihilation at all, did he suddenly forget the rest of the gospel and so that talk is out-of-bounds? When exactly do we measure Vicki Whatshername's songs as being unsingable? Is it from when she publicly declared she was gay? Is it when she spoke out for same sex marriage? Is it when she first felt in her heart that it's okay?

Thirdly and finally, I think we all know the real reason why people stopped singing this person's songs, why she's not allowed at Christian festivals, and why they're writing her hateful letters. It's got nothing to do with theology. There are plenty of other theological disputes and differences of opinion that we can stomach. It's because the church hates gay people. Okay, hate's a strong word. Let's use "fears" instead. That lets us use the term "homophobic".

I've never been particularly fond of the term myself, because I've always been like, "I'm not afraid of gay people. I just don't agree with their theology." I'm not afraid of people who aren't gay but think that homosexuality isn't a sin either - again, we have a theological disagreement. But apparently lots of people really are afraid of them. So afraid, that they can't even let someone with a different theological perspective about homosexuality sing a song that's not about being gay. That's not cool. It's not showing love. It's being afraid.

In fairness, it's probably not just about homosexuality. It's about sex generally. The western church sucks with dealing with sex. A minister cheats on his wife and loses his job, regardless of whether he's repentant or not. I don't know what happens if a minister's wife cheats on him - does he lose his job then too? Does she get kicked out of the church?  Even if they decide not to get divorced, and to work it out? I'll bet even if the church didn't kick them out, they'd leave because it would be so damn uncomfortable. But if the minister was greedy, and kept stealing Tim Tams from the church fridge, they'd probably just get away with it. Or if they hoarded their wealth and kicked their dog when they got angry. Some sins we're okay with. Others we put our fingers into little crosses and we scream, "Get behind me Satan!"

Conclusion: I have no problem with people who believe that homosexuality is not a sin coming to church. I have no problem with the Christian ones singing songs, or with me singing the songs they wrote (apart from the problems I have with singing most Christian songs, being that they are pants). I would listen to them preach too. If I were in church leadership, I might ask them not to preach on homosexuality, because "our church holds to a different interpretation". But if they've got the gift of preaching, I'd let them preach on other stuff.

But if, as Christians, we have to separate ourselves from people who hold different theological opinions which, at their root, stem from arguments that share a lot of similarity with other opinions we do believe; if we have to quarantine everything they've ever done as if it's infectious, and never touch it again; if we have to prevent those people from utilising their gifts and being involved in big congregations of Christian people at festivals; then I think we all need to be a lot more open and honest about what we believe on a whole number of important issues.

Let me lay it all out for you here. Here's my list of things I believe that you probably don't agree with, and which should probably ban me from ever being involved in your church again. It's not complete, but it's a start:

* I think women should preach and be involved in leadership positions in church.
* I don't think breaching copyright is always wrong.
* I think women are allowed to get abortions sometimes.
* I think the state is allowed to make laws that are not in line with Christian moral principles.
* I don't particularly care about the environment.
* I take a pretty Barthian view of scriptural inerrancy.
* My views on eschatology are complicated. I'm not strictly premillenial and I'm not dispensational either, but I believe in a rapture type thing.
* I'm not a TULIP Calvinist.
* I think it's okay for Christians to play Dungeons & Dragons.
* I think it's okay to hit children to discipline them.
* I think there will be animals in heaven. I don't think individual animals will be there.
* I think swearing is okay sometimes.
* I think God is ultimately responsible for all sin and suffering.
* I think God is above logic.
* I prefer some models of church governance over others.
* I think people can stop being Christians.
* I don't think every Christian married couple should have children.
* I have some pretty interesting views regarding the age of consent and what constitutes a 'child' generally.
* I think it's okay to pray for bad things to happen to bad people.
* I think capitalism, on the whole, is wrong and Christians shouldn't support it.
* I'm kind of fond of lots of stuff about Catholicism.
* I don't like the KJV.

I could go on, but I need to hit publish eventually. My points, in summary (bet you're wishing I put these at the top):

1) Creative works are not sinfully tainted by someone's theological opinion.
2) Barring people from church involvement that has nothing to do with their theological opinion due to their theological opinion is unreasonable.
3) The church seems to be too afraid of homosexuality, and sex in general.

Oh, and just to take on one or two straw men arguments that might arise:

* I'm not saying anyone should be allowed to preach in church, and that theological opinion doesn't matter at all. I still wouldn't let a Hindu get up in church and preach every Sunday. I'm saying that Christianity is bigger than the sum of its parts, and we all have theological differences, and excluding people who call themselves Christian and who affirm statements of faith because they interpret a passage of Scripture differently (that doesn't involve saying Christ never died or he wasn't God or wasn't human or that there's no heaven or no resurrection) is a touch much.

Sermon: James 5: "Life of Faith"

James 5 : Live a Life of Faith

Introduction

Earlier this year a social media straw poll was done by over 400 people, asking them, "Do you agree that when Christians use the word 'faith' they mean 'believing something even though it is not supported by evidence?'" 74% of non-Christians agreed that's what Christians mean. But of the Christians who did the poll, 91% disagreed, saying that this is not what faith means.

Today, when we look at the "life of faith" James talks about, I want to be clear - we're not talking about believing in something without evidence. We're talking about a life of confidence or trust in God. So when I say 'faith' today, that's what I mean.

The last chapter of James confronts us with the central message he has been pushing all along.  In James chapter 2 are those powerful words, "Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." We must not only have faith, we must actively live a life of faith. We must do actions that make our faith in God alive.

Previously in James he has focused on the actions, the deeds of the life of faith. In chapter five, the big focus is on the faith that makes it a life of faith. Today we see how James wants us to realise this active life of faith in three important ways: 1) Don't hoard and die, but instead persevere and live; 2) don't promise and lie, but instead ask and receive; and 3) don't fail alone, but serve together.

1. Don't Hoard and Die

Here's how the chapter starts. 'Look out, rich people, he says, your days are numbered! Your wealth is evidence against you! Living your life of luxury and self-indulgence - you're being fattened up like pigs for the slaughter!' And we all look at each other and sweat a little, we laugh nervously and we say, "Oh, well, I'm not rich. I'm middle class. I'm on a fixed income. I'm comfortable. I'm average. Other people are richer than me."

There's an easy test to see if this judgment applies to you.  Verse 3: "You have hoarded your wealth in the last days." It's not just 'you have money in your bank account'.  Hoarding isn't saving. It's stockpiling, it's depriving others of some so you can have all. It's collecting up more than you need. Put simply, it's greed. It's when your refusal to share hurts someone else. If you put your luggage on a train seat so you don't need to sit next to other passengers, you are hoarding seats! If you have a large country that is rich and comfortable to live in, and you turn away boats full of needy people, that's hoarding wealth.

Hoarding is always bad. What's worse is hoarding in the last days. Jesus is coming back, and all you care about is making sure you're comfortable. People suffer so you can live that life of luxury. We should look at our iPads made in Chinese sweatshops, our jeans made in Bangladesh factories, our coffee and our chocolate picked by child slave labourers in Ivory Coast and Colombia, and we should feel uncomfortable. James says their blood is on our hands! We'll be judged for that! In view of the fact that Jesus is coming back any time now, we can't afford to be focused on making ourselves comfortable, and especially not at the expense of others - that is not the life of faith!

1. Instead, Persevere and Live

What is the life of faith? It's persevering, relying on God to meet your needs, not relying on yourself to gratify your desires. God calls us on a difficult path - a path of trusting him to give us what we need, trusting he will take care of us, especially when we are suffering. That might sound lazy to some, who think that relying on God means you don't do anything. That couldn't be more wrong! The important verse here is verse 7, "See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop."

Everyone knows farmers are not lazy. But they have absolutely no control over whether their seeds will grow up and their plants will flower and their flowers will fruit. That is what persevering in faith is like.  Relying on God means choosing to rely on God, actively realising that what happens to us in our lives is out of our hands, and trusting, verse 11, "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy." It doesn't come naturally to trust God's compassion and mercy. You have to choose to do that.

But hoarding - hoarding is easy! You listen to rich people, and they make it sound like it's so hard. But deciding to hoard what you have is the easiest thing in the world, because you don't even have to try. You will hoard stuff naturally - it's human nature. Putting your faith in God to look after you, trusting that he will turn what you are suffering into something that bears good fruit - that is hard.

2. Don't Promise and Lie

Next we move on to verse 12, "Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else." "Above all," James says - this is clearly highly important. It's almost a repeat of the language used by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, where he said, "All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." 'Anything beyond this comes from the evil one' - this is important stuff!

Why is so important?  When we read these passages about oaths, we tend to think we're talking just about making promises with each other. So it's about keeping your word, and being so trustworthy that you don't need to swear on anything that you'll do something. And that's important - we Christians should be trustworthy in our dealings. But the reason this is 'above all', the reason that such oaths 'come from the evil one' is that these passages include making oaths to God! You know what I mean, "Oh God, I really want this job, and if you give it to me, I swear that I'll donate 10% of my income to the church." Or, "Oh Lord, my friend is really sick, but if you make him well, I swear I'll be a better person and pray every day."

This is just plain wrong. We shouldn't talk like that at all, but we certainly can't talk like that to God. We can't say to God, "If you do something for me, I'll do something for you." Why not? Because that isn't the life of faith! First of all, God owns everything anyway, and that includes all of our love, devotion and actions. We should be doing everything for him because we love him and he deserves it. 

Secondly, we just aren't trustworthy! God can keep his promises, but us, we can't! Jesus says "Don't swear by your head, for you can't make even one hair white or black." We are making promises to God, and then breaking them. Essentially, we are lying to God when we make these deals to him.

Thirdly, saying this stuff makes out like God needs us to do things for him. This is God we're talking about. He doesn't need your giving or your prayer. Those are already for our benefit, not his. It's like saying, "If you buy me dinner, then later I'll let you buy me dessert as well."

Such bargaining with God is exactly the opposite of the life of faith - it shows that we don't really think God is already doing everything that is best for us. We think we need to make deals with him to get what we think is best! That's not what the life of faith looks like.

2. Instead, Ask and Receive

What does the life of faith look like? It is absolutely encapsulated by a life of prayer. Prayer is the very essence of the life of faith that James is so keen for us to live. He says, Are you happy? Praise God for it! Are you in trouble? Pray for help. Are you sick? Pray for healing. Are you sinful? Pray for forgiveness. A life of prayer reflects a life of trusting God.

You can't read this passage without remembering what James said in chapter 1 verses 6 and 7, "But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord." Or chapter 4 verses 2 and 3, "You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

Actively living this life of faith in prayer is hard! It is hard to get out there and pray, and trust God to look after us. I have a friend who has gone through some really tough times, who has led a fairly dark life, who had trouble with his family growing up, has problems in his marriage and with his own kids, and he suffers from depressive mental illness.  How hard is it for him to look to God and say, "I trust you, that all these problems in my life are for a reason"? It's really hard! It is hard to convince ourselves that God actually knows better than us when we are feeling pain, or sickness, or loneliness or loss, because those things are bad. 

But we have to stick to our guns and remember it's true - God does know best. And the way we can remember that is by looking at our Bible, looking at God's track record through history, where he reveals just how faithful to his promises and his people he really is. James gives the example of Elijah for that reason. He tells us that

We also have to understand that not every answer will be the one we hope for. When we pray for sick people, some will get better. Some won't. But in both ways, God will be glorified. In Acts chapter 12, when Peter was in prison, sentenced to death, the church was praying for him, and he was released by an angel. Miraculous, glory to God, right! But then what happened: did Peter live to a ripe old age free from suffering after that? No. He was arrested, sentenced to death, and then executed - crucified upside down, history tells us. So what happened, did the church stop praying? Not at all. I'll bet they were praying just as hard. But God's plan is to be glorified, and this time he was glorified by Peter's death and martyrdom. And so the church's prayers were answered - because the prayer always is "Your will be done."

3. Don't Fail Alone

James finishes off his letter with an exhortation for us to remember: "Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins." The truth is, we are all imperfect people. Even though we know the truth, sometimes we stray from it. Whether it's because of sadness in our life that we blame on God, or misunderstanding the truth, or sinful desire that we pursue knowing God doesn't want it for us... it's all too easy for us to find ourselves suddenly adrift from God.

And if it were just up to us, we might stay adrift forever - because of guilt or shame or anger or even just not realising. When we treat faith like a personal and private matter, that's the danger - we can slip away from God and not even realise until we are well and truly far from him. There is quite possibly nothing more difficult than living the Christian life alone.

Which is why God tells us not to. Look at what James has said earlier: in verse 14, don't just pray to get well from sickness, go to your church leaders and ask them to pray. Verse 16, Confess your sins to each other, and pray for each other, it says. Don't grumble against each other, verse 9 says, but persevere together. The life of faith is not meant to be lived alone.

The Christian life is like cleaning out roof gutters. Yes, you can do it alone, but not only is it harder, it's also more dangerous. Not only is no-one there to stop your ladder from wobbling, but if it really does fall away, you're left clinging to the gutter with no support, and no-one is around to grab the ladder and put it back up under you. You're in some serious trouble.

3. Instead, Serve Together

That's why it's so important to come to church, to join Bible studies, to be involved in ministry, to marry a Christian believer, to be accountable to a prayer partner - these aren't just good things for spiritual growth, they are vital to the Christian life of faith!  It's dangerous to your life of faith to live it alone! Yes, we're all sinful, none of us are perfect. We acknowledge that when we confess our sins together. That's us admitting to God, but also to each other, "We're not perfect." But as Ecclesiastes says, "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." We can be there for each other - God will help us through the prayers of others, even when we're not prepared to pray for ourselves. With God, we can accomplish things for God that don't even seem possible.

The life of faith is not easy. Hoarding is easy. Making promises you can't keep is easy. The life of faith means persevering through the hard times, trusting God is full of compassion and mercy, and has everything under control. The life of faith means praying to God, and having confidence that he hears your prayers, and answers them with the absolutely best possible answer and timing. And the life of faith means not going it alone - it means helping each other get close to God, understand God, and serve God better, as part of his church. God's message in James is not just that we need to be active - it's that we need to live an active life of faith.

Sermon: Luke 19 - The King Expected

Luke 19:28-44 – the King Expected

Introduction: Expectations

Today I'm going to be talking about our expectations – specifically, what we expect from God, who we think God should be, how we think God should act, and how that shapes how we relate to God.

Once upon a time I was offered a job as national director of a Christian charity here in Australia. It was a big deal, and I went to my church leaders at the time and asked his advice on making my decision. Of course, what I wanted him to tell me was that it was a great opportunity doing God's work, and to go for it. But that's not what he told me. He told me to look carefully at the leadership, the work environment, and the expectations they had. He knew a thing or two about this charity, and he thought once I had done that, I would probably decide not to work there. It wasn't the answer I expected, it wasn't the answer I wanted, but it was probably what I needed to hear at the time. I did what he said, and I ended up not taking the job.

In New Testament times, the people of Judea knew from scripture, from prophecies predicting what was to come, that God was going to send them a king. And so they had some expectations of what that king would be like.

Jesus: The King Expected From Prophecy

He would be born of David's line. A prophet would point him out. There would be miracles. So you can imagine that when Jesus of the line of David hits the scene, announced by John the Baptist, doing miracles all over the place, people are pretty excited. This seems to be a real contender for the promised king. So now Jesus is coming to Jerusalem, and how he enters the city is important. It's important because there is a prophecy that talks about how the promised king will enter Jerusalem.

Zechariah 9:9 says pretty clearly, “Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” And so when Jesus gets to the Mount of Olives, just outside Jerusalem, and he mounts a colt that has never before been ridden, and starts to ride towards the city gates, everyone knows what that means. It is how God's promised king will enter the holy city. The picture is clear.

The King People Expected Would Do What They Wanted

The people were eager for God's king to come, because life for them was hard. They were under the thumb of a foreign government – they had been invaded, conquered, and were treated as second class citizens in their own country. They wanted their freedom back, and so they thought if ever a time was coming for God to send them this promised king, now was the time. They expected this king to come and get rid of the Romans, give them back their freedom, and that under his rule they would become rich and powerful again, just like they had under king David of old. And so people come out in droves to sing and dance and celebrate, and to lay down their cloaks and other things on the donkey's path, to give this expected king a king's welcome.

Only when this expected king gets to the city walls, he stops and weeps, and says something about the city being attacked, besieged, defeated, destroyed, and the people inside are going to be killed.

That's bad news for the people who laid their cloaks in the mud – they thought they were singing and rejoicing at the coming of a great king who would save their city. Instead, he has just foretold that it will be destroyed. Not what people were expecting at all.

The King Pharisees Expected Would Be Like Them

Now the Pharisees had been watching and listening to Jesus throughout his ministry. He had been saying things and doing things they did not agree with. He had not just been calling himself a king – he had been calling himself God. He had been forgiving people's sins, which only God alone could do. He had been socialising with prostitutes, tax collectors for the Romans, and other sinners. He had disregarded the Sabbath, God's holy day.

This guy couldn't be king – he didn't fit into their picture of what God's coming king would be like. They were the righteous ones, the ones who kept God's laws to a fault, and even came up with new laws for people to follow. They knew God, so surely God's king would be like them, would agree with them. But Jesus wasn't like them, he didn't agree with them. He wasn't the king the Pharisees expected. So they come up to him while he's riding along and say, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

The King Jesus Is – The Unexpected God

Jesus' response is not an agreement. He says, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Jesus knows what he's doing. He is claiming to be the expected king. And if he really is the expected king that God promised to send, then he needs to ride that colt, and people need to sing and rejoice, because that's how God's king gets welcomed. If his disciples didn't do it, then the rocks themselves would sing, because God's king is entering God's holy city as God promised. And then when he weeps over Jerusalem, he says it's because when God turned up at their city, the people did not recognise him. Jesus calls himself God again.

If it's bad news for the people with their muddy cloaks, it's worse for the Pharisees, because not only are their expectations wrong of what God's king would be like, but their expectations of who God is are also totally wrong. By speaking those words, Jesus is showing not only is he an unexpected king, he is the unexpected God.

Jesus didn't fit their expectations of a king – he wasn't a military ruler coming to oust the Romans. Moreover, he didn't meet their expectations of God - he wasn't a self-righteous legalist who turned his back on lesser people. God didn't just send his people a king – he came to them as their king. And they weren't expecting that. And that wasn't what they wanted. He wasn't like them. But he is God.

What King/God We Expect

The inevitable question arises, then: Why wouldn't God give them what they wanted? They wanted freedom, they wanted wealth, comfort and security, they wanted God to be glorified like he was in Solomon's time – are they bad things? Does God not want his people to be free and safe, does he not want to be glorified? We have probably all asked a question like that at one time or another. There are times in our own lives when there is something we really want, and we know God has the power to give it, and sometimes we even know that God wants it too, and he tells us to ask for it, and yet we still don't get it.

Let me give you an example. I have a friend who became a Christian as a teenager, but no-one else in her family believes. When she was just out of university, her father died sudden of a heart attack. For her the funeral was agony, because she knew that her father was not a Christian, and she would never see him again in heaven. For all the family this was goodbye – but for her, it was a goodbye that didn't need to be forever. Why did God not answer her prayers for her father? God wanted her father to go to heaven... so why didn't he believe?

Now these are huge questions that will be talked about forever. But let me just raise three brief points for us to think about and reflect on – three points that I have struggled with my whole Christian life, and probably will struggle with till the day I die.

- God is Complicated

The first one is a big one: God is complicated, and we will never fully understand him. In Isaiah 55:8 it says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” That can make you want to give up and say God is a mystery we will never understand. But it doesn't mean we can't ask these questions, or that we won't get answers – it means exploring God's thoughts is never going to end, that we shouldn't be surprised if we cannot fathom the depths of God's mind. Accepting with humility that we can't grasp the ways and thoughts of God gives us a much better footing for thinking about God realistically.

A Christian worker at my university once told me, “Even if the two of us come to a complete agreement about every point of theology and doctrine, we will still be wrong about something. Why? Because we're human, and fallible.” God is God, and we are not.

- God is a Person, not a Problem

Secondly, we have to ask who God really is, what God is really like, and what God wants. And this isn't just a theological puzzle, it's a real question about a real person. We can't just ask, '”If I was God, what would I want?” because we're not God, and God is not us. That's like asking, “If I was Ben, what would I want for Christmas?” It's better to ask me what I want, or look up my “What I want for Christmas” blog. (No, I don't have a “What I want for Christmas” blog.)

This is exactly the problem the Pharisees had – they were looking at God as if God was one of them. But God is not a Pharisee – he is his own person, he is God. God wants things to work in a certain way, and so that is how they work. And the only way we are going to learn more about who God is and what he wants is to read the Bible and learn it, and to walk with God in our lives and see it for ourselves.

- God's Actions Cost Him

The third brief thing I want us to realise is quite often we assume that God can just click his fingers and make things happen at no cost to himself, because God is all-powerful. Why do people suffer when God could just click his fingers and end all suffering? But we have to remember that sometimes, when God wants to do something, it does come at a cost to him.

The people of Jerusalem wanted their freedom, they wanted their problems with foreign occupation to be solved, and so they wanted God's promised king to solve those problems for them. But God wanted to solve their problem of sin – he wanted to free them from their slavery to selfishness and doing wrong. He was sending a king to deal with their biggest enemy in God's opinion, not in their opinion. And it cost God his Son. Jesus came as a king, and died like a criminal. And if you say, “Oh, yeah, but Jesus was raised to life three days later, so it's not a big deal,” then you're saying God doesn't have a right to weep and feel pain at watching the people he loves kill the Son he adores. Jesus himself is God, and felt that pain, suffered that loss, died for our sin.

Why would I think that God doesn't have feelings, and wouldn't be hurt by our sin, by his son's death, by me spitting in his face and saying, “I don't agree with you, God,” or, “I don't want to follow you in this area of life”?

The King That Expects Service, But Allows Questions

But I have thought these things. I have questioned why God lets things happen that I don't like. I still question it. I still think about God simplistically. I still devalue God's feelings, because he's so high and powerful, I just figure he should deal with it better than me. I still have questions and doubts, and sometimes they are really, really hard to deal with. I don't understand God. But so far, I have kept serving him, kept coming back to him, kept coming back to the fact that he is God, and I am not.

When I was a brand new Christian, soon after my conversion as an 18 year old man, I sat down in the home of one of the elders of my church - his name was Eric Reid - and had a long discussion with him, asking him all sorts of difficult questions about Christianity. He gave me a lot of fine answers, too. But then he said something that sticks with me to this day, “It's fine having all these questions. But if you wait till you have all the answers before you start serving God, you will never do anything for him.”

When Jesus got to the Mount of Olives just outside Jerusalem, he sent two of his disciples to go get a donkey for him, and so they did. They knew what it meant, just like the people of Jerusalem knew. They knew that Jesus claimed to forgive sins, just like the Pharisees knew. They knew Jesus was coming to Jerusalem to die – he had told them three times! And you know what? They didn't agree – Peter rebuked Jesus for saying it, you'll remember – but when Jesus told them to go get the donkey, they did it. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, they still sang praises to God for all the great things that God had done through Jesus. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” they sang from the Psalms. They didn't understand, or even necessarily accept, everything Jesus said or did, but they knew he was from God and so they obeyed him, and they worshipped him, and they gave him honour and glory.

I think that's a lesson we have to learn, and keep learning – there is nothing wrong with asking questions, there is nothing wrong with questioning God, and it is completely human to misunderstand God and be unable to fathom his ways. God will always do things we don't expect, and sometimes that we don't like. But at the end of the day, Jesus is still God, and we are his people. He wants us to serve him, so we serve – without all the answers.

A quick note on offshore detention and Civil Disobedience

I read chapter 4 of Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience', and I think to myself of reasons why I should pay my taxes. Unlike Thoreau, I actually believe in governance, so undermining government for the fact that it is government and might deign to govern is insufficient. Even when I disagree with a government's actions, I err on the side of stability and continue my inactivity - for I, unlike Thoreau, have the opportunity for a government to come to power that aligns with at least some of my desires (likely Thoreau didn't see an anarchist party rising to dismantle his government any time soon). I would not countenance someone standing against the government of my preference simply because they preferred those who lost, or never gained power.

Put simply, I crave stability, because it brings comfort. I value the safety of my democracy over and above its inefficiency and failures and apathy. Indeed, my comfort stems from that apathy - because it is apathy, not suffrage, that breeds stability. And yet the comfort I love so much is the same comfort those fleeing to our shores desire.

But if I withdrew my financial support of the government, what would it achieve? They have the power to enforce their right over my money, and would just take it. Long before that I would likely lose my job (for they are the government's tax collector), and with it my home and my possessions I keep safe within. I could not shop (for stores are the government's tax collectors). At a stroke I can make myself destitute, and the government will continue its unspeakable acts in my name. Meanwhile, those that flee will do so leaving their jobs, their homes and all their possessions, to board a boat and come to live with me - they would rather nothing and be here. Perhaps they already have nothing.

Thoreau is talking of a great and terrible thing - slavery. I believe our own government is guilty of equally great and terrible things - our treatment of asylum seekers. I tell myself that if I take action against such a wrong, I set a precedent for others to take the same action against things they perceive as wrong, but that I would think far too much an edge case to be worthy of such disobedience. That threatens to cloud my judgement, and distract me from the truth of the matter - this is not an edge case. Someone has died needlessly at the hands of my government, more could follow. Others are left in squalid detention for no crime.

In the end, I will not stop paying my taxes - partly out of philosophical objection, partly out of pragmatism... mostly out of fear. I cannot bear to lose what I have to help those who want it. But that thought is scarier even than losing everything. So while I cannot do what Thoreau would have me do, I must do something. I have to do enough to counterbalance the 'practical support' I give to my government in their detention of asylum seekers.

The federal government's revenue for 2013-14 was $387.7 billion. Of that, the government spends $2.87 billion on offshore detention - 0.74% of their budget. I paid nearly $1600 in income tax last year. If I say I spent the rest of my income on things that attracted GST, I gave the government another $2300 odd dollars. To counteract my financial impact on offshore detention, I need to donate $28.86 to a charity that supports asylum seekers. By donating $35, I have in fact swung my practical support towards opposition of offshore detention by 21.2%.

Damn you for being so compelling, Thoreau.

Sermon: The Bible's Big Picture: New Testament

Sermon 2: The New Testament

Good morning again. Last week, I started this two talk series about the whole Bible, looking at the Bible's major themes, and focusing on the Old Testament. I started off saying that obviously in only two sermons, there is a lot of detail of the Bible that I am going to miss, and giving four reasons why we should read the whole Bible and not just rely on big picture sermons like this one - because it is a collection of reliable and accurate historical documents that claims a divine heritage; it is the primary source material for knowing about God; it is the history of the people of God (that's us!); and it is a fundamental way of God speaking to us.

Today, we will be looking at the major themes of the New Testament. But I have a secret for you. Do you remember the six main themes of the Old Testament that I gave you last week, three about God, and three about humanity? Here they are again: God is powerful over everything, not just Israel; People are sinful, rebelling against God; God wants a people for himself, and wants a relationship with his people; People are to be holy, because God is holy; God's ultimate goal is to free people from sin, and exalt the righteous, and punish the wicked; People have a choice to make about where they stand with God. Well, when we come to the New Testament, surprise surprise, the themes are the same! It shouldn't really be that surprising – if we are going to treat the Bible as one complete book, and not a collection of disparate historical writings, then we should expect that it contains the same major themes throughout its pages, from Genesis all the way to Revelation.

And yet there is a reason we separate the Old Testament from the New Testament, because they are not exactly the same. And again, it is easiest to see this from our big picture view of the Bible. Like I said last week, if we hold the Bible at arm's length, we can tell that the two big topics of the Bible are God and humanity. We come to the Bible for what it tells us about God, and what it tells us about people. Now, in the Old Testament, those two elements are very strictly delineated – God is up there being powerful, and humanity are down here being sinful. God calls to people through prophets and leaders and kings, and people are to respond by being holy and doing what they're told. And God informs them of his great plans to get rid of sin, and to exalt the righteous and punish the wicked, meaning people need to make a choice about where they stand with God. The Old Testament covers about 1500 years of human history, following the story of the nation of Israel through its creation, its freedom from slavery, its journey into the promised land, the rule of its kings, its separation, its decline into exile, and its return to the promised land.

The New Testament is half as long as the Old Testament, but it covers much less time - a period of about 90 years – it is the product of one generation of people. The reason for that is rather than covering the history of a people group, it instead focuses on the life of just one man. But in the New Testament the big picture gets more complex, because there is a blurring of the line between God and humanity. How can this happen? Well, it certainly doesn't happen because humans somehow work out how to be God. It happens because God comes to the world as a human being. Jesus Christ, God coming to earth in the flesh as a human being, is the complete focus of the New Testament.

In the Old Testament we had these three nice, neat points about God, and these three nice, neat points about humanity, and there was a nice, neat dividing line between them. God coming as Jesus, as a human, serves to bring these points into startling and beautiful clarity, like the blossoming of a flower that has grown up from its roots in the Old Testament soil, but it also some blurring between God and humans when God appears on the scene as a human.

Look at the first point - God's power being over every person and thing is not just obvious in the New Testament, it is absolutely fundamental to our understanding of the message. When God enters the world as a human being, Jesus Christ, we see he has power over sickness, over storms, over demons, and even over death. Universal problems, not just tied to Israel's land and people – and Jesus shows his power over them all. Furthermore, God is not just the God of the Jews, he is God over the Romans who have conquered Judea, he is God over their next door neighbours in Samaria, and he is God over the rest of the world and its people. But now, this is not shown through invasions or plagues or fiery acts of judgment. Instead, it is shown through the miracles Jesus performed in his ministry on earth, through his resurrection from the dead, and through the spreading of the Holy Spirit from Jerusalem into Judea, Samaria, and all the world.

The next theme is that people are sinful, and boy, does the New Testament make this clear. You need not turn any further than the gospels – who crucifies Jesus Christ, the Son of God entered into the world? It is people. It is Jews, and it is Roman authorities – no-one has clean hands. The great King of Kings enters the world, and humanity rises up in rebellion and attempts a coup, killing God. Surely I need go no further. But if we flip through the New Testament letters to churches, what do we find – groups of people who are well-grounded, highly spiritual and driven to serve God? Sometimes. But we also find these letters are written to lustful adulterers, prideful idolators, and greedy legalists, people who slip back into sin, or who cannot handle the freedom God offers, and rush back to throw themselves under the Law instead of rely on God's grace. Why is it we find the New Testament so useful? Well, partly it's written to people who are more like us, who even though they lived nearly 2,000 years ago, still thought in a very similar way to the way we do today. But it's also because we still struggle with the same problems of sin they did back then.

And yet, the coming of Jesus also brings our sin into stark contrast by the simple fact that Jesus is the exception to the rule. Here we see a human being, just like we are, but who is absolutely without sin. As a human who actually lives completely and totally for God, entirely in line with what God wants, because Jesus is God, he serves as a mirror to us where we can look at him, and see ourselves as sinful, and see how humanity is meant to be.

God still wants a people for himself, and this is assured to us by the fact that God chose to come to earth, to take on a human form and be just like us, to become one of us, so that he could reach out to us. He came to seek and save the lost, and I think sometimes we lose sight of that picture. God, the most powerful and important being in the universe, came to earth and held a little girl's hand, telling her to wake up from death. He came to earth and had dinner with prostitutes. That is how much God wants to be in relationship with people.

The fact that this extends beyond Jews becomes startlingly clear in the New Testament. The apostles begin to travel the world, planting churches, spreading the good news about Jesus Christ to everyone and anyone who will listen. The Jewish authorities try and stamp it out, going so far as to kill Christians like Stephen – but all that happens is one of the persecutors, Paul, gets converted, and the church grows even more. The Romans soon get sick of these people going around helping the sick and the orphaned and the widowed, and telling people that the only true God is the God of Israel and not the latest Roman emperor, so they start cracking down on Christians across their empire – and yet the church continues to grow even more. The book of Acts maps out this spread of the Spirit of God onto people of different nationalities – not just Jews.

Now this seems non-controversial to us as Christians – of course God's spirit rests on non-Jewish people. After all, in this church, and in most of the church across the world, Jews are a small minority of Christians. Clearly God's spirit can rest on us. But in the first century AD, this was a massive revelation – unbelievable for some. A good chunk of the New Testament letters to churches are devoted to this very subject – that God is the God of all people, not just Israel, and we don't all have to be born Jewish, or even live like Jews, to live as Christians. Something to be thankful for every time you have a piece of bacon. And we still see this church growth loud and clear today. In fact, the church is growing much faster in Africa and Asia than it is anywhere in the western world.

The fourth main theme is that people must be holy, because God is holy. The words of the Old Testament were exactly that – we looked at it last week repeated over and over in Leviticus, “Be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” The New Testament's message can be summed up in a similarly short message, coming from the lips of Jesus himself, “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Matthew, Mark and Luke are full of this call to repentance. Turn away from your sin, and accept the good news that God comes seeking to save the lost. That is the message God brings to the world, and the one which is spread to the ends of the earth.

Quite often we focus on the 'believe' aspect, and that's not surprising, given that at the moment the most vocal opponent to Christianity in the west is Atheism, whose major argument with Christianity is the 'believe' step – they don't believe God exists, let alone that Jesus is God incarnate as a man. Moreover, most people today think that 'sin' is a relative term – that there is no inherent right or wrong, but it is a mixture of what culture says and what society says, and what you want to think. Many people care more about how much carbon dioxide is produced by the food they are eating than they do about what happens to people when they die and face eternity. More and more we are becoming a culture fixated on science as the only truth, and if something can't be scientifically proven, then people say there is no proof!

But that is a very convenient myth, and it can be dispelled just by looking at how you treat truth in your own life. You tend to trust your senses for those things you interact with yourself, but anyone who has seen a magic trick knows that your senses can be deceived, so you also rely on your own experience to give you caution. But for all those things you think to be true that aren't in your immediate experience – things that happen on the other side of the world, things that happened in the past, or things that you just can't verify for yourself because you don't own an electron microscope and you don't know particle physics or carbon chemistry or you don't have access to see what's inside Fort Knox or you can't go on the space station or whatever – you have to trust other people for their expertise in an area, their ability to accurately remember and record, and their willingness to tell the truth and not trick you.

The message of Christianity is fundamentally a trustworthy and reliable historical message. The New Testament that we are talking about today, that reports to us all about the events of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, that point to his being God in the form of a man, exists in over 5,000 existing ancient copies, many dating right back to the end of the first century – 30 or so years from when they were written. Just to put that in perspective, the next most widely attested ancient document is Homer's Illiad, written around 800BC. There are less than 650 copies available, and the earliest ones date from the 2^nd or 3^rd century AD – that's 1,000 years after it was written. Professional historians attest to the Bible's historical legitimacy and reliability. There is an unbroken chain of witnesses from Jesus' time to today – the church was started by eyewitnesses! The bottom line is that if you believe Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great or Aristotle existed and did what is reported about them, then you believe it based on less evidence than what is available for Jesus.

But as I say, that only relates to half of what Jesus says. The call Jesus makes to people has both a 'believe' and a 'repent' aspect. Repent means you have to put your sinful ways behind you, and face towards God and live a holy life of loving God and loving others – the same message of the Old Testament. Again, this focus is obvious in the New Testament letters. Taken as one unit, all the letters are a mix of theological thought on how to interpret the promises of the Old Testament through the words and actions of Jesus, and the practical realities of living these out as Christians in fellowship with each other, and living in a world that is essentially against God and his message - how to be holy, because our God is holy – and we actually now can see what a holy life looks like, because we can look at God living it in Jesus' life.

In the Old Testament, the last point about God, that God will free people from sin, exalt the righteous and punish the wicked, is described in vague and uncertain terms, described as the 'Day of the Lord' by the prophets, and usually using descriptive metaphors about war and destructive calamity upon the land. However, this too is brought into a much sharper focus in the New Testament. By the time of the first century, a far more developed theology about the end times and heaven and hell has arisen, and Jesus himself makes it clear that he has not come to be a king of some earthly realm - many were expecting the Messiah would come and defeat the Romans and start a new kingdom of Judah in accordance with the promises God made to David in the Old Testament – but rather, his throne is in heaven, and he will rule over God's people forever in a new heaven and a new earth. The rest of the New Testament picks this up as a strong and regular theme, and it is a major theme of the book of Revelation, which has a great deal to say about the glorious eternity awaiting God's people, and the fiery punishment set aside for those who remain enemies of God.

But by far and away the biggest focus is on that first part, God dealing with sin. Not only do we read in the New Testament that God, as Jesus, demonstrates his power, provides a counterpoint to human sinfulness, calls people to come into relationship with him, and gives us a clear example of what human holiness should look like, but Jesus on earth actually decisively and finally deals with sin. He does this by dying on a cross, suffering the penalty for sin that is due to all humanity – a feat that only he can achieve, we are told in the New Testament, because he has no sin to be punished for himself. This way, Jesus can offer anyone and everyone a repaired relationship with God, and a place in his people and in his heavenly kingdom. This free offer of grace becomes the crux of how God deals with people in the last days – those exalted by God are righteous because Jesus has dealt with their sins and taken them away, and those who are punished by God as wicked are those who have turned their back on the gracious gift. No longer is your membership of God's people measured by your birth into a specific national group, or your love of God based on adherence to Old Testament laws – it is now based upon your acceptance of the grace of God in forgiving your sin through Jesus Christ. And we are reminded that if you fall into sin again, you can confess that sin to God and repent of it, and he promises you forgiveness.

Now, I say that Jesus has dealt finally with sin – but when we look around, we see that sin is still in the world. We see people still being selfish, we see people doing bad things to each other, we see evil remain in the world. More importantly, we can still sin – we still do those things against God every day, still think selfish and disobedient thoughts every day, even if we are Christian and want to serve God. So has Jesus actually dealt with sin, if it's still all around us? The answer is yes: he has dealt with the most important part of sin – the punishment that follows for it. He does not stop the consequences that flow from doing sinful things – if you shoot someone, they still die. If you cheat on your taxes, you still get the dishonest gain in money. If you abuse your parents, you still hurt your relationship with them. But that is because God gives us all a choice in how we live our lives. He does not stop us from making those choices, even if they hurt us, even if they hurt others. We still have to live with the consequences of our actions, for good or for bad. But when the time comes, when God decides enough is enough, and he makes his final move to punish the wicked for all they have done, he has given us a choice to accept his forgiveness, and so to be free from the punishment that we deserve for our rebellion and disobedience. That punishment still takes effect – but not on us. If we accept God's forgiveness, then the punishment Jesus took for our sins is sufficient for us – it is sufficient for everyone, if only they will accept the free gift of forgiveness that he offers.

This focus on our individual sinful state, and the forgiveness offered to us by God, makes the last point about people very clear indeed. Humanity, humans as individuals, have a choice to make about God – whether to accept his gracious gift of forgiveness of their sin, and become one of his people, living holy lives and being exalted in the end of days to a place with him in a new heaven and a new earth; or to reject God's offer, deny either his existence or his right to choose how things get done, and so set ourselves up as an enemy of his kingdom and his purposes, and then be punished for our wickedness, and left to suffer an eternity without God in hell. This is a message that falls directly from the lips of Jesus, such as in John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” It is taken up by the gospel writers themselves, and is repeated throughout the entire New Testament again and again, all the way through to Revelation at the end of the Bible. Of course, mostly that message is being written to churches and believers, and it takes the form of an encouragement – spurring them on to remember the truth they have believed, and to stick to their faith, and find strength in God to continue with their holy lives, especially in the face of persecution and mistreatment.

And that message extends ever forward, remaining for us as God's people today, so we can read it, and take it to heart. Because the Christian life is hard. Christians are being persecuted for our beliefs by non-believing family or friends, or strangers that wish to attack our beliefs. British Parliament was recently told in a debate about worldwide Christian persecution that a Christian dies every 11 minutes for their faith (if everyone who lives in Hornsby was killed now, that would equal five months of worldwide Christian persecution). But even if we just have a pretty easy life, like we do here in Waitara, we still struggle against the temptation to think first about our own comfort and happiness, to do things our own way, enjoy our life as we please, and forget about living a holy life pleasing to God. For us as Christians, we have a collection of books in the New Testament that talk directly to our situation. We can read about churches just like ours, who struggle with sin like the Corinthian church, who puzzle through theological questions like the Roman church, who try to do their best to serve God and see Jesus' name be proclaimed throughout the world, like the Philippian church. We can read the message written to the seven churches in Revelation – a message that says do not forget Jesus, do not be afraid, do not be tempted by the lives of those around you, but rather hold on to the truth you have been given, work hard to be holy, loving and righteous, stick to what you have accepted as true, and accept the rebuke and correction of God so that you become holy and righteous.

But the New Testament is not just focused on existing churches, and those who already believe. You see, the gospel writers are somewhat unique in that they wrote their accounts not just for the edification and assistance of the church, but actually to reach people with the message of Jesus in a written form. We read in the gospel of John 20:31, “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” Luke tells us at the beginning of his gospel that he writes so that his readers might have certainty in the things they were taught about Jesus. These gospel authors were writing so that the message and meaning of Jesus' life could be preserved, and passed on through future generations - and now we have it today.

The message of the Bible comes to a sharp point in the New Testament – and it speaks to those who would not call themselves one of God's people. You have a choice to make. You can live your life the way you want to, but make sure you know what that life is - the life society tells you to live, the way your culture tells you, the way your wallet tells you, the way TV tells you. The life the rest of the world offers is a selfish life. Oh, don't be mistaken when I say selfish. You might help other people when you can, you might think that supporting your family is the most important thing, you might be doing your best to protect the environment. It's not a selfish life because you're stacking up a big pile of money to sleep on every night, or because you punch random strangers as you walk down the street or you steal candy from babies. It's selfish because it's focused on you - you want the power to decide what's good and what's bad, what's right and what's wrong for yourself, you want to make sure your life and the lives of people that you think are important are comfortable and secure. And the rest of the world tells you that's great! Do that! Be comfortable, enjoy life, squeeze every drop out of it, because when you die, that's it. There's no God, there's no heaven, there's no hell, so there is no repercussions for what you do. There is no ultimate importance to whether you live or die, so you might as well be happy while you can.

You can choose that life. God lets people choose that life. But it's the wrong choice. It's the wrong choice because God really does exist. Jesus really existed, not just as a man, but as God. God really walked around on this earth and revealed himself to people. He really died on a cross. He really was resurrected three days later. Hundreds of people saw him, and they started churches and spread the word and wrote books to make sure the truth would be passed on from generation to generation. And they didn't do it for glory, and they didn't do it for money – they were beaten and tortured and killed for doing this, but they went to their own crosses and beheadings and stonings knowing that they were speaking the truth they had seen and heard for themselves. We have that truth today, passed on by eyewitnesses, passed on to us. We really can live a life for God, we really can be exalted as his people, we really can live with him forever when that last day comes – and that last day is really coming.

You can choose to believe this truth, that God has made sure to pass from generation to generation, to end up here today in this church, in this sermon, for you to hear. It is the right choice. Don't just trust me. Don't just trust the other people who come to this church. Don't just trust the billions of people across the world who call Jesus God and Lord over their own lives. Trust God. He's the one who speaks to you today. Now if you've heard everything I've had to say, and you think I'm just lying, or I'm mistaken, or I've got my facts wrong, then that's fine – come tell me so afterwards, I'd love to hear your point of view. If you've heard what I've said today and you just aren't sure, and you have questions, because there are things you didn't quite understand or things you disagree with, that's fine – come tell me so afterwards, and we can talk about it. There's lunch after this talk, come and eat and have a chat, tell me your point of view or ask me your questions.

But if you have heard today the message of God from his Bible, and it has struck you, and it has convicted you, and you know that it is true, then I urge you, don't just sit there in silence and pretend you haven't heard it. If you have been touched by this message of truth, if you want to make that choice that God has given you to follow him, then I would ask you to do two things. First, when I pray to God at the end of this talk, pray along with me, silently in your mind. Then, after the talk, come up and talk to me here at the front of the church. Or if you'd rather talk to someone else at this church because you know them and you're more comfortable with that, then do that. But talk to somebody, tell them that you have made that decision, and you can find out more about what it means to decide to live your life for God. It's not easy, but it is right.

So let's pray together:

God, heavenly Father,

You are the only all-powerful God. Your power stretches over the whole world, over all peoples, kings, nations and things. You made it clear when you came to earth as Jesus that you have power over nature, over people, over sin, and over death. You have also made it clear that you want all people to treat you as their God, for them to be your people. You want to have a relationship with us on your terms. You have a plan to deal with sin, to exalt the those who do right in your eyes, and to punish those who do wrong in your eyes. I believe and accept your nature as revealed in the Bible.

I accept that I am a sinful human being. It is in my nature to want to rebel against your leadership, and to want to do things my own way. I know that you want me to live a holy life. You made that clear in Jesus' words, “Repent and believe the good news.” You have given me a choice to make, and I want to make that choice to be one of your people. I repent of my selfish life – I want to put my sinful ways behind me, and face towards you, God, and live a holy life of loving you and loving others. I know that's not always easy, but I also trust you when you say you will forgive me for my sins. I choose to follow your ways for my life, and to look to Jesus' life as an example for my own. I put my trust in you today.

By the authority and power of Jesus I pray these things, Amen.

Thank you for listening, and I hope you've enjoyed my two talks. There is coffee and tea and lunch to be served out the back. Remember, if you were convinced of the need to devote your life to God today, come up and tell me so.

Sermon: The Bible's Big Picture: The Old Testament

Sermon 1: The Old Testament

Good morning. I was asked to come and speak for two weeks about the Bible. No big surprise there, I'm sure there are talks every week at this church that come from the Bible. The difference about my talks is they will not be focusing on a specific book or chapter of the Bible. Instead, I will be seeking to cover the Bible as one whole book. Now clearly, I will not be covering it in detail. There are 66 books of the Bible, and I will have about 66 minutes if I go a few minutes over time each week. That means I could spend a minute on each book of the Bible, and that would be next to useless. What is helpful, though, is to get an understanding of the big, important, recurring themes of the Bible, those ideas that pop up again and again, the main message the Bible as a whole book is seeking to tell us. That is actually more easily followed in one or two sermons on the whole Bible, instead of picking it out piecemeal from every verse and every chapter of every book separately.

Of course, I will be leaving a lot of stuff aside. But that doesn't mean that stuff is not important! The entire Bible is important, even if some parts of it are difficult, some might even say perplexing or impossible, to understand fully. And so, before we begin on the Bible's main message, I want to give you a few quick reasons why we need to read and understand the Bible ourselves. That way, you will understand the value of the message we will be looking at over the next two weeks. These are in a particular order, not of importance per se, but of understanding. The first builds a foundation for the next, and so on. You need to get the first one before you move onto the next.

Number 1, the Bible is a collection of reliable and accurate historical documents that claim a divine heritage. That is, the Bible itself claims that God guided the authors to write what they wrote, so that the Bible is not just a collection of historical documents, but it is given to us by God.

Number 2, the Bible is the primary source material for learning about God. I say primary, because it is the best, most detailed source for information about God. It's not the only source, but the Bible is the number one place to turn when you want to know more about God. The Bible does not record every single thing God has done – that would likely be impossible for us to read. Rather, it is an edited collection of information about God that he chooses for us to have.

Number 3, the Bible is the history of the people of God – and the people of God includes us! When we become Christians, we join the family of God, and we inherit all of this as our history. Having a history is very important, because it tells you who you are, it gives you an identity.

Finally, the Bible is a fundamental way God speaks to us. The Bible is not just a book we come to to find answers and information about God. It is a place where God comes to us, and speaks to us, and tells us what he wants us to hear from him today. It is the way he has chosen.

Those four reasons are worth keeping in mind, both as you read the Bible, and as you listen this morning. If we have a focus on what we can expect the Bible to give us, then we can look out for it and recognise it more easily when it comes. That is a fine platform for us to jump from as we start to fly over the Bible, getting a bird's eye view and being able to see the largest and most important themes it contains.

Let's start from as far away as possible, where we can only see the one big thing the Bible is about. From all the way over here, looking at the Bible as one whole book, we can see that its main character is God, and that its main topic is also God. This book is about God. It tells us who God is, what God thinks and does. But the other main character in this book is humanity, people. People feature in this book almost as much as God does. It tells us who humanity is in relation to God, what we are like, what we do. So fundamentally, the Bible is about God and people. Now, once we open up the Bible, things get a lot more complicated. But let's just keep a broad view for now. The Bible is split into the Old and New Testament, and since I have two weeks to preach, I will follow the same divide. Today, we will look at the Old Testament and what it has to say, and then next week we will look at the New Testament, an see that its themes and message are fundamentally the same – they form the one book, so that should not surprise us.

Turning to the Old Testament, then, we can look at it through the broad themes we have already seen the Bible covers – we can look at what it says about God, and what it says about humanity. I am going to suggest three things the Old Testament focuses on as key things it tells us about God, and three key things it tells us about humanity. These are big, important ideas – the vast majority of what the Old Testament says fits under one or more of these six headings. I put them here in steps, so we can see the link between what we learn about God, and what we learn about people. As might be expected, everything flows from God. Again, these are in a distinct order – each one builds on the last to give us a more complete picture of God and humanity. I think you will see that while these major themes may be more focused on in one part of the story than another, they remain important themes all the way through the Old Testament.

The first big theme of the Old Testament, the first thing it tells us about God, is that God is powerful over everything, not just Israel. This is something I think we just accept these days – the ideas of God being all powerful and all knowing and everywhere are commonplace now, and in fact the philosophical debate about God in the modern world usually assumes that whatever 'god' someone is talking about has these attributes. But once upon a time – and in some places in the world, even still today – people believed in gods that were tied to specific regions, things or people, and outside those regions, things or people, these gods had no power to act. This was the case in the ancient middle east – throughout the Bible we read of these local gods, like Amon in Egypt; Ashera, Ashtoreth, Baal of Caanan; Baal-Zebub and Dagon of the Philistines; Bel and Tammuz of Babylon; and Chemosh of Moab.

And you might think that the God of the Bible is the same, because isn't he just Yahweh of Israel? But Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, is different. When Yahweh first starts to make promises to his chosen people, they are not a people, they are only one man, who is too old to have children – his name is Abraham. Yahweh claims to rule over the whole earth, and over all people, and so he can make promises to Abraham about giving him a land somewhere else, somewhere that other gods claim right over. Yahweh can claim that all people will be blessed through his people, because Yahweh is the God of all people, not just Abraham. When Yahweh comes to the aid of his early nation Israel, they are slaves in a foreign land, in Egypt. Yet he can save them from that slavery, he can defeat the Egyptian armies and their pharoahs and their magicians and their gods. When his people march through the wilderness to get to the land he has promised to them, they defeat the peoples of Edom and Moab whose land they have to cross – because Yahweh has power over them and their gods. The promised land itself is held by the Caananites, but their people and their gods are no match for Yahweh – he empowers his people to push them out of the land he had promised – land that once belonged to other people with their own gods, whose detestable practices led to Yahweh judging them – because Yahweh stands in power over all people!

But the Old Testament makes it even more clear that God is the God of everything. In Genesis, we are told that it is through his power that all things are made – everything belongs to him, because he created it! All the earth, all the animals, all the plants, all the people. And that claim gets repeated in the psalms and the prophets and other places. The book of Job, which recounts the suffering of a man under God's will, shows that God has power over some man who lives in Uz – nowhere near Israel. It describes how God has power over this man's property, his family, his health. It also tells us God has power over Satan, that angelic accuser who points to our sin and says we should be judged and punished. When the prophet Jonah is told by God to go to Israel's enemy, Nineveh, to preach to them about God, Jonah tries to run – he takes a boat in the opposite direction, and heads for Europe. But Yahweh's power stretches even into the sea – which in ancient times was the embodiment of chaos and unruliness, which defied order – and so when God sends a storm, the sailors ask Jonah what's going on, and he says in Jonah 1:9, “I am a Hebrew and I worship Yahweh, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” In verse 10 it says “This terrified them,” and for good reason – this was a God that was powerful over the land and the sea!

In the prophets, God uses plagues, swarms of locusts, storms, droughts, fire from heaven, talking donkeys, children, oil, bears and foreign armies to provide warnings and blessings and judgment to his people – nothing is outside his power. God's people are threatened by foreign armies of huge nations – it would be like if China and Russia and America all attacked Australia with their combined military might – God still protects his people. But he also punishes them with foreign armies, so when God's people Israel are taken into captivity once more by Babylon, even when their temple is destroyed, and their holy city Jerusalem is sacked and its walls torn down, God does not leave them, and God is not powerless. When they are in Babylon, Daniel is protected in the lion's den, and is given dreams and visions. God has power over foreign kings, turning Nebuchadnezzar into a howling crazy man, using King Xerxes of the Medes and Persians to protect the Jews, using King Cyrus of Persia to rebuild Jerusalem and God's temple. God's power stretches across the world, across all peoples, kings, nations, and things. That is the God of the Bible.

Now in the face of this mighty God, what are people like? Well, the Old Testament tells us many things about people, but the major, important theme, the foundational thing about people, is that they are sinful. What does it mean to be sinful? I think the psalms give us a good definition, “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Those are the words of both Psalm 14 and Psalm 53 – so important it is repeated! The book of Ecclesiastes, a book of God-given wisdom, tells us in 7:20, “Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” From the very beginning, when God creates humanity, they turn away from him and do their own thing – and it never stops from there! Even some of God's greatest heroes of the Old Testament are sinful: Noah gets drunk and falls asleep naked; Abraham pimps his wife off to foreign kings; Jacob is a thief and a scoundrel; Moses is a murderer with anger problems; David is a murderer and an adulterer; Solomon has 700 wives and 300 concubines and worships false gods. And the people of Israel are no better! When Moses is on Mount Sinai with God getting the 10 commandments, Israel are cavorting and making false gods! When they get to the promised land, instead of worshipping God and following his laws, they worship the local gods! Again and again through the prophets God warns them, but they do not listen, and eventually he punishes them for it. In the face of an all-powerful God who rules over all things, we learn that people are sinful, disobedient, and selfish. That is human nature.

Which might make our next point about God rather strange, but it is true nonetheless: the next major theme about God is that he seeks to have a relationship with humanity. He wants to make for himself a people, and to relate to those people as their God. Right from the beginning, God shows kindness to people. Humanity is created in God's image, likely why he cares so much about us. He clothes the naked Adam and Eve after kicking them out of the garden for their sin. He chooses Noah, a righteous man and his family, to save from the flood. He blesses Abraham, and promises to turn him into a nation that God will further bless. He saves Israel from slavery in Egypt. He gives them a rich promised land, and he also gives them his holy law to follow, so they are not just a richly blessed people, but they are his richly blessed people. When Israel turns its back on God and worships other gods, he sends them warnings, he sends them prophets to do crazy things to get the people's attention, like marry a prostitute, or lie on one side and cook their food over manure - he makes it clear he will not put up with their sin and he will punish them. And like a loving father with a child running riot, he does punish them, but he never leaves them - even when they are robbed of their holy land and their temple, God does not leave them. The psalms are full of songs and poems written by people about God, about this relationship they have with God, about the relationship God wants from them. Song of Songs is a love song between a husband and a wife, that represents the love between God and his people. He calls his people ever back to him, giving them so many chances, he exceeds the patience and forgiveness of even the most devoted parent.

But God does not just want a single race to be his. No, God wants to call a people for himself made up of all the nations of the world. God's promise to Abraham is that through him all nations will be blessed. When God saves Israel out of slavery in Egypt, he says to them at Mount Sinai, in Exodus 19:5, “Although the whole earth is mine” - claiming his vast power - “you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” He wants Israel to act as his priests to the rest of the world, to stand out as mediators between God and the nations. In the laws, God makes it clear that someone who follows the laws is part of his people, even if they are not born an Israelite. God adopts Rahab the prostitute into Israel when she helps the spies who cross into Jericho. He adopts Ruth into Israel through Boaz, even though she is foreign, and even though Israelite men were not meant to marry foreign women, because she wants to be righteous. The prophets have repeated references to Jerusalem, and its spiritual version, Zion, being a place where all the nations come to worship and honour God.

The prophets also have repeated calls to God's people, and through them to all people, to be holy, and be that light to the nations, to show them what God wants of them. And this is the next point that the Old Testament tells us about humanity. Humanity needs to be holy, because God is holy. It says exactly that in the book of Leviticus, repeated over and over, “Be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” Now, holiness is a hard concept to get your head around. We had a sermon series on Leviticus recently at Waitara Anglican, and Mark, who spoke on this, put it pretty succinctly – the things that make God the most different from other gods, and God's people the most different from other people, are love and righteousness.

And that's what the law is essentially all about. Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbour as yourself. That is true holiness. And that means being different from other people without being isolated from them, because you cannot show true, godly love to other people from a distance. You have to be fair with them in your business dealings, you have to show compassion on their poor, you have to welcome them into God's people. You have to be loving and righteous, just as God is loving and righteous. You may have heard the current pope, Pope Francis, call out for a global economic system that puts people at its heart, and not “an idol called money”, because he says the current system does not show love to people – it is built on greed and selfishness, which is why it works, because people are sinful! But just because it works doesn't make it right. When you worship money and let it do what it wants, it destroys people. Money worshipped is an idol of greed. How different is Yahweh's love for people, and so how different should God's people be from the norm!

The third big point about God in the Old Testament is God's ultimate goal – he wants to free people from their sin, he wants to exalt the righteous and punish the wicked. The Old Testament makes it clear that this has not yet happened. Ecclesiastes 8:14 tells us to look around, and we will see “the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve.” God makes a lot of promises in the Old Testament, but every time you think he has fulfilled them, it turns out there is still more to be done. After they sin, God promises Adam and Eve that their children will crush sin – but their son Cain kills their other son Abel, so clearly that promise awaits fulfilment. God promises Noah after the flood that he will not destroy the world with a flood again to punish sin – but sin does not disappear. God tells the people of Israel that in the promised land, they will receive rest, and that he will live with them there, and that he will send them a prophet even greater than Moses to lead them. But they continue to sin, and even at the end of Deuteronomy it says that there has never since been a prophet so great as Moses. When they settle in the promised land and the people ask for a king, God not only gives them King David, but he also makes great promises to David – that one of his descendants will sit on the throne over God's people forever. David's son Solomon sits on the throne, and he is a man of great wisdom and he builds the temple for God in Jerusalem – but he is also an idolater and greedy, and rather than sitting on the throne forever, he in fact starts the beginning of the end of Israel's golden days.

God makes this clear, by sending prophets with the message that his plan is still to free people from sin, to punish the wicked and to exalt the righteous – it is still coming. He says things like Jeremiah 31:33, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbour, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” In Isaiah 13:11, “I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.” In Zephaniah 2:3 he says, “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.”

And this leads us to our last major point about the Old Testament, our last big theme about people: people have a choice to make about where they stand with God. Throughout this whole story, and at every stage, one thing that is startlingly clear about people is God always gives them a choice about where they stand with him. Adam and Eve have a choice about whether to eat the fruit. Israel's people are given the choice again and again as to whether they want to follow God and his commands, and be his people, or not. Job has the choice of whether to praise God in his suffering, or to curse God. When the Jews are freed from Persia to return home to Jerusalem, they do not have to return, they can stay in Persia. It's true, the choice is often between a good and a bad option – between a blessing and a curse from God, a forgiveness and a punishment. But given how many times people seem to choose the curse and the punishment – or say they will choose the blessing, but then in their actions choose the curse – it seems only having to choose between a good and a bad option doesn't stop people from choosing the bad option – what with people being sinful and all. But God does not force the issue – he allows a choice, and allows people plenty of chances to change their mind and make the right choice when they go wrong.

Those are the main themes of the Old Testament – God is all powerful, people are sinful; God wants a relationship with people anyway; people need to be holy because God is holy; God will deal with sin, exalt the righteous and punish the wicked; and people have a choice about how they relate to God. In all this, I haven't mentioned the New Testament or Jesus at all. That's for next week. But during the early church time, the only Scriptures they had were the Old Testament. When they talk about the gospel as it appears in the Scriptures, they are talking about the Old Testament – they are talking about these themes! It was clear to them what God is like, and what people are like. It should be clear to us too. The Old Testament is the foundation of our faith – not the Jewish faith, not the Christian faith in some esoteric, remote sense – this is the foundation of our faith! What we believe about God and the world and each other hinges on the Old Testament.

Read the Old Testament for yourself, and you will see it all fits quite neatly into one or more of these six big themes. And the question then becomes, what do we do with this message? Well, really, it should be obvious. God tells us he is powerful, not just in the Middle East, not just over Jews, but over all people everywhere. That includes us. He wants a relationship with humans, and humans includes us. Yes, we're sinful, but he says he has a plan for that. He will take care of it – what he wants from us is to take his offer seriously, and to be holy – to love God and to love each other. And we have to realise that what we choose to do has consequences , because God is going to exalt those who do what is right, but he is going to punish the wicked. The Bible does not argue about these first five points. It just states they are what they are. The only one we get a say in is our choice, how we respond to it all. Have you chosen to ignore God, to not take him seriously, to just not think seriously about God? Then the Bible says that is your choice. It's the wrong choice, but it's a choice God allows you to make. However, it also says that you have another chance, you can change your choice – God is very patient, very forgiving, and he actually wants to have a relationship with you, on his terms.

Have you made that choice to follow God, to be one of his people, but found it's really hard, and that living as if you had chosen the other option is much easier, or sometimes very tempting? If so, then this is your history - you fit right in with the rest of the people of God! The Old Testament tells us that God's people made the wrong decision again and again, even though they knew it was wrong. We are talking about people who saw God's fire descend on a mountain, and then instantly turned around and started forging false idols. That is human nature. But God drives us to keep choosing him, over and over to keep coming to him, to keep being his people, to keep making the right decision. That is God's nature. So don't give up. Let's pray.