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This Week
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Previous Weeks
Page 1 of 9
| Sermon Date | Sermon Title | Sermon Abstract |
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| 2/20/2011 | Self conscious vs. God-conscious | This sermon is about what it means to seek first the kingdom of God. Are our ambitions in relation to the approval of people? Is our life a calculation? If so, then we will be always fraught with anxiety. Jesus speaks of a way of care-free living where we ask for what we truly need and are assured of God’s faithfulness in providing it. The Lord’s prayer encapsulates this kind of simple piety. When our life becomes more God-conscious than self-conscious we will have found the key to living without worry, and only then will we be fit to be called disciples of Jesus Christ. |
| 1/23/2011 | The Leadership Class | This sermon is the first in a series on the sermon on the mount. It connects the qualities and conditions which are called “blessed” in the beatitudes (poverty, meekness and purity of spirit, mercy, peaceableness, hunger and thirst for righteousness, mourning, persecution) with the qualities of a person empty enough of ego to begin the walk of discipleship. Jesus wants those who can reflect his light and savour in the world, and so be salt and light in the world themselves. |
| 3/14/2010 | Selfishness | This sermon is about the opposition between love and selfishness. Using the Lord’s supper as an illustration of the Christian ethic of love, mutual service and self-giving, Paul draws a contrast between this and the ethic of slavishishness and selfishness that pertains at the table of the false gods (whom Paul calls the idols or the demons). Christians who have eaten at the table of the Lord should no longer have anything to do with the ritual eating and drinking that tied them to idol worship. But what is the Christian to do then at the majority of social occasions in Corinth where idol meat is served and where the company is likely to be mixed (some pagan, some Christian)? Paul’s rule is that the Christian is free to eat anything, but that that freedom ought to be tempered by a) what serves the needs of the neighbour (that will sometimes mean abstaining if the brother or sister has a weaker conscience) and b) what gives glory to God. Therefore the ethics Paul commends on this matter are very situational/contextual. Christians continue to believe that eating at the Lord’s table enables us to “participate in” Christ ie. to take on something of his mind and heart. So how has our eating and drinking at the Lord’s table changed us into a greater Christ-likeness? For surely all people are on a journey upward into the kingdom of love, or downward into the kingdom of selfishness. The habits we develop in this life concerning the exercise of love or of selfishness really do change us, and really do fit us either for heaven or for hell. |
| 3/7/2010 | Idolatry | Some of the false teachers in Corinth are appealing to the freedom Christians have in Christ (“all things are lawful for me”) to justify behaviour that is heedless of God’s Word and will for us, and thoughtless toward others. What the Corinthians are doing and the offense it causes can only be understood in the cultural context of 1st century Achaia (Greece) where shrines to pagan gods and to the emperor abounded. These temples served as the abattoirs of the ancient world. Leftover meat from religious sacrifices was sold in the temple restaurant and in the marketplace. The temples were also the brothels of the ancient world, since they employed prostitutes for use in the “religious” mysteries. Because some in the Corinthian congregation had come out of a pagan background, and had participated in worship rites in the pagan temples, even the smell of the meat might trigger a bad conscience, and thoughts of the former life. Paul pleads for freedom to be tempered by consideration for what is beneficial toward self and neighbour. He also pleads for freedom to be tempered by discernment about what is ruling our lives: if we are unable to forego a “freedom,” perhaps we are a slave to it. Most passionately Paul pleads for freedom to be tempered by a sense that Christians are not their own – they have been bought with a price and are consecrated, as temples of the Holy Spirit, to the service of Christ. Paul says this particularly of the body, since there are some false teachers in Corinth who are trying to draw a dualistic division between the soul and the body, as if God did not care about what the body did, with respect to food and sex choices. Whereas the city of Corinth is given over to idolatry, Paul argues that the Christian ought to be totally given over to the love of the one God and of neighbour. The two great commandments are an antidote to idolatry since they exert God’s claim over our every faculty. Idolatry is still a temptation for us today, and Paul’s advice about the kind of considerations that ought to discipline our freedom is still very apropos. |
| 2/28/2010 | Immaturity | It may take a long time to mature in Christ to the place where thoughts as well as actions are disciplined and a loving heart replaces a selfish one, but most Christians learn to put away first the very glaring external sins that cause scandal. Paul, however, found such sin in the Corinthian congregation, and with it an attitude of superiority and self-justification. Paul calls such sin, where we talk a good talk but walk a slovenly walk, immaturity, and it prevents him from talking about the deeper mysteries of the faith with the people, since he has to keep reminding them of the basics. Paul’s pastoral answer in the face of such sin is to sweep it out entirely, like the thorough house-cleaning the Jews do prior to Passover, to get rid of every speck of leaven in their houses. Such sin, such Christian immaturity, like leaven, can work upon a whole congregation, until all of them become immature and careless about how they live. This is an important word for us in our day when church discipline has reached such a pass that one is liable to be labeled “judgmental” or “censorious” if he cannot just wink at sin in the church like a “man of the world.” Instead of leading a double life Paul wants his people to live in sincerity and truth, because the Passover lamb (Christ) has been sacrificed for us. Our cleansing has come at a price, so we ought not lightly to wallow in dirt again. |
| 2/21/2010 | Quarrelling | This sermon is the first in a Lenten series on some of the spiritual problems which existed in the Corinthian church (and in our churches). The factionalism in Corinth which was at the heart of their quarrelling (“I belong to Paul, I belong to Apollos”) was really an issue which concerned ownership of the church. Our tendency is to make the church more ours than Christ’s and to assume, in the things we fight over, that the church is more ours than anyone else’s. In Corinth the quarrelling became so bad that some Christians began taking one another to court. Paul says this is shameful, first of all that Christians are wronging one another, secondly that they should submit to the judgment of a pagan judge instead of sorting out their quarrels in-house according to the gifts of wisdom that Christ gave, thus bringing the gospel into disrepute. Paul is not saying that there is never a just cause at the bottom of quarrels Christians have with one another – getting the satisfaction we need and that God’s justice requires is permissible; what is “of the flesh” is entertaining a vengeful attitude that simply wants to destroy the other person, and losing sight of what is incumbent upon us as Christians (to behave graciously) in the course of winning our point. Ultimately we should care more about Christ’s goals in the church than our private agendas, and more about maintaining our Christian integrity than winning or losing our point. A quarrelsome spirit is like a cancer in a congregation – a victory for Satan – because it keeps us spiritually immature, and does not commend the gospel to the outsider. We must deal with this sin by giving it no quarter – by cutting it out. This sermon was preached on a communion Sunday. |
| 2/17/2010 | Blessed to No Advantage | This sermon discusses the cautionary tale of the Israelites in the desert, who were blessed with an awareness of God, but who still sinned and whose end was destruction. Paul argues that they were blessed to no advantage, his point being that if this was the case with them, how much more so for those of his Corinthian congregation who have come into the covenant belatedly, who have been blessed with an awareness of God, but who continue to sin. If knowing the reality of God does not proof us against falling away to our destruction (as was the case with some of the Israelites who left Egypt, as Paul warns will be the case with some in Corinth, if they continue in sin, and which we sense is the case when we meet a person who has been in church all their life (exposed to the blessing) but still has profited little (ie. has failed to transform)), then what hope is there? Is falling to sin inevitable? Paul says that God never tries us without also offering a way out. In God’s creative recapitulation of history, he has not a whole nation, but one representative go into the desert, not for 40 years but for 40 days, and where man failed, he succeeded. Where we fell he stood. This is our way out of the cycle – to trust in Christ for our salvation. (This scripture reading, sermon and the hymn “Guide me O Thou Great Jehovah” supplied the “God’s Word Proclaimed” section of the Ash Wednesday service in 2010. The rest of that service, without the “God’s Word Proclaimed” section, can be found at the “special services” tab of these webpages). |
| 2/14/2010 | Marriage | This sermon looks at marriage, and more specifically Paul’s advice about sex within marriage. Paul is not a prude. He recognizes that not all people have the gift of celibacy as he does, and that marriage is the proper context for the full expression of human sexuality. There are reasons why this most rewarding and potentially destructive force (human sexuality) is kept within marriage in God’s intent. The kind of gracious exchange and self-giving which is what good sex is about, also require a context of security and commitment over long years. In a marriage, intimacy becomes the outward sign (sacrament) of the kind of gracious exchange that is taking place at many levels in the relationship. So far from being anti-sex, Paul warns that if married people do not attend to the intimate side of marriage, there are consequences both for the marriage and for our spirituality. Holiness with Paul is not a cold thing; it is worked out in the warm domesticity of life. Paul also assures Christians who are wed to non-Christians that their marriage can nonetheless be holy. Paul’s high view of marriage, and of the role of sex within marriage is measured by what he says to people in these unequal partnerships: a) your marriage is not disposable – stay unless your partner refuses to stay with you b) your marriage can actually be a source of sanctification for your partner and your children. |
| 2/7/2010 | Eunuchs for the Kingdom | This sermon looks at the teaching of Paul and Jesus on the single life. Far from the suggestion of our modern culture that single people are either desperate and pathetic (eg. Desperate Housewives’ Catherine Mayfair), or else sex-satiated but relationally impaired (eg. Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw), the Bible promises fullness of life to all in Christ – whether they be married or single. Corinth was also a radically paired off society, but Paul said there should a place in light of the age we are now living in, for some to remain single – it might even be the better way, Paul says, because marriage brings distress and divides a person’s focus between the Lord and their spouse. Paul’s statement that remaining single is particularly appropriate to “the age we are now living in” may refer partly to a particular crisis, a famine in 51 AD, which was afflicting Corinth at the time of writing, but Paul is referring more broadly to the age of God’s kingdom, which has come and is coming. Why is singleness particularly appropriate to the kingdom? Because in the coming age there will be neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Single people are a witness to the coming kingdom of God, whereas married people are a witness to God’s faithfulness, mercy and love in sustaining the institutions of stability even in a fallen world. In the Old Testament the witness provided by married people was deemed more valuable: being married and having children was the only way to experience the blessed life. But with the New Testament, the concern with lineage disappears and God himself appears on earth as a man, single and childless. Against the more restrictive view of the Old Testament (ie. that you must be married and have children) and the more restrictive teaching of those in Corinth who were saying because the kingdom was now here, singleness was the only way, the teaching of Paul and of Jesus sounds very moderate and balanced. Both recognize that there are different kinds of people, some need to be married, others are better off single. Both are valid ways of living the life of discipleship. Jesus says there are three categories of singles, those whose fate as single people is determined from birth, those whose fate as a single person has been determined as a result of their life experience, and those who embrace singleness for themselves, as their best way of living out the vocation they have in the Lord. There are many examples of these “kingdom eunuchs” in every Christian community. They are fulfilled people, and their witness is shining. The bottom line is that there are rewards and challenges associated with both marriage and singleness, so what must we do? We must support one another in living faithfully, whatever our particular calling (to be married or to remain single) is, and we must stop the thinking of discontent/self pity, which starts in us whenever we begin to think the other half have it better or easier. Fullness of life is offered to all. |
| 1/31/2010 | World Hunger | Salvation as that which gives meaning to life, over against the malaise of post-modernity (fragmentation, alienation, meaninglessness), is probably more meaningful, at least when speaking to unchurched people, than salvation as the remedy for sin and guilt. We are all looking for something to fill the void at the centre of life. Some try to fill it with work, with success, with relationships, good things in themselves, but unable to sustain the idolatrous expectations we have of them, if we want to make them our all-in-all. Some try escape mechanisms to avoid facing the void at the centre. These can be very destructive. Jesus says: “27"Don't waste your energy striving for perishable food….Work for the food that sticks with you.” Then Jesus indicates himself as the Bread of Life. Augustine suggests that God so makes us with this hunger so he can satisfy it, with this restless heart, so that it can find its rest in him. But many people spend too much time chasing the things that aren’t real (false rabbits), many people never determine their “one thing” – their biggest piece – which ought to go at the centre of life, and which the Bible says ought to be God. Ecclesiastes says that it’s best to determine God’s priority when you are young. The church has always provided youth an opportunity to make that choice after a period of preparation called the catechumenate. The catechumenate is meant to be a journey, during which you move from someone underage in the Christian community to someone competent to choose God for themselves as the one worthy of being the most important thing. The congregation is invited to pray for the catechumens which we shall commission today, to be taken into the church, if they wish, at Easter, and is challenged to judge whether their own living lives up to the standard “the Quester” requires of youth as a bottom line: Fear God and do what he tells you.” |
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