Knowing God’s Will for your life starts with learning to listen to God speaking to us through the Bible. The Bible contains the truths that we all need to guide our conscious and sub-conscious decision making about how we will live. Romans 12 tells us that as our minds are renewed by God’s truth we are transformed in who we are so that we can live in and enjoy God’s will for us. However just reading the Bible is not enough, we need to have a conversation with Jesus in an attitude of complete submission if the Bible is going to have the powerful effect on us that it was designed to have.
Sermon Audio & Video plus Scripture references are available on the website, or just watch below! (It's worth starting then pausing the video for a few minutes to let it get a head-start on downloading!)
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Sermon - Knowing God's Will pt 1 - the 2 Wills of God
As we begin to look at how we can know and do the will of God, we need to first find out what the Bible means when it talks about God's Will. We discuss what John Piper calls God's Will of Decree and God's Will of Command, to explore the very different senses in which the will of God is talked about in the Bible. The interplay between the sovereignty of God and the free will of humanity is something that we can only grasp imperfectly, yet having an understanding of the two wills of God helps us to recognise this tension and guides our response.
The Manuscript:
Knowing God’s Will Pt 1
What is God’s Will?
What is God’s Will?
Introduction
We make hundreds of decisions every day. We decide whether to get up or sleep a little longer. We decide what to wear, what to eat for breakfast and we keep rolling through the day. Some decisions are not even made consciously – we don’t usually decide to be grumpy or happy. If you are a creature of habit you might not even consciously decide what you will wear or what you will eat – you just do what you do.
But then there are some decisions which require a lot of thought and sometimes cause a lot of stress. These are the big decisions like: “Should I ask this lady to marry me?”, “How can I ask her so she will say ‘Yes’?”, “What should I study?”, “Where should we live?”, “What sort of work should I do?”, ‘What church should we join?”, “How much should we borrow?”, “What crop should I put in this year?”, “What should I do about the frost-damaged crop?”
How do we make sure that our decisions – big and small, conscious or unconscious – are in line with what God wants for us? How do we know and do God’s will?
We talked recently about the Christian life as being all about following Jesus instead of turning aside because of our own ungodly desires or because of the pressures that this World and the ruler of this world brings to bear on us. But how do we know clearly what it is that Jesus wants us to do and where He wants us to go? We’re going to spend a few weeks looking at this important subject – knowing and doing the will of God.
We’re going to start off today by defining what it is that we are talking about when we talk about the will of God. One of the biggest problems that many Christians have in knowing and doing the will of God is that we have a fuzzy understanding of what the term actually means. So what does the Bible mean when it talks about God’s will?
You need to understand that when the Bible talks about God’s will it is generally talking about one of the two different types of God’s will. If you don’t recognise these 2 different types then you are going to get very confused as you try and get a clear understanding of what the Bible is saying, because it will always be contradicting itself. Bible scholars use a variety of terms to describe these two different aspects of God’s will. I’m going to borrow the terms used by John Piper, which I think are really helpful for us.
1. God’s Will of Decree
God’s Will of Decree is simply this: everything that happens, happens because God has willed it. God’s will of decree cannot be stopped or compromised, it will come to pass.
If you are like most people, that sentence is one of the worst things you have ever heard. We all have different wounds that this life has inflicted upon us, and we tend to hold other people, Satan or the notion of a fallen world responsible for our pain. It’s not easy to hear that God decrees everything that comes to pass. In my case it means that my little brother died a slow and cruel death because God chose it to be so. What sort of God is that? It’s this sort of thinking that turns people away from God.
So let’s see if this is really what the Bible says…
Ephesians 1:11
“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will”
Romans 8:28-39
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So if God works out all things in conformity with His will, does this mean that God wills sin to occur? Surely evil must be included in “all things”?
1 Peter 3:17
17 It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
1 Peter 4:19
19 So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
Peter knows that it may well be in God’s plan for you to suffer for doing the right thing! Could it really be God’s will for the innocent to suffer?
Let’s turn to Acts 2:22-24
22 “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
Now let’s go back to Garden of Gethsemane in the hours before this event takes place.
Matthew 26:38-39
38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
God could have chosen to shelter Christ’s back from the cruel barbs of the whips. He could have blunted the thorns of Jesus’ mock crown. Even if Jesus had to die God the Father could have made it easier on Him. But He didn’t.
We look around our world today and see children conscripted into armies and forced to commit atrocities against their own families. We see drug dealers and pimps profiting from their trade in human misery. We see terrible accidents and terrible crimes. How could the Bible say that God is sovereign over all this? Yet it does, time and time and time again. We are going to address this paradox between God’s Will of Decree and His character of love and purity a little bit later. Before we are ready to do that we need to understand the second type of will that the Bible talks about in relation to God.
God’s Will of Command
God’s Will of Command is simply what God wants people to do. It’s what He has commanded us to do. The Bible is full of these commands. For example, God does not want anyone to perish but instead He commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). But guess what? Some people don’t!
Another example…
1 Thessalonians 4:3-7
3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. 7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.
So here’s the paradox: God is sovereign over everything, yet He commands things which don’t always happen. He forbids things that He brings about. It makes no sense! Yet the Bible teaches both God’s Will of Decree and God’s Will of Command.
Now I am someone who doesn’t like these sorts of inconsistencies, and so I look for ways of getting to the bottom of them so everything is nicely worked out and makes sense. I have some ideas on how this all fits together, but the Bible doesn’t actually try to explain that and so today neither will I.
What the Bible says is quite simple: don’t try figure out God’s Will of Decree. Don’t consult spirits or stars or any of that sort of thing to try work out what is going to happen. Leave that to God. Your task is to humble yourself so that you can trust Him. Sometimes it makes no sense to us whatsoever, and sometimes by His grace God reveals to us part of His plan and shows us why things have happened the way they have. We just need to trust.
The second thing we need to do is obey. God has made His Will of Command clear to us, we need to submit our will to His. We need to obey. As the old hymn says “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey”.
Close: Purpose Driven Life reading (p 94).
(note: I played a short clip from a sermon by John Piper as he explained why we need these 2 wills of God, and how knowing them sustains us through the tough stuff of life. Click here to read the full sermon. The section we looked at is titled "The Preciousness of these Truths".)
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
Sermon - Lost and Found pt 2: We Were Made for Jesus
Jesus did not rank people from good to bad, desirable to undesirable or by any other measure. For Jesus people are either lost or found. We have all been made in the image of God - we all bear the markings of our Maker. We have all been made for Him, and we have been made to be fulfilled by Him.
Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4 reminds us of how Jesus sees not only this lady but you, me and all those around us. How does Jesus' view of us change how we see ourselves and how we relate to Him? How will His view of others affect how we see them and how we treat them?
The bottom line is that we were all made for Jesus - no exceptions.
Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4 reminds us of how Jesus sees not only this lady but you, me and all those around us. How does Jesus' view of us change how we see ourselves and how we relate to Him? How will His view of others affect how we see them and how we treat them?
The bottom line is that we were all made for Jesus - no exceptions.
Monday, 15 September 2008
Viewing Hardship as Discipline
Viewing Hardship as Discipline
Hebrews 12:1-13
Introduction
Have you ever wondered where hardship in your life is coming from?
Those times when you’re going through real difficulties and you wonder if this is God doing this to you or whether it’s a demonic attack or whether it’s just part of living in a fallen world.
How should we understand these hardships, and what should we do about them?
Read: Hebrews 12:1-13
1. Treat Hardship as Discipline from God
v.7: literally “For discipline endure…”
When tough times come, as they will, endure them as discipline from God.
Sometimes we lose the value of hardship because we never answer the question of why we are experiencing it. Because we don’t know why we are experiencing it we often fail to learn from it. The fact is that we very often do not understand the reasons behind our hardships, but we are told to treat them as though they are discipline from God. Why should we do that?
Because unlike hardship, which can be random, discipline has a purpose. There is something we must learn, something we must change, something we must stop or something we must do as a result of discipline.
The Hebrew Christians are being told “Don’t treat your sufferings as pointless and become discouraged by them, treat them as something that has a purpose, a purpose which is good”.
2. Remember that Discipline has a Purpose
Let’s think about this – if God really is all-powerful, and He is our Father, then He would not allow us to go through suffering unless there were a point to it. God does not delight in our misery! So what purpose would God have in causing or allowing us to suffer hardships?
Haven’t you asked that question sometimes? Haven’t you been asked that question sometimes?
The answer is found by remembering four essential truths
a) God Hates Evil
Sometimes when people think of God the Father they think of a cruel Judge who punishes people for their frailties and shortcomings, an angry God who is not easily appeased. We fail to recognise that God’s hatred of sin is so intense because His love of goodness is so complete. Anyone who loves goodness must hate evil. The more I see of evil in this world the more I hate it, and I am not all seeing and I’m not perfectly good. I still am drawn toward evil myself. I can’t imagine how hard it is for God to tolerate the existence of evil in His creation, and it’s just because He is giving people time to repent and be forgiven that Has not destroyed this corrupted world long ago.
b) We are in God’s Family
Can you imagine such a God being content for His children to be complacent about evil in their lives? Not only that, but He has given us the responsibility of being His representatives to the world? Dare we claim to represent this God when we allow sin to remain a part of our lives? Of course God will deal with sin wherever it occurs in His family.
c) God loves us
This is not just because of His own hatred of sin, it is because of His love for us that He desires us to be free from the corruption of sin in our lives. He wants us to experience the blessing that comes from right living, and He knows that temporary hardships are worthwhile in order to help us move onto the path of righteousness.
Each of these three truths address the reality of sin in our lives that is dealt with through suffering. However not all hardship that we go through is a result of our sin or is even intended to deal with our sin. Some discipline is for the purpose of training us for future maturity and future ministry.
Sometimes we ask the question “What have I done to deserve this?”. There are times when God needs to speak to us about that. There are times however when the issue is not what you have done to deserve it, but what you can become after you endure it.
d) God has a plan for us
As we talked about a couple of weeks ago, God has a race marked out for us to run. But we are entangled by sin and cannot run it effectively. We must throw off the sins that entangle us, and God uses discipline to help us to do that. Not only that, but we know that this race involves us doing good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do. Discipline gives us the strength and wisdom to do those tasks. It’s the training that strengthens our feeble arms and week knees, in order for us to not only be healed ourselves, but to enable us to run the race that God has marked out for us.
According to Hebrews 5 Jesus Himself was prepared for His future ministry through suffering. In Genesis we read the story of Joseph who was betrayed and abused by his own family, but listen to what Joseph said to them many years later after going through all sorts of tough times: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”[1]
Don’t ever despair in tough times, recognise that God has a good purpose to accomplish, and that He will achieve it as you allow Him to work through those hardships.
3. Look Forward to the Fruit of Discipline
v.11 – No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.[2]
Read: Romans 5:1-5
Conclusion – The Story of Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33)
Regardless of the cause of your suffering, God will bring about a good result in your life, just like He did for Manasseh, if you will turn to Him and allow Him to achieve His good purpose through it.
Thursday, 11 September 2008
Video - The Journey East
Here's a bit of a video log of our trip to Wodonga to help celebrate Nanna Mae's 90th birthday.
click here to download or play in your own media player
click here to download or play in your own media player
Monday, 1 September 2008
Sermon - The Future of the Church in the Eastern Wheatbelt
The Future of the Church in the Eastern Wheatbelt
Combined Churches Service
August 2008
Combined Churches Service
August 2008
Introduction
Do you ever think about the future of your own congregation? Where is it headed? What will it be like in 10 years time? How do you feel when you think about that? Excited? Anxious? Hopeful? Depressed?
What about when you look back over the last 10 years (for those who have been here long enough)? When you think about what you have seen happen in your congregation over that time to bring you to the point that you are today, how do you feel? What about when you take a longer look back to the last 15, 20, 30 years?
What has God been doing in the churches of the Eastern Wheatbelt, and what is He going to do into the future? Is there any way of really knowing?
Well today you don’t want to hear me speculating on the subject of the future of the Eastern Wheatbelt Church. What we all need to hear is what God wants to say to us about what He is doing and wants to do in us and through us as we follow Him. We are going to listen to Him by reading His word together and asking Him to show us how to put it into practice in our lives and in our churches.
John 5:17,19
Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.”
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
God is Always At Work!
Just as Jesus did nothing on His own, but only did what the Father was doing, so we need to learn to see what God is doing, and join in!
Hebrews 12:1-3
v. 1a “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…”
We need to recognise that we do not run this race in isolation from one another. So often our focus narrows to just ourselves and our own congregations, and we forget our place in the wider kingdom of God. In this letter to early Jewish Christians, they are being reminded that they are not alone, they are part of a wonderful heritage. They belong to a tradition of people who have put their faith in God and followed Him (chapter 11).
You and I are also part of that tradition. As well as these ancient men and women of faith we can add to our list the people who have been examples to us throughout the last 2000 years. We can add the people who may no longer be a part of our congregations, people who have made a difference to us. We can be thankful to be a part of this tradition.
The picture of being surrounded by a large cloud of witnesses is this: simply that these people have run their race. We can be thankful, we can be inspired by them, but now it is our turn to run! We don’t sit around and say, “Gee, I wish so-and-so were still here and running their race here”. It’s our turn, this is our time!
Verse 1 finishes with these words:
and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
The future of the Church of the Eastern Wheatbelt lies with Christians of the Eastern Wheatbelt who run the race that God has marked out for them. Not people who want to sit around and watch other people run the race. Not people who want to be served, people who want to serve. Not people who just want to be loved, people who want to love. Not people who want to get their own way, people who want to submit to others out of reverence for Christ. Not people who want to remain as they are, people who want to follow Jesus where He leads.
If we are going to do this we will discover that following Jesus requires perseverance. It will not happen easily, it will require hard work of us. The middle part of verse 1 describes what this work will entail:
let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles
We cannot follow Jesus and harbour sin in our lives at the same time. It is one or the other. That is not to say that we don’t sin, but it is to say that we don’t allow sin to remain in our lives. We confess it, experience God’s forgiveness and healing, and then we live differently. That’s true for us as individuals and it’s true for us as groups. Sometimes sin infiltrates groups. Behaviours are tolerated that should not be tolerated. Attitudes and patterns of speech become normal, that should never be normal for followers of Jesus. Sometimes we need to decide as congregations to throw off some things. Don’t pretend they aren’t there, they need to be exposed, healed and left behind.
Dealing with your own sin can be very difficult. Dealing with sin in a group is much more difficult. Yet it must be done if our congregations are going to be able to follow Jesus.
So that’s what we are to do with sin, but what about the “everything that hinders”? Are there things about us that are hindering the work of God in this region?
This phrase reminds me of Jesus’ teaching about the 4 soils. One soil was described as full of thorns. Jesus said this stands for people who are “choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and do not mature” (Luke 8:14).
All of us are surrounded by distractions and disasters, the question is how much they are able to divert us from following Jesus and doing what He calls us to do.
Another thing that looms as a danger for us are our differences. My own congregation is very different from the other congregations in the Shire of Narembeen. We worship on different days, we have different styles of worship, different traditions, different types of people, different convictions on certain subjects. Those differences can keep us separate, and because we are separate we become estranged and we lose sight of the larger picture of the Kingdom of God.
It’s OK to be different. It’s OK to be separate in aspects of what we do. But we are one Church. We are to love one another. We are to serve one another and serve together.
Read: 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
This letter is addressed to the Church of God in Corinth. It’s God’s Church, not Paul’s or Apollos’ or anyone else’s. There is no Church of Mike in Narembeen or Church of Neil in Bruce Rock. There is only the Church of God. And it’s not the Church in Corinth that meets at Fred’s place, or the Church of South Corinth, or the Corinth Church of Christ. The Christians at Corinth all together form one body, and each has a part to play.
In fact this principle can be zoomed in and out. The Christians in each congregation are one body, each with a special part to play. The Christians in each town form one body, each with a special part to play. The Christians in each region form one body, each with a special part to play. The Christians in each county form one body, each with a special part to play, and the Christians in the whole world form one body, each with a special part to play.
How does that play out? Well, within a local congregation each individual has a unique role according to God’s calling. Within a town or region each congregation has a unique role according to God’s calling, and it keeps growing from there.
You have a part to play, your congregation has a part to play in enabling us as a body to run the race that has been marked out for us.
I wonder how you feel as you hear that? I wonder how many people are feeling like they are already putting in a huge effort just keeping their church going – that it’s a struggle to even get together to worship God and to receive teaching and to share in what some of us call “the sacraments”.
I wonder how many of us have felt let down or abused by others in the church, and have little desire to come together as a body.
I wonder how many have had strong disagreements which have caused them to isolate themselves from others in the body.
2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
If you are weary today and have lost heart – or are in danger of losing heart – what can you do? You might wish that your circumstances would change and things would be suddenly easier, but God never promises that. He does promise to help us endure and to make us fruitful, so long as we fix our eyes on Jesus and follow Him.
Jesus knows what it is like to be tired. He knows what it is like to feel betrayed. He knows what it is like to feel alone. He knows what it is like to be treated unfairly. He knows what it is like to be rejected. He knows what it is like to be misunderstood. He knows what it is like to be criticised. He knows what it is like to suffer extreme stress. He knows what it is like to suffer excruciating physical pain.
Yet Jesus persevered, and He achieved a great victory as a result. He has given us His Spirit to help us endure also.
Never give up. Realise that Jesus understands and that He will help if you allow Him to.
Conclusion
What is the future of the Church of the Eastern Wheatbelt?
• We have heard that God is always at work, and our role is to join Him in that work.
• We have heard that Jesus has marked out a path for us to run.
• We have heard that we run as one body of believers, and we all have different parts to play.
• We have heard that there are things that we will have to throw of if we are to do that.
• We have heard that we can persevere in running this race by fixing our eyes on Jesus.
You might say “Well those are great principles and nice theories, but what should we actually do about this? We still don’t know what to do, and we still don’t know what God is doing.”
You’re right! This sermon is pointless if it finishes here. Yet I do not have the answers to these questions!
We need to start a conversation with God and each other to hear what God is doing, and to find out what we must do.
Let me explain:
Let’s say there was a group of Christian men who attended a men’s conference at the start of this year, which gave them a chance to meet other Christian men in their area. Out of this comes an idea to start a weekly Bible study. So a group starts, and the result is that Christians from a number of different traditions come together to be encouraged and to grow, and to think together and work together to build God’s Kingdom in that area. Sound good? It’s happening in Hyden!
Let’s say someone else believed God wanted them to go to farms that had not received rain and to pray for rain. What if they shared that with other Christians and they ended up with prayer meetings around campfires on farms as people come together to pray? Sound good? It’s happening in Mukinbudin!
Let’s say that someone believed that God wanted them to pray for a husband’s work colleague and to invite her to church, and the result was that this lady is now a member of the church and is bringing more family members along. Sound good? It happened in Kondinin!
These stories are happening all over the place, and I’m sure that I’ve only heard the tiniest proportion of them. God is at work, and He longs for each of us to join Him in that work.
So here’s what I want us to do today. As we break for lunch in a few moments we’ll enjoy catching up with old friends and making new ones, which is great. But let’s not do that in the same way that everyone else does. Let’s do it as members of a body that wants to run the race together. Let’s ask each other about what God is doing in our lives, our congregations and our regions, but let’s not get into any sort of competition to see who’s number 1! We’re all at different stages. Some of us are in the middle of tough stuff at the moment and need to be encouraged to hear stories from others who might be feeling more excited and encouraged. It’s OK to say “I’m not sure what God is doing at the moment” - have you ever read the Psalms!
Here’s some questions that I reckon we can ask one another today:
• What do you see God doing at the moment?
• What can I pray for God to do for you?
• What are some other ways that we can come together?
For example, one person might say “I’m concerned about a lack of Christian peers for my children, they seem to be doing the same sorts of things as their mates and they don’t seem interested in God”. That’s a common struggle isn’t it? Yet there are churches who have good programmes and good core groups of youth. There are great camps and other events that can have a huge impact on young people. We can help each other!
Let’s not be spectators here, let’s all get active and run this race together!
Monday, 25 August 2008
Sermon - The Parable of the Soils (aka The Parable of the Sower)!
As usual visit our website for sermon audio or video, together with easy Scripture lookup... or just watch the video below!
Monday, 18 August 2008
Sermon - Handling Disagreements about What We Believe and How We Should Behave
Light and Darkness Pt 4
Handling Disagreements about What We Believe and How We Behave
Acts 15:1-35
10/08/08
To see the sermon video from the church site with easy links to Scripture passages, go to
Our Church Site
Or else you can simply play the video here and/read the brief notes below.
(sorry the audio is a bit messy at the start - problems at the sound desk!)
Handling Disagreements about What We Believe and How We Behave
Acts 15:1-35
10/08/08
To see the sermon video from the church site with easy links to Scripture passages, go to
Our Church Site
Or else you can simply play the video here and/read the brief notes below.
(sorry the audio is a bit messy at the start - problems at the sound desk!)
Friday, 15 August 2008
Lejla Allison's Testimony - Operation Christmas Child - Video Edition
I just came across this video by Jeff Douglas of Lejla's story and some follow-up content. I think it's a great promotion of what Operation Christmas Child is about, which is acting on God's heart of compassion for the poor and downtrodden in order to bring about hope and healing.
My advice (unless you've got a nice speedy connection) is to press play, then pause it and wait for it to buffer a decent chunk so that you can watch it without it pausing on you all the time.
The Lejla Allison Story from Jeff Douglas on Vimeo.
My advice (unless you've got a nice speedy connection) is to press play, then pause it and wait for it to buffer a decent chunk so that you can watch it without it pausing on you all the time.
The Lejla Allison Story from Jeff Douglas on Vimeo.
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
Lejla Allison's Testimony - Operation Christmas Child
This is a very powerful story of a young girl in war-torn Sarajevo whose life was transformed through the gift of a Christmas Shoebox. Worth sharing with friends!
Lejla's Story
Lejla's Story
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Church website updated
I've been busily learning a few more tricks with Javascript, and the last few weeks' sermons have been added to the website to take advantage of some new functionality.
The new stuff is designed to make it easier to switch between audio & video sections and look at scripture passages and other resources without interrupting streaming media. Let me know if you have any problems!
http://www.birchfamily.org/church
The new stuff is designed to make it easier to switch between audio & video sections and look at scripture passages and other resources without interrupting streaming media. Let me know if you have any problems!
http://www.birchfamily.org/church
Mike's Creamy Coconut Chicken Curry!
A bit of experimentation for last night's dinner, but it worked out pretty nicely - give this one a try if you like a mild chicken curry:
500g skinless diced chicken breast
1 can of creamy coconut milk
sprinkle of paprika
as much peas and corn as you like
1 small can of champignons, sliced & diced (easier for the kids to handle!)
1 tspn (not tbspn!) of curry powder
250ml cream (I use lactose free)
They're listed in the order that I added them to the pan, and the final product was served with steamed rice.
A true cook might shudder, but it went down pretty well with the family!
Maybe the best part about it is that Tim has been learning his alphabet this year, so we gave "Curly C" a real workout with our creamy coconut chicken curry!
500g skinless diced chicken breast
1 can of creamy coconut milk
sprinkle of paprika
as much peas and corn as you like
1 small can of champignons, sliced & diced (easier for the kids to handle!)
1 tspn (not tbspn!) of curry powder
250ml cream (I use lactose free)
They're listed in the order that I added them to the pan, and the final product was served with steamed rice.
A true cook might shudder, but it went down pretty well with the family!
Maybe the best part about it is that Tim has been learning his alphabet this year, so we gave "Curly C" a real workout with our creamy coconut chicken curry!
Sunday, 10 August 2008
Sermon - Light and Darkness pt 3
As we explore together what it means to follow Jesus - turning from darkness into light - we need to face the reality that not all Christians agree on the specifics of what that looks like. This message deals with the situation of not being able to agree on a specific course of action in a specific circumstance, using the example of Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15. My plan is to follow this up with a message that deals with disagreements on general standards of belief and conduct.
Sermon video and audio are available on the church website, together with Scripture links, or you can simply view below.
Sermon video and audio are available on the church website, together with Scripture links, or you can simply view below.
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Book review - "Breath " by Tim Winton
This is the first Tim Winton novel I have read, and what struck me most was his skill at drawing the reader into the world of the story. Breath is the story of a young man known as Pikelet, through his experiences of friendship, competition, love of surfing, hero worship, disillusionment, sexual discovery and experimentation and again, disillusionment.
Much of the story unfolds in an intense natural environment – cold rivers, imposing forest or powerful ocean. The descriptions are so vivid that your imagination has all the information it needs to really take you there.
It opens with a glimpse of Pikelet as an adult – complex and seemingly disconnected – and then leaps back in time to take us through his journey from childhood through adolescence. The opening chapter is also seemingly disconnected from the subsequent story, and the closer you get to the end the more you wonder how the two stories are going to be brought together. Suddenly, almost jarringly so, it happens, and the opening all makes sense. We see how the story has in fact been progressing, and we see implications to events that are in some cases very common as children walk the path toward adulthood.
We held our book club meeting last week, and it was amazing how many topics came up in our review of the book. Yet I think we had only just begun to scratch the surface!
There is much to be explored in terms of the significance of our families of origin – Pikelet and best mate Loonie came from incredibly different home environments – one characterised by stability, predictability and understated affection; the other which offered freedom but lacked intimacy, security and stability.
Another key theme was the role that peers, adults and our hero’s play in the formation of character and identity. So much to explore on this subject, especially when it comes to the impact that adults have on children who are in the process of becoming adults. It’s also very interesting to explore the way that the novel hints at the emotional/psychological impact that children have on adults. Pikelet and Loonie worship their surfie guru Sando, but what was it that motivated his involvement with them – what did he get out of it? What were the longings of Pikelet’s parents – particularly his dad – and how did they react to the disappointment of those longings being unmet as Pikelet became more autonomous and disinterested in them?
There are lots more themes to explore, but the big one for me is the search for satisfaction in life. Many people are apparently satisfied with the ordinary, but the core characters in this story are intoxicated by the extraordinary – or is it more the idea of the extraordinary? They have tasted the thrills of giant and sometimes ugly waves, surfing in a white pointer’s backyard, and soaring high over snowfields, and they can never again be satisfied with ordinary life. They need the rush.
When denied the rush on the snowfield or ocean, they find it in other ways. The closing stages of Pikelet’s childhood story detail how he was drawn into sexual experimentation with an older woman. The adventure starts out as every young man’s fantasy, but ends up as something of a nightmare – yet an addictive one. Returning to Pikelet’s adult life, we discover how far-reaching the ramifications of that journey have been. We see a man disconnected from his own family, a man haunted by the images of his past, who has struggled to find joy and meaning in the ordinary things of life. A man whose only experience of beauty and freedom seem to come when surfing or blowing the didjeridu.
Sometimes our fantasies aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be! Each of the main characters in the story had the chance to experience things that most ordinary people don’t, yet satisfaction and real joy seemed elusive.
How do you balance the search for the rush of the extraordinary with satisfaction with the ordinary? Is that what separates “achievers” from the plebs – they are never satisfied and so are always chasing more?
For me as a Christian, the answer is found in Hebrews 12:1-3 (among other places), which tells me to fix my eyes on Jesus and run the race that He has marked out for me. Real joy, satisfaction and just the right measure of adventure and stability will be found on that pathway, because His ways are perfect. If I refuse to follow Him in some areas because I want to stay safe and secure, the result will be that I will miss enormous blessing. If I refuse to follow Him because I want to chase after things that I think will bring greater thrills etc, I will discover that they end in disappointment or disaster. Only Jesus is the way to abundant life (John
The Apostle Paul did this, and he discovered that it was in fact the secret of contentment. No matter what his circumstances were, his purpose, meaning and joy in life was wrapped up in Jesus.
I don’t want to live a bland, boring life. I also don’t want to be endlessly pursuing satisfaction which seems to be permanently elusive. I don’t want to get caught up in other people’s addictions or desperate searches. I have found what I’m looking for. It’s Jesus. Now I need to journey onwards in what it means to discover abundant life in Him.
Latest batch of photo's posted on the Gallery
A new batch of photo's have just been posted to our media gallery!
They feature Tim helping Grandad with some paving, Alyssa cooking up a storm and Josiah getting cuddles!
They feature Tim helping Grandad with some paving, Alyssa cooking up a storm and Josiah getting cuddles!
Sunday, 3 August 2008
Sermon - Light and Darkness pt 2
We are called to follow Jesus not only as individuals but as communities of believers. In both the Old and New Testaments, God's people were warned to be careful about situations where people within the group had their hearts turned away from the worship of the one true God. Such people would cause the whole community to be led astray and defiled. We look at the importance of maintaining a culture of following Jesus which identifies and deals with these threats as they emerge.
The audio for the second sermon in the series on light and darkness can be found at the church site:
http://www.birchfamily.org/church
You can also read the Scriptures used in the message using the links provided.
The audio for the second sermon in the series on light and darkness can be found at the church site:
http://www.birchfamily.org/church
You can also read the Scriptures used in the message using the links provided.
Friday, 1 August 2008
New Feature - Sermon Video feeds!
Over the last week I've been experimenting with adding sermon video to my website. Originally I hosted it on my own webspace, but I've just changed over to using Google Video. I've made the resolution pretty low (320x240) to save download times and for those people who have stingy download limits. As a result, the video looks pretty poor viewed fullscreen or even at the default size that Google Video displays it if you just navigate directly there. I've embedded it at what I reckon is a good viewing size on the blog and also on my video sermons page. Just go to http://www.birchfamily.org/church & click on video on the menu pane on the left hand side.
Friday, 25 July 2008
Sermon - Light and Darkness pt 1
Scriptures on Light and Darkness:
12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world.John 8:12
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Matthew 6:19-24
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy,
and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and
steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be
full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If
then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or
he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and
Money.
Matthew 6:33
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given
to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry
about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Job 29:2-3
2 “How I long for the months gone by,
for the days when God watched over me,
3 when his lamp shone upon my head
and by his light I walked through darkness!
Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither
the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything
else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ
Jesus our Lord
2 Corinthians 3:18
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed
into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the
Spirit.
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