When God's old covenant people, the nation of Israel, were disobeying the law of Moses by failing to tithe, they were told through the prophet Malachi that they were in effect robbing God himself (Mal. 3:8-9).
Christians today must not feel bound by old covenant tithing regulations as they would then be living under law and not under grace, contrary to New Testament teaching. Nevertheless, there is an abiding spiritual principle in Malachi's prophecy which carries over from the old covenant into the new covenant era: it is possible for any of God's people living in any age to commit robbery by withholding from the Lord what is rightfully his.
We need to follow the way of grace. This means responding to Jesus' love for us, displayed in his sacrificial death, by applying to ourselves five principles which can be derived from Paul's teaching in 2 Corinthians 8-9:
1. Adopt the right attitude (2 Cor. 9:5-7). We should give generously and joyfully, not grudgingly.
2. Let your heart decide (2 Cor. 9:7). A heart that surrenders to God's grace in Christ resists greed and covetous desires.
3. Give in proportion to blessing received (2 Cor. 8:12, Acts 11:29, 1 Cor. 16:2). We give as the Lord prospers us.
4. Aim for Christian equality (2 Cor. 8:13-14). Our goal must be to enable every Christian to have enough in the situation assigned to him by God.
5. Follow the example of Christ (2 Cor. 8:9). Experience of the grace of Christ ought to result in the grace of giving on our part, thereby showing our love for him and for others.
You can listen to the full sermon here...
Wednesday 26 May 2010
Tuesday 25 May 2010
God's Long Holiday
This Sunday we were looking at Genesis 2v1-3 the day upon which God rested. It means He ceased from creating. It is not saying that he has stopped working, John 5v17 makes that clear.
Genesis 2 paints a picture of rest that is bigger than, but not less than a day off. Biblical rest is that of enjoying God by enjoying his creation. In Gen 2v4-24 we see this rest pictured, marked by a series of perfect relationships. So we see perfect relationships between God and Man: there were no barriers between them. God and Man were able to walk, talk, and just be together. Man and Woman, enjoyed marital bliss, there were no disagreements. Man and Creation worked in harmony so that the earth brings forth its fruit. All was as God had intended it. Now we learn in Genesis 3 that this was ruined by man’s disobedience and the consequence of that was these relationships were distorted. We now do not enjoy rest as it should be – in fact it is hard to describe life as restful full stop. Yet this Rest as described in Genesis 2 is still God’s purpose for us and in fact it is where the world is heading, to a time when such rest will be restored in the new creation. But how do we enjoy that rest today?
Jesus says in Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” It is through Jesus' death and resurrection and by us trusting and obeying him that we find this rest once more. Thus I am now welcomed back into the Garden of Eden or at least the restored Garden of Eden, to ultimately enjoy God by enjoying His creation. Now I fully enter into the rest upon my death or Jesus’ return but I can experience something of that rest now as well.
I can experience it by taking a day off a week from my work, setting aside a day each week to exclusively worship God. But more than that, I can enjoy this Rest each and every day. So in the midst of busyness I can pause and pray turning to my heavenly Father and enjoying His rest. Or as I praise Him in song between meetings, or in my lunch break when I turn and read a few verses from scripture. As we do these things, we begin to enjoy Him and we find ourselves being refreshed, restored because this is what we have been made for. We need to be seeking Him, the giver of true rest. But I can also enjoy this rest when I meet up with friends, spend time with my family. Or by pausing to listen to the birds sing and thus enjoy God's creation. As I do these things I will find His rest, because this was His purpose for us as seen in Genesis 2.
Yet even by doing these things we only partially experience His rest now. But one day, we will live with Him for eternity, able to enjoy Him fully once more, enjoying all that He has recreated and restored. That is the wonderful picture of Revelation 21v3-4, for that describes the rest once more, the rest as it was intended in Genesis 2, the rest we have been made to enjoy. Are you?
You can listen to the Genesis series of sermons here...
Genesis 2 paints a picture of rest that is bigger than, but not less than a day off. Biblical rest is that of enjoying God by enjoying his creation. In Gen 2v4-24 we see this rest pictured, marked by a series of perfect relationships. So we see perfect relationships between God and Man: there were no barriers between them. God and Man were able to walk, talk, and just be together. Man and Woman, enjoyed marital bliss, there were no disagreements. Man and Creation worked in harmony so that the earth brings forth its fruit. All was as God had intended it. Now we learn in Genesis 3 that this was ruined by man’s disobedience and the consequence of that was these relationships were distorted. We now do not enjoy rest as it should be – in fact it is hard to describe life as restful full stop. Yet this Rest as described in Genesis 2 is still God’s purpose for us and in fact it is where the world is heading, to a time when such rest will be restored in the new creation. But how do we enjoy that rest today?
Jesus says in Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” It is through Jesus' death and resurrection and by us trusting and obeying him that we find this rest once more. Thus I am now welcomed back into the Garden of Eden or at least the restored Garden of Eden, to ultimately enjoy God by enjoying His creation. Now I fully enter into the rest upon my death or Jesus’ return but I can experience something of that rest now as well.
I can experience it by taking a day off a week from my work, setting aside a day each week to exclusively worship God. But more than that, I can enjoy this Rest each and every day. So in the midst of busyness I can pause and pray turning to my heavenly Father and enjoying His rest. Or as I praise Him in song between meetings, or in my lunch break when I turn and read a few verses from scripture. As we do these things, we begin to enjoy Him and we find ourselves being refreshed, restored because this is what we have been made for. We need to be seeking Him, the giver of true rest. But I can also enjoy this rest when I meet up with friends, spend time with my family. Or by pausing to listen to the birds sing and thus enjoy God's creation. As I do these things I will find His rest, because this was His purpose for us as seen in Genesis 2.
Yet even by doing these things we only partially experience His rest now. But one day, we will live with Him for eternity, able to enjoy Him fully once more, enjoying all that He has recreated and restored. That is the wonderful picture of Revelation 21v3-4, for that describes the rest once more, the rest as it was intended in Genesis 2, the rest we have been made to enjoy. Are you?
You can listen to the Genesis series of sermons here...
Monday 24 May 2010
Monday 17 May 2010
Genesis 1:28-31 Everybody Rules
In the post below we talked about man’s unique nature – being made in the image of God. Yesterday we thought about what Genesis 1:28-31 tells us about our unique role as image bearers.
1. Remember: It’s a good thing! The whole creation and God’s purpose are very good (v31). To be human, (God's image bearer), is to be particularly blessed. (v28). Ultimately that blessing comes through enjoying relationship with Him and all He does for us.
2. God’s image bearer’s are to be fruitful and increase in number (v28). God desires his people to be fruitful and later He will prescribe marriage as the setting for this.
3. God’s image bearers are to rule and subdue. Ruling is not repression or exploitation but loving rule, just like God (see Psalm 145). Subduing is working to enjoy, overcome, conquer and develop the created world. From agriculture to every other form of culture so long as it does not elevate the creation higher that the creator. We are to subdue to consume and enjoy. We are to subdue for need and, yes for pleasure.
4. God’s image bearers are dependent on Him v29-30. It is God who gives us this role and He decides how it should be exercised.
Of course we need to remember the fall. The earth is scarred. We need more than the creation mandate, we need a redeemer. But there is real purpose and value in exercising our role even though the world is not as it was then.
So, what are you going to do this week to explore and enjoy God’s world, and to take care of God’s world?
Listen to the full sermon here...
1. Remember: It’s a good thing! The whole creation and God’s purpose are very good (v31). To be human, (God's image bearer), is to be particularly blessed. (v28). Ultimately that blessing comes through enjoying relationship with Him and all He does for us.
2. God’s image bearer’s are to be fruitful and increase in number (v28). God desires his people to be fruitful and later He will prescribe marriage as the setting for this.
3. God’s image bearers are to rule and subdue. Ruling is not repression or exploitation but loving rule, just like God (see Psalm 145). Subduing is working to enjoy, overcome, conquer and develop the created world. From agriculture to every other form of culture so long as it does not elevate the creation higher that the creator. We are to subdue to consume and enjoy. We are to subdue for need and, yes for pleasure.
4. God’s image bearers are dependent on Him v29-30. It is God who gives us this role and He decides how it should be exercised.
Of course we need to remember the fall. The earth is scarred. We need more than the creation mandate, we need a redeemer. But there is real purpose and value in exercising our role even though the world is not as it was then.
So, what are you going to do this week to explore and enjoy God’s world, and to take care of God’s world?
Listen to the full sermon here...
Tuesday 11 May 2010
Genesis 1.26,27: Men – intelligent monkeys or sophisticated machines?
What are human beings? Many people might consider them just advanced animals or like a super-computer. Sadly, when we consider ourselves just animals we can justify behaving like them. Or if we think of people as just machines we can simply turn them off and throw them away if they’re not working. But we are something more complex and wonderful than that. Genesis tells us that God created human beings as the pinnacle of His creation. He made men and women equal in status and dignity. They are the image of God – meaning they resemble in some way the divine. They are not the same as God but like a mirror they reflect God. Some of the ways we do that –
• Morality: a sense a right and wrong, holiness and evil
• Spirituality: a spiritual life enabling us to relate to God in prayer, praise and service
• Immortality: that we will not cease to exist but forever be praising God or punished by Him
• Mental Faculties: we can reason, think logically; communicate in abstract language. We can imagine and thus create. We have emotions
• Relationships: a profound need for community beyond the self-interest of animals
• Physically: not that God has a body but as He sees, hears speaks and feels, so do we.
• Rule: We act on God’s behalf to rule the world
All these characteristics are corrupted by the fall but we are still image bearers. With great joy we recognise that Jesus restores the image of God, that those who trust Jesus will be transformed into His likeness and when Jesus appears we shall be like him. We are more than a small cog in a massive machine. We mean something because God made us that way. We need to get back in contact with our maker and know what it really means to delight in Him.
Listen to the full sermon here...
• Morality: a sense a right and wrong, holiness and evil
• Spirituality: a spiritual life enabling us to relate to God in prayer, praise and service
• Immortality: that we will not cease to exist but forever be praising God or punished by Him
• Mental Faculties: we can reason, think logically; communicate in abstract language. We can imagine and thus create. We have emotions
• Relationships: a profound need for community beyond the self-interest of animals
• Physically: not that God has a body but as He sees, hears speaks and feels, so do we.
• Rule: We act on God’s behalf to rule the world
All these characteristics are corrupted by the fall but we are still image bearers. With great joy we recognise that Jesus restores the image of God, that those who trust Jesus will be transformed into His likeness and when Jesus appears we shall be like him. We are more than a small cog in a massive machine. We mean something because God made us that way. We need to get back in contact with our maker and know what it really means to delight in Him.
Listen to the full sermon here...
Wednesday 5 May 2010
Genesis 1:1-25 - In the beginning
God was there in the beginning: He is outside creation
The universe had a beginning and God was there. In Genesis 1 Moses describes the creator God who had saved and led his people Israel. God is our source of information, but we need to be humble about what he does and does not tell us. He made everything we see, but the focus is not so much on the process (how God did it) but on the purpose (for His glory, yes, but for making a place where men and women can live in relationship with God).
God made everything with good purposes
We cannot be adamant about the method. Survival of the fittest and adaptation is going on all the time in our world. We need to admit that we do not know precisely how God made things so we don’t know what trace that leaves behind. Certainly there is a common designer using common materials so it is perfectly reasonable that there is a commonality between all living things. However a number of factors make the biblical God incompatible with a total evolutionary framework
• He spoke and things happened instantly. Even allowing for the poetry it does not seem to do justice to the purposeful good precise activity of God to assume he had to wait for time and chance and many failed attempts
• He made everything after its kind (species). No hint of crossing the species boundaries which evolution demands.
We cannot insist Genesis is precisely describing sequence & time periods. Nor do we know how the fall, and later the flood affected the ageing processes. So discussions about the age of the earth are not really very productive. It would seem most reasonable that creation of the basic elements of our world happened instantaneously at the beginning and then the universe we know is called to order over 6 days, but Christians do differ over how to read Genesis 1.
What we know for certain is that God was there in the beginning and more precisely that Christ was there as the agent of creation. Our best approach is to introduce people to Jesus. When they know Him as Saviour and Lord they are ready to accept His explanation about what happened in the beginning.
Listen to the full sermon here...
The universe had a beginning and God was there. In Genesis 1 Moses describes the creator God who had saved and led his people Israel. God is our source of information, but we need to be humble about what he does and does not tell us. He made everything we see, but the focus is not so much on the process (how God did it) but on the purpose (for His glory, yes, but for making a place where men and women can live in relationship with God).
God made everything with good purposes
We cannot be adamant about the method. Survival of the fittest and adaptation is going on all the time in our world. We need to admit that we do not know precisely how God made things so we don’t know what trace that leaves behind. Certainly there is a common designer using common materials so it is perfectly reasonable that there is a commonality between all living things. However a number of factors make the biblical God incompatible with a total evolutionary framework
• He spoke and things happened instantly. Even allowing for the poetry it does not seem to do justice to the purposeful good precise activity of God to assume he had to wait for time and chance and many failed attempts
• He made everything after its kind (species). No hint of crossing the species boundaries which evolution demands.
We cannot insist Genesis is precisely describing sequence & time periods. Nor do we know how the fall, and later the flood affected the ageing processes. So discussions about the age of the earth are not really very productive. It would seem most reasonable that creation of the basic elements of our world happened instantaneously at the beginning and then the universe we know is called to order over 6 days, but Christians do differ over how to read Genesis 1.
What we know for certain is that God was there in the beginning and more precisely that Christ was there as the agent of creation. Our best approach is to introduce people to Jesus. When they know Him as Saviour and Lord they are ready to accept His explanation about what happened in the beginning.
Listen to the full sermon here...
Philippa Stroud criticised in the Observer
Reading this article it struck me that if the secular press were to visit most evangelical churches they would probably be outraged. Most of us in church leadership wouldn't be allowed to hold significant office in any of the three main parties. I'm not saying Philippa Stroud has the right approach though.
Read the article here
Monday 3 May 2010
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