Sermons

Some people have trouble understanding this first miracle of Jesus because it involves supplying alcohol to a group of people who have already drunk a fair bit. However, the Christian faith is all about joy and Jesus, as the Messiah, has come to bring to inaugurate his kingdom. As Christians we celebrate the fact that Jesus has come and we celebrate that we are part of his kingdom and enjoying life to the full. Wine and joy are often linked in the Old Testament.

When John said, “Behold the lamb of God” he lost two of his disciples. Two of those who knew John, loved John, left to investigate Jesus, described as the lamb of God. These two disciples of John left him and followed Jesus. Now, when you think about what John did, in pointing away from himself, you would have to say that this is truly admirable. It shows the real quality of John the Baptist as a man who knew what his position in God’s kingdom was. This man knew he was not the light!

As far as invitations go, you mightn’t think too much of this one! We like invitations that speak of fellowship, personal advantage, even comfort but an invitation to join someone in suffering, for the gospel, isn’t really that exciting. I can well imagine that young Timothy would think to himself, “I’m not at all sure that I like this!”

The verse we are looking at tonight is the key verse around which Martyn Lloyd Jones writes his book, “I am not ashamed.” I personally have always found this verse encouraging and I suppose it has some nostalgia for me as when I was growing up Mum used to belong to a choir, and they would sometimes sing the hymn, “I know not why God’s wondrous grace to me he has made known.” What Paul tells us in this text is that he is not ashamed because “He knows who he has believed!” As a Christians, as an Apostle of Christ, he feels confident in God! He feels confident in Jesus Christ. He knows that one whom he has placed his confidence and he knows that he will never be let down!

When someone asked John “Who he was” that for them wasn’t really a question of his background. They knew who he was in terms of his parents and family background.They were really asking another question. They wanted to know if John was an important person in the plan of God to bring about the redemption of Israel. John however refuses to say that he was a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. Instead he describes himself as a “voice”.

I think one of the reasons as to why we are so often ashamed to stand up for Jesus, is because we have taken for granted what Christ has come to achieve. Why would we be embarrassed about our Christian faith, or embarrassed about Christ or embarrassed about the preachers of God in the world? The answer is that we have failed to appreciate the enormity of our own sin, and magnificence of Christ’s sacrifice!

Timothy is encouraged to fan into flame the ministry that he has. I think all of us know about getting oxygen into the fire. Anyone that has ever made a fire knows how important it is to get as much oxygen in there as possible. Thus, we wave madly about with newspaper or in the old days people had bellows to make the fire of the Smithy hot enough to melt, bend and temper metal. Who was to do that? Timothy was to do that! Timothy was to take responsibility for his own spiritual growth as a Christian.

John, most scholars believe, was written later than the other gospels and I believe that John had a specific aim in mind when it came to writing this Gospel. I believe his aim was to disclose fully, who Jesus Christ is. In those days there were already some who questioned whether Jesus was a man or whether he was God. Some said that he could not have been a man and others said that he was only a man.

One of the criticisms directed against Paul was that he was all bluff – that he was weak. That he wrote strongly when away but was weak when he was amongst them. Well, Paul is writing that when he comes, he will not exercise the same amount of restraint.  After-all he is an apostle of the Lord Jesus. These are strong words from Paul. The Corinthians had mistaken delay, gentleness, even meekness for weakness. Paul on the other hand had exercised Christian patience. Part of the fruit of the Spirit is patience and Paul has exercised that aspect of Christian character (Chapter 10:1, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ). Still there was an end to his patience and the Corinthians would soon feel that if they failed to discipline themselves. When it comes to disciplining children, you can cut them some slack, but if you never discipline, the lack of discipline will be seen as a licence to be naughty, to cause grief.

The Christian life is to be a life of praise, glory and adoration and these things should characterise our lives from A to Z. Praise should characterise the years of our lives and every aspect of our lives. In looking at Psalm 145 we note that this is the last of David’s Psalms recorded in the Psalter and that it is also an acrostic Psalm meaning that each verse in the Psalm begins with a new letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This unfortunately is lost in the English translations, which cannot of course be helped. It is fitting that the last of David’s Psalms would be a Psalm of praise because it doesn’t matter how life is, for the Christian, life must be about glorifying God and enjoying him forever.

As Christians we acknowledge that God’s plans will always override our plans. That God opens doors and shuts them but what especially amazes us is that God’s plans are always better than our plans.

Joseph would be a recipient of Christ’s finished work on the cross. Because he brought the baby home with him, nurtured him, protected him, cared for him and trained him. Despite the fact that Joseph was a righteous and sensitive man he still needed a Saviour and that Saviour was Jesus. Even the best of us need a Saviour. Humanly speaking Joseph was righteous. Spiritually speaking he needed a Saviour and that was the child that he had adopted as his own.

Mike P. Andrus entitled his study on this subject, “With friends like these, who needs enemies.” I believe we have seen into the heart of Paul. He desires to be in a good relationship with the church he established. He sees himself as a parent who has delinquent children. He loves them dearly but they have lost their compass, both spiritually and morally. They are also heavily critical of him, their parent. This passage asks us a number of important questions. The first one is this. 1. What kind of spiritual leaders do you recognise and support? 2. Secondly, how are we treating those whom God has placed over us in the Lord?

So, we have the joy of a miraculous birth and an awe in what God is doing. However, when Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit expresses himself, we are surprised. We sort of expect him to wax lyrical about his own son John, and although he does mention him, his voice praises God for someone far more important than his own son. This prophecy, this psalm of Zechariah reaches out far further and focusses on the salvation that is to come to Israel, through the coming of the Lord Jesus.

What Paul did in the Corinthians Church was to do something that he found extraordinarily difficult to do. He had decided to use the worldly tactic of comparing himself to his opponents and last week we spent some time looking at this. This week we continue with the same theme, but Paul now goes on to compare himself with those who are bragging about their communication with God, as we say, “To fight fire with fire” and so he compares their visions to his own but there is always a twist in how he goes about this!

The Corinthian Christians didn’t seem to mind a little arrogance, a little overconfidence, a little assertiveness, certainly it appears that they despised humility. A great man was to boast, to be proud enough to sing of his own achievements. Thus, the so called “Super Apostles” or “False Apostles” that came into Corinth happily exaggerated their credentials and their achievements and claimed things that they were not responsible for. What does Paul do about this? He boasts also but his boasting is different to his opponents in Corinth.

When Zechariah heard the amazing news that he would become a parent he didn’t say, “I don’t believe it!” with a kind of “I do believe it, but I find it really amazing” but “I really don’t believe the words of the angel Gabriel.” In fact, he didn’t believe the words of God to him! He really didn’t believe it at all! Mary on the other hand had a completely different reaction!

It is easy for pastors to commend themselves and boast in the size of their church or their budgets or how many converts they have or the amount of staff that they serve with. So, when we think of Super Apostles or Spiritual Predators, we first have to be aware of boasting. Of course, someone that boasts doesn’t therefore mean that they are a “Spiritual Predator” it is just one part of the puzzle we are looking at. In Australian terms we would say that we ought to be aware of people who “big note” themselves. They claim credit for things that they cannot claim credit for. They like to tell you how important they are and how they achieved this or that. They lack humility and the ability to see their own flaws as well as how God’s grace might have operated in their lives.

Kent Hughes in his commentary writes this… “Whereas chapters 1-9 were directed to the repentant majority of Corinth, chapter 10 – 13 focus on the unrepentant minority. Paul now goes to war against rebellion.” (p. 180). Paul has suffered hit after hit, insult after insult from his detractors. To give you a brief rundown of what they were saying about him. They judged that he had an unimpressive personality, that he lacked rhetorical skills, that he was too meek and mild, even his poverty they saw as a negative. To them Paul didn’t have their ecstatic experiences and visions. They considered his trials and sufferings to be a liability rather than as an asset.

This is the fourth sermon on the five convictions of The Vine Project which we are doing as a church. The theme is that disciples make other disciples by the grace of God and through the working of the Holy Spirit. The first part of the sermon looks at hindrances to this!

We note that the Apostle Paul goes out of his way to demonstrate his integrity to the Corinthians. He wants to do right in the eyes of God and in the eyes of the Corinthians. This is all in regard to collecting a monetary gift for the Jerusalem Church.

This is the second in the series dealing with “The Vine Project” which is all about discipleship. The question faced was this one, “What is a disciple?” The answer is in the sermon and the challenge is to ask ourselves if we are one.

Often in life we regret things but how is that different to repentance? Which is the Christian response to committing sin, be it against God or a fellow human being? Worldly sorrow goes along the regret line and leads to death says the Apostle Paul. Godly sorrow leads to life!

This sermon, picking up Don Carson’s teaching on prayer, urges members of the congregation to make a time to pray, to pray aloud and to have a prayer diary. Paul, in this passage lets the Colossian Christians know that he prays for them constantly and we could do more to make constant prayer for others, a greater part of our lives.

Paul in verse 4 is speaking to parents! His first word to parents it not to exasperate their children. We understand the words to mean “Do not irritate your children, do not provoke your children to be resentful or angry.” I think, parents as a whole find this very difficult to do! How does one go about disciplining children without them becoming angry or resentful?

Being a Christian today can see you labelled a religious “fanatic” and while it seems totally unfair it isn’t uncommon. Even in Paul’s day he was accused of being a crazy person. Even in the churches he was labelled as such by those who opposed him. In 2 Corinthians 5 we read this… 13 If we are ‘out of our mind,’ as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. In Acts 26 we read… 24 At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defence. ‘You are out of your mind, Paul!’ he shouted. ‘Your great learning is driving you insane.’ The religious leadership of Israel said the same about Jesus… 20 Many of them said, ‘He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?’ (John 10). Today we are going to look at what could be described as a reasonable fanatic as opposed to all the crazy fanaticism we see in our own day.

The idea of changing the camel to a rope or the eye of a needle to a small door is to create the impression that you can gain eternal life if you simply pack light. Instead of having a big caravan connected to the Toyota land cruiser, you have a small trailer attached to a mini. Or you imagine a man having to take his back pack off to crawl through a hole. In the end you create the possibility of getting in but without any material possessions. Thus, the rich man can’t get in but the poor man can! Still this type of interpretation, which is all too common, is faulty! What it does is elevate our ability to gain eternal life, while in actual fact we have no ability to gain eternal life.

Paul was motivated in his ministry because he was Christ’s Ambassador. He was a representative of the King of this Universe. Whoever was dealing with him was dealing with God. Whoever was dealing with him was dealing with the Alpha and the Omega, the lamb that was now the lion, the one with the feet of burnished bronze.

How do people who are responsible for so much tragedy and evil get away with it? We can well imagine those who came up to Jesus that day, telling him this story about the blood Pontius Pilate had spilled in keeping a lid on dissension against Roman Rule in Jerusalem wanting Jesus to condemn Pilate and Roman Rule in particular. They would want Jesus to join in on their chorus against Roman Rule and oppression. Yet, the amazing thing is this story is that Jesus does not condemn Pilate! So many wrongs are done each day. So many things are not fair! So many times, people get away with something and there appears to be no justice! We expect some kind of response from Jesus! We expect him to say something about this blatant injustice and yet he turns it all around and asks about our standing before God.

One day we will stand before the judgement seat of God and all will be revealed. How will we feel as we stand before the judge of the earth, Jesus Christ, the one with the nail marked hands and feet, the one who died for us and our works are shown to be nothing than straw? Paul did not want to stand naked and ashamed before the one who saved him. That is what motivated him in his ministry!