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?

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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…

Planted by the Waters (Psalm 1)

When you travel through the Australian Outback, for hours all you see is desert or low, scrubby salt-bush. Every now and then you might find tall gum trees rising from the dry landscape. These trees are signs that there is water somewhere nearby. It might be a river or a waterhole or even an underground water source, but for trees to grow strong and tall, they need water to sustain them in the long, hot, dry Australian summers and droughts. Their presence tells us that there is water somewhere close for their roots to provide them with the goodness they need for life.

The ancient people of the Bible lived in a hot, dry climate like Australia. They knew how important water is for life. Plants or trees didn’t last long if they tried to grow a long way from a dependable water source like a river. For a tree to grow strong and produce the fruit that it was intended to, then it would have to be planted near water to give it what it needed to survive and thrive.

We can learn a lot from this image from Psalm 1 of a person who meditates on God’s word being like a tree planted along a riverbank. In lots of different ways, we can experience dry spells or droughts in life. When that happens, where do we go for strength, nourishment or hope? Where do we look for what we need to survive in this world and try to find what we need for life?

The promise of Psalm 1 is that when we are planted next to the life-giving water of God’s word, we will find everything we need to not just survive in life, but to thrive in even the driest times of life, and to produce the fruit that God wants to share with the world through us. When our roots go deep into God’s word and his promises to us through it, we will be like trees whose leaves never wither and are always fresh and green like a gum tree in the Outback. I know that the analogy is flawed because gum trees don’t produce fruit, so maybe it’s more appropriate to think about an apricot, apple or orange tree thriving in the middle of an Australian desert – can you imagine that? God’s promise to us in Psalm 1 is that no matter how things might try to suck the life out of us, when we are planted in God’s word with our roots going down deep into his love, grace and goodness, God will provide us with everything we need to have green leaves and produce delicious fruit in season.

At the heart of God’s word is the promise of his grace and love in Jesus. We can read God’s word as laws, rules and direction for our lives, but they are there to point us towards Jesus (Galatians 3:24). He is the source of a life which is stronger than the dry spells and droughts we go through, even stronger than death. When we read the Bible and hear the good that God promises to do for us and in us through Jesus, the Holy Spirit feeds and strengthens us, giving us everything we need for life in this world and the next (Romans 8:32). When we put our roots down deep into the good news of Jesus and draw on the grace and love of God for us in him, then the Bible gives us life to survive through and even thrive in every situation of life (Romans 1:16; 1 Corinthians 1:18).

That’s why it is vital that we are meditating on God’s word daily. If I just water a plant every now and then it’s not going to be as healthy and the fruit won’t be as sweet as when I water it regularly. It’s the same with us. When we are planted near God’s word and it’s a part of our everyday life, it gives us what we need for life to the full (John 10:10). It also means that when the dry times come, when tragedy strikes or life gets really hard for any reason, we are already prepared. Trees which have roots that go deep into the soil have a much better chance of surviving a drought than those with shallow roots. When our roots are diving deeper into the goodness of God’s word every day, we are already drawing on its goodness and finding what we need to thrive and continue to produce the fruit of good works when the dry times of our lives come.

Psalm 1 says this comes through meditating on God’s word (v2). The word ‘meditation’ might make some people think of sitting cross-legged on a mat while we try to achieve inner peace. Meditation doesn’t have to look like that. We all meditate when we think about things, turning ideas and other thoughts over in our heads. We all think about things such as what we’re going to do, what we’re going to eat, what do other people might think about us, what people may have said to us or about us, and so on. The main question for us isn’t so much ‘Do we meditate?’ but ‘On what do we meditate?’

The art of Christian meditation is bringing what God says to us in his word into those thoughts, so that our focus is on what God says to us and about us. Being planted by God’s word might be carrying one word of God’s grace, love or peace from the Bible with us through our whole day. The way I do it is to read the verse of the day on a Bible app on my phone before I look at the weather or my email first thing in the morning. Or I’ll read a couple chapters of my Bible in my office before I turn on my computer. My goal is to find one piece of good news or one promise from God which I can carry with me. During the day, then, I go back to that verse, promise or piece of good news to give me God’s perspective on what’s going on, to filter what’s happening through God’s word or to find God’s goodness in Jesus through it. Meditation is about seeing the whole of our existence from God’s perspective, through the lens of God’s grace and love for us in Jesus.
Learning to meditate on God’s word isn’t just for professional ministers. It’s an art for all of Jesus’ followers to grow in so that we can be planted near God’s word like a tree by a billabong in the Outback, drawing on and finding life in the goodness of God in Jesus which we encounter through the Bible.

I know the difference being planted near a river can make to a gum tree in the Outback. Being planted near God’s word can make the same difference to our lives.

More to think about:

• Why is it important for trees and plants to have a constant source or water? What happens if they don’t get regular water, especially during hot, dry summers or droughts?
• What are some things that can cause people to experience ‘dry periods’ in life? What are some of the ‘dry spells’ you’ve experienced in your life?
• Where did you go or what did you do to try to get through those dry spells? Did they help?
• What do you think of God’s promise in Psalm 1 that we will find life when we are planted near & meditating on God’s word? Is that a difficult promise to believe? What do you like about that promise?
• How do you go with reading your Bible? What might help you read your Bible more regularly?
• How do you think you would go if you committed to reading your Bible every day, found one piece of good news or promise from God in your Bible, and then carried it with you through your day? Would that be easy or difficult for you? How might it help you find God’s goodness in your life during the day?
• What are some other ways you might be able to be planted near God’s word to draw goodness from it to help you in your life?

Jesus’ Guest List (Luke 14:1,7-14)

If you were throwing a party or having a dinner to celebrate a special occasion, who would you invite?

I’m guessing that there are a few different ways we might decide on a guest list. We might think about people who have invited us to their homes or special events, or people with whom we have a close relationship, or people from whom we might hope to get a return invitation. But would you ever consider inviting people who could never invite you back?

It is natural for us to want to invite people for dinner or to a party that we like, are close to or might hope for a return invitation. The same was true in Jesus’ day. As Jesus sat at a dinner with a leader of the Pharisees on a Sabbath day in Luke 14:1-14, he watched people turn an opportunity for generosity and community into an exercise in social status. Some guests tried to sit in the most prestigious positions. It seems like they were using the dinner as an opportunity to make themselves look more important and climb the social ladder in their community. It might even be possible that the Pharisee, by inviting Jesus, was trying to make himself look good in others people’s eyes by inviting the Teacher into his home.

However, Jesus used this as an opportunity to show that the Kingdom of God doesn’t work in the same way we do. Whatever the Pharisee leader’s reasons were for inviting him, Jesus turned the human desire to look good in front of others on its head by teaching that God will reward people who don’t invite friends, relatives or rich neighbours to a dinner. Instead, God will reward those who invite ‘the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind’ (v13), in other words the people in society who are most destitute and in the greatest need. Instead of inviting people with the hope or expectation of receiving a return invitation, Jesus teaches us to invite people who have no hope of repaying us with a return invitation. In other words, Jesus is teaching us to make the act of giving generously without any thought of what we might get back in return our priority.

Can you imagine doing that? If you were going to invite someone over for dinner this week, who would be someone you normally wouldn’t invite? It might be someone you don’t get along with, someone from a different cultural background, someone with a disability, or someone who is socially isolated and lonely. There might be a range of reasons why we can find it difficult inviting people over for a meal. But if we are going to take Jesus’ message seriously, would we consider inviting someone with whom we would find it hard to share a meal, someone in need, or someone who couldn’t invite us back?

To be honest, I’m feeling a pretty uncomfortable as I write these words. In our home, with the number of evenings I’m out visiting people or going to meetings, we find it hard to invite people over at all. To then consider inviting people who we normally wouldn’t invite, then, is very challenging. But maybe that’s Jesus’ point.

One the one hand, like with all of Jesus’ teachings, we can hear these words as something we should be doing. Jesus’ teachings challenge our priorities and values as he shows us something deeper about ourselves through them. Jesus might be showing us that we naturally prefer to invite people we like or people who we hope will invite us back. To give an invitation to someone who might be hard to share a meal with is difficult and can go against our natural inclinations. We can’t ignore that and we need to take responsibility for that. The path to a better way of living begins with acknowledging that Jesus’ teachings confront our natural inclinations while at the same time pointing us to something better.

In this case, Jesus is pointing us to a better reality in God’s Kingdom.

When we gather in God’s house in worship, he is effectively inviting us into his presence to share a meal with us. We might like to think about ourselves as good people who somehow have right to share in the meal God invites us to. When we take Jesus’ teaching seriously, however, in all of its confronting brilliance, we can see that we can be the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind that Jesus is talking about. We can be poor in good deeds because we would rather share a meal with people we like or people we hope would invite us back. We can be crippled because we still tend to be tied up in our own self-interest rather than live in the freedom of faith and love. We can be lame because we find it difficult to walk in the way of life that Jesus teaches. We can be blind because we often can’t see others how God sees them, as valued and loved because of the presence of God in them and Jesus’ death and resurrection for them.

When Jesus throws the eternal banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven, he doesn’t invite the people the world would naturally tend to invite – the wealthy, the successful, the beautiful, the popular and the good. Instead, Jesus invites people who are in need of what he offers even though we can’t repay him for his generosity. Jesus invites those of us who are poor, crippled, lame and blind in body, mind or spirit. Jesus invites us to his table, to share his meal with him as he gives himself to us in self-sacrificing love, not because we deserve it or because he wants something from us, but because we need what he has to offer and because he wants to bless us with his gifts. He invites us as an act of complete and total grace because, not matter how poor or crippled or lame or blind we might be, Jesus reckons we’re worth it.

It would be easy at this point to throw out the challenge to think about who might be the least likely people you’d invite for dinner and then ask them over this week. I’d feel bad, though, if anyone in our church who has heard this message received that invitation and thought of themselves as ‘needy’ in our eyes. So I’m not going to do that, but instead ask you to consider a broader guest list than you have in the past next time you throw a party or hold a dinner.

I want to remind you, though, about who Jesus invites to his meal in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus doesn’t invite us to his table because we deserve it or because he wants something from us. Jesus invites us because he has something good to offer us – his own self as his act of self-giving, self-sacrificing love for us. As we join Jesus at his table, let’s remember that we come purely because of God’s grace for us in Jesus. And then let’s show that some grace to the people around us.

More to think about:

• If you were going to have a dinner or party, who are the 3 most likely people that you would invite? Why would you want to invite them?
• Who are the 3 least likely people you’d invite? Why would you not want to invite them? (you don’t need to share publicly if it will embarrass someone)
• How is Jesus’ teaching about inviting people who are in need or who can’t invite you back sitting with you? Are you feeling comfortable with his words? Or are they making you uncomfortable? Can you explain why?
• What do Jesus’ words tell us about the Kingdom of God?
• When Jesus invites people to his table at Holy Communion (or the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, etc) do you think he invites them because they deserve it or he wants a return invitation? Or does Jesus invite those who need his grace? Maybe talk more about your understanding of the Lord’s Supper and what you believe happens in Jesus’ meal of bread and wine…
• In what ways might you be physically, emotionally or spiritually ‘poor, crippled, lame or blind’? If this is who Jesus invites to his meal, how can sharing in his meal help to shape your understanding of God’s grace for you in Jesus?
• How might you be able to show that same grace to someone else this week?

Standing Straight (Luke 13:10-17)

The account of Jesus releasing a crippled woman on a Sabbath in Luke 13:10-17 might look like just another healing story when we first read it. However, when we listen carefully to the language Luke uses to describe the event we can find that there is more going on under the surface.

The Synagogue leader got upset with Jesus because he broke the Sabbath rules. About fifteen hundred years earlier, when Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, God gifted his people with a day off each week. This day of rest, known as the Sabbath, was so important that God enshrined it as one of the Ten Commandments – ‘Remember to observe the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy’ (Deuteronomy 20:8 NLT). In order to protect this gift, subsequent generations of Israelites began defining what they regarded as ‘work’ so they knew how not to break this commandment. By the time of Jesus, the gift of the rest day had become an expectation, lost under a complicated system of rules about what a person could and could not do on that day.

The synagogue leader got upset with Jesus because he viewed releasing the woman from her illness as work and so Jesus had broken this commandment in his eyes. Jesus challenged the leader’s understanding of God’s purpose for the Sabbath by pointing to the way he would untie his donkey or ox in order to lead it out for a drink of water. This action was also ‘work’ according to the synagogue leader’s Sabbath regulations.

This is where the language of the story becomes very significant. In verse 12, where the New Living Translation has Jesus saying, ‘you are healed of your sickness,’ the Greek text uses a verb which means more like ‘released’ or ‘let go’. In the same way, the word Jesus uses in verse 16 which is translated as ‘released’ is the same word he uses in verse 15 when he talks about ‘untying’ a donkey or an ox to lead it out for a drink of water. Luke used this language is to tell us that Jesus came to untie or release us from the effects of sin which tie us up, weight us down and prevent us from living in the ways God originally intended for us.

The Synagogue leader was effectively tying people up with rules, traditions and expectations around the Sabbath-day of rest. In contrast, Jesus saw an opportunity on this particular Sabbath to untie the woman, set her free and release her to live the life God intended for her.

When we gather together on our day of rest, I wonder who we more closely resemble? Are we living in the freedom that Jesus gives us through faith to find release from the things in life that tie us up, weigh us down and keep our eyes looking towards the ground? Or are we tied up with rules, traditions and expectations, passing those things that tie us up on to others? As people join us in worship, do they encounter rules that bind them or the grace of Jesus which sets us free?

We all have things that bind us. For some, like the woman in the story, it might be a physical disability which ties us up and prevents us from living the life God intends for us. If that’s the case, the good news of this story is that Jesus has the power to release us from our physical weaknesses and infirmities. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus has the power to make all things new, including our bodies. Some miraculously experience this healing and release in this life. Others wait their whole lives for it in faith and hope. Either way, Jesus asks us to trust him because ‘faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us the assurance about things we cannot see’ (Hebrews 11:1 NLT).

This woman’s physical disability also signifies something deeper that can happen within all of us. We can easily get tied up in things like guilt, fear, shame, anxiety, loneliness, other people’s expectations, the need to please others, and the list can go on and on. They bind us in ways that are very similar to the woman in the story because they restrict us and prevent us from living the ‘life to the full’ which Jesus promises us (John 10:10) in the love, joy, peace and hope that God intends for us. The things that tie us up keep us looking at the ground in front of our feet, making us stumble our way through life instead of having eyes that are lifted up to see Jesus in faith and others in Christ-like love. For us to live the life that God promises us, we need to be set free from the things that tie us up so we can stand straight and strong in the love and grace of Jesus.

That’s what Christian community it meant to be about. Our purpose is not to keep people tied up in expectations, human traditions or rules. That was what the synagogue leader was doing. Jesus’ purpose was to release people, to set us free, to give us life in all of its fullness. As a community of faith which carries the name of Christ, our purpose is to be finding and living in the love of God through Jesus which releases us, and then extending that same liberating love and grace to others. For a lot of people who grew up in churches which emphasised the importance of certain behaviours, customs, human traditions and expectations, this is a significantly different way of thinking about church.

But what might our community of faith look like if we understood our purpose as helping people find freedom from what binds them in life through a living and growing faith in Jesus?

There is a lot more going on in this story that just another healing miracle. Through the words of this story, Jesus gives us the promise that he can untie us from whatever binds us in life so we can stand straight, seeing his love and grace and seeing others around us who also need his love and grace. This story also challenges us to think about our own community of faith. How can we be a community where people can encounter the love of Jesus which releases us from what ties us up, so they can find the freedom which comes through faith too?

More to think about:

• What questions or thoughts do you have about the story in Luke 13:10-17?
• What are some of the things that can tie people up in life?
• Has your experience of ‘church’ been more about being tied up with rules or expectations, or being set free through grace and love? Maybe share some examples.
• What ties you up in your life?
• Do you think it is possible for Jesus to untie you from the things that tie you up like he did for the woman in the story? Discuss your answers…
• How might your view of ‘Christian discipleship’ be similar or different if you thought about Jesus calling you to follow him means that he wants to lead you into greater freedom from the things that tie you up in life?
• How might your view of Christian community or church be different if you saw it more as followers of Jesus walking together into greater freedom through a growing faith in Jesus?
• You might like to talk with Jesus in prayer, giving him whatever might be tying you up in life and asking him to untie you from it…

By Faith (Hebrews 11:1-3,8-16)

One of the toys our kids are currently collecting are small plastic pencil-top figures called Ooshies. There are two main ways to buy Ooshies. One way is in a multi-pack where you can see what characters you’re buying, except for a mystery Ooshie which is included. You can also buy single packs called ‘blind bags’ where you don’t know what you’re getting. In either case, buying Ooshies can be thought of as an act of faith because we are hoping for something good even though we can’t see exactly what we’re getting.

In some ways, this is the kind of faith the Letter to the Hebrews talks about in chapter 11. The author looks back at Old Testament heroes and shows how their faith meant that they lived their whole lives trusting in God’s promises to them even though they couldn’t see what they were hoping for.

Hebrews 11 teaches us some important things about the nature of Christian faith:

1. Faith is grounded and grows in God’s promises
The faith of the Old Testament people in Hebrews 11 was directed towards God’s promises to them. For example, God promised Abraham a land that his descendants would inherit. To Sarah, God promised a child. As Hebrews 11 looks back at the other Old Testament heroes, in every case their faith was connected a promise God gave them. It’s the same with us. Saving faith is always grounded in and grows from God’s promises to us in Jesus. As Paul writes in Romans 10:17, ‘faith comes from hearing … the Good News about Christ’ (NLT). For us and for our faith, then, hearing God’s promises in the Bible becomes vital to a living, active and saving faith.

2. Faith makes a difference to our lives
In every example that Hebrews gives, people’s lives were changed because of their faith in God’s promises. For Abraham the change was leaving his home and living in tents in the land God had promised him. The difference to Sarah’s life was having a child and becoming a mother at the age of 99. For the rest of the people in Hebrews 11, faith in God’s promises led to some sort of action. This is very different from an understanding of faith I come across sometimes which is more about intellectually agreeing with a church’s teachings or doctrines. Good teaching and doctrine are important in a church, but their purpose is always to point us to faith in God’s promises in the gospel which changes our lives.

3. Faith generates hope
The big difference faith in God’s promises made to all the people mentioned in Hebrews was that it gave them hope. Using the examples of Abraham and Sarah, both of them found hope when they believed what God had promised them. For Abraham, the hope was that his descendants would have a homeland. Sarah’s hope was that her shame would be removed through the birth of a child. For us, too, faith creates and sustains hope in our lives. When so many people in our society are struggling for something to hope in, when we trust in God’s promises and bring that good news to others, faith in those promises will lead to a greater hope in our lives and in the lives of the people around us.

4. Faith means trusting in what we can’t see
None of the people of faith in Hebrews 11 actually received what God had promised them. In verse 13 we read, ‘they did not receive what was promised,’ and again verse 39 states, ‘none of them received all that God had promised’ (NLT). This is the most difficult thing about faith – it’s trusting that something is real and living like it’s true even though we can’t see it and don’t fully experience it. This is especially hard in a culture which teaches that ‘seeing is believing’ and that if you can’t prove or have empirical evidence of something, then it doesn’t really exist. The very nature of Christian faith is that we hope for something and live like it’s true even though we can’t see it or prove it. The best we can do is look back at the ways in which God has kept his promises in the past. Based on that evidence, we can continue to hope that God will keep his promises to us in the same way that God kept his promises to all the people of the Old Testament. This is the purpose of Hebrews 11, and in fact all of the stories in the Bible: to encourage us in our faith. As we hear how God kept his promises to the people of the past, we can trust that God will keep his promises to us in the same way.

I have known people who say that living in the way of faith is easy because there are no absolute moral standards to reach and no rules that we have to follow. I disagree. Living by faith is much harder than a rule-based or self-help life because it asks us to trust God’s promises and live like they’re true, even though our experiences in life might indicate something different. Faith means hoping for what God promises, even though we can’t see it.

When I buy an Ooshie for my kids it’s an act of faith. We are hoping for something good, even though we can’t see what we’re getting. God makes us amazing, life-giving promises in Jesus. He asks us to trust him enough to live like what he promises is true, even though we might not be able to see what he promises us. As we read Hebrews 11 and look back at the heroes of faith from the Old Testament, God is showing us that he can be trusted so our faith can grow and we can bring the hope he gives to the people of the world, even when we can’t see it.

More to think about:

• I’ve heard it said that everyone has faith – what’s important is in what you have faith. Would you agree with that statement? Why or why not?
• What do you have faith in? Why do you have faith in it? What does it promise you? Can it actually deliver what it promises?
• As you read Hebrews 11, which is your favourite Old Testament character? Why is that person your favourite?
• I’m suggesting there are four things we can learn about faith from Hebrews 11. What was the promise your favourite character received from God? What difference did it make to his/her life? How did s/he find hope through faith in the promise? Why did s/he never see what was promised?
• What are some promises God makes you in Jesus?
• What difference might having faith in those promises make in your life?
• How might those promises give you a greater sense of hope?
• How might you be able to live like those promises are true, even if you can’t see them?
• Who is someone you know whose life might change for the better through faith in God’s promises to them? How might you be able to share a promise form God with them this week?