This Sunday morning we start a new sermon series titled, “The Fight Against Spiritual Boredom.” For the next month or two we are going to work our way through the Book of Malachi – the last prophet of the Old Testament.

Malachi addresses a group of people plagued with apathy. Spiritual boredom prevailed in the lives of the Israelites. They were bored with life, bored with God’s love, with worship, with ministry, with faithfulness, and with giving. The same apathy and spiritual boredom that the Israelites experienced in the book of Malachi is still prevalent today. Are you bored with the Christian faith? If so, you need to hear the message of Malachi.

What we will discover in Malachi is that  God is not boring in the least. Rather, it is because we fail to recognise God for who He really is.In the first five verses of Malachi, the Israelites have grown bored with God’s love. They ask God a simple question, “How have you loved us?” To them it was a fair question. They had been exiled is Babylon, and although they had now returned to Jerusalem, everything was a mess. The city had been destroyed. The temple had been rebuilt and the walls of the city had been rebuilt, but there was still lots of work to be done. Life was not supposed to be this difficult for God’s chosen people. If God loved them, then why was everything so hard? Maybe you’ve asked a similar question. What does it mean that God loves us, and why is life so difficult at times…

I don’t usually make a fuss about dates, but May 8, 15, and 22 are the BIG THREE on our church calendar.

We began with Ascension Thursday (which is about remembering Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of God the Father). This Sunday is Whitsunday (which is about remembering the arrival of our “helper” and “comforter”). Most people know it as Pentecost and some even call it the “birthday” of the Church. The “BIG” three finishes with Trinity Sunday (which is about celebrating our belief in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

Pentecost is a fantastic story. Rushing wind, flaming tongues, and a powerful sermon from a fisherman turned evangelist calling people to repent and be baptised. But don’t miss how Acts 2 ends. The power of the Spirit that flowed through the Peter’s words is the power that gathered people into a new community.

What kind of community?

That’s where Acts 2 gets interesting. The characteristics of this new people reflect the work of the Holy Spirit. What are they doing?

• They are devoted to the apostles’ teaching. This is a “word” centered group of people. No surprise there. The Spirit inspired the apostle’s teaching.
• They are devoted to fellowship. They love each other. No surprise there. The Spirit of love has been poured into their hearts.
• They break bread together at the Communion table. No surprise there. Through the Spirit, Christ is present with us when we gather and proclaim His death through the Lord’s Supper.
• They are devoted to praying together. No surprise there. The Spirit is the One who groans within us when our words run out.
• They are marked by fear of the Lord. No surprise there. God has given us the Spirit of all wisdom, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
• They are marked out by witnessing the signs and wonders of the apostles. No surprise there. We too have seen God’s wonders. We’ve seen Him rescue people from sin, we’ve seen Him heal people of sickness in answer to our prayers, we’ve seen Him soften the hardest heart.
• They are willing to share their belongings and give to one another. No surprise. The Spirit of generosity has been poured out on God’s people.
• They show hospitality, going from house to house. No surprise. This is the Spirit who welcomes us into the throne room of grace.
• They are filled with gladness and simplicity. No surprise. This is the Spirit, the Comforter who brings us joy in God.
• They praise God. No surprise. The Spirit lifts up Jesus, and whenever we proclaim Him as Lord, it’s through the work of the Spirit.
• They find favor with all the people. No surprise. The Spirit fills us with love and self-giving devotion to others, so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.

Praise God! In His Spirit we have all we need to love Jesus, love each other and love Norfolk Island!

We’ve been thinking a lot about relationships these couple of weeks while we’ve been working through Colossians (not to mention enjoying “pop-up” weddings).

I’m always amazed at how realistic the Bible is about relationships within the church. You don’t get an unrealistic view of what it will cost to live together, as evidenced by these commands:

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. (Romans 15:1)

…bearing with one another in love… (Ephesians 4:2)

…bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:13)

How unglamorous.

Paul is assuming that there will be times that we’ll just have to put up with each other, doing the best we can to stay in relationship despite the challenges. This is, and always will be, part of ordinary church life until Christ returns.

I love what Charles Simeon wrote:

However meek and lowly we are in ourselves, it cannot fail but that we must occasionally meet with things painful from others. The very graces which we manifest will often call forth the enmity of others, and cause them to act an injurious part towards us. But, if this should be the case, we must be long-suffering towards them, not retaliating the injury, nor harbouring resentment in our hearts, but patiently submitting to it, as to a dispensation ordered by Infinite Wisdom for our good. But, where this is not the case, there will still be occasions of vexation, arising from the conduct of those around us: the ignorance of some, the misapprehensions and mistakes of others, the perverseness of others, the want of judgment in others, sometimes also pure accident, will place us in circumstances of difficulty and embarrassment. But from whatever cause these trials arise, we should shew forbearance towards the offender, from a principle of love; not being offended with him, not imputing evil intention to him, not suffering our regards towards him to be diminished; but bearing with his infirmities, as we desire that God should bear with ours. (Horae Homileticae)

We need a lot more of this ministry. When someone asks me what ministries are successful at our church, maybe it’s going to be enough to say that we’re getting really good at putting up with each other! That’s an accomplishment, actually. It’s the unglamorous but important ministry of bearing with one another. And while I bear with others, I’ll try to remember that they’re exercising the same ministry of bearing with me.

From D.A. Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation:

So much of our religion is packaged to address our felt needs – and these are almost uniformly anchored in our pursuit of our own happiness and fulfillment. God simply becomes the Great Being who, potentially at least, meets our needs and fulfills our aspirations. We think rather little of what he is like, what he expects of us, what he seeks in us. We are not captured by his holiness and love; his thoughts and words capture too little of our imagination, too little of our discourse, too few of our priorities.

In the biblical view of things, a deeper knowledge of God brings with it massive improvement in the other areas mentioned: purity, integrity, evangelistic effectiveness, better study of Scripture, improved private and corporate worship, and much more. But if we seek these things without passionately desiring a deeper knowledge of God, we are selfishly running after God’s blessings without running after him. We are even worse than the man who wants his wife’s services – someone to come home to, someone to cook and clean, someone to sleep with – without ever making the effort to really know and love his wife and discover what she wants and needs; we are worse than such a man, I say, because God is more than any wife, more than the best of wives: he is perfect in his love, he has made us for himself, and we are answerable to him.

I love love LOVED this…

Preaching (I have said), is the most distinctive institution in Christianity. It is quite different from oratory. The pulpit is another place, and another kind of place, from the platform. Many succeed in the one, and yet are failures on the other.

The Christian preacher is not the successor of the Greek orator, but of the Hebrew prophet. The orator comes with but an inspiration, the prophet comes with a revelation. In so far as the preacher and prophet had an analogue in Greece it was the dramatist, with his urgent sense of life’s guilty tragedy, its inevitable ethic, its unseen moral powers, and their atoning purifying note.

Moreover, where you have the passion for oratory you are not unlikely to have an impaired style and standard of preaching. Where your object is to secure your audience, rather than your Gospel, preaching is sure to suffer. I will not speak of the oratory which is but rhetoric, tickling the audience. I will take both at their best.

It is one thing to have to rouse or persuade people to do something, to put themselves into something; it is another to have to induce them to trust somebody and renounce themselves for him. The one is the political region of work, the other is the religious region of faith.

And wherever a people is swallowed up in politics, the preacher is apt to be neglected; unless he imperil his preaching by adjusting himself to political or social methods of address. The orator, speaking generally, has for his business to make real and urgent the present world and its crises, the preacher a world unseen, and the whole crisis of the two worlds. The present world of the orator may be the world of action, or of art. He may speak of affairs, of nature, or of imagination. In the pulpit he may be what is called a practical preacher, or a poet-preacher.

But the only business of the apostolic preacher is to make men practically realize a world unseen and spiritual; he has to rouse them not against a common enemy but against their common selves; not against natural obstacles but against spiritual foes; and he has to call out not natural resources but supernatural aids.

Indeed, he has to tell men that their natural resources are so inadequate for the last purposes of life and its worst foes that they need from the supernatural much more than aid. They need deliverance, not a helper merely but a Saviour.

The note of the preacher is the Gospel of a Saviour. The orator stirs men to rally, the preacher invites them to be redeemed. Demosthenes fires his audience to attack Philip straightway; Paul stirs them to die and rise with Christ.

The orator, at most, may urge men to love their brother, the preacher beseeches them first to be reconciled to their Father. With preaching Christianity stands or falls because it is the declaration of a Gospel. Nay more—far more—it is the Gospel prolonging and declaring itself.

P. T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and Modern Mind (New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1907), 3–5.

Hosea 6.1-6

‘Come, let us return to the Lord;
for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up. 
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him. 
Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that water the earth.’

Almighty and everliving God, ruler of all things in heaven and earth, hear our prayers for this parish family. Strengthen the faithful, arouse the careless, and restore the penitent. Grant us all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within your holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

From the Book of Common Prayer

Here’s an easy way to spend 45 minutes a day with the Lord:

5 minutes – Scripture memorization

20 minutes – Read or listen to 3 chapters of the Bible

5 minutes – Write things you’re thankful for

15 minutes – Pray

Every year on the Wednesday six and-a-half weeks before Easter Day, many in the church set off on a prayerful journey together. While we know that the cross, and ultimately the resurrection is our destination, we do not know what experiences and insights will meet us on our journey.

Ash Wednesday is an invitation to reflect and prepare for Easter. You might reflect on all of the ways that we prepare for a journey or prepare for an important change in our life like a wedding or the birth of a baby. However, unlike those joyful celebrations, we are preparing ourselves for repentance. This is a time to identify the ways that we have turned away from God, repent of those, and return. It is also a time to remind the each other that our confession and repentance is grounded in God’s love and mercy. We do not repent so that God will love us but rather because God loves us.

Ultimately, Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality. We are all on a journey that will end with our death – we are indeed ashes, and, one day, we will return to the earth from which we were formed. But we also declare that this is not the end but only the beginning of a journey that will last through eternity.

This year I have intentionally chosen songs that put the focus not on me and what I’m doing and how I’m disciplining myself (which is so often the tragic focus of Lent) but on the finished work of Jesus on the cross, and his power to rescue and save from sin!

 

Opening:

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Theologically, this song talks about our need for God’s help (“tune my heart to sing thy grace”), God’s pursuit of us in Christ (“Jesus sought me, when a stranger…”), Jesus’ death (“…interposed his precious blood), and how he sanctifies us (“let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee”).

During the imposition of ashes:

Before the Throne of God Above

This song continually points us upward. A great song to sing anytime, at any service, for any reason, but especially when people might be tempted to look elsewhere.

Communion:

Rock of Ages Cleft for Me

A good reminder that the “cure” for sin isn’t in our trying harder, but in the “…blood, from Thy crimson side that flowed”, and “nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling”.

Closing:

Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah

This is a confession of our weakness and need, which puts the focus on God’s sufficiency to save, feed, guide, and sustain us.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there,

Your friend in Jesus,

David