B, Pentecost 9 Proper 12 - Ephesians 3:14-21 "Rooted and grounded in Love"

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.  (Ephesians 3:14–21 ESV)

A lamb is born undersized and it struggles to live not being able to get the colostrums it badly needs to survive.  In fact it will die if left to its own devices.  At this time of year as the frigid air of winter chills our being it’s a simple picture to understand. 

But the farmer and his family step in and adopt this weak undersized lamb.  They faithfully feed it, first by extracting milk from its mother and then continuing with formula that gives the lamb strength to grow. But it is tiny in comparison to where it should be for its age and the family keep it in the warmth of their home for some time.

Similarly Paul tells the Ephesians of their inclusion into the household of God.  They have a home in God’s presence and they are now no longer strangers and aliens.  Just like the pets we adopt into our homes and give names, the Ephesians too are named and linked into the family tree of God the Father.

Think of the names you give your animals. Every year my family get a reminder letter from the veterinary surgery to bring our dog in for a health check. Even on this reminder our black dog is named not just Jett, but Jett Pukallus.  He is a member of our family.  He is included as one of us.

It’s not only the Ephesians that are named; we too are no longer strangers and aliens to God the Father. Paul stresses our oneness with God the Father, the Christ, and the Spirit.  Our heritage is one with God, we are descendants of God; your inheritance is his glory in all its richness.

But it’s the attitude of Paul that needs our focus. His attitude is similar to that of Jesus when he was on his earthly march to the cross.  Paul’s walk from his experience on the road to Damascus is the same as Jesus walking to his death. This is the attitude of humility and trust.

Paul’s life changing experience leads him to bow his knee to God the Father, his Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Father, for a reason.  And here we engage Paul’s reason as our reason as we hear and receive God’s word today.

God’s great pleasure for us is to willing receive and be filled with the fullness of God.  But first we have to be emptied and made nothing so God can love us and make us something.  Just like a lamb on death’s door, God comes and gives us life.

Now I am sure that when the lamb was found abandoned out in the paddock it had no idea what a human was in relation to its survival.  A person could be a saviour as much as a devourer. “Am I going to be fed by this approaching being or am I going to be eaten?”

At first this lamb is not going to have any knowledge of one who comes into its cold environment.  How too are we to have any clue who or what God is, or seek him unless he first comes to us?

Our Heavenly Father has indeed come to us and he roots and grounds us in love.  This is the love of Jesus’ faithful walk to the cross, commanded by God the Father for our forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life.  He roots and grounds us by nursing us with this steadfast love, teaching us to receive his goodness and forgiveness as he teaches us how to receive his word.

Paul too had no way of knowing this love of God when he travelled to Damascus to persecute the church.   It was only after being rendered weak through blindness, he became receptive to God’s love and his need for forgiveness.

So he comes to the Ephesians in weakness having been loved by God.  He was rooted and grounded in love. For this reason he bows his knee to God for the Ephesians.  Paul doesn’t make a demand of the Ephesians to fill themselves with knowledge, rather he puts the focus on the work of his Christ and his Spirit. 

By his submission to God, Paul also paints a picture by his example of humility.  He encourages them through his letter to also humbly be rooted, grounded and built up in God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — as opposed to being built up in themselves or in himself.   

So what does this all mean for us in this time of the delta variant, lockdowns and uncertainty?  Since Pastor Mathew was led by the Holy Spirit to the Barossa, Covid-19 has become our reality, and now as I arrive we are still very much in the midst of it. 

It may be hard for us to see the fullness of God and the richness of his love.  In this time of severe social distancing you might be feeling out in the cold, alienated as strangers from others in the kingdom of God. 

But like Paul who couldn’t see for awhile, let God continue to lead you through these days.  Let him feed you his word of life; the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.  This is being rooted and grounded in love.

Just as Jesus put aside his spirit and allowed himself to be led by the Holy Spirit, just as Paul was led and fed by the Holy Spirit, let the Holy Spirit continue leading you in these days.  This is being rooted and grounded in love.

The little weak lamb responds to the faithfulness of the farmer and his family.  He is fed and led and he is strengthened.  The blessings of these days are that we too realise, as individuals and as a community on this earth, we are weak and helpless in ourselves.  This too is being rooted and grounded in love.

When we have been placing our faith in so many other things we suddenly realise how undernourished we become trusting in the weakness of our human spirit.  When we are rooted and grounded in God’s love, God reveals all our false roots of love and we realise the unstable ground on which we stand.

And so we confess our sin to the Lord!  We allow ourselves the posture of submission, and bear our community, our leaders, and community carers before the Lord.  God uses you to root and ground his steadfast eternal love in a self-loving, loveless world.

We allow the light of Christ to shine in us in these days of darkness, by not demanding others to love as we love, but by loving them with the love of God’s forgiveness, so they too might be rooted, grounded and built in the faith and hope in which we live for Christ and die to the self and the world.

Jesus is the Lamb of God.  You and I are Jesus’ little lambs.

I believe it is God’s will for me to serve you on bended knee so we can serve each other and our communities on bended knees.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.     

Hello from Pastor Heath

Greeting and encouragement to hold onto the promise that the "Steadfast love of God endures forever".

His love is steadfast through God the Father who provides, through God the Son who redeems, and through God the Holy Spirit who makes us holy.

Grace Mercy and Peace

Friarpuk

B, Easter 4 - 1 John 3:16-24 "Pleasure and Peace"

In the hymn “Lead us Heavenly Father lead us” by James Edmeston, there are three verses based on the Trinity.  The third verse focuses on the Holy Spirit and it reads...

Spirit of our God, descending, 
Fill our hearts with heavenly joy,
Love, all other love transcending,
Pleasure that can never cloy:
Thus provided, Pardoned, guided,
Nothing can our peace destroy.

The line “Pleasure that can never cloy” has always stood out, probably because of the word “cloy”.  It’s a word that isn’t familiar in our language today.  However, it means to be become sickly sweet, over the top, nauseating, disgusting, or tire from excess.  So the line says “Pleasures that can never become sickly sweet and disgusting.” 

This line addresses the line before, “Love, all other love transcending, Pleasures that can never cloy.  It seems there is plenty of love out there today that is nauseating and over the top but before us here in the text is love that transcends all love that is fake and fleeting. 

In 1 John 3:16 we hear, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

Let’s take an audit of your love life in comparison to this verse.  What do you love?  What is your pleasure?  Jesus laid down his life and now we OUGHT to do it for others.  Ought is another word that stands out.  One would expect it to read, we should or must do the same.  Ought here comes from the Greek word ophelos from where we get the name Ophelia.  It means “to help” but not from a sentimental or feel good motive but as an obligation as what one owes.  So again, what do you love?  What is your pleasure?  What do you owe to the Lord for all his steadfast love toward you?

Saint Paul tells the church in Romans... Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”  Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8–10 ESV)

Do I love God in the way that God loves me? How do I get that desire to lay down my life for others when every waking fibre in my body wants nothing of laying down my life for anyone or anything?  What pleases God and what pleases me are two different things.  Maybe it’s okay to lay down my life for others, but only if there’s a benefit for me, my family, my community or even my country!

Love, all other loves transcending, pleasure that can never cloy.   It seems our pleasures are not just cloy, but they have completely clogged us up!  Therefore, the love God wants is not love as our society would have us believe today.

But let’s not focus on others but on ourselves, myself and yourself.  How do my pleasures and fears shape me?  What truths do they reveal about you and me before God?  What do you owe God for the removal of your debt of sin?

The text continues, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”  (1 John 3:17 ESV)

Notice how all our daily bread, given to us by God; our food, our shelter, our time and our possessions are called goods.  However, these goods stop being good when our pleasure in them make us lose sight of what pleases God.  The question is asked, “How does God’s love abide in you?”

Then follows, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:18 ESV)

Our words and what we say stands and falls before God’s word.  As we have heard Paul has reminded us of the commandments in our debt to love.  God’s love in Jesus’ death has fulfilled the law yet the law still stands to show us why we need continuing steadfast love because we constantly turn to what pleases us rather than what pleases God.

Take for instance the two commandments, you shall not murder and you shall not commit adultery.  These two commandments on the surface are quite literal and we all know what they tell us. 

But we gain a deeper understanding of our feelings where murder is the ultimate bad feeling and sexual desire and its fulfilment is the supreme good feeling. Any feelings coming from within, from any bad feeling through to murder, from the simplest of good feelings through to sexual climax can be condemning cloy or perverse pleasure built on a love that serves and pleases us rather than God.

Jesus takes the ultimates of our feelings and condemns all degrees, from the least to the greatest, as he speaks to the people at the Sermon on the Mount.

We hear, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21–22 ESV)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27–28 ESV)

Our pleasures, both what we believe to be good or bad, condemn us when we take the goods of God and make ourselves gods of all good and evil. 

What is the truth of our motives?  Are we motivated by a fear that is based on love and reverence for our Father who is in heaven or on a fear that is frightened of death?  On the other end of the scale, is our hope of heaven based on a love and desire to be with God forever or is heaven a place of more selfish pleasure for you? 

I hope you can see the greatness of your ongoing debt because of your dubious motives, but also the pleasure of God to clear the debt in Jesus Christ.  

So what deeds do we need to perform here when our hearts condemn us?  To what truth do we need to turn so we might not be “liable to the hell of fire” as Jesus so bluntly puts it!  And how do we actually turn to this truth?

The pleasure of God is a pleasure that brings peace and this peace comes through true love.  This is not love that self serves and looks within.  This is not a love that serves the feelings as the ultimate but a love that can shape feelings so you can look out of yourself, love God and serve your neighbour.  It’s the love I desire every day but one which I struggle to keep hold of too.

I encourage you to keep on in the struggle by not looking into yourself for answers, rather because you don’t find answers in yourself look into the truth of God’s word so you might do the deeds that truly please God.

So let’s return to the text again, “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.  Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;  and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.”  (1 John 3:19–22 ESV)

God is greater than our heart.  He is greater than our feelings and our thoughts and our words.  And so feeling condemned or not we are the beloved of God.  God loves you, and me, and he gives us freedom to ask and receive from him. 

So what do you think we should ask him that should please him?  One hundred million dollars!  An endless packet of lollies, block of chocolate or sexual potency! 

No! Rather we can ask for a deepening understanding of God’s word and a desire to immerse ourselves in it as our daily bread!  A willingness to share our goods rather than hoard them as evils!  Forgiveness of our sins and a willingness to forgive others as God has forgiven us. To be led towards God’s kingdom rather than our fickle kingdoms of feelings that at best become cloy and at worst lead us away from God!  And deliverance from evil, especially from the evil within to the holiness and joy found in God.

But the question remains, “How do I get the will or the power to ask?”  To find out we go back to the only source of truth, God’s word because we do what pleases God.

And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.  Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.  (1 John 3:23–24 ESV)

What is God’s pleasure is that we recognise what we owe, or what we ought to do, and confess our sin.  The focus here is not on you or me but on Jesus and how he has cancelled our debt at the cross.  The recognition of our cancelled debt brings praise and thankfulness.  Praise is practically telling others about your debt and how God has cancelled it in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

And how do we do this?  Well it’s actually not us; our human spirit, our heartfelt desire, or our feelings.  Rather it’s that God abides in us because he has given us his Holy Spirit as we are told in God’s word. 

This is the point of the last verse of the hymn “Lead us Heavenly Father lead us”

The Holy Spirit descends to us and brings us hearts of joy, and love, love that transcends, giving us pleasures that never cloy.  Our Heavenly Father provides, Jesus pardons, and the Holy Spirit guides.  He guides us to Jesus, he guides us in our confession of sin, he guides us in our confession of God’s forgiveness, and he guides us in our forgiveness of others, so we can love and lay down our lives for others.

It all comes down to the Holy Spirit awakening in us our need for salvation, forgiveness, and our need to forgive.  We cannot love God unless we receive the forgiveness of sins.  You cannot love God unless you receive the forgiveness of sins.  I cannot love God unless I receive the forgiveness of sins.  Amen.

B, Palm/Passion Sunday - Philippians 2:5-11 "Seven Days of Holy Week"

On Palm Sunday Jesus was glorified by the crowd but just five days later they screamed for his crucifixion.  What happened in this week changed the course of humanity forever. 

On the surface it looks like chaos and a complete miscarriage of justice, but those who received the Holy Spirit and believed the resurrection testify to the crowd,

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—  this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.  God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” (Acts 2:22–24 ESV)

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”  Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart. (Acts 2:36–37a ESV)

Now we who have been baptised and received the Holy Spirit submit to God’s Word, dwelling on it as we carry our crosses on the road to eternity with Jesus.  But what can we take away from this Lenten season, from this Palm Passion Sunday and our Saviour’s death on Good Friday?

Yes we know the eighth day is coming! The day of Jesus’ resurrection!  And we know in trusting God and his word we will be raised too.  But how can we reflect on these seven days of Holy Week, and every seven day week in which we live until our final week here is replaced and we’re resurrected into the eternal eighth day of God’s heavenly reality?

It is very easy for us to hear of the events of Jesus’ passion and ponder that we are people like the Palm Sunday crowd, and that maybe so!  But what was the motive of the crowd on Palm Sunday, especially after Jesus enters the temple and upturns the tables when they hoped for him to overturn the Roman government and throw them out of Jerusalem.  Had Jesus wronged them? 

Maybe Jesus is not living up to your expectations!  Perhaps he is not giving you what you want, seemingly wronging you, letting you suffer like a slave rather than letting you kickback like a king.

Saint Paul tells us, Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5–11ESV)

Here we are told we’re given the gift of this mind amongst ourselves from Jesus himself.  Jesus did not see himself as God.  He emptied himself!  He became a servant!  A slave! He was truly they Son of Man, the servant of man!  Even though Jesus is not only the Messiah, the Anointed King, he is the Son of God.  But he humbled himself to be the Servant Son or Slave of Man.  In short he became nothing.

But in the horror of being made nothing he has made us something.  He has made us someone before God!  Unfortunately, more often than not, we take this someone to be something other than the humble creature servant kings and children of God, and once again take our being liked by God, recreated in the likeness of God, and seek to usurp him by being like God.

Jesus knew we would continue to struggle in this old creation of seven days.  This is why he lay down his life for us, and why he sent the Holy Spirit to guide us in his Word through this life until he ends the old seven day creation once and for all and carries us into the eighth day of his eternal kingdom at our resurrection.

So Jesus gave us a prayer in which the Holy Spirit helps us to pray and we can use its petitions this week to reflect on our sinful condition and why Jesus had to die for me, you and all people.  This prayer is the Lord’s Prayer and it can help those who believe to look deeply into the loving heart of God and our hearts that need this steadfast, constant, merciful and generous love.

In fact this pray and its seven petitions is a perfect mirror of reflection on the seven days of Holy Week, and for that matter any seven day week made holy for those who believe as they wait for the kingdom, power and glory to be made manifest for them at their resurrection.  Ironically, each petition reflects the actions of the crowd as they descend from Palm Sunday’s “Hosanna” to “Crucify him” on Good Friday.

In Luther’s explanation of the introduction of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven”, he writes, “Here God encourages us to believe that he is truly our Father and we are his children”.  In other words, this prayer is a recognisation of our restored creatureliness in the presence of God.  We receive the gift of Jesus’ kingship and it’s a kingship of servanthood.  We live in a relationship with God similar to that of God and Adam before the fall, but now after the fall we live it in the reality of sin, death, and evil.  We pray to our Father in heaven, in the hope of our restoration through the perfect creaturely New Adam, Jesus Christ.

Let’s now look at the seven days of Holy Week and see how they sit with the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.

Sunday’s petition, Hallowed by your name.  It appears the crowd were hallowing God’s name with shouts of Hosanna!  But were they hallowing it to glorify God or were they worshipping what they wanted Jesus to be for them.  Here we can reflect on our motivation and confess that we so often seek to use God for our own benefit.  This is using God to justify our own godliness.  A godliness that is not sacrificial like Jesus. A godliness that sits in judgement over God and his Word rather than one that sits in submission and servanthood!  

Monday, Your kingdom come.  As we go off and pick up the regular beat of the week, have you taken God with you?  In other words, are you still the creaturely servant God has called you to be?  Or have you put God back in his Sunday box and picked up pursuing your kingdom?  Are you 100% for God as Jesus was?  Are you carrying your cross or are you tempted to put off the cross to keep face with the world?  God’s kingdom comes when we allow the Holy Spirit to turn over the tables of our human spirit so we believe that God’s kingdom has come in baptism, is coming despite the crosses we bear, and will come at the resurrection.  Let us confess Jesus in the kingdom of this world through our confession of sin and Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins.

Tuesday, Your will be done on earth as in heaven.  What is God’s will for you?  Firstly, it is his will to forgive us our sins, for we know not what we do.  He doesn’t just forgive us for what we do, he forgives us for who we are.  In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39 ESV)  God’s will is to forgive sin.  This is the steadfast love of God for we who struggle with a steadfast natures of sin. 

And God’s will for us on earth is to be the new Adams and the new Eves as fulfilled in Jesus.  As kings and servants in the kingdom of God on earth we forgive as God has forgiven us.

Wednesday, Give us this day our daily bread.  Hear God gives us a petition of prayer showing us the reality of our need.  As creatures we ask for all we need.  The going is tough so we are reminded to turn to God just as Jesus did.  We pray, “Come Lord Jesus be our guest and let this food to us be blessed.”  But there is a second more important part that points us to Maundy Thursday which the church can pray, “blessed be God who is our bread may the world be clothed and fed!” 

Thursday, Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.  The first three petitions encourage us to look to God in his holiness and love, now after the fourth, we can reflect on why he has to be gracious with us. 

Our creatureliness is fallen but our sin is covered by Jesus’ body and blood, given and she for forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.  If we change this petition to first person it reads, “forgive me my sin as I forgive those who sin against me.”  This is the only active part of the Lord’s Prayer attributed to us, to me, all other actions are attributed to God. 

Our lives in Christ are a calling to forgive others as Jesus forgives us.  But notice how the petition is worded in reverse. We ask God to forgive us the same way we forgive others.  How do you forgive others?  If you are anything like me you will be made humble by just how gracious God is despite our ongoing struggle to forgive others.  The cross we bear in forgiving others requires the death of our pride and all that our human nature and spirit trusts other than God.

Friday, Lead us not into temptation.  Good Friday is the day of the great exchange.  Crucify him, Crucify him. God crucifies your kingdom and gives you his when you were baptised into his death and resurrection.  When you are tempted to not believe God’s work in your baptism, see that God did not send his only Son to his cross for nothing.  His blood covers you sin, don’t be tempted you are now no longer in need of forgiveness as if you now no longer need his crucifixion. 

Our temptation is also to crucify others with our accusations. This is a temptation back into the kingdom of darkness.  We now live in the kingdom of light and it’s a kingdom of forgiveness. Do not be tempted to toss away and crucify God’s eternal kingdom.

Saturday, But deliver us from evil.  This is the final and seventh petition.  On Holy Saturday Jesus showed his sinlessness to those in hell.  Now that Jesus has been crucified his death crucifies all unholiness. You are delivered from evil into holiness. 

But just as Jesus remembered the Sabbath and made it holy with his perfect sinless rest in the grave and descent into hell we are called to ponder the holiness we have received in baptism. No longer are we commanded "be holy for the Lord is holy" as a work with which to busy ourselves. Rather our being is holy because the Holy Spirit brings us to Jesus. 

We can now do the work of bringing our evil into the light through confession of sin, which might seem to be the wrong thing to do but it pleases God because it shows trust in the good work Jesus did at the cross and the good work the Holy Spirit continues us to do by bring us to Jesus every day in repentance.

As you go from here into this week walk the Holy Week with Jesus. Walk with Jesus to the cross and in carrying your cross know it is Jesus who truly bears your load of sin and death, and it is he who carries you through to the resurrection.

Our Father in heaven, the kingdom, and the power and the glory are yours, now and forever, Amen.