With My Own Eyes (Job 19:23-27a)

I remember the first time I saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House for myself. I had grown up seeing pictures of these iconic Australian landmarks my whole life and had always thought they looked pretty impressive. Then, in my early twenties, I was able to travel to Sydney for a holiday. I caught the train into central Sydney, got off at Circular Quay and looked out to see Sydney Harbor with my own eyes for the first time.

Seeing pictures of Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House was good. Seeing them for myself with my own eyes was so much better…

Job had everything anyone could possibly want. Then he lost it all. Job’s story presents us with a whole range of philosophical challenges which we will need to wrestle with another time. One thing that amazes me in this story, however, is that when Job was sitting on a garbage pile, with nothing but a wife telling him to curse God and die and three friends who are giving him advice which wasn’t at all helpful, Job still had hope. The optimism which is evident in his words from Job 19:23-27 is just incredible.

The hope Job had was that his Redeemer, the one who could rescue him from his troubles and give him everything he needed for life, was alive. In the context of Job’s story this doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. These words may have been written anything from a couple of hundred years to more than a thousand years before the birth of Jesus. However, in these words Job points us to a Redeemer who overcomes death, who stands on the earth in victory, and whom Job can physically see with his own, two eyes. Even in the darkest place of human existence, Job still had the hope that he will see Jesus face to face as a living, flesh and blood person.

When I think about the joy I had in seeing the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House with my own eyes for the first time, I find it hard to imagine the joy that will come with seeing Jesus for the first time with my own eyes. Like Job, the promise of seeing Jesus face to face as a real flesh and blood person can give us hope when we are going through dark times or when we wonder where God is. It can give us the hope that what we are enduring is temporary, and that what is permanent and eternal is the life of Christ which is stronger than death and is God’s gift to us through the gospel.

This is a different way of thinking about eternity than people often have. A common idea I often come across, among Christians as well as others outside the church, is that when we die, our souls go to heaven but our bodies remain in the ground. However, this is not the Bibles message. The gospels tell us about the physical resurrection of Jesus. The triumph of Jesus over death as a flesh and blood person points us to a physical resurrection for all of God’s people. In the same way that Jesus was physically raised to new life, so the Holy Spirit will also raise all of God’s people to eternal life which will be lived in real, flesh and blood bodies.

The Apostle Paul talks about the physical resurrection a number of times in his letters. In particular, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul writes a lot about the resurrection of Jesus and the hope this good news gives to believers. He describes the difference between ‘heavenly bodies’ and ‘earthly bodies’ (1 Corinthians 15:40 NLT), ‘natural bodies’ and ‘spiritual bodies’ (v44 NLT), as well as ‘mortal bodies’ and ‘immortal bodies’ (v53 NLT). His language might sound a little strange, almost contradictory, but Paul is saying that we will have physical bodies which will be different to the bodies we now have. We will need to wait to find out exactly what our heavenly, spiritual and immortal bodies will be like. However, what we can learn from Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15 is that we will live as real, flesh and blood people, and not disembodied spirits, for eternity with God.

This is important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, sometimes people might think that what is spiritual is good but the physical is evil or corrupt. While we need to take the reality of sin seriously, we also need to recognise that when God created the physical world, including people’s bodies, he said that it was very good (Genesis 1:31). Since God has created our bodies, and redeemed them through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we need to see our bodies as good gifts from a loving God and take care of them. Just like we might take care of a valuable gift that someone gives us, when we see our bodies as gifts from God, then we will look after them to honour God with our bodies (1 Corinthians 6:19,20).
The second reason takes us back to Job. When we listen to his words and, remembering Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15, when we trust that even after our bodies have decayed we will see God in our new, eternal bodies, then we can find hope even in the middle of life’s most difficult or darkest times. Like Job, God does not abandon us. Instead, God redeems us as whole people, body and soul, through Jesus’ death and resurrection for us. Our Redeemer lives and one day he will stand on the earth in victory over sin, death and all the powers of evil. When that happens, even though our bodies have decayed in the earth or been cremated, bodies we will see God in all of his glory in our new, physical, flesh and blood bodies. With our own eyes we will see the face of our Redeemer and Saviour in perfect 20/20 vision. When that happens, all the pain, all the sorrow, all the loneliness, confusion and uncertainty will disappear as we see face to face the one we hope for, the one we hope in.

I’ve seen some pretty cool things in my life. I always find that they look a whole lot better when I can see them with my own eyes rather than just a photo. When our lives in this world are over and we finally see Jesus with our own eyes, it will be like nothing else. Like Job, I’m overwhelmed at the thought!

Until that day, we can live every day in the hope that in our bodies, with our own eyes, by the grace of our Redeemer Jesus, we will see God!

The Communion of Saints (Ephesians 1:11-23)

Since the early centuries of the Christian movement, followers of Jesus have said the words of the Apostles’ Creed together. This confession of faith serves God’s people in a few ways. It outlines the basic content of what we believe as Jesus’ disciples. It makes a declaration to the world of who we are and who we believe God is. The Apostles’ Creed also unites us with people around the world and across time who share our common faith. Confessing the Creed signifies that we belong to a community of faith that transcends time, space and denominational differences. It unites all Christians as one Church.

There is a lot in the Apostles’ Creed that we can reflect on and learn from. As we celebrated the Festival of All Saints on Sunday, there was one part in the Third Article that I thought it would be good to think about more: The Communion of Saints. It can easy to say the words of the Creed without giving much thought to what they mean. When we confess our faith in the Communion of Saints, however, there is a lot of depth in those few words.

Firstly, the Communion of Saints is about our identity. Most people that I talk to think of saints as people who have done a lot of good things in their lives. in a common way of thinking, sainthood is something we can aspire to and achieve by doing a lot of ‘good’ things. However, the New Testament gives us a very different idea of what a saint is. Six letters of St Paul begin by addressing the recipients of those letters as ‘God’s holy people’ or ‘saints’ (see Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:2). Paul explains in Ephesians 1:11-23 that sainthood or holiness was God’s gift to his readers when they were united with Christ (v11 NLT) through faith by the power of the Holy Spirit (vv13,14 NLT). Here and in other places of the New Testament we can read that God gives us his holiness as a gift through the Holy Spirit on account of what Jesus has done for us in his life, death and resurrection.

Sainthood, or holiness, becomes the foundation of our identity in Christ. No matter what the world, other people or our own hearts might say to us or about us, we can always come back to God’s promise to us that we are his holy children through faith in Jesus. In those times when our sense of identity takes a beating, or when we have a negative view of ourselves, God’s promise to us is that we are saints, his holy people, because of Jesus’ redemptive love for us which makes us new and clean.

This leads us on to the second important aspect of the Communion of Saints. If God has made each of us saints by giving us the holiness of Jesus through his Spirit, and if he has done the same thing for every other believer, then we are united as one in our faith. This is what Paul means when he writes, ‘the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself’ (Eph 1:23 NLT).

The Christian church, the body of Christ, is the community of God’s holy people which exists across time and space and into eternity. The words communion and community are closely connected, so we can think of the communion of saints as the community of God’s holy people. This community is the place where we can grow as God’s holy people as we encounter the reality of God’s love and grace in relationship with other believers. Following Jesus was never meant to be an individual exercise. Jesus’ command to love one another only makes sense when it is lived out in relationship with others. The communion of saints, then gives us a context to not only love other holy children of God, but to be loved by them so we can live together in the reality of Jesus’ life-changing grace.

This kind of community is vitally important in our time and place. I’ve heard it said a number of times that our digital age has made us more connected than ever before, but at the same time people are lonelier than ever before. People in the developed world are starved for real community where we can extend and encounter grace, love, forgiveness, hope, joy, and so much more through meaningful, Christ-centred relationships. Confessing our faith in the Communion of Saints means that we can find a place where we belong in a community of God’s holy people which transcends our differences and unites us as the living body of the risen Jesus in the world.

This brings me to a third aspect of the Communion of Saints. As the community of God’s holy people, we have a new purpose for our existence. We live in a broken world where people are alone and hurting, relationships are easily fractured, where virtual or fake attempts at community result in people feeling more isolated and lost. As God gifts us with his community of holy people, we have something good to give the people of our world. The Communion of Saints is also God’s gift to the world so that people can find a sense of who they are, where they fit and what they’re here for in relationship with God through their relationship with us.

The Communion of Saints is the community of God’s holy people that he calls into existence to praise and glorify him (Eph 1:14 NLT) by being part of his redemptive mission in the world. We can praise and glorify God by singing songs in worship, but we also praise and glorify God for his saving love in Jesus by living as God’s holy people in the world, bringing his goodness, grace and healing love to the people around us. God gifts his community of holy people in the world with the purpose of living in ways that are made holy through faith and love, and embracing others in the community of God’s holy people so they can find their identity, belonging and purpose through faith in Jesus and in relationship with us.

The next time you confess the Apostles’ Creed, I encourage you to keep some of these things in mind. There is a lot of depth in these few words. They talk about who we are as people who are gifted with Jesus’ holiness through his Spirit, where we belong as the community of God’s holy people, and what we’re here for as we praise and glorify God by embracing others in the community of holy people. The Communion of Saints is God’s gift to us. It is also his challenge to us. As we grow in relationship with him and with his people in this community, we also have the opportunity to gift God’s community of holy people to others.

Be Still (Psalm 46)

Adelaide has started experiencing some warmer weather in the last couple of weeks, reminding us that summer is just around the corner. When the temperatures start to rise, a lot of Australians head to the beach to cool off. While we’re enjoying the surf, we also need to remember what to do if we find ourselves in trouble. If something happens that we can’t swim back to the beach, we’re taught to raise our arm to signal for help and call out to the surf lifesavers or someone else on the beach. When that person comes out to help us, the best thing we can do is to do nothing. When someone swims out to save us, we need to relax, be still and let the rescuer carry us to safety.

Doing nothing requires a lot of faith. Our natural instinct is to do anything we can to keep our heads above water. Especially if we are panicked or terrified of drowning, we want to do whatever it takes to save ourselves. To stop what we’re doing and rely on another person means we need to trust that they can and will get us to safety. Being still in another person’s saving arms is only possible when we believe that they can save us and we trust that they are able to rescue us.

This natural tendency to want to do something to get ourselves out of difficult situations can be seen in almost every aspect of our lives. When troubles of any sort come our way, or when difficulties or struggles occur, we usually look for something we can do to fix things or make them right again. It’s like getting into trouble while swimming at the beach – our natural instinct is to want to keep our heads above water and sort things out for ourselves.

The person who wrote Psalm 46 knew what it was like to experience ‘times of trouble’ (v1 NLT). His world must have been collapsing around him as he describes earthquakes, mountains crumbling into the sea, oceans roaring and foaming, and mountains trembling as the waters surged (vv2,3). Whether we interpret these events literally or figuratively, they represent the chaos which this person was experiencing in his life. From where he stood, it looked like his world was falling apart!

However, in the middle of this chaos and confusion, the writer of Psalm 46 was not afraid. He trusted in God as his refuge and strength, a fortress into whom he could retreat and find security and safety. His relationship with God gave him the stability and shelter he needed to live in peace and hope. Like a lifesaver who swims out to a person in trouble at the beach, the writer of Psalm 46 looked to God to keep his head above the waves, hold him in his arms and bring him back to safety. He trusted that God would use the power he has to end wars, break bows, snap spears and burn shields (v9 NLT) to protect and care for him in the middle of his troubles.

All God asked of him was to be still (v10). In the same way that the best thing we can do to help a lifesaver get us back to the beach is relax, be still and do nothing, when God speaks in Psalm 46 he tells us to be still and trust him. The good news of Psalm 46 is that when we are experiencing times of trouble, when our world is falling apart, when our natural instinct is to either save ourselves or try to fix things, God asks us to be still and trust that he will take care of it. This isn’t easy for us because we feel like we need to do something, but this is one way we can understand grace: God does for us what we can’t do for ourselves. He just asks us to trust him. This ‘being still’ involves letting go of things that are out of our control, relaxing when troubles cause us stress or anxiety, and trusting that God can and will bring us through our troubles to a better place.

God does this for us in the person of Jesus. To use the lifesaver analogy, when Jesus was born as a human baby, he dove into the surf of human existence. Throughout his life, and especially in his suffering and death, Jesus joined us in the troubles, worries and pain of life in this world. Jesus’ life and death was him swimming out to meet us and wrapping his arms around us, no matter what we might be going through. Jesus’ resurrection is the way he carries us back to the safety of the beach. His triumph over sin, death and the power of evil carries us through the difficulties and traumas of this world to the safe and secure place of God’s presence in a new relationship with him. That is why Psalm 46 repeats the declaration that ‘The Lord of Heaven’s Armies is here among us; the God of Israel is our fortress’ (vv7,11). God swims out, meets us and carries us in his arms to safety through Jesus because he has already won the victory over the waves and storms of life in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Now he asks us to relax, let go, be still and trust that he will carry us to safety.

There are times in life when faith calls us to be active, especially in our love for each other. Psalm 46 teaches us, though, that there are also times in life when faith means doing nothing and trusting that God will work things out for us. There have been times in my life when I’ve experienced troubles that my natural reaction was to try to fix things or try to make them better. My efforts only resulted in making things worse. When I listened to the word of God telling me to ‘be still’ I relaxed, let go and trusted God to work things out. That was when things started to improve as God displayed his grace by doing what I couldn’t.

What is happening in your life right now? What troubles are you facing? If life is good, please remember to thank God for his blessings to you. However, if you are going through times of trouble, if there are things which are causing you stress, worry or anxiety, is it possible that God is asking you to relax, let go, be still and trust him? The promise of Psalm 46 is that through Jesus, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is there with you and the God of Israel is your fortress. So you don’t need to be afraid. God is always ready to help in times of trouble.

Be still, and know that he is God.

Persistent in Prayer (Luke 18:1-8)

When I was serving as a pastor in Lutheran schools, there were times when I would be teaching a class and students would ask me for things such as going to their locker, getting a drink, sitting with their friend, and so on. If my answer was ‘no’ it usually wouldn’t take long before they would come and ask me again. If my reply was still ‘no’ they would come back to me again and again in the hope that I would give them what they were asking for. I wondered sometimes whether my answer of ‘no’ was interpreted as ‘not now, but if you come back enough times you’ll get what you’re asking for.’

These experiences in the classroom, and more recently as a parent, helps me to understand the perspective of the judge in Jesus’ story. The widow kept coming back to him, asking him for the same thing, until she got what she wanted. The big difference between the widow and the students in my classes was that their requests were usually for things to make their life easier or more convenient. The widow in the story, however, was asking for justice.

We don’t know exactly what the ‘justice’ was that the widow was asking for from the judge. What that does, though, is give us room to read the injustices that we experience into Jesus’ story to help make it our story. In some way, though, the widow had been wronged. Something had happened to her or been done to her which was unjust and not right. She was looking for someone to make the wrong she had experienced in her life right again. Her desire for justice was a hope that someone with more authority than she had would do for her what she couldn’t do for herself and make right the wrongs that had been done to her.

There are times in our lives when we can probably identify what she was going through. We all witness or experience wrongs of one kind or another. This is because the world is not the way God intended it to be. When we read the creation story from Genesis 1, at the end of each day (however you want to interpret that period of time) God saw that what he had created was good. When we look at the world now, though, it seems a long way from that goodness. We can see conflicts and natural disasters happening all over the world. Closer to home, our nation is suffering from social, cultural and environmental wrongs. Our relationships can go wrong for a range of reasons, either what we have done or has been done to us. Even within ourselves, there are things that are wrong that might not be our fault, but still take life from us and from others. Wherever we look, we can see that there is something wrong with the world in which we live.

This wasn’t how God intended life to be, so in Jesus he did what was needed to set the wrong things right again. This is one way we can understand the biblical role of a judge. When we read the Book of Judges from the Old Testament, we can see that they were not people who sentenced offenders in a court of law. Instead, the Old Testament judges were people God raised up to right the wrongs that were being done to God’s people. This flows from an understanding of God as judge, who makes the wrong things in the world right again through his justice, grace and love.

Ultimately, God establishes his reign of justice in the world through Jesus. When he was born, he entered this world-gone-wrong and took its wrongs on himself. Jesus embraced everything that is wrong with us, our relationships and our world on himself, and takes it to the cross where he puts it all to death. This is one way of understanding the idea that Jesus takes away the sin of the world – he overcomes all that is wrong with this existence in his crucifixion, even death itself.

Jesus then restores us and all creation to its original state of being good and right in his resurrection. When Jesus was raised to new life, he triumphed over the wrongs of the world and set things right again so that we can live in right relationships with God, ourselves, other people and all of creation. This is what is called ‘the righteousness of God’ – his gift to us of making everything that is wrong in us right again through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We can also call this God’s justice as Jesus removes the wrongs that infect us and all creation and fills us with God’s goodness.

As long as we live in this world we will still encounter its wrongs in one way or another. That is why Jesus encourages his followers to ‘pray and never give up’ (v1). The widow in his story kept asking the unjust judge for justice because she believed that he could make the wrongs in her life right again. Jesus is encouraging us to believe that God is good and just, that he can and will bring about justice for us as well. Jesus is contrasting the character of the unjust judge with our just God and saying that if the judge in the story ended up providing justice for the widow, how much more will God bring justice for us when we look to him for it?

Where do you see or experience the injustice of this world? In what ways are the wrongs of this world robbing you of the life God has for you in Jesus? God can and will bring justice to the world and to our lives. In Jesus, God embraces all that is wrong with us and our world and makes us right again through his grace.

When we believe that, when we trust that good news, then asking God to set the wrong things right again will be a natural thing for us to do. Things are what they are, but they don’t have to continue to be that way. In Jesus, God makes all things new and sets things right again. This faith gives us good reason to always pray for God’s justice to reign in us and never give up.

Our Faithful God (2 Timothy 2:8-15)

Lots of people make us promises. For example, people who are close to us might make promises to us such as they will be home at a certain time, take the bins out, pick up groceries from the shops, and other every-day things. Then there are people and organizations in our wider society who promise us big things like secure and profitable superannuation investments, a more attractive appearance, a better quality of life if we purchase their product, and so on.

What happens, though, when people don’t live up to their promises and fail to be faithful to us and to their promises? What does that do to our ability to trust others? How, then, does that influence our ability to trust God? If we find it hard to trust the people around us who we can see and touch, how much harder is it to trust in a God that we can’t physically see or touch?

Faith in God and God’s promises to us in Jesus doesn’t come naturally to us. That’s why faith is the first and most important gift of the Holy Spirit to us and the primary work of the Holy Spirit in us. It’s only by the grace of God working through the dynamic power of the Spirit of God that we are able to trust in the good and gracious promises God makes us in Jesus. That’s why I never judge anyone who is struggling with faith. Especially in a world where we can be skeptical and cynical about what the promises people make to us, trusting in God’s promises to us can be really difficult for us.

A promise from God Paul gives us in 2 Timothy 2:8-15, however, is that God is always faithful and can be trusted. There are a few different ways we can understand the word ‘faithful’ but when I read 2 Timothy 2:13, as well as different places in the Bible, I hear ‘faithful’ meaning two main things. Firstly, being faithful means that God always keeps the promises he makes to his people. Secondly, faithful also means that so we can trust God to do what he says he will.

It’s a similar way of understanding faithfulness in marriage. When two people are married, they make promises to each other. To be faithful in marriage means both keeping the promises we make to our spouse in our wedding vows and trusting that our partner will keep her or his promises to us. Being faithful, like keeping any promises including the promises we make to God, can be difficult. We can struggle to be faithful to the promises we make for a whole range of reasons, just like it can be hard for us to trust in the promises others make to us. God understands that, but is doesn’t change his faithfulness to us.

The whole story of the Bible tells is that God is faithful. God makes promises to his people all the way through Scripture. The greatest promises God makes is that he would send a Saviour to free the world from sin and restore creation and everything in it to its original, perfect state. Ultimately, God keeps his promises and shows that he can be trusted in the person of Jesus. Through his life, death and resurrection, God fulfils his promises to liberate us from sin, to restore our relationship with him as his children whom he loves and with whom he is pleased, and give us a life that is stronger than death.

That is why Paul wants Timothy, as well as subsequent readers of his letter including us, to ‘always remember that Jesus Christ … was raised from the dead’ (v8 NLT). The resurrection of Jesus is the ultimate good news for us because it gives us God’s promise of life with him now and forever, and shows us once and for all that God can and will always keep his promises. We can trust that God is faithful because he has done what he said he would when he raised his Son from the grave, never to die again.

Because God has been faithful in keeping that promise, he will also be faithful in the other promises he gives us throughout Scripture. The main promises we hear throughout the Bible are the forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God, but there are so many other promises that he gives us as well. There are too many to mention here and now but God promises to us include love, joy, peace, hope, comfort, courage, and so much more. It is so important for us as God’s people to continually be in his Word by reading our Bibles because as we read the stories of Gods faithfulness in the past, they help us to trust that God will also be faithful to us. By remaining in God’s promises, the Holy Spirit will give us the capacity to trust in God’s promises to us. Then, when it gets hard for us to believe God’s promises and trust that he can do what he says he will, the promise from 2 Timothy 2:13 will always be there for us – that even if we are unfaithful to each other or to God, God remains faithful to us because that’s who he is. God always keeps his promises. If God says he will do something, he will do it. God is faithful, just as Jesus’ resurrection show us.

This week, I encourage you to open God’s word and listen for his promises to you. Sometimes they’re not easy to find, but through careful reading and ongoing reflection or meditation on his word, God’s promises are there for us. Imagine what life could be like if we were trusting those promises, and living like what God promises us was true. Even if they are hard to believe, still God tells us that he will do what he says, because he is faithful!

More to think about:

• Do you usually find it easy or hard to trust people when they make promises to you? Can you explain why that is?
• What are some of the promises you hear from God through his Word?
• Do you find it easy or difficult to trust God’s promises to you? Why is that the case for you?
• I’m suggesting that Jesus’ resurrection shows us that God will always keep his promises to us? What is your reaction to that? Would you agree or disagree? Can you explain why…?
• Paul writes (v13) that even if we are unfaithful (we find it hard to trust God and his promises), God remains faithful to us (and will still keep his promises to us). What questions, reactions or thoughts do you have to that? Do you find it easy or difficult to trust that promise? Why?
• What difference might it make to your life if you were able to live like what God promises you is true?

Learning to Pray (1 Timothy 2:1-7)

Good communication is vital for any healthy relationship. If our connections with each other are going to be constructive and life-giving, we need to be communicating well. This means both talking and listening to each other.

Our relationship with God works the same way. If we are going to live as God’s children and find life in our relationship with him, we need to be communicating with him. This happens in two ways: by listening to what God says to us in the words of the Bible and by talking with him in prayer. That is why these are the two most basic spiritual disciplines for disciples of Jesus: learning to listen to what he says to us through his Word and talking with him in prayer.

Unfortunately, we haven’t always learned healthy ways of talking with God in the church. For example, as a young person growing up in the church, the main ways of praying I witnessed were formal, pre-prepared pieces of writing which were read by the pastor in church or by our Dad at home. I understand that there is a time and place for a more formal way of praying, but when Jesus talks about God as our loving heavenly Dad, there is also room for us to talk with God like our Dad in heaven who just wants to listen to what’s going on in our lives.

When the Apostle Paul wrote his first letter to the young Pastor Timothy, he urged him to make prayer his first priority. That’s why he says, ‘I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people’ (v1 NLT). Prayer might be the first of a number of concerns that Paul is addressing in his letter to Timothy, kind of like the first thing on a list of things to talk about. However, these words can also mean that praying for all people is to be at the top of Timothy’s pastoral to-do list. It would be like Paul writing, ‘I urge you, most importantly of all, to pray for all people.’ This interpretation would show that Paul also regarded prayer as one of the most important things that Jesus’ followers can do. As we ask God to help us and other people, as we intercede for others, speaking to God on their behalf, and as we give thanks for all the expressions of God’s grace in our lives, we will grow in our relationship with God and bring his blessings to the people we pray for, our nation and its leaders, and the world in which we live.

One of the most important ways that we learn anything is by watching others do it. As we see other people modelling behaviours, actions and practices, we learn by watching them and how they do them. In particular, young people learn more from what we do than from what we say. If our actions are not consistent with our words, then they will learn more from what we do than the words we use.

When it comes to prayer, then, young people in particular, but also other Christians, will be learning about the importance of prayer in our lives and how to pray from the ways in which we pray. This is one of the reasons why it is important for us to be praying together as members of God’s family. Prayer is not just an individual thing. If we take that kind of approach to prayer, then other people might miss out on an important part of our relationships with our heavenly Father and each other. However, when we are praying together, we will be more like a family getting together to talk with their Dad in heaven. When we pray together in our homes, in small groups, and in our corporate worship, we will be teaching two really important things to the young in age and the young in faith. Firstly, we will be modelling that talking with our Dad in heaven is an important part of our relationship with him. Secondly, we will also be modelling good, healthy, life-giving ways to pray in which we are praying for all people, asking for God’s help, interceding for others and thanking him for all the good things he gives to us every day of our lives (1 Timothy 2:1).

Talking with God isn’t about getting the words right. I hope my children will see that just talking with me is more important than using the right words, and I believe God thinks the same when it comes to the ways we talk with him. Our first priority, then, as God’s children whom he loves and with whom he is pleased, and as followers in the way of Jesus, is to pray. God wants to be hearing what’s going on in our lives and in the lives of others. God wants us to trust him with everything that’s happening in our lives and in the lives of others. If you don’t know how to do that, or if you’re not comfortable in doing that, part of our church’s Discipling Plan is to help us grow as praying people.

Who can you be praying for this week? Try praying for a different person each day. Ask God to help them with what’s going on in their lives. Intercede for them by speaking up for them before God. Thank God for them being in your life and for the good God is giving to them and to you through them. We’ve actually stuck the four parts of 1 Timothy 2:1 – Pray for all people, Ask God to help, Intercede and Thank God – on our fridge to remind us. Maybe you could do something similar to help you develop the spiritual discipline of prayer.

However you do it, just talk with God, because it’s a vital part of our relationship with him and God loves it when his kids take the time to talk with him.

Finding the Lost (Luke 15:1-10)

Jesus had a habit of upsetting the respectable, religious people of his day. We heard about one way he did is a couple of weeks ago when he healed a disabled woman on the Jewish day of rest. Here, in Luke 15:1-10, Jesus is doing it again. We read that he was welcoming tax collectors and sinners who came to hear what he had to say (v1). This upset the Pharisees and teachers of the law because they determined peoples’ value by how well they kept their religious rules. Jesus, however, used a completely different standard to measure people’s value.

We can see the way Jesus valued people in the stories about the lost sheep and coin in Luke 15:1-10, and the next story about the lost or prodigal son. Jesus didn’t determine people’s worth by what they did or how well they kept the rules. The point of the stories of the lost sheep and coin is that each and every one is valuable. The shepherd goes looking for the lost sheep because he values it, even though it is just one and he has another ninety-nine. In the same way, the woman swept her whole house and searched carefully for her one coin, and then celebrated when she found it with her friends and neighbours, because it was valuable to her.

In these stories, Jesus is teaching us that each and every person, no matter what their lives look like or how lost they might be, is so precious to God that he would enter into our world as one of us in Jesus to look for us, to seek for us, to search for us, to find us. And when he does, and when we turn back to God in faith, heaven parties like you wouldn’t believe!

Over the last couple of years, our congregation has been using Growing Young from the Fuller Youth Institute to help us in our ministry with our young people. Their research found that there are six core commitments which help churches in their ministry with young people. One of these is to take Jesus’ message seriously. This might sound obvious until we start thinking specifically about how we do that. With these stories about the lost sheep and coin, for example, what does it mean for us to take Jesus’ teaching about God valuing and searching for people who are lost seriously?

Firstly, we take this message of Jesus seriously when we identify as people who were lost but have been found. We might sometimes have a tendency to behave more like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law in the story and primarily see others as ‘lost.’ However, we can all identify as people who are lost because we all tend to want to go in our own directions, do things our own ways, and think that we can do life on our own. This leads us away from a relationship with our heavenly Father. We can also get a sense of being lost in the times of life when we feel like we don’t know where we are, how we got there or where we’re going.

However, God values each of us so much that he comes looking for us in Jesus the same way the shepherd searches for his sheep and the woman looks for her coin in Jesus’ story. When we identify as people who are lost, we also find a greater sense of value because Jesus came to look for the lost and return us into a loving relationship with God. We take this message of Jesus seriously when we recognise that we are lost so that we can find greater love, value and identity in Jesus as people whom he values enough to look and bring back to God. We take this message seriously when we admit that we can still get lost, and look to Jesus to lead us back into a renewed and deeper relationship with our God.

The second way we can take the message of the lost sheep and coin seriously is to trust that Jesus is still looking for people who are lost and have wandered from a trusting relationship with God through him. When we think about the people who have disconnected from our church, people in our own families who have walked away from a relationship with God, or the young people in our church who are in danger of leaving our community of faith, what are we willing to do in order to help to find them for the sake of Jesus? Do we run the risk of behaving more like the Pharisees and teachers of the law who criticise people who don’t do things the way we think they should be done, or who expect others to measure up to our standards? Or are we more like the shepherd who values the one sheep so much that he is willing to search until he finds it and brings it home? Are we like the woman who cleans the whole house and searches carefully until she finds what has been lost? What do we really value more – our own traditions, behaviours and expectations? Or the people that Jesus values enough to die for?

To take this message of Jesus seriously means recognizing that the way Jesus continues to look for people who are lost is through us. As the body of Christ in the world, he has commissioned and called us to search for and find those who have wandered away from a relationship with him or have got lost along the way of life. One of our most important roles as Jesus’ followers in the world is to be joining him in his search for those who are lost. The message of Jesus is good news for our world. The emphasis in Jesus’ teaching isn’t to tell people that they’re lost. Instead it’s to look for people who are already feeling lost and to help them find their way back to a loving relationship with God through Jesus. When people hear the good news of Jesus and turn to him as the one who leads them into a better life, there is such joy in heaven that it is hard to imagine.

Jesus welcomed the lost and brought them home through a new relationship with God. We take this message seriously when we recognise that we are among the lost, and when we join with Jesus in searching for others who are lost as well. Who is one person you know who might be feeling a little lost that you can connect with this week? Go looking for that person, sit with them and listen to them. In simple ways such as making the time for people who are lost, maybe Jesus will find them and bring them home, as the angels celebrate their return.

More to think about:

• Have you ever lost something that was so important to you that you looked everywhere until you found it? What was it? Why was it so important to you?
• What do you hear Jesus teaching us in the stories about the lost sheep and coin?
• How might you take his teaching seriously in your own life?
• Have you ever felt lost in your life? What happened?
• What was it like for you to be found? If you’re still feeling lost, what might it mean to you that Jesus is looking for you & won’t stop until he finds you?
• Do you know someone who is feeling lost for some reason? How might you be able to be the way that Jesus goes looking for that person?
• How might your church be different if together you took seriously that Jesus wants to find people who are lost through you? What might need to change for you to do that faithfully & effectively?
• Can you imagine what the celebration in heaven is like when someone who was lost finds their way back to God through Jesus? Describe what you think it might be like…