Discipline of Watching
1 Corinthians 10 v 11-13
Sunday 14th June
When we learn together on a Monday night, there is always room for discussion and questions. And whilst I do not pretend to be an expert I think it is really important for us to be able to discuss what we are learning. That's why I also think it is important to have a memory verse. Even if just one part of it sticks, it can become the beginning of something much bigger. The young people have been learning about the gifts of the spirit. We are learning of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-control. And our memory verse today picks up on the last one. With the help of the Holy Spirit, discipline becomes more achieveable. Matthew 26 v 41 Jesus says,“Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation. For the spirit is willing but the body is weak.”
So lets start as we mean to go on: PRAY
We are coming very close to the end of our series on the Discipline of Grace and as always Jesus has the ultimate say on how we should be living our lives. I think as a church we have become more aware that when Jesus talks, not only should we be listening, but we should also take action. It seems that Jesus rarely speaks words of passivity and more of activity. We have the Living Word Of God and an active faith. Bridges picks up on this activeness when it comes to the discipline of watching.
Imagine with me for a moment sitting in a coffee shop, or a canteen, what are you watching? Are you watching the staff, the customers, the passers by out of the window? On Friday I was doing this exact thing. I was watching, taking in lots of different things happening around me. I learnt that if you work in town you get 10% off at Costa! Watching teaches us so much about the world around us. If you've made eye contact with a small child recently you might remember the intensity of their stare, they are taking everything in through their eyes. But Jesus' call is not just to watch the world, but to also 'watch yourself'.
Bridges shares a personal story of late night TV watching to show a way of how we can know our weaknesses and know how the devil might tempt us. So what I would like you to do, is take a few moments, write temptations in the middle of your bit of paper and get down some ideas. We'll have some music playing in the background whilst you do it. Sharing
Gather Sharing on flip chart
These verses in 1 Corinthians remind us that God is with us through all the temptations, and the best thing to do to counteract it is to know where you are strong. The Discipline of watching is about knowing yourself well enough to be wary of temptation and not become comfortable with sin, whilst being free enough to live as God created you to be. 1 Corinthians 10 v 23 sums this up perfectly “Everything is permissible – but not everything is beneficial”. It's up to us to know what is beneficial to us.
We are told not to worry, we could spend our whole lives worrying about falling to temptation that we miss out on some great opportunities. This is where the grace bit comes in, that though God will not test us beyond what we can bear, He will welcome us with open arms when we do fall and say sorry. Because after all we are only human. His grace is sufficient.
Showing posts with label jerrybridges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jerrybridges. Show all posts
Monday, June 15, 2009
Monday, March 09, 2009
We Died to Sin
Our latest sermon series at St Hugh's is based on "The Discipline of Grace" by Jerry Bridges - Here's my input, delivered on 8th March 2009
Well, we spent last week preaching the good news to ourselves, so I hope you've been living in the good news and not the bad news for the past week. I also hope we've been sharing the good news with other people, it's a bit rude to keep good news to yourself!
As Bridges says in his book, the good news doesn't stop there. We know Jesus died on the cross, took on all the sin ever, and we are declared perfect and righteous in God's eyes. Jesus restored our relationship with God and not only we should be eternally grateful for that, but this news should also have a massive effect on the way in which we behave.
The extra great news is that we are free from sin AND free from the dominion of sin. This simply means that we are free from the power that sin has had over us since the day we were born. I don't think I can move on from that point... I'd be a liar if I said I lived with a permanent feeling of freedom from sin. Sometimes I feel like sin is still very much in control of the way I act and behave. It might be much the same for you. To hear and know that you are forgiven and free might be a real struggle, but it's a truth we need to tell ourselves each day, each time we start to doubt who we really are and who we really belong to, we need to be reminded of this amazing gift of grace.
This morning I want to pick up on two really significant things from this: We died to sin and we are alive to God. Pretty simple on the face of it all, but if you will wander with me for a few moments I hope you might find something that will inspire/challenge/remind you of who God is and what He has done for us.
“We died to sin”
The first part of our sentence is a concept I don't have a deep understanding of. There are plenty of phrases out there that wash over me and I don't really grasp what they mean, until you have to sit down with them and tackle them full on. So here goes...
Let's start at the beginning, what is sin? Sin is when we go against God's will for us and the laws he has set.
We need to expand our passage a little bit to understand where Paul is coming from when explaining dying to sin. Verse 5-10 of Romans 6 goes on to talk about how we are united with Christ in life, death and resurrection (coming back to life). This union isn't to be taken lightly. It's like super gluing your fingers to together or attempting to distinguish my right hand from my mobile phone, or as Jesus puts it, like the Vine and the Branches. You cannot see where one begins and the other ends and if you pull them apart it'll hurt (even to the point of death). We are joined with Jesus in everything he has done. When he died on the cross, death and sin were defeated. Jesus died to break the reign of sin. Let's ponder on that a moment. Though we are still sinners, we have a Saviour who was not only able to free us from sin's penalty (death) but also from its dominion. And that's what's so amazing about Grace. The Message version puts it this way: “When it's sin vs grace, grace wins hands down”.
My cousin moved to Milton Keynes from his mum's home in Hadleigh, Essex about 2 years ago. We were chatting about where he thought home was in the early part of his move, he started off with Hadleigh. We talked about how he'd brought his house in MK, worked hard on it, and worked just down the road, yet he still saw home as his Mum's house. I think we can use this as a great illustration to show that in actual fact we often live in a place, but it is not 'home' to us, the same is true with sin. If we live in a place of grace and but still call sin 'home', then we are not truly accepting that we have died to sin. In my own context, I have effectively died to Essex, and now live in Luton. There is no practical way I can live at my parents house, I have to make a home here. We cannot make a home in Sin if we truly believe in all that Jesus has done for us, and the grace we have received because of his actions.
So, in acknowledging our dying to sin, what does this mean for us?
“Alive to God”
We are alive to God. We have been brought out of the darkness, into God's glorious light. We are rescued from death, and like the person who has been 'given a second chance' we should be living as though sin is a threat to our lives, not a death sentence.
Bridges highlights the Vine and Branches example when talking about how our relationship with Jesus can be. You can't tell where one ends and the other begins, closer than friends. Being in Christ and having Christ in you are intertwined, spiritual and alive. The Holy Spirit dwells within us, takes every step with us and knows all that we do. To be alive to God is to live in assurance and hope. To be free to be in relationship with God, and know that HE wants to be in relationship and communication with you.
We can only die once, and in this passage that death is in the past we died to sin, we have been raised into new life with Christ. God sees us in the light of what Jesus has done, alive and well.
“So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep forgiving?”
I recently had a conversation with a young person who was describing how her friends responded when she mentioned that we are forgiven of all the wrong things we do. Her friends said “well, I'll just keep on sinning then, and keep saying sorry”. The friend had the no idea of all the love and grace it takes to forgive someone and not remember their sin. It's almost as though we respond in a selfish way... we don't fully comprehend grace, or unconditional love, and so are irresponsible and reckless with these gifts. Or we treat our forgiveness so lightly that it is diluted beyond being able to grasp the reality of it?
We all still sin, in action at least, though we are not under the reign of sin. We don't come from a place of sin. We have to live in a place which grace allows. And with this overwhelming grace, I don't know about you, but I am compelled to respond. God's unconditional love for each of us doesn't demand a response, but even if we hold on to a little glimpse the Holy Spirit can change us, we will not go on sinning if we understand a small part of God's grace for us.
I grew up in Essex, I have an affinity with people from Essex, but I no longer live there. Essex is not my home, Luton is my home. I'm the same Karen. I have died to what was before and embrace what is new, in doing so I have not lost any part of who I am. And it's the same with Sin and grace. Do we find ourselves answering to something which has no authority over us? Or are we responding to the gift of grace, living in Christ, with Christ in us, freely?
Bridges ends his chapter on this subject with these words: page 77
Well, we spent last week preaching the good news to ourselves, so I hope you've been living in the good news and not the bad news for the past week. I also hope we've been sharing the good news with other people, it's a bit rude to keep good news to yourself!
As Bridges says in his book, the good news doesn't stop there. We know Jesus died on the cross, took on all the sin ever, and we are declared perfect and righteous in God's eyes. Jesus restored our relationship with God and not only we should be eternally grateful for that, but this news should also have a massive effect on the way in which we behave.
The extra great news is that we are free from sin AND free from the dominion of sin. This simply means that we are free from the power that sin has had over us since the day we were born. I don't think I can move on from that point... I'd be a liar if I said I lived with a permanent feeling of freedom from sin. Sometimes I feel like sin is still very much in control of the way I act and behave. It might be much the same for you. To hear and know that you are forgiven and free might be a real struggle, but it's a truth we need to tell ourselves each day, each time we start to doubt who we really are and who we really belong to, we need to be reminded of this amazing gift of grace.
This morning I want to pick up on two really significant things from this: We died to sin and we are alive to God. Pretty simple on the face of it all, but if you will wander with me for a few moments I hope you might find something that will inspire/challenge/remind you of who God is and what He has done for us.
“We died to sin”
The first part of our sentence is a concept I don't have a deep understanding of. There are plenty of phrases out there that wash over me and I don't really grasp what they mean, until you have to sit down with them and tackle them full on. So here goes...
Let's start at the beginning, what is sin? Sin is when we go against God's will for us and the laws he has set.
We need to expand our passage a little bit to understand where Paul is coming from when explaining dying to sin. Verse 5-10 of Romans 6 goes on to talk about how we are united with Christ in life, death and resurrection (coming back to life). This union isn't to be taken lightly. It's like super gluing your fingers to together or attempting to distinguish my right hand from my mobile phone, or as Jesus puts it, like the Vine and the Branches. You cannot see where one begins and the other ends and if you pull them apart it'll hurt (even to the point of death). We are joined with Jesus in everything he has done. When he died on the cross, death and sin were defeated. Jesus died to break the reign of sin. Let's ponder on that a moment. Though we are still sinners, we have a Saviour who was not only able to free us from sin's penalty (death) but also from its dominion. And that's what's so amazing about Grace. The Message version puts it this way: “When it's sin vs grace, grace wins hands down”.
My cousin moved to Milton Keynes from his mum's home in Hadleigh, Essex about 2 years ago. We were chatting about where he thought home was in the early part of his move, he started off with Hadleigh. We talked about how he'd brought his house in MK, worked hard on it, and worked just down the road, yet he still saw home as his Mum's house. I think we can use this as a great illustration to show that in actual fact we often live in a place, but it is not 'home' to us, the same is true with sin. If we live in a place of grace and but still call sin 'home', then we are not truly accepting that we have died to sin. In my own context, I have effectively died to Essex, and now live in Luton. There is no practical way I can live at my parents house, I have to make a home here. We cannot make a home in Sin if we truly believe in all that Jesus has done for us, and the grace we have received because of his actions.
So, in acknowledging our dying to sin, what does this mean for us?
“Alive to God”
We are alive to God. We have been brought out of the darkness, into God's glorious light. We are rescued from death, and like the person who has been 'given a second chance' we should be living as though sin is a threat to our lives, not a death sentence.
Bridges highlights the Vine and Branches example when talking about how our relationship with Jesus can be. You can't tell where one ends and the other begins, closer than friends. Being in Christ and having Christ in you are intertwined, spiritual and alive. The Holy Spirit dwells within us, takes every step with us and knows all that we do. To be alive to God is to live in assurance and hope. To be free to be in relationship with God, and know that HE wants to be in relationship and communication with you.
We can only die once, and in this passage that death is in the past we died to sin, we have been raised into new life with Christ. God sees us in the light of what Jesus has done, alive and well.
“So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep forgiving?”
I recently had a conversation with a young person who was describing how her friends responded when she mentioned that we are forgiven of all the wrong things we do. Her friends said “well, I'll just keep on sinning then, and keep saying sorry”. The friend had the no idea of all the love and grace it takes to forgive someone and not remember their sin. It's almost as though we respond in a selfish way... we don't fully comprehend grace, or unconditional love, and so are irresponsible and reckless with these gifts. Or we treat our forgiveness so lightly that it is diluted beyond being able to grasp the reality of it?
We all still sin, in action at least, though we are not under the reign of sin. We don't come from a place of sin. We have to live in a place which grace allows. And with this overwhelming grace, I don't know about you, but I am compelled to respond. God's unconditional love for each of us doesn't demand a response, but even if we hold on to a little glimpse the Holy Spirit can change us, we will not go on sinning if we understand a small part of God's grace for us.
I grew up in Essex, I have an affinity with people from Essex, but I no longer live there. Essex is not my home, Luton is my home. I'm the same Karen. I have died to what was before and embrace what is new, in doing so I have not lost any part of who I am. And it's the same with Sin and grace. Do we find ourselves answering to something which has no authority over us? Or are we responding to the gift of grace, living in Christ, with Christ in us, freely?
Bridges ends his chapter on this subject with these words: page 77
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