| New Book now Available Here is an anthology of over 1100 brief prayers and thought-starters, for each day of the year, with almost 400 original prayers by Bruce Prewer. Included is both a subject index and an index of authors-- an ecumenical collection of about 300 different sources. |
 |
| Title: Brief Prayers for Busy People. Author: Bruce D Prewer ISBN 978-1-62880-090-6 Available from Australian Church Resources, web site www.acresources.com.au email service@acresources.com.au or by order from your local book shop or online on amazon. |
21-27 August
Matthew 16:13-20 (Sermon 1: “Get on the Front Foot.”)
Romans 12:1-8
Exodus 1:8 to 2; 10 (Sermon 2: “Good Luck, Bad Luck”)
Psalm 124
PREPARATION
Man and women without faith in God
are like thistle down on a whirlwind.
Our help is in the
name of the living God
who has made heaven
and earth.
Come then, let us bow down,
let us quieten ourselves in the presence
of God our Creator and Redeemer.
For our God is the
truest Friend,
we are the people fed
by Divine love,
the family under the
care of Holy hands.
OR
Who is this Jesus?
Who do you say the Son of Man is?
Some say a prophet,
some say a teacher.
Some say a wise man,
some say a reformer.
Some say a mystic,
Some say a shaman.
Some say a reincarnated prophet
like Elijah, Jeremiah or John the Baptist.
But we say he is the Anointed One,
the only true Son of the living God.
Blessed are you who come today with that belief,
for such faith is not your doing but a gift from God.
Thanks be to God!
PRAYER OF APPROACH
God our holy Parent, the magnitude
and mystery of the universe is a simple thing to you;
help us
to come to you with both awe and trust.
Christ Jesus our holy Brother, the
wonder of the Gospel of love is a free gift from you;
help us to
come to you with open hearts.
Spirit-Truth, our holy Friend, the
power that sustains all things is contained in your intimacy;
help us to
come to you with high expectations.
Please bless us, most loving God,
for in your blessing is our health and our happiness.
For your love’s sake.
Amen!
CONFESSION AND
ASSURANCE
Sin is falling short of the mark.
Let us make our confession.
Holy Friend, even if we had not seen your light and love in Jesus, we might be discontented with many of our thoughts, words and actions. But since you have shown your beauty in Christ, we are much more aware of how badly we have fallen short; of how far we are from fulfilling our potential.
We bring to you now the conglomerate that comprises our lives. We bring the small diamonds of success and the clay of failure, the gems we are proud to remember and the slag that makes us ashamed, the silver smattering of wisdom and the dross of our folly, the hopes that still shine like gold and the mud of pessimism. We confess all that we are and everything we have been, and put ourselves unconditionally in your hands.
Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy. Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.
Holy Friend, we thank you that the same Christ whose beauty highlights our fallen condition, also highlights your inexhaustible mercy. In your hands is forgiveness, in your hands is healing, in your hands is encouragement, in your hands is peace. Touch us now and we shall be made whole. For your love’s sake,
Amen!
FORGIVENESS
Sisters and brothers, Christ did not come to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be redeemed. He is the one who declares to those who come to him in faith: “Your sins are forgiven you. Go in peace.”
Thanks be to God
PRAYER FOR
CHILDREN
Dear Lord Jesus,
we are as yet young children,
and there are oodles of things
we don't know about you,
and plenty
we don’t understand.
But we are not stupid.
We do know
that you are truly the Child of God,
and we want to learn from you
and grow to love you
more and more,
better and better,
day after day.
Then when we grow up,
perhaps other people
will see a little bit of you in us.
If that happens, Lord Jesus,
then we will be for sure
the happiest people in the world.
Amen.
PSALM 124
If God had not been there for us-
let everyone admit it-
if God had not been there for us
when evil people came at us,
then they would have swallowed us
in their consuming hatred.
The flood would have washed over us,
the torrent would have engulfed us.
Raging waters would have drowned
and completely hidden us.
Wonderful is our God for keeping us
from being a prey to their teeth!
We have escaped like a budgerigar
from the bird smuggler’s net.
All the bird cages have been opened,
and we rise up and soar away free!
Our help is in the name of the living God
who made earth and all the stars of heaven!
Ó
B D Prewer 2001
WHO AM I
Matthew 16:13-20
He did not force-feed friends
with creeds they must believe;
he let them see and hear
and for themselves perceive.
His was no abstract truth
that followed logic’s rules,
his was not thick dogma
taught in Rabbinic schools.
They shared his nights and days
and saw his healing hand,
they fed on every word
and felt their souls expand.
Then when the time was ripe
for them to wonder why,
he thrust the question out
and waited their reply.
Peter first saw the light
of this new-world frontier,
and spoke confounding words
that Caesars came to fear.
Ó B D Prewer 1996
COLLECT
Most loving God, by your Spirit
you opened the mind of Peter to the unique glory of your True Son, Jesus of
Nazareth. Encourage us to unclutter our minds and unfetter our feelings, that
we may also be enlightened by your Spirit and become articulate in witnessing
to the truth of Christ within the complexities and diversions of this
generation. Through him to you, in the harmony of the Spirit, be all honour and
praise, for ever and ever.
Amen.
* Too wordy! Shorter version
follows.
SERMON 1: GET ON
THE FRONT FOOT.
Matthew 16: 18
I now say to you that
you are indeed Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not be able to stand against it.
I invite you to focus on those words about the church: ‘the gates of Hell shall not be able to stand against it.”
However, I want to start on a cricket ground.
I have for a long time delighted in the sport of cricket. It is years since I held a cricket bat in my hand, but the pleasure remains. In my enthusiasm I have even been heard to claim that is at its best cricket is more like an art form than a sport. I hope you uninitiated folk, or you poor, benighted “disbelievers,” will be patient with me as I chat for a minute of two about cricket.
When coaching young players in the art of batting, I found there was natural tendency to “play off the back foot.” That is, when the bowler hurls the ball, the first inclination seemed to be to take a step back, giving oneself a fraction more time before hitting the ball. It took time to convince some youngsters that it was sometimes better to go forward to meet the ball and “play off the front foot” The back foot technique is essential at times. If a fast bowler is pitching the ball short and making it rear up towards your fragile ribs or your precious skull, getting on the front foot is a like awarding yourself a ticket to the hospital. On the other hand, if you play on the back foot all the time, you make it easier for the bowler to get the upper hand and dictate the terms. Using the front foot as well, you have much more opportunity to take control. There are many runs to be made on the front foot.
I see this as being similar to life. Certainly it is similar to the Christian faith. There are times when we should be cautious, stand our ground and defy all the things that are hurled at us by “outrageous fortune.” As a church, we must at times play off the back foot.
The trouble is, it can become a trap. We can get set in a cautious mode, defensive most of the time. We can allow the opposition to get the upper hand and dictate the terms.
Jesus never allowed that to happen. He kept the initiative. He played off the front foot. What is more, Jesus had a remarkable faith in the church as an agent of change. He put the continuing existence of his whole cause, for which he would give his life, in the hands of that motley team who had been gathered around the gospel.
I now say to you that you are indeed Peter,
and on this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not be able to stand against it.
“On this rock?” What is the rock on which is built Christ’s church? Today I am not going to spend time trying to assess whether Jesus meant the rock to be Peter, or Peter’s confession of faith, on which the church would be built. Argue that among yourselves after church, if you want to, or talk it though at the dinner table.
THE GATES OF HELL?
It is the last part of the sentence on which I will focus.
I now say to you that you are indeed Peter,
and on this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not be able to stand against it.
First that word hell, a translation of the word “Hades.”.
Hades was a Greek word. For them it described gloomy, cavernous underworld where the dead languished. A similar view was held in other cultures of that era. For example, the Egyptians had their version of the underworld, Amduat, where a person would be weighed in the balance and either proceed to the glory of the Field of Dreams or be cast into the final darkness, the second death. Jews had their “Sheol” which was even more gloomy. Sheol was a state of desolation; the word became a metaphor for the death of goodness and love; for the victory of those foul forces of evil which had corrupted humanity with the temptation and fall of Adam. Evil and misery; Sheol; the land of shadows; Hell.
In understanding this statement from Jesus, we would do well to discard pictures of eternal fires and shrieking, barbecued souls. That was a later introduction, maybe built on Jesus’ reference to Gehenna. When Hades was used in this text which we are looking at today, Hades stands for the whole dark kingdom of evil, opposed to the kingdom of God. Hell is the realm of evil, where the devil reigns, and souls are ruined.
The English language had no direct equivalent. The original meaning of the word “hell” in English was a covered place. A hellier (spelling ?) was a thatcher, a man who covered roofs with thatch. Sometimes hell was used to describe a dark hide-out for evil men. Sometimes it was a cavernous place. We can see therefore, how at the time when the Greek New Testament was translated into English, the translators rendered “Hades” as “hell.” It was the nearest word they could find in English for that dark, evil place...
Out of this hidden place where evil reigns, emerge all those evil forces that afflict and corrupt the world. The gates of hell stand for the stout defences of Satan that are fighting the forces of goodness. Those gates shut miserable souls in and keep the good influence of loving souls out. Heaven and hell are opposites.
MY CHURCH?
Now let’s turn to the word “church.”
Matthew says that Jesus used the word church. He calls it “my church”. Not “your church’”, not the disciple’s Church but the Lord’s own church.
The Greek word behind the English word church (ekklhsia) denoted a gathering of people. One of my favourite usages was in what happened response to a king’s herald or good news announced by a town crier. When a crowd gathered in a market place of square to hear the important message, that crowd was an ekklesia, a church...
The church was formed by the message of Jesus. He was the herald of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Later the apostles were the heralds of that same Gospel. The ekklesia was and is always the gathered people. Not a building, not an institution, but people sharing good news. It is an event, a movement flowing on through history.
However in trying to talk about the church, early Christians (like us) sometimes used the picture of a building. They were familiar with worship in synagogues and temples. It was natural for them to employ images drawn from that experience. As the First Letter of Peter says: Jesus is the living corner stone, and we are the smaller living stones that build up a spiritual house. The danger here (which Peter avoids by using a mixture of metaphors) is that we slide into thinking of the church as a structure.
That is not true. The church is an event. A gathering of people, called by the herald word and way of the man of Galilee, Golgotha and the Easter dawn. A remarkable, vibrant, happening!
CITY OF GOD
However, thinking of the church as a building persisted in some quarters. Then it went even further.
Before long another structural image started to come into play. The church became likened to the city of Jerusalem, the fortress built on Mt Zion. The many references to Mt Zion and the house of God in the Old Testament were appropriated by those first century followers of Jesus. It was a natural transition, because those first Christians were Jews. They cherished their heritage and saw Christ as bringing fulfilment to all that was best in it. The church became the new city of God.
Later, this concept was given a big push by that outstanding Christian philosopher Augustine, of Hippo in Africa. The times in which he lived saw frightening changes. The Roman Empire which had for centuries seemed indestructible was in decline. Provinces were being lost through rebellion or invasion by various tribes. On the 24th August in the year 410, the unthinkable happened: the pagan army of Alaric the Goth captured and sacked Rome. People feared that the world was coming to and end. Dismay was widespread.
In that age of acute anxiety, the great St Augustine wrote a book called “The City of God.” The church was God’s own city which could never be conquered. Even though it might seem to be constantly under attack, it would withstand the assault of evil. The city of Rome could fall, but never the city of God. This was a message of hope to a dismayed people. The metaphor was eagerly and widely embraced. It gave comfort to a very jittery Christian church of that era.
In this way, the church had now assumed the image of a fortress city. A heavily walled city withstanding the assaults of the legions of Satan. Thus the whole image of the church became changed from that of Jesus and the New Testament. No longer was the church a gathering of people on the move, inspired by the gospel of Jesus. It became the church that was on the back foot. Defensive. It was holding out against the enemy. Fortress church became a common way of thinking and talking. Creeds intent on conserving the faith became more popular than mission statements.
A siege mentality became widespread. Sadly, this picture of fortress church became a most common one down through the centuries. Listen to the words from three different hymns:
`
From Scotland:
How glorious Sion’s courts appear,
The city of our God.
Its walls and bulwarks firmly set,
From Samuel Johnson:
In vain the surge’s angry shock,
In vain the drifting sands.
Unharmed upon the eternal rock
The eternal city stands.
From John Newton:
On the rock of ages founded,
Who can shake our sure repose.
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
You may smile at all your foes.
A siege mentality had taken over. It was a back foot game. The church was bloody but unbowed as its walls and gates are assaulted by the onslaught of evil.
HELL IS ON THE BACK FOOT
Turn now back to the words of Jesus, and see how we have reversed the text. Jesus said:
On this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Here it is not the church that is on the defensive, but the kingdom of evil, hell! It is the gates of hell that are under siege. Besieged by a loving people who are on the move, a body of people who have been gathered around the living word of Jesus Christ. Here the church is not on the back foot but on the front foot. Offensive not defensive. It is proactive, not reactive. Creative heralds of Jesus, not curators of a precious museum.
I suspect that today we are even more in the negative mode. The widespread secularisation of Western society has fostered anxiety. I fear that too much of our current thinking is defensive. We have taken up positions behind walls which we try to defend. But Jesus does not want us there. He wants us out in the open, taking the attack up to evil in its seductive, technicolour manifestations in this arrogant and self-destructive era.
We are not a building. Not a city with massive walls. We are people. We are an event, not an institution that must defend itself at all costs. We have heard the good news from the lips of Christ Jesus, and are agents of his love in the world. We are meant to be more on the front foot, on the move.
It is true that there is a time for being on the back foot. Defence is on occasions the smartest move. But it should not be our chief modus operandi. Overall we should be going forward in faith, resilient and filled with bright expectation. This cannot be done without taking risks for Christ and the Kingdom of God.
We can do this daringly because Christ himself has terminally weakened the gates of hell. In the fortress cities of the old world, the gates were always seen as the most vulnerable point. Defenders could build their stone walls two metres thick, against which no battering ram could be effective. But the gates had to be thinner and lighter, made of thick timbers, often covered with metal.
That is the metaphor Christ presents to us. Those gates of the kingdom of evil, the weakest points, cannot withstand his love. In fact his death and resurrection has already unhinged them. They cannot, they shall not, prevail against the onslaughts of love, mercy and peace.
The kingdom of evil is on the way down. It may not seem like it. It may not feel like it. The city of evil will fight back. It will cause some mayhem, and take some prisoners and make them its slaves.
But its final fate is sealed. It has been sealed since that day when a crucified young Jew cried out: “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. It has been sealed from that Sunday morning outside an empty tomb when a woman called Mary heard her name called by the precious voice of risen Christ.
A WORD FROM YOUR PLAYING COACH
Get more on the front foot.
Do I sound now like a coach? Maybe. Maybe I am like a coach, as long as I can be a playing coach. For a minister must always be a playing coach. A pastor is never a retired player, sitting and watching and scheming, while in his own mind falling into the delusion of thinking himself smarter and more effective than he ever really was on the field.
Playing coach? Okay. As such I do ask you to gather around as often as you can and hear the herald’s announcement of Gospel. Then to get on the front foot as the church of Jesus Christ. Get on the front foot with you eyes fixed on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
I cannot offer you any cheap advice. No cheap optimism that seeks to build on the flimsy basis of perceived human progress. Such progress is not assured. Nor can I dare to say be brave because science, after many misguided attempts, will finally build you a better world. I cannot even pretend that will be easy quick returns for your investment in the love of Christ Jesus. Ours is a long-term view point. There is no cheap fix, and certainly no quick fix.
Yet by the love of the Lord Jesus, gates of hell shall not prevail against us. I tell you this; with all my heart and soul and mind I tell you this:
Wherever one woman, man or child, anywhere in this world, throws in their lot
with Jesus and says with utter sincerity: “You are my Christ, the son of the living God”
then the gates of hell shake and even the old enemy within the citadel begins to tremble.
To hell with pious pessimism, with head shaking and mutterings of doom and gloom. To hell with negativity, because that is where it truly belongs.
You are the Christ,
the Son of the living God,
and we are His church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against us!
Onward and forward is the word. Onward with the excitement and the discipline, the loss and the gain, the fun and the pain, of living with faith, hope and love.
SERMON 1: GET ON THE FRONT FOOT.
Matthew 16: 18
I now say to you that you are indeed Peter, and on this rock I
will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not be able to stand against it.
I invite you to focus on those words
about the church: ‘the gates of Hell shall not be able to stand against it.”
However, I want to start on a cricket
ground.
I have for a long time delighted in
the sport of cricket. It is years since I held a cricket bat in my hand, but
the pleasure remains. In my enthusiasm I have even been heard to claim that is
at its best cricket is more like an art form than a sport. I hope you
uninitiated folk, or you poor, benighted “disbelievers,” will be patient with
me as I chat for a minute of two about cricket.
When coaching young players in the
art of batting, I found there was natural tendency to “play off the back foot.”
That is, when the bowler hurls the ball, the first inclination seemed to be to
take a step back, giving oneself a fraction more time before hitting the ball.
It took time to convince some youngsters that it was sometimes better to go
forward to meet the ball and “play off the front foot” The back foot technique
is essential at times. If a fast bowler is pitching the ball short and making
it rear up towards your fragile ribs or your precious skull, getting on the
front foot is a like awarding yourself a ticket to the hospital. On the other
hand, if you play on the back foot all the time, you make it easier for the
bowler to get the upper hand and dictate the terms. Using the front foot as
well, you have much more opportunity to take control. There are many runs to be
made on the front foot.
I see this as being similar to life.
Certainly it is similar to the Christian faith. There are times when we should
be cautious, stand our ground and defy all the things that are hurled at us by
“outrageous fortune.” As a church, we
must at times play off the back foot.
The trouble is, it can become a trap.
We can get set in a cautious mode, defensive most of the time. We can allow the
opposition to get the upper hand and dictate the terms.
Jesus never allowed that to happen.
He kept the initiative. He played off
the front foot. What is more, Jesus had a remarkable faith in the church as an
agent of change. He put the continuing existence of his whole cause, for which
he would give his life, in the hands of that motley team who had been gathered
around the gospel.
I now say to you that you are indeed Peter,
and on this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of
hell shall not be able to stand against it.
“On this rock?” What is the rock on
which is built Christ’s church? Today I am not going to spend time trying to
debate whether Jesus meant the rock to be Peter, or Peter’s confession of
faith, on which the church would be built. Argue that among yourselves after
church, if you want to, or talk it though at the dinner table.
THE GATES OF HELL?
It is the last part of the sentence
on which I will focus.
I now say to you that you are indeed Peter,
and on this rock I will build my church,
and the gates
of hell shall not be able to stand against it.
First that word hell, a translation
of the word “Hades.”.
Hades was a Greek word. For them it
described gloomy, cavernous underworld where the dead languished. Jews had
their “Sheol” which was even more
gloomy. Sheol was a state of desolation; the word became a metaphor for the
ultimate separation from goodness, light
and joy.
When Hades was used in this text
which we are looking at today, Hades stands for the whole dark kingdom of evil,
opposed to the kingdom of God. Hades/Hell is the realm of darkness, where the
evil reigns, and souls are in ruin.
In
our text, it is the church that
is on the front foot! The “gates of hell” stand for the defences of Satan that
are trying to hold off Christ and his
church.
MY CHURCH?
Now let’s turn to the word “church.”
Matthew says that Jesus used the word
church. He calls it “my church”. Not
“your church’”, not the disciple’s Church but the Lord’s own church.
The Greek word behind the English
word church (ekklhsia) denoted a gathering of people. Especially a crwod gathered in
response to a king’s herald, a town crier.
Jesus
was the herald of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Later the apostles
were the heralds of that same Gospel. The ekklesia was and is always the
gathered people. Not a building, not an institution, but people sharing good
news. It is an event, a movement flowing on through history.
However, some early Christians (like
us) also used “church” as a building. They were familiar with worship in
synagogues and temples. It was natural for them to employ images drawn from
that experience.
T his paved the way for some later ,
defensive thinking. The church became likened to the city of Jerusalem, the
fortress built on Mt Zion. It was the new city of God.
As the Roman Empire disintegrated the
church saw itself as the “city of God”
standing against the forcess of paganism. The church pictured itself on the back foot?
A siege mentality became widespread.
Sadly, this picture of fortress church became a most common one down through
the centuries. Listen to the words from three different hymns:
`
From Scotland:
How glorious Sion’s courts appear,
The
city of our God.
Its
walls and bulwarks firmly set,
From Samuel Johnson:
In
vain the surge’s angry shock,
In
vain the drifting sands.
Unharmed
upon the eternal rock
The
eternal city stands.
From John Newton:
On
the rock of ages founded,
Who
can shake our sure repose.
With
salvation’s walls surrounded,
You
may smile at all your foes.
A siege mentality had taken
over. It was a back foot game. The
church was bloody but unbowed as its walls and gates are assaulted by the
onslaught of evil.
HELL IS ON THE BACK FOOT
Turn now back to the words of Jesus,
and see how we have reversed the text. Jesus said:
On this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it.
With Jesus, it is the gates of hell that are under siege.
Besieged by a loving people who are on the move, a body of people who have been
gathered around the living word of Jesus Christ. Here the church is not on the
back foot but on the front foot. Offensive not defensive. It is proactive, not
reactive. Creative heralds of Jesus, not curators of a precious museum.
I suspect that today we are even more
in the negative mode. The widespread secularisation of Western society has
fostered anxiety. I fear that too much of our current thinking is too defensive. We have taken up positions behind
walls which we try to defend.
It is true that there is a time for
being on the back foot. Defence is on occasions the smartest move. But it
should not be our chief modus operandi. Overall we should be going forward in
faith, resilient and filled with bright expectation.
CHRIST HAS ALREADY DONE THE DAMAGE.
We can do this daringly because
Christ himself has terminally weakened the gates of hell. In the fortress cities of the old world, the
gates were always seen as the most vulnerable point. Defenders could build their stone walls two
metres thick, against which no battering ram could be effective. But the gates
had to be thinner and lighter, made of thick timbers, often covered with metal.
That is the metaphor Christ presents
to us. Those gates of the kingdom of evil, the weakest points, cannot withstand
his love. In fact his death and resurrection has already unhinged them. They
cannot, they shall not, prevail against the onslaughts of love, mercy and
peace.
The kingdom of evil is on the way
down. It may not seem like it. It may not feel like it. The city of evil will
fight back. It will cause some mayhem, and take some prisoners and make them
its slaves.
But its final fate is sealed. It has
been sealed since that day when a crucified young Jew cried out: “Father
forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. It has been sealed from
that Sunday morning outside an empty tomb when a woman called Mary heard her
name called by the precious voice of risen Christ.
Get more on the front foot. For
Christ’s sake!
Yet by the love of the Lord Jesus,
gates of hell shall not prevail against us. I tell you this; with all my heart
and soul and mind I tell you this:
Wherever
one woman, man or child, anywhere in this world, throws in their lot
with
Jesus and says with utter sincerity: “You are my Christ, the son of the living
God”
then
the gates of hell shake and even the old enemy within the citadel begins to
tremble.
To hell with pious pessimism, with
head shaking and mutterings of doom and gloom. To hell with negativity, because
that is where it truly belongs.
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,
and we are His church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against us!
SERMON 2: GOOD
LUCK--BAD LUCK?
Exodus 1:8 - 2:10
Theme: An honest look at the role chance plays in our life. Not to lessen our belief in providence but to enlarge it.
From one viewpoint, the Jews received what agnostics might describe as a series of lucky breaks: Abraham gets a foothold in a new land, Isaac and Jacob marry well by chance meetings, Joseph goes from slave to Chief Minister by a series of coincidences, in time of famine the descendants of Abraham are welcomed to Egypt and are given prime land and prosperity on the Nile Delta. You could call them the good luck kids on the block.
That was at the start. Then things became dangerous. From the point of view of an agnostic observer, the Hebrews begin a very long series of cruel breaks. Looking back from today, we recognise that for over 3 millennia they have suffered more than most nations on this earth, wanderers over the face of the globe, culminating in the terrible holocaust in Nazi Germany when up to 7 million were enslaved, starved and exterminated.
In the OT today we witness the first wave of bad luck. The era of Joseph’s power and influence passed. New Pharaoh’s reigned. As if in a foretaste of their tragic later history, the Jews became a persecuted minority.
THE REALITY OF GOOD LUCK AND BAD LUCK
Good luck? Bad luck? Where does divine purpose come into all this?
Does God apportion to us good and bad, according to inscrutable divine wisdom? Is everything ordered by God? Or is there a large element of chance embodied in the very nature of this remarkable creation?
At this point I beg you: don’t get the huff and turn off your ears at what I am about to say. Please hear me through. You need to hear me out to the end if you are to be in a position to either agree or disagree.
Personally, I accept the role of chance.
Of course I may be wrong, God forgive me if I am, but I believe there is a large degree of chance that God has very purposefully woven into this universe.
The detailed events of each day are not allocated and governed by a hidden, divine hand. Accidents do happen to good people, disease wastes choice spirits, natural disasters engulf the righteous. There appears to be something indiscriminate at work in the events around us.
CHANCE IS A GOOD GIFT
Chance is real. But as I see it, chance is not here by chance!
No way! It is a gift of God, lovingly written into the constitution of the creation. It is an essential element in the Divine purpose. Chance is a part of the basic framework with which the providence of God works to bring many children into true glory.
Fix on this: There must be chance if true goodness is to arrive, grow and flower to maturity.
Repeat: There must be chance if true goodness is to arrive, grow and flower to maturity.
If the world was so constructed that goodies were always rewarded and baddies always “got the chop,” there would be a flood of people seeking membership of the church. Not because they wanted to love God but because they would want to strike the best deal for themselves. They would rush to have a life assurance and superannuation policy with a “divine company” that offers heavenly terms and never becomes insolvent. Selfishness not godliness would be the motivation.
True goodness can only arise in a world that appears to indiscriminately distribute health and prosperity by chance. Remember how Jesus pointed to the weather to describe what God was like. God sends rain and sunshine on both good and bad people without discrimination.
This is truly the world in which we live. Look honestly at it; that is how many things happen; by sheer chance.
THE APPARENT UNFAIRNESS
Have you noticed (I’m sure you have!) the way sometimes misfortune can happen to Beautiful Christians while good fortune seems to come the way of scumbags? At first or second glance (and even third!) it looks grossly unfair.
There are a host of examples.
During a drought a heavy thunder storm drenches the land and fills the dams of one pastoralist who has no respect for either God or man. Forty kilometres down the road a devoted Christian family who are always there for their neighbours, do not receive a drop of rain.
A woman of great sensitivity and compassion, supported by a wonderful husband, who dearly and prayerfully longs to be a mother, cannot seem to conceive and give birth to a child. In the next street is the slovenly, foul-mouthed wife of a layabout who gives birth regularly and does not care much for any of her offspring.
In war, the homes of kindly, conscientious citizens can be destroyed by bombs, while the house of the biggest rogue in the street is left standing.
On the highway, a family obeying all the road laws and driving with admirable courtesy as well, gets wiped out by a car on the wrong side of the road, while its a drunken driver escapes with a few scratches to his face and hands.
A conscientious high school girl in one weak moment of mistaken romance, surrenders to a clever seducer and ends up with aids. Her freely promiscuous classmates never catch anything worse than a common cold
This is the kind of undiscriminating thing that does happen in life. It really is like this. If we approach the matter with any degree of honesty at all, we must admit that good or bad luck does not have a direct correlation with god or bad people.
UNEVENNESS AMONG CHRISTIANS
There is also an apparent lack of purpose in what happens among true believers. Some get it easy, some do it tough! Even among believers there does not seem to be a level playing field.
One suffering Christian prays to get well but dies. In the next ward another Christian prays to get well and recovers.
One unemployed church elder prays for a job and soon finds an ideal position. A similar elder in another church prays even more faithfully and trustingly yet spends months or even years out of work.
One minister of solid but unexceptional talents gets called to serve in a number of flourishing parishes. Others with similar, or sometimes greater abilities, find themselves in a succession of struggling parishes.
One very gracious forgiving person may be subject to bitter attacks from an estranged spouse, while another more judgemental person is given continued understanding and support from a former spouse.
One set of parents pray every day for their children and see them grow up to be active servants of Christ in church and community. A different set of parents pray just a much but end up with irreligious offspring and suffer the added grief of watching grandchildren brought up without the knowledge of God’s love.
Don’t let us fool ourselves. This is how it really is. Over forty years of being a pastor has taught me at least this much:
What happens to many Christian people in no way
reflects the true nature of their faith, hope and love.
There seems to be an indiscriminate element operating; both in the general community and within the Christian fellowship.
CHANCE IS THE FERTILE GROUND FOR THE SEEDS OF FAITH
This brings me back to the notion of chance:
God the Creator has allowed within the ground of this existence the element of chance. And as I said earlier, without it, true morality and sincere, loving worship could not develop. It is the most fertile ground for a God who yearns for a harvest of faith, hope and love.
Does the element of chance rule God out of the daily situations we must face? Never! Does that mean that God does not hear our prayers? Never! Does that mean God does not care what happens to us? Never! Does that mean there is no providential love? In no way!
Rather it means that the providence of our loving God works with an enormous number of
complex factors, and from them manages to express and fulfil the work of creation and redemption.
The Jewish people went from famine in Canaan, to plenty in Egypt, then on to oppression and slavery, and even infanticide in later times.
Yet God was always there with the chosen people. Always God was in their joy and in their suffering. I want to repeat that word suffering: By allowing the element of chance, by permitting suffering and injustice, God has also willingly become subject to the pain and frustration of humanity.
No prisoner cries out without that cry coming from the soul of God. No victim is oppressed without God experiencing oppression. No barren mother aches for a child without God aching for that child. No mother or father weeps for their self-destructive children without God deeply weeping. God totally identifies with us.
GOD TAKES THE INITIATIVE
God is far from inactive.
God is (as I tried to say last week) always bringing in new initiatives. God is the redeeming God as well as the creating God. Our God is a saving God, not working to our specifications or to our timetable, but ceaselessly working to bring about transformations. The God of the Bible takes chances and creates coincidences and directs them towards salvation.
As the Jewish people groaned under Egyptian oppression, as many baby boys were being ripped from their mother’s arms, God led one mother to place her child in a little basket-boat and set it afloat on the Nile among the reeds. She placed him near the place were the daughter of Pharaoh came with he maids-in-waiting to bathe in the river. Among the willing servants of God was the teenage sister of the baby, a girl named Miriam. She, a smart kid, stayed nearby and watched.
The daughter of Pharaoh arrived for her swim, spotted the basket boat and stared goggle eyed at the little baby who (in my imagination) looked up at her, gurgled and smiled. The princess was hooked. Miriam, the smart kid, seized the opportunity and asked the princess if she would like a wet-nurse to suckle the child. Yes indeed!
So when little Moses was adopted by the princess, yet he had his own mother to suckle and care for him, and to teach him the faith of the Hebrews.
The living God, providentially involved wholeheartedly in the affairs of this world, including the chance factor, takes the separate events and plaits them into the purpose of salvation for his chosen people, and through them for the salvation of the world.
This did not mean that Moses was God’s favourite, spoiled and pampered, but that God had a special task for this tiny life. When God works in this kind of way, it is never to bestow favouritism on an individual, but to seize the opportunity to use one person for the good
of the many.
I find the story of Moses a wonderful affirmation of the intimate providence of God, working with the difficult factors of change and chance. Moses is brought up as a prince among other princes. He receives the best education that the Egyptian civilisation can offer, trained in science, public and personal health, astronomy, architecture, systems of government, legal codes and military strategy. But from his mother and sister, he was also taught the ways of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
Things came together. Things were wonderfully integrated, as only God can integrate dispirit factors, to prepare Moses for the task of liberating the children of Israel from their bondage. Providence was humbly but majestically at work.
There was much more preparation to come, before the time is right for the salvation event. We will follow Moses over the coming weeks and see more of how things work together for good, for those who are called the share God’s purposes.
PROVIDENCE IN OUR LIVES
For now, we must return from the world of Moses to our world.
It is often said that a good novelist writes about the things that she/he knows. That is also largely true for a preacher.
There is a resonance for me as I read the story of Moses. What happened to him on a grand scale is what I have seen happening on a smaller scale in the lives of God’s servants around me today, and what has happened in my own life. Providence.
I do not believe that every event that has happened to me has been planned directly by God.
Chance has played a considerable part. Maybe it has played a larger part than I realise. But the most significant part has been played by the God who has been with me in the midst of change and chance. Majestic Providence, taking events and creating the most fruitful coincidences, is the basic reality that constructs the story of my little life. Majestic Providence.
This I know. I look back over the years and marvel at how God has used the indiscriminate factors and plaited them into meaning. And let me say I marvel most, not at the happy, exciting, exhilarating events, but at the low points. I marvel at how God took the most painful factors, those against which I naturally complained (with many protests and laments to high heaven!) and used them for a greater glory.
Again and again I have seen the similar thing happening in the beautiful, though often distressed, lives of those with whom I have pastored over the years. I see both chance and providence; accidents and greater purpose; tragedy and a transforming glory.
Putting as plainly as I can I now witness to you: It works. Accepting the factor of chance has not robbed me of a sense of loving providence but immeasurably enlarged it. My God is infinitely loving and infinitely resourceful. No bad hand that chance deals us is outside of the capacity of God to employ it re-creatively, lovingly, beautifully.
I ask you, I beg you, to go on trusting in the God of the Bible; the God of Sarah and Abraham, Miriam and Moses, Mary and Jesus. By such trust you will better play your part is attaining that which God has in store for you. What is more, you will, play your part with joy rather than reluctant fatalism.
Your part may be only 5% of the contribution, chance may be 20%, and the other 75% God’s love, but your part is an essential ingredient. Saying yes to God, committing all our ways to this Divine Lover, is the most wonderful and fulfilling thing we can ever do.
With all my heart I say, trust God. Commit your days and ways into the hands of a saving love which the whole universe cannot contain.
HYMN: All my hope on God is founded. Joachim Neander.
THANKS TO THE GOD
WHO HIDES
We thank you, most wonderful
God,
for hiding yourself
within the events of daily
life.
You were there unfailingly:
In the migration of Abraham and
Sarah, so long ago to a promised land,
In the wilderness with Moses,
and with Ruth among strangers in a foreign land.
In music that came from David’s
harp, and in the prophetic anguish of Amos.
You were there unfailingly:
In the pregnancy of Elizabeth,
and with young Mary on that donkey ride to Bethlehem.
In the growing of a Youth to
maturity, and in his baptism and wilderness temptations.
In the fishermen who followed a
young Rabbi, and with a woman who washed his feet.
You were there unfailingly:
In the court when Mary’s son
stood in the dock, and on the stumbling climb up to Golgotha.
In the forgiveness of the
Crucified One for his killers, and in his forsaken cry.
In the stone tomb, and with
disciples hiding behind locked doors.
You were there unfailingly
With the women, and Peter and
John, who visited the tomb at daybreak.
In the room where disciples
found hope, and with Thomas as he aired his doubts.
In the group who journey to
Emmaus, and at breakfast on the shores of Galilee.
In the breaking of bread and
the sharing of wine, and on the road to the end of time,
you are here unfailingly.
Irrepressible God,
we thank you for hiding
yourself in daily lives,
where we can know you yet not
define you,
trust you yet not direct you,
celebrate you yet not predict
you,
love you and forever adore you.
Through Christ Jesus, our light
and salvation.
Amen
PRAYERS FOR OTHERS
* For 2 voices
We pray or God, for our sisters and brothers of every race, our fellow Australians and the myriads who may seem just statistics in populations of Asia, America , Africa or Europe.
We cannot love every person, but you do, and we seek your blessing on them.
Please help those who
are caught up in webs of corporate evil, and those who are torn by personal
temptations, to now take some control of their own destiny.
Please help any who are on the brink of belief and trust, but who feel that their lives are too insignificant for you to be concerned for them, to find renewed faith.
Please help children
who are enduring war, hunger, violence, or who are forsaken, orphaned,
homeless, or diseased, to receive loving care through the hands of your agents
of mercy..
Please help the intellectually and physically handicapped, the frail who find each day a major struggle, the lonely, sad or bitter folk, to discover peace and purpose in their daily lives.
Please help prime
ministers and presidents, parliaments and local councils, the UN Security
Council and UNESCO, to find the way to achieve what is best without fear or
favour.
Please help leaders in commerce and industry, and union secretaries and shop stewards, to look beyond short-term victories to the long term well being of all.
Please help the social
welfare outreach of the church, its social justice ministries, and its ventures
in evangelism, that we may be more ready to serve than be served.
Please help us where it is appropriate to our skills and opportunities, to implement some of these prayers with sensitivity, integrity and quiet determination.
Through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen!
SENDING OUT
I appeal to you, sisters and brothers, by the mercies of God
to present your lives
as a living sacrifice, set aside and acceptable to God.
The love of Christ inspires us.
Do not conform to the thinking of this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may test and prove the will of God.
The love of Christ empowers us.
The love of Christ Jesus will enable you,
the love of God will underpin you,
the friendship of the Spirit will fulfil you,
today and for ever.
Amen!
THREE BOOKS BY BRUCE PREWER
THAT ARE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
BY ORDERING ONLINE
OR FROM YOUR LOCAL CHRISTIAN BOOKSHOP
