B, Pentecost 7 Proper 11 - 2 Samuel 7:10a, 11b-13, 16; Mark 6:31 "Peace in the Shed"

Because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." (Mark 6:31)

Come with me to a quiet place and get some rest!

When you've had enough and you need some time out, you just need to step out, lest you do your block and completely lose it. So let's go to a quiet place and get some rest! It's time to go to the shed.

This is the place where boys can be boys, men can be men, and the Aussie bloke can be the Aussie bloke. Where primeval man can do and be what he likes with no recompense from the boss who runs the show inside. These mostly dirty or dusty dwellings are the man caves where a basic bloke with his most basic of instincts can at least pretend to be the master of his domain. A place to be; a place to rest; a place of peace.

Then again the shed is not everyone's cup of tea either! I'd imagine there are plenty of people who don't find this environment very inviting. Some women love the shed as much as the man, but then again there are many who don't.

And I know it's hard to believe, but there are blokes out there who don't like the solidarity of shed life either. I guess it's where one's interests lie! However, regardless of whether you like the shed or not, everyone has a place of rest and a place of peace.

Like the shed though, these places are not always peaceful and a place of rest. Sometimes the peacefulness is pierced with pain and the rest is lost in testing. Where a bloke can celebrate and practise his most basic of instincts can be where he can also inflict injury on himself. In the shed lurk all types of danger which threatens to destroy or harm one's humanity.

But there's a place that's better than the shed, or any other location we might seek for earthly enlightenment. It's the one true place of peace and rest; it's in God's rest, where we receive the peace that passes all human understanding. And in this peace we are refreshed so we can go back into the busyness of our lives bearing the peace of God before others.

In Old Testament times, David wrestled with the fact that having moved into Jerusalem making it the City of David, and building for himself a palace in which to live, God still resided in a tent, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. And so he enquires of God through the prophet Nathan, and the word of the Lord came to him, saying…

I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. "The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever." (2 Samuel 7:10a,11b-13, 16)

So God gave Israel a home, a place of rest and peace. And David's house was established and sustained by God himself. But God promises to David that it is not David himself who was to build a temple for God, rather God would raise up a son to build a holy resting place for the King of Heaven and Earth, in Jerusalem.

In doing this God was reinforcing that he would sustain the house of David; not his palace, but rather a family line of kingship over God's people. This son was Solomon. But after Solomon's reign and death, the kingdom of Israel split into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Then after continual defiance by most of the kings of the Israelites and the Judeans, the kingdoms were sacked by their enemies.

So what became of God's promise to sustain the house of David? After all the Babylonians marched into Jerusalem and set fire to every important building – including the temple of the Lord, the king's palace, and the homes of the people! (2 Kings 25:9) Had God failed in his promise in which he stated, "Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever"?

Two things need to be noted. Firstly, God promises that David's house and kingdom will endure before me. Yet the Israelites and the Judeans and their kings had long turned their backs on God and so they like King Saul dissected themselves from the presence of the Lord.

But more importantly, the line of David became hidden from humanity and is revealed in Jesus Christ, the Son of David. In him, his house, kingdom, and throne was established forever when Jesus was enthroned on the cross, and lifted up from the grave to life eternal in victory over sin and death.

We hear from Ephesians chapter two: But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace. (Eph 2:13-14a)

So the place of peace and rest was restored by God's own Son, Jesus Christ. The promise made to David and continued in Solomon's reign as king, once again because of Christ allowed people a place of peace in which to rest. But the place is now different. It's not necessarily a building like the temple in Jerusalem where one might go to Sabbath in God to receive the blessings of his grace. Christ now functions as the temple. He is the gate, the filter, the curtain, through whom we pass into the peaceful presence of God, saved from God's wrath we're due because of our sinful natures.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's 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 2:19-22)

But now there's a strange irony since Christ has abolished the necessity of the Old Testament temple in Jerusalem. The temple is now wherever people are gathered together by the Holy Spirit around the Word of God to receive the benefits God promises in it.

Then the temple is also the gathering of people who believe and look to Jesus Christ, the Son of David. These are those hidden within the denominations on earth, and those already hidden in the timeless realm of eternity. But although they and we are hidden, we all stand in the face of God enduring before him – that is, we stand before him revealed in his Written Word here on earth, and they stand before him face to face with the Word made flesh in heaven.

The third strand of reality to this irony is we're temples of Christ. We find peace and rest because Christ temples in us. We are filled with grace and truth, since we've been baptised into the kingdom of heaven, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. (John 1:14)

God has chosen you as his shed, despite your person being like a man cave, a cavity of the dirt, dust, and danger of sin. God sends the Holy Spirit to bring us together in fellowship so Jesus Christ might continue to build us into his Father's kingdom. So we might demonstrate our love towards him, giving glory to him and proclaiming Christ and the cross to the ends of the earth.

When you need to "be", when you need "rest", and when you need "peace", Jesus says to you, "Come with me to a quiet place and get some rest." But amazingly as we rest in him, he rests in us and gives us eternal peace. Amen.

B, Pentecost 6 Proper 10 - Ephesians 1:4-8, 13-14 "God's Glorious Grace"

God's glorious grace is gold. It's a gift that's received at no cost! But at great cost it was given!

At great cost Jesus saved and redeemed you, when you were lost and condemned. He has freed you from sin, death, and the power of the devil. As we grow in him we're led into a deeper understanding just what a wonderful gift this is! Jesus gives this gift, not with earthly silver or gold, but with his holy and precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. This is God's grace! This is God's gospel love! This is God's generosity! This is the true gold of grace! And it's given to you! A free gift!

Have you ever given a gift, after struggling to decide what to get, or after toiling at great lengths to find the perfect present, to see the receiver treat it as nothing? It makes you feel sad, or perhaps even a little disgusted that they've treated the perfect present as paltry. It makes you feel as if you've had the core of your being ripped out – completely gutted!

Now you know how God feels when you treat his gift of grace as a second-rate gift of garbage! And we've all done that. Every time we elevate something or someone as more worthy than Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection from the grave!

Then there's the child that on opening the gift is genuinely in raptures over the present. Yes! The child's probably not putting God first as the eyes glisten over just the thing they've always wanted. But this is how God glorious grace should glisten in the eyes of his children.

Have you ever wondered why atheists are often angry with God and the church? They act like kids who get the wrong gift! But a true atheist shouldn't expect to get a gift, because an atheist supposedly believes there's no one there to give the gift anyway! Are they mad because there's no one to give them something, or are they beside themselves because there is someone there trying to give them the glorious gift of grace?

Surely atheists shouldn't be angry since they believe there is nothing to be angry at! But perhaps they're angry because there is! Perhaps they're angry because God pursues them with grace. Having been included in Christ when they heard the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation. And having received the mark of the promised Holy Spirit which Paul speaks of to the Ephesians in chapter one verse thirteen onwards! Maybe they're angry because they want to be god's of their own domain, but in their hearts can't escape the truth of an almighty God who loves them.

You know God is real. You know about his gift. Hopefully like an atheist you don't deny its reality! That your familiarity does not breed contempt like that of the atheist!

More likely though, your struggle and my struggle is apathy. With so many other things to occupy our interests today, we loose sight of the hidden glow of the One gift that should outshine all other gifts – God's glorious grace.

Does God's personal gift grace to you seem tarnished because of ignorance and lack of understanding? Maybe it's time to return to the place where in baptism we're told by Christ to be taught in his Word and to uphold why it is we need this gift of grace so much!

Does God's personal gift of grace to you seem cheap or nothing? Then now is the time to see how cheap your reality is. Will the stuff you value be enough to pay the price for your sin? This sin is the stuff God detests and won't allow in his holy presence! You know in your heart a cheap human reality just won't cut it!

Does your entry into church stir you conscience? Make you feel a little uneasy? Then perhaps there's something hidden in this building that seems as hot as hell in summer and as cold as ice in winter! That something golden and glorious dwells amongst these people whom so often seem to radiate these same temperatures as the church building!

It's right to think before God, we're not worth much. Because left to ourselves, our own will, our own understanding, our own efforts, and our own feelings, we are dust and to dust we shall return. Why? Because like the atheist we are sinful! Even before we did our first act of disobedience we were doomed to destruction and death.

It's not what we do as sinners. The fact of the matter is that we are sinners! Our being is sinful, and so we're bound to do sinful things sooner or later. If you think you haven't yet really sinned, good luck to you, mate, you will! In fact thinking this way is a sin, if we took the time to examine the reality of why we would think we haven't sinned!

One might think it's not all that good to come to church to hear this doom and gloom, since we live with so much of it in our day to day reality. But unless we see the reality of all the rubbish we gather around us that hinder and hides God's glorious gift of grace. We will never allow God to toss it out so we can experience the brilliance of his glorious gift of grace.

It's not so much about forgetting about our sinful nature and the sin that evolves from it. Nor is it about pushing sin aside as if it doesn't really matter. And it's definitely not about justifying sin copping out that God is a God of love, he won't hurt me. To a certain degree you're right. God won't hurt you! But what it's about is all of us need our sin dealt with!

However, if you forget, push aside, or justify your sinful nature, you will hurt yourself. Like the angry atheist who wishes for nothing, God's glorious grace will be gone, there will be nothing for you in death. You will suffer in yourself in the wrathful vacuum of hell. This is the realm where those exist tormented in eternity because God and his grace will be eternally absent forever.

So in knowing we are nothing, dust we are to dust we shall return, we are also called to know this: We are recipients of faith when we hear the truth – the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have been predestined, chosen before the creation of the world according to God's pleasure and will, despite our not being worthy or worth anything in ourselves.

It's at about this time the gift of God's glorious grace begins to show off its hidden lustre. When you begin to realise how low you should be in God's sight but instead are seen as the most prized of God's possessions that God's glorious grace stands out a pack ahead of the rest ­— without a doubt it's the gift that's second to none!

Wow! You and I are the angry child. So often unappreciative of this wonderful gift! Ready to be rejected because of your attitude! Yet God picks you up as his child and forgives you, because he loves you, as if you were his one and only child. He holds you; you are his gift, because of God's glorious grace, having sacrificed Christ on the cross, his one and only Son, for you!

You and I are the baptismal praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. This One he loves is God the Son, Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the grave in all power over sin and death. This is God's glorious grace, this is gold!

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. (Ephesians 1:4-8)

These riches lavished on you are gold. These riches are God's glorious grace! Remain in them, return to revere his redemption; flourish in his forgiveness! Because…

You also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:13-14)

You are God's golden possession, through the gift of God's glorious grace, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.