Lent 3: There is No Need to Sin....Ever

Isaiah 55:1-9  Luke 13:1-9 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Isaiah contains this wonderful promise/offer to all people to come to God … and to be satisfied, to be content, to have a sense that… the Lord is my Shepherd, therefore… I have everything I need.

This great invitation from God, saying to you and to me, today… Come… I have an abundance of the things you need… do you want some?

In Luke Jesus speaks about sin and then tells a parable... in a sense He says: “stop sinning and bear fruit.’

The fig tree in Scripture, like the vineyard, is usually always a metaphor for God’s people… you and me. So God is saying to us, to you, to me, stop sinning and bear fruit.

In our first year in our new home in Norwich we planted a fig tree, two olive trees and a grapevine (in Scripture these are all signs of having reached the place of settling down). The fig bore fruit the next year, the vine last year, and we still await our first olive crop.

In the parable, the fig tree (God’s people… God’s Church… you and me) hasn’t born fruit for 3 years.

3 is such a symbolic number, an important number, in Scripture… it often signifies completion or perfection; or wholeness. Here we have a tree (a people, a church) that should be whole and complete and doing what it should be doing, bearing fruit.

But it isn’t, and the owner says: Pull it up, get rid of it. But the person tending the tree in the vineyard, in other words, the vine-dresser, who in another parable Jesus says is “My Father”…. The vine-dresser says… Wait… give it one more year and I’ll dig, I’ll fertilize, I’ll feed it, and let's see what happens.

God is so patient, so caring, so “long suffering” towards His people, His Church, you and me.......isn't He?

The God who in Isaiah invites us to feast off His abundance, the Lord who supplies all our needs… is patient when we don’t allow His provision to feed us, sustain us, and bring us to fruit bearing in the world around us… bearing and providing for the thirsty, hungry world around us…. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, humility, and self control.

So in this season of Lent, this season which encourages us to do without to abstain or fast in some way… here in the 3^rd week God teases us with the promise of abundance, of provision, of supply for our needs… which the Biblical story is full of.

The Biblical story is also full of the truth that our sin is a barrier between us and our God and therefor between us and the abundance that God seeks to shower upon us. As an umbrella keeps rain off us, our sin keeps Gods overflowing abundance off us. But, praise God, just as an umbrella does not separate all the rain from us, so too, praise God, does our sin not keep all of God’s abundance away from us. Otherwise, we would, truly, be dead.

So in Luke Jesus says: “Stop sinning… not because I want to spoil your fun, but because I want to feed and fertilize you and bring you to full fruit bearing – I want you to be everything I know you can be, everything I created you to be, but your sin… hinders my work in you."

Stop sinning… bear fruit.

Can I stop sinning?

Let’s find an answer to that question in our reading from Corinthians and let’s uncover the truth about temptation – a truth that perhaps will set us free – free from sin and free to bear fruit.

Six truths reveal themselves in our reading:

1.    Temptations are the primary reason you desire to sin. The fall into sin is always preceded by a temptation that has overtaken you.

2.    Temptations are particularly dangerous when you think you can’t fall – that’s interesting isn’t it? You’d think it would be the opposite… that you would be strong when you think you are strong… but that’s when we’re at our weakest.

3.    Temptations seek to overtake you. They are not inactive, but active. But here is a wonderful truth. Before every sin lies it’s temptation. If you defeat the temptation… you will not commit the sin.

4.    The temptations you experience are never unique, but always common. This is the beginning of good news, of gospel: Your temptation is not unique, or bigger than anyone else’s temptation.

Now comes the really Good News:

5.    Temptations aren’t allowed to go beyond your ability to resist them. Because of His faithfulness to us, God will not allow you or me to be tempted beyond our ability to resist temptation. Isn’t that Good News… God limits temptation.

It gets even better.

6.    Temptations are always accompanied by the Lord’s way of escape. God provides – he is Jehovah Jireh...... My provider.

So Jesus says: Stop sinning and bear fruit, and this is a command of God throughout Scripture.

Stop sinning: Not in order to be saved. We are not saved by whether we stop sinning or not.

We are saved… by faith.

So don’t stop sinning in order to be saved, stop sinning because you are saved and in order to bear fruit.

Come to the God who says… Come.

Come to the God who says… Eat.

Come to the God who says… Drink.

Com to the God who promises to provide all He knows you need right now.

The First Attempt to Kill Jesus

Jeremiah 1:4-10 and Luke 4:21-30

First Words at Home

First Words at Home

Nehemiah and Luke

We have been looking at some firsts in Jesus' life over the last few weeks. Last week… Jesus’ first miracle.

This week… Jesus’ first words as a preacher in His home town.

Our focus today is on the Word of God, the Bible, and the influence, the authority, we give to it in our lives.

Easter: Look out from, rather than in to, the Tomb

My Lenten journey in 2017 continues to remind me that there is no tomb that can hold Jesus.

He cannot be, and will never be, found in the tomb..... 

therefore, let us stop looking in to the tombs in our lives, and start looking out from the tombs in our lives...........

the view is so much better, and always has Jesus in it

Pentecost 2016

Acts 2:1-13

Pentecost is often seen as the beginning of the Church, and as we work through we’ll see how Luke has this idea of beginning in his mind and has the Genesis account of ‘in the beginning’ in his mind. There is a new birth recorded for us in this reading today, maybe there is a rebirth waiting for you TODAY.

When the day of Pentecost came, 

Pentecost is a Jewish festival of Harvest.  It is 50 days after the Passover Festival and was one of those festivals that Jews were expected to attend in Jerusalem. That’s why there is a crowd from all over the world. 

Tongue: Redeemed or Weapon of Mass Destruction

James 3:1-12 & Mark 8:27-38

We continue our journey through James and come to perhaps the best-known part of James letter: the part where he talks about the tongue. If there is one thing about James and his theology that we should have learned by now, it is surely this: salvation faith must be matched by actions.

James and the Tongue

This week the lectionary has us looking at Mark 8:27-38 and James 3:1-12
While the lectionary readings aren't meant to be connected to each other, I am using Jesus harsh words to Peter as an example of what I will call "redemptive" use of the tongue and contrast that with James examples of "unredemptive" use of the tongue. Here are the readings:

Has the Church Lost the Fear of the LORD?

Psalm 111
Can I start this evening by asking: What do you fear? Perhaps take it one step further and ask: What is the primary fear in your life right now?

Our fears often determine the way we live and the plans we make for the future.

Consequences

 I think I am once again going to use both the OT and Gospel readings this week and look at Consequences. The OT reading continues with the consequences of David's sexual abuse of Bathsheba, while the Gospel reading has the consequences of Jesus feeding the multitude, which has this eventual result: On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” .... From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

A Tale of Two Approaches to Jesus

                           

                                    

Mark 5:21-43
This reading could lead to a sermon entitled "A Tale of Two Daughters" but I am rather going to call it "A Tale of Two Approaches to Jesus" ... both titles lead to the same good news, namely: He is within reach.

What Are You Afraid Of ?

 

Jesus Calmed the Storm JUST by Speaking

This week's lectionary readings take us to David facing Goliath, Paul laying his credentials before the Corinthians and Jesus dealing with a storm the same way He deals with demons, telling it to shut up.

Here are this week's readings:

The Kingdom of God is like the worst weed you can imagine!!!

 1 Samuel 15:34 - 16:13   Mark 4:26-34   2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17

To understand the provocative title of my sermon, we need to understand that the Kingdom of God is completely different from any other kingdom on earth and is different from any kingdom that you and I could ever think of. Although he uses these words in a different context, when Paul writes that "The old has gone, the new is here!"  (2Cor5:17), he is speaking to the reality that the Kingdom of God on earth is radically different to any other kingdom and those who live in God's Kingdom now, on earth, are a radically different people. God's thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are God's ways our ways ... Isaiah 55:8-9 ... which means that when we become God's people through Christ and living in the power of the Holy Spirit our thoughts are no longer like the thoughts of the people around us and our ways are no longer like the ways of the world. We are radically different ... "The old has gone, the new is here!"

Seed and Mustard Weed

This week's lectionary readings are beauties. Samuel (and we) discover that "The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." The Gospel readings have more of Jesus' seed parables, the growing seed and the mustard seed (weed). Jesus compares the kingdom of God with a crop from seeds randomly scattered. Then he compares it with the seed of mustard weed, which, in fact, no one would try to plant at all. Both are parables in the truest sense. They mess with our usual ways of thinking about things and leave us perplexed, scratching our heads, if we hear them carefully and take them seriously. Now, the Old Testament, Gospel and Epistle readings are not meant to compliment each other, but Paul certainly sums things up with "The old has gone, the new is here!"

Here are this week's readings:

Lent 2: Deny, Take up, Follow

Mark 8:31-38
My devotional reading for Lent (Tom Wright's Lent for Everyone) had me reading Luke 6:20-27 on Friday, where Jesus seems to give folk a little poem to help remember His teaching.
Here these words of Jesus, and let them minister to you:

What is the Gospel and did Jesus preach it?

and did Jesus preach it ?

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’

Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, ‘Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’ The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth......When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

This week's texts exemplify Epiphany, the season after Christmas which began with the visit of the Wise Men, the season where our focus is on Jesus, light to all people.  The story of Jonah is relatively well known, even to people who no longer or never have had an interest in the Scriptures. In the week ahead, I invite you to read all of Jonah's 48 verses without being swallowed up by the tale's fishiness. Instead, focus on God's abundant love for all people.

When God calls

image sourced here

Here are the lectionary readings for this Sunday 18 Jan. My focus will be on Samuel and John, delving into the call of God:

Advent 2: Prepare the Way for the Lord

Isaiah 40:1–11  and Mark 1:1–8

Comfort, comfort my people,

    says your God.

 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

    and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

    that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

    double for all her sins.

Israel had been through a terrible time. These words are spoken to the nation in Exile in Babylon, after a dreadful siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, which in fact the LORD had

Advent 1: When, O Lord...How much longer?

Isaiah 64:1–9 Psalm 80:1–7, 17–19 1 Corinthians 1:3–9
Mark 13:24–37


In Isaiah, the prophet calls for God to appear decisively, to "tear open the heavens" so the nations would tremble and he also confesses the need for such decisive intervention -- the utter sinfulness of humanity, even of those who are part of God's covenant. Finally, he changes metaphors -- from earthly catastrophe to remaking , begging God to be merciful when God comes. We also call out to God...often...and ask Him to act decisively, don't we?


The Psalmist records the people crying out for restoration from the midst of exile.

Last Sunday of Pentecost: Christ the King Sunday

Here are the Lectionary Readings for this Sunday, the last Sunday of the year, with a new year starting with Advent on 30 November.

Ezekiel 34:11–16, 20–24

  Psalm 100

 Ephesians 1:15–23  

Matthew 25:31–46

Matthew and the Great Assize (read John Wesley's sermon on Judgement Day here), will be my focus as we look at the seldom preached truth that on Judgement Day, we will all be judged by our works,