Guest speaker and good friend Robin Morrison brought us a fantastic word about having hope and help during times of tumult and transition (hands up anyone who’s NOT in a time of transition right now!) He brings wisdom and insight on how to deal with delays, disappointments and dead-ends with his usual trademark style and grace.
We’re all called to mature our faith. Paul’s letter is a roadmap to maturity. In his introduction he sets out the foundations for the journey. The starting point is the grace of Jesus (1:2), the supreme authority in life and the universe. The Colossians have truly understood grace (1:6) and so must we. Let us not water it down or compromise it. Because the degree to which become experts in the full knowledge and understating of grace is the degree to which we are able to let Jesus’ supremacy rule over our whole lives. In turn, the more we allow Jesus to reign supreme the more our lives will reflect his character and the more we will mature. Jesus is the beginning, middle and end of the journey.
Jesus and the powerful. Whilst it is true that Jesus spent the majority of his time with the poor, the downtrodden and the marginalized, it is not true that he was therefore against the powerful, influential or rich. Indeed he welcomes powerful people to himself, receives support from the rich, and those who follow him instruct us to pray for our leaders. What he does stand against though, is all forms of pride - religious, social, economic and self-related. Because pride is a barrier to entry into his kingdom of life. Humility is the only way in. Godly humility looks like Jesus. It is neither self-denial, nor self-aggrandizement. Rather it is an acceptance of our gifts and talents, and a receiving of God’s honor towards us - and a submission of our self and our ability to use in his kingdom.
Sin is everyone’s favourite word, but i’m not always sure we have the right spin on it. Sin is all the ways in which we’re not orientated towards the loving ways of God’s kingdom. We’re all caught up in those all the time, but ‘obedience’ to his ways changes its meaning entirely when we learn to come back to the love.
It’s easy to go to extremes in our beliefs about supernatural evil - some become unhealthily obsessed, whilst others can dismiss its existence entirely. In order to be true to the New Testament we must acknowledge both that the demonic exists, but also that this doesn’t now mean all our problems are the result of demons. In fact demonization tends to be relatively rare. When someone is being delivered from the demonic, it is very obvious, so we don’t need to search for demons, demons, everywhere! We can relax!
What Jesus’ deliverance ministry does remind us though is that we live in the midst of a battle. The devil will use anything - the brokenness of our parents, our religious leaders, our friends and fellow believers, and especially ourselves - to steal the life from us. But Jesus is victorious over it all. He is the one who sets us free from all the pain of the past. Let us allow him to be the king of his kingdom and welcome his deliverance from the old and his welcome into the new.
Jesus’ hometown people would have known him and watched him grow. They had a shared experience of agricultural living under foreign rule so when Jesus makes the announcement of Kingdom, his genté (people) would’ve expected nothing less than special favors and treatment from the local teacher. We’re not immune from this. We may often face temptation to fit Jesus into our designs and cubes as well as make special demands from him. In doing so, we miss the exciting and redemptive truth that it’s not us who fit God into our designs, He’s the one who fits us into his unfolding story or renewal. The new community of Jesus, His new genté, are those who are open to the presence and activity of the Spirit. This is who we are. So let us surrender to the Spirit and the renewal that he wants to bring both in our lives and the world around us.
Jesus and the sick. In order to fully experience the life we are intended for we need all of the fullness of Jesus. That means not just receiving his teaching, not just receiving the consequences of his death and resurrection, but also receiving his power and coming under his lordship. Throughout the gospel of Luke Jesus is shown to have authority over death and disease. Everyone is eligible for his healing; it is a natural overflow from his compassion for all people; and it exists as we exercise our faith. The more we trust that he is who he says he is, the more we will see him be true to his promises. At bread we believe we’re being called into more maturity as a community. Maturity means growing in the things of Jesus, all predicated on growing in our faith in him.
Jesus with women: Luke is the New Testament writer with the most references to the role or women in God’s plan of salvation. And when we unpack Jesus' attitude towards and interaction with women in context, we see that he began a revolution for and radical endorsement of the status of women in God’s kingdom. Paul’s assertion that there real are no male or female, for all are one in Christ, is the logical conclusion of Jesus’ treatment of all people. And so, given the gender equality we see promoted in NT, the question for all of us becomes less about what our gender says about who we are, and more about who God says we are as unique individuals. Our job is to give our gifts and calling back to him, and allow him to lead us as we use what we have in service and furthering of his beautiful kingdom.
New series alert! We always want to understand Jesus better, so what better way than a series on how he interacted with people in Luke’s gospel? Right from the start, Jesus spoke about how he came to bring a new day for jews and gentiles alike. We might not always relate to how offensive this message was. But we are all wired for groups!
We think this is one of the most important pastoral words we can share in our divided era (but be warned - it’s never been an easy one to hear.)
Faith is trust or confidence that someone/something is always true. It is having assurance even when we can’t be certain with our senses. This is what the letter of Hebrews summons us to take up and in the right order: faith comes first. Too often the emphasis is placed on doing good and getting well ahead of faith but as Hebrews makes the case, these are a byproduct of faith. This faith is not aimless or passive, it is set on Jesus, the Pioneer and Perfecter. He is the one who brackets this walk for us, he is leads us to the starting point and sees us through to completion. We cannot do this faith thing apart from Jesus because he’s the point of it all. Faith isn’t the guarantee things will get better. It's the guarantee that Jesus’ presence will make a difference for how we show up. Let us look again to Jesus.
Is it possible to see God? The Apostle John writes from experience that the way we see God is not dependent on our senses. Instead, we see God clearest when we love one another. As God’s children, he forms us to be representatives of him, emissaries of his love to do his will. Our hope is that the Spirit enabled love between us would be enough for others to see God.
God’s insanely loyal love is like a line-leader, always showing us the way back into vibrant, close relationship with Him. Whether you’re in the midst of rebuilding your faith (after perhaps a time of disassembling it), or just needing to find time to reconnect with Jesus, we can do this together, as a community. Staying connected in any relationship takes time and intention and our relationship with God is no different. Discover some creative new ideas for rebuilding and reconnecting with God in this podcast.
In the second of two talks on money as our new financial year begins we’re turning our attention to the NT view of money. In 2 Corinthians 9 Paul appeals to the church in Corinth to give generously to the struggling church in Jerusalem. It’s a passage which tells us much about what Christian giving is all about. It’s rooted in love. Love from God and love for one another is the basis for all Christian generosity. And it means that to be a Christian is to be a giver. It is part of our new identity. But not just a giver, a giver of reckless generosity. We’re called to give abundantly. And whilst we don’t give in order to receive, God’s promise is that when we give abundantly we will receive abundantly: not necessarily materially (although God will always look after all our material needs), but also spiritually. Giving money away robs it of much of its power and frees from anxiety and joyful abundant living. Just like we’re meant to be!
The first of two talks on the subject of money. Often people have grown up with a skewed understanding of money in the bible. This is a talk from the Old Testament about what concepts have never applied (but have often been understood to apply), what has always applied and always will, and what applied in OT times but no longer does because of Jesus. Ultimately Christianity is about having our hearts completely changed. And when our hearts are like Jesus’ heart, we are able to be free and gloriously generous with our resources. This paradigm goes way beyond Old Testament concept of tithing- we are called instead to be joyful, carefree, delighted givers. Generosity is us! Allow him to make you more and more like this. And be who you now are by giving generously and abundantly.
Concluding our series on the opening chapters of Genesis we look at what life is like east of Eden. The consequences of Adam and Eve’s choosing independence from God mean that oneness with God, creation and humanity is lost. Post fall, the battle with sin is an ongoing constant reality. In the story of Cain we see that none of us is immune from temptation and the power of sin. But if our identity is built on the grace and love of God we can, in Jesus’ power, overcome. Cain though has built his identity in something far less secure, and his life falls apart very quickly.
There were consequences for Adam and Eve’s decision to eat the fruit. We all know this part of the story, an echo and response to the famous creation story of the Hebrews’ Mesopotamian captors. It’s fair to say that Eve’s punishment may have had more air time than Adam and the snake’s throughout christendom. In fact, many christians today still root their belief in ordained male authority over women in what God says to Eve in this scene. But this was never a story about God’s intentions for hierarchy. This story is about quite the opposite!
The Fall of Adam and Eve is one of the most famous passages not only in the Bible but all literature. But despite this it’s not always easy to understand what is going on. Rather than just being about disobedience or a loss of innocence, it’s really about something much deeper. The heart of Adam and Eve’s fall is about independence. They go after something they already have (wisdom and divinity) but they want it without God. This tends to be the heart and result of all human sin - a turned inwards on oneself, grasping at an identity independent of God. We become incapable of being the generous open people, connected to our creator, that we were made to be. The beauty of the gospel though is that we don’t have stay that way - Jesus has broken the death spiral of independence and offered us a reconnection to the God without whom we would be lost.
It is not good for us to be alone. In a culture that strives for autonomy and individuality, Genesis reminds us that we are made for togetherness. Often togetherness has been defined in terms that exclude and diminish some under others. The togetherness that Genesis speaks of is one of equality without any sense of hierarchy or patriarchy. What we find in Genesis 2 is God’s purpose for us is to grow into his family. It used to be one built through physical means but in Jesus, it is one growing by the Spirit. God’s family is blended, its big, and theres room for you.
Genesis 2 tells a second creation narrative that is told from the ground-up, whereas Genesis 1 tells the story from a more cosmic perspective. It speaks of Eden as a space where luxury and pleasure had no limit. It contained a garden where God himself walked with humanity, along with some symbolic rivers and trees. In this poetic-narrative we see a mirror-image of where all humanity is headed, when Jesus finally restores the earth. This series is called Back to the Start, but part of that is remembering where we are going. We aren’t headed back to Eden, but we are headed toward an earth that is restored and renewed by Jesus himself, when he will finally set all things right.
The creation of humankind in Genesis 1 is one of the most important passages in the whole bible. In it we see what God was and is again aiming for with us, the human race. We’re not a cosmic disappointment. We’re the pinnacle of his creation. He loves us and he saw that we are very very very good!
We are not God’s slaves (like in Babylonian mythology) we aren’t created to serve him, we are created to be him - an extension of his presence and power in the world. We are given extraordinary position and influence in the world. Through Jesus, God has redeemed, restored and ultimately recommissioned us to be his vice-regents on earth. Every single one of us has an identity and a calling from the King of Heaven. So allow him to breath his royal life into us once again.
