Sermon Notes: The Sixth Commandment – Live and let live

22 02 2016

“You shall not murder.”

In the original Hebrew this commandment is two words: “Don’t kill”. The Hebrew language has 8 words for killing. This one is forbidding unlawful killing of a human being.

For further reading on the subject our Pastor recommended “Issues facing Christians today” by John Stott.

Life is valuable and comes from God. He is the author of life, He gives and takes away: “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” – Genesis 2 v 7

Issues of Life and Death:

  • War
    Most Christians would treat war as a last resort. Some would say that all war is wrong. Sometimes it can be the lesser of the two evils available, eg the Holocaust.
  • Capital Punishment
    Capital punishment isn’t an issue in the UK anymore, but people still being up the question of it after a major crime eg a mass murder in the news. The question raised is the idea of a life for a life, vs it being barbaric, and the risk of legal mistakes.
  • Abortion
    Life is valid from conception: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” – Psalm 139 v 13. This is the biblical understanding. All abortions are results of unwanted pregnancies, whether these be from rape, sex outside of marriage, or other, they’re all from situations outside of God’s perfect plan.
    But we must not forget there is still Grace. God comforts and heals.
  • Euthanasia
    The voluntary choice to end life goes against God having authority to begin and end life. Again there are complexities of course.
    All life is valuable and God given. This isn’t a popular view in our society, we want freedom to choose.
  • Suicide
    Again we don’t have the authority to choose when our lives will end. But again there are complexities. Issues of mental health, awareness of what one is doing.

All of these subjects are complex and require further reading than can be covered in a sermon. For anyone who has broken this commandment though, there is forgiveness available.

It’s much harder to keep this commandment than it initially seems.
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, “You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.” But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” – Matthew 5 vv 21-22a
Jesus raised the bar substantially. These are the things in our lives that can become seeds of much greater issues.

It’s ok to be angry about injustice in this world – we want to share God’s heart. How could God be indifferent to the freezing Syrian children?!

When there is damage in a relationship there may be anger, and it needs dealing with. “In your anger do not sin” – Ephesians 4 v 26a.

Often our anger is tied in with a desire for revenge, that is not ok.

There are four unhealthy ways in which we express anger

  • Pressure Cooker
    Blowing up easily at anything, running on a short fuse.
  • Passive-aggressive
    Won’t express anger in public, bottling it up so our bodies have to deal with it, both physically and mentally, leading to resentment.
  • Martyrs
    Thinking everything is their fault, life is a pity party to which only they are invited.
  • Manipulators
    This could come in many forms, silent treatment, sabotage, little comments, deliberately forgetting things.

We’re capable of any of these!

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” – James 1 v 19
This indicates that we will become angry.

When we are angry with someone we should go to them, but not to explode at them. It’s biblical to describe the hurt we feel and talk it through. We should do this before coming to the Communion table.

It’s not easy! We’re works in progress, and need to work on it.

The bible teaches us not to take revenge or bear grudges.
“See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” – Hebrews 12 v 15

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” – Matthew 6 vv 14-15

When we’re looking to deal with a broken relationship we need to do it slowly and humbly.

We’ve all broken this commandment, Jesus never did. Through Him we find forgiveness.


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Internet highlights – w/c 14th February 2016

20 02 2016

Unwritten rules of social interaction that should be rules

What should have happened in Finding Nemo

Children drew inventions, scientists made them!

Massive changes to Eurovision voting

Excellent examples of extreme laziness

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War and Peace (In one sitting) – by Leo Tolstoy/Joelle Herr

18 02 2016

When the BBC advertised their six-part drama I assumed it’d be way beyond me, but I decided to give it a go. There were a lot of characters and I had to go back to the earlier episodes again once I’d worked out who everyone was, but I really enjoyed it.

So when I saw this version of the book, measuring just 8.5 x 7 x 2.5cm, and covering information on Tolstoy, and introduction, who’s who, and then a summary of the story, I thought it’d be a good way to cement the story I’d seen on screen! I printed off the BBC’s very helpful family tree to use as a bookmark as I went.

The book is pretty chatty:

  • “Phew. That’s a lot of names already in just the first couple of paragraphs! You still with me? OK, let’s keep going.”
  • “awkward alert!”
  • “It’s beautifully written and reasoned, but the section is a little boring – you should be very thankful that I’ve read it for you.”

But it’s not all silly, most of it covers the story at a high enough level to be able to follow it. Of course it feels rushed, it’s 1500 pages and 500 characters down into something smaller than my hand, but it’s definitely a good way of getting the main points. I guess I can now claim to have read War and Peace!

War-and-Peace-Miniature-Edition1


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Sermon notes: The Fifth Commandment – Respect Authority

16 02 2016

“Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

In current society this can be a particularly sensitive commandment with all the family breakdown.

“If anyone fails to honour his parents, is there anyone he will spare?” – Augustine

Parents are ordinarily the first people we know, our first school, our first government, our first hospital.

Honour is a word meaning weighty or heavy, to give due weight to position.

“But mark this: there will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy” – 2 Timothy 3 vv 1-2

Parents deserve honour for the sacrifices they make for their children.

“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” – Colossians 3 v 20. It pleases Him!

This commandment has a wider application of all authority. The Israelites referred to their Kings and spiritual leaders as Father.

We should be praying for our politicians. “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, […] Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honour the emperor.” 1 Peter 2 vv 13,17.

We should be praying for our employers. “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. […] because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.” Ephesians 6 vv 5,8.

Submission is often seen as a forceful suppression, but this is not the case. Submission means cooperating with the God given roles that others have, for His kingdom.

Therefore submitting to church leadership is cooperating with them. In turn, leaders are to exercise this in a way pleasing to God.

The balance to this commandment is Ephesians 6 v 4: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord”

We live in a society where there’s a lot of cynicism towards those in authority – police, politicians etc, so leaders have to work harder to build trust.

This commandment remains in force when children grow up and move out – caring for them as they age.

We all fall short of this commandment as we do with others, but Jesus paid the penalty for us, in doing so in obedience to His heavenly Father.


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Internet highlights – w/c 7th February 2016

13 02 2016

Chocolate cake for breakfast can help you lose weight!

First time buyers have already spent on average £50k on rent

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Anne of Green Gables – by L M Montgomery

10 02 2016

If you haven’t read this book, read this book!

I had the pop up versions of this when I was little, and the VHS, because Anne of Green Gables is where my middle name came from, but I never read the actual book, or, as it turns out – books! The second book in the series is ordered and due to arrive tomorrow 🙂

Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are an older brother and sister who decide to adopt a boy to help on the farm, when he arrives, it turns out it’s actually a girl, it’s Anne. Anne lives in a world of her own imagination, doesn’t stop talking, and is very keen you know that it’s Anne with an E.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BBGB6srEYnC/?taken-by=inekeclewer

Anne gets into all sorts of trouble, never intentionally, but living under strict Marilla’s eye, it takes a while to tame her. She also hates her red hair, and Gilbert Blythe.

I folded down a tonne of page corners in this book, some of my favourite lines are below, all bar one are from Anne herself:

  • “Am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn’t talk? If you say so I’ll stop. I can stop when I make up my mind to it, although it’s difficult.”
  • “Now you see why I can’t be perfectly happy. Nobody could who has red hair.”
  • “It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
  • “Looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them”
  • “I know very well when we grow up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall I do? I hate her husband – I just hate him furiously.”
  • “It wouldn’t do, I suppose, for a minister to have a regally lovely wife, because it might set a bad example. Mrs Lynde says the minister’s wife over at Newbridge sets a very bad example because she dresses so fashionably.”
  • “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
  • “I really think I’d like to be a minister’s wife when I grow up, Marilla. A minister mightn’t mind my red hair because he wouldn’t be thinking of such worldly things. But then of course one would have to be naturally good, and Ill never be that, so I suppose there’s no use in thinking about it.”
  • “It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable.”
  • “It’s always wrong to do anything you can’t tell the minister’s wife.”
  • “I don’t want to cheer up. It’s nicer to be miserable!”

    • And then just one from Mrs Lynde:

  • “It’s a great blessing not to be fat, Marilla. I hope you appreciate it.”

anne of green gables


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Internet highlights – w/c 31st January 2016

6 02 2016

Highlights from Terry Wogan’s Eurovision commentary

Superb inventions

Honest Online Dating Ads (‘scuse the swears)

www.loser.com

Trump Donald

If Disney films were directed by Tim Burton

Superdrug is giving the tampon tax back to customers in reward points

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Sermon Notes: The Fourth Commandment – Work and Leisure

31 01 2016

‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Sunday trading is big news at the moment, but some shops are not in support of it! In fact, Tesco are stopping many of their shops from being open 24 hours. The Keep Sunday Special campaign has been running since 1993.

We don’t want work to be the be all and end all for this country.

Sunday’s are time for rest, family, etc, but primarily to gather with God’s people to worship Him.

Not everyone thinks a day of rest is efficient: “Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.” – Bill Gates. But it’s not about efficiency, we keep the sabbath because God commands it.

This commandment breaks into three parts:

  • “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” – v8 – what to do

    • When the Israelites were in the desert, God provided manna for six days and on the seventh they were due to rest.
    Remembering to rest on the sabbath is an active thing, we can’t just remember it’s the sabbath and then do nothing about it. That’d be like remembering it’s your anniversary but not doing anything about it.

  • “Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.2 – vv 9-10 – how to do it

    • Labour isn’t just paid work, but voluntary, or any form of working.
    It’s not just a day off, Sabbath means “a day of sacred assembly”, it comes from a word meaning to cease, or rest. A day to stop the business as usual.

  • “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” – v11 – why to do it

    • The Sabbath is a gift from God: “Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” – Mark 2 v 27
    It was also a celebration of being saved from Egypt: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” – Deuteronomy 5 v 15

We don’t look back to the Exodus for our salvation, and to slavery in Egypt, but to Jesus saving us from slavery to sin and death!

It is no longer called the Sabbath on a Saturday, but the Lord’s Day on the Sunday.The apostles observed their day of worship and rest on the first day of the week, the day Jesus rose from the dead. E.g. “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.” – Acts 20 v 7.

“Christ took the Sabbath into the grave with him and brought the Lord’s Day out of the grave with him on the resurrection morn.” – BB Warfield
“Christians no longer observe the Sabbath, but direct their lives toward the Lord’s Day, on which our life is refreshed by Him and by His death” – Ignatius

To rest on the Lord’s day, we begin with work. We all have a duty to work in the six days, not necessarily paid work, but for doing useful things with our time: raising families, volunteering, running the home.

According to the Baptist Union, the average amount of times Christians go to church each month at the moment is 2.2.

The Lord’s day is for…

  • …worship

    • To gather together, to enjoy fellowship with God’s people, for catching up on spiritual reading, and spending the whole day in ways that make it God’s day.

  • …mercy

    • The pharisees made up ridiculously strict rules about how little could be done on a Sunday, to the point that if a wall fell on someone they couldn’t be rescued until the next day if they weren’t badly injured. Jesus performed miracles on the sabbath! We can show mercy by visiting someone, have people round for dinner, give to the foodbank.

  • …rest

    • We should cease from our normal daily routine, from work, from studies, from housework. Of course some have to work on Sundays, those who provide medical care or preserve public safety, and church ministers! – they are wise to set another day aside for rest at least if not public worship.

We’re to come together for worship: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” Ephesians 2 vv 19-22

The greatest rest and spiritual refreshment we can find is at the foot of the Cross.

“‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’” – Matthew 11 vv 28-30

It’s not my day off, it’s His day, the Lord’s day.


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Internet highlights – w/c 24th January 2016

30 01 2016

Questions left hanging by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

They’ve found a new Beatrix Potter Book!

For maths geeks: totally addictive game guessing the correlation of graphs

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Sermon Notes: The Third Commandment – Name Above All Names

26 01 2016

“You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”

Our names are given to us, we don’t get to choose them. Our parents use their authority over us to give them to us. But we didn’t give God His name, He tells us.

This is the first commandment where God speaks about Himself in the third person. So that He can call Himself LORD or Yahweh – “I am who I am”. It’s not a name, but an identity. Not just a label.

A more literal translation of this commandment would be “You shall not lift up the name of the LORD your God for nothingness”. We’re not to use His name thoughtlessly, carelessly or flippantly.

We can still use God’s name! We just can’t misuse it. Yahweh is in the Old Testament nearly 7000 times!

God’s name was misused in the Old Testament in three ways

  1. Sorcery
    “Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practises divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord” – Deuteronomy 18 vv 10-12a
  2. False Prophecy
    “Then the Lord said to me, ‘The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries[a] and the delusions of their own minds. Therefore this is what the Lord says about the prophets who are prophesying in my name: I did not send them” – Jeremiah 14 vv 14-15a
    The prophets always said “Thus saith the LORD”
    Church history is littered with people claiming the name of God on their side for all sorts of things to advance their own agendas.
  3. Swearing False Oaths
    A common phrase was “As the LORD lives”, and so if this is used when lying, this is not casual.

The consequence: “the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name” – v7b.

Misusing God’s name is a sin because it’s a direct attack on His honour and glory. It’s serious.

The most obvious misuse today is using Jesus’ name as a swear word or exclamation point.

Imagine someone you know insults a member of your family, we’d react. It’s scary, but maybe we should politely tell people it offends us when they take the name of our God in vain.

We need to watch our language too. If we use it as a throwaway word, it’s an indication of the true spiritual condition of our heart.

We may say we don’t do that, but there are more subtle ways.

It’s easy to say that God told us to do something without testing it against God’s word or with other Christians. If it goes against the bible then it’s a form of false prophecy. With all things we should be testing against Scripture.

Even more subtle, and potentially more dangerous – taking a bible verse out of context, to say something we want it to say.

Some non-conformists and puritans went through a period of not singing in church for fear they couldn’t live up to what they were singing. This may sound extreme, but we’ve lost some reverence for God’s name. Do we really live out what we sing with our mouths? Singing is biblical and fundamental, but we need to think about the words we’re singing.

It’s not just not negative, but positive to – we’re to honour God’s name. The Lord’s prayer says “Hallowed be Your name”. The Psalms are great for honouring God’s name.
“Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name” – Psalm 29 v 9
“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!” – Psalm 103 v 1

We’re also instructed to
“trust in the name of the LORD” – Isaiah 50 v 10
“fear this glorious and awesome name, the LORD Your God” – Deuteronomy 28 v 58

As Christians, we bear Christ’s name, we’re baptised into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That name is now associated with all we say and do. “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” – Colossians 3 v 17.

It may say He will not hold anyone guiltless, but this is where the gospel steps in! “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1 v 9


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