This is the latest blurb that is published on the front of our weekly bulletin

Are you responsible with your power?

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The crown of the king (CREDIT: Jason Train via Flickr)

Did you know that God has made us responsible for ruling the world?

In the book of Psalms, God’s people say to him,

“…what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet:” (Psalm 8:4-6)

The Lord is king over the universe, and he’s put humans in charge of Planet Earth and beyond.

This is why humans have the authority to make decisions about animals and the environment.

God has given us this charge to rule everything under his command, and this is why a Biblical worldview has humans at the focal point of all decisions.

Yet, with much power comes much responsibility!

It is within our divinely-delegated power to do anything we like to our environment and to treat animals in any way we wish, but, God will hold us accountable for the decisions we make, as we rule his world under his kingship.

And at the heart of our leadership must be servanthood.

For, if we want to see what perfect human rule looks like, we should consider how Jesus rules.

His greatest act of leadership was not to set himself up as a powerful and dominant ruler.

Instead, his ultimate act of kingship was giving his life for the humans under his rule, so that he might taste death for those of us who obey his call to repent and believe in him.

Jesus’ death is an example of how to rule and serve, but most importantly, his death brings his people renewal by the Holy Spirit, so that we might lead with love.

How will this change the way you rule the world?

Jodie

The best weekend ever?

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Join us at Waterslea next weekend!

When I was nine years old I was invited to a Christian holiday camp by a friend from school.

It turned out that my friend, Julian, was a regular, churchgoing Christian, and he reached out to me to invite me to join him for a week of horse riding, canoeing and even air guns (back in the day!)

I still remember the campfire, the awesome leaders, and even the potatoes we peeled in the kitchen.

But what I’ll never forget was the message of the speaker about how to become friends with Jesus.

And at that camp I remember asking Jesus to forgive me and to let me follow him all my life.

Camps are a very special place to know Jesus and experience his love in a special community of believers.

Next weekend, our church is going away for a whole weekend together, to live, learn, love and laugh.

And we are set to be greatly blessed by the teaching of Peter Jensen, as he opens up God’s word to us in a practical and powerful way.

Peter’s four talks are, ‘The Birth of Culture,’ ‘The Gift of Community,’ ‘The Promise of Justice,’ and ‘The Power of Words.’

If you’ve never been on a church camp or weekendaway before, then there’s still time to join us.

And if you’ve been before, you’ll know that it’s an occasion not to be missed.

If you’re short of time, money, or transport, then there are ways to get you along.

But whatever you do, don’t pass up this opportunity to be with people of all ages and stages, from both Oak Flats and Jamberoo Anglican Churches, as together we meet Jesus, clothed in his word, present by his Holy Spirit, bringing glory to God.

See you there, God willing!

Jodie

What’s beer got to do with church?

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The video at the centre of the Coopers and Bible Society controversy (CREDIT: The Bible Society)

This week there has been some controversy surrounding the production by Coopers Brewery of commemorative beer cans to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Bible Society.

As part of the celebrations, the Bible Society released a video in which they hosted a mini-debate between two people with different views on same-sex marriage.

The video showed a wonderful example of how two people can clearly differ, whilst maintaining respect.

Sadly, the response to this video was a call to boycott Coopers, which was then carried out by several pubs and beer drinkers.

After originally supporting the tone of the video debate, Coopers went on to strongly distance themselves from the video and eventually state their their strong support of same-sex marriage.

The pressure that Coopers felt is the same pressure that Christians regularly experience to be silent in this debate, even if we speak in a well-mannered way.

This is a sign of the kind of challenges that Christians will continue to experience, and are likely to see grow in frequency and intensity.

This is all the more reason why Christians need to stick together.

And the place to do that is by going to church.

We don’t go to church in order to please God, or to somehow work our way to Heaven.

We come to church to meet with Jesus as he speaks by his Holy Spirit through the words of the Bible, in a supportive and loving community of grace.

Because if you think you can stand up and say you’re a Christian but rarely, if ever, come to church to be supported by your Christian brothers and sisters, then you’re likely to fall away under the ever-mounting pressure of our increasingly-hostile world.

If you’ve not been to church for a while, please come back.

We need you, and you need us.

Jodie

What has ESP got to do with Christianity?

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I was recently watching a program that was taking a light hearted look at the claims of ESP (extra-sensory perception).

The show didn’t hold my interest for long, but what was interesting was the way the host explained his scepticism.

He said “ I’m an atheist… I don’t believe in that kind of thing at all.”

Notice his reason for not believing: he said he was an atheist, as if that proved the point.

What lies behind this statement is the claim that atheists only believe in that which is provable by reason and science. 

To believe in God, so they say, is to believe in something without evidence and so is unprovable, and ultimately unknowable.

So you have to take a leap of faith, given that believing in God is on the same level as believing in ESP.

How do we respond to such a characterisation?

Christian apologist John Lennox gives us an example of why this thinking is both mistaken and inconsistent.

In a debate with the atheist Richard Dawkins, the following exchange occurred:

Dawkins: We only need to use the word ‘faith’ when there isn’t any evidence.
Lennox: No, not at all. I presume you’ve got faith in your wife — is there any evidence for that?
Dawkins: Yes. Yes, plenty of evidence.
Lennox: Hmmm.

Dawkins expresses the same view: belief in God is in the realm of blind faith.

But Lennox challenges that.

Faith is a word that expresses a relational trust based on evidence.

The next question then is this: are there reasons to place our faith in God in the same way we trust a faithful wife? And the answer is a resounding ‘yes!’

To be a Christian is not to take leave of one’s senses, but to respond in faith to God who has revealed himself.

God reveals himself in His word – where we find carefully written and researched accounts of Jesus.

He invites us to listen, reason, investigate and respond.

Simon Chaplin

Do you have trouble with trust?

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Straight Road (CREDIT: hirotomo t via Flickr)

When I was a young boy, I remember receiving a Bible from my grandma as a gift.

In the front of the book she wrote in beautiful handwriting this verse from the book of Proverbs:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

It is only now, as a much-older adult, that these words seem to really make sense.

As a child, I was working hard to grow up into a man, and that meant that I needed to be able to develop skills and knowledge that I could depend upon.

But now that I’m older, I understand that no matter what I’m able to do as an adult, I need more than ever to trust in the Lord with all my heart.

It can be very hard to trust in others when you’ve been hurt or when you’ve become reliant on your own abilities.

But God makes it clear to all of us, young and old, that no matter how good our understanding of life, we still need to rest fully on God, to trust him in every single way.

And when we’re told to trust God, it means that we need to submit to him, following his loving rule over us.

We long to be the “self-made” person who can play “I did it my way” at our funeral, but God tells us that we need to throw ourselves on Jesus, to put our full faith in him.

And the great news is that when we do that, he will make our paths straight: he will smooth out the bends in life, even when it sometimes feels a bit bumpy on the road.

Because when we trust in Jesus as Lord, he will lead us in the road to Heaven, taking us safely home.

Jodie.

The Five Solas

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As you might have heard, this year marks the 500th anniversary of The Reformation.

This really is an important event in the Christian calendar, but its importance lies not in the nice round number of 500, nor in the fond feelings it might arouse.

The significance of this anniversary is not so much about looking back, but it’s about a call to continue what was begun.

It is in the nature of man to take the loftiest of things and turn them around for the worst.

This is perhaps most true of religion.

There is no higher or loftier subject than that of God, and yet given enough time all religions seem to displace God from the centre and replace Him with man.

We shape God in our own image… we speak of what man can discover about God… we create the works that man must do to reach the God we have invented.

When the Incarnate Son became man He exposed the corrupt nature of man-centred religion.

This was God become flesh, revealing God to us.

Man, a finite sinful creature, has no hope to reach up to God and take hold of Him.

But in Jesus, God reaches down to us: in his Word he reveals himself to us. 

What’s more, we have no ability to work our way up, as if somehow we could erase the debt of our sin.

And yet it is grace, all of grace, that Jesus pays our debt for us. We simply accept this gift by faith.

The Reformation exposed what the church had become: man-centred religion… and it sought to take us back to God. 

The five “Solas”, (which just mean ‘alone’ in Latin), are the the catch-cry of the Reformation.

And these five statement capture this so well: ‘Scripture Alone,’ ‘Faith Alone,’ ‘Grace Alone’, ‘In Christ Alone’, ‘To the Glory of God Alone.’

And the call of the Reformation continues today, to turn from man-centred religion to Christ alone.

Simon Chaplin

More than a rain shelter?

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Jamberoo Anglican Church

This weekend we give thanks to God for 150 years of ministry in our building at Jamberoo Anglican Church.

This milestone reminds us that this building has had a special place in our hearts for we who have regularly gathered here since 1867.

It is the place where we have baptised babies and new believers, married new couples, and said farewell to our loved ones.

This makes this building very significant to many generations of Jamberoo Anglicans.

Yet despite the fond memories of our church, the Bible makes it clear that this building does not perform a special religious function beyond helping us gather together in comfort and safety.

Before Jesus’ time, God’s Temple was the place at which God chose to be especially present, and his people gathered there to have priests make sacrifices with special rituals.

But when Jesus came, he transformed the way that we were to meet with God.

Instead of needing a physical building, we now meet with Christ, by his Spirit, as we hear his word in the Bible.

And because of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice on the first Good Friday, we no longer need to offer sacrifices at an altar in a temple.

What’s more, we no longer need to have a special priest to stand between us and God, because Jesus is that high priest who constantly brings our requests to our heavenly Father.

This means that the reason we meet together in a building like ours is to hear God’s word, pray to him, and to encourage one another through love and good deeds.

When we do this, it will create rich and warm memories that should prompt us to bring thanksgiving to God for all that he’s done in our special building.

And we should be energised to work together to extend the reach of our church to include more and more people in our village and valley.

Happy Birthday, Church of the Resurrection! 

Fake news or good news?

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Silence

The Macquarie dictionary has announced its 2016 word of the year: ‘fake news.’

This term came to prominence in 2016, referring to websites that deliberately published disinformation — often then promoted on social media.

One such site published a story about a German town’s oldest church being burnt down by refugees on NYE.

Except it wasn’t the oldest church, and it didn’t burn down. A firecracker landed in some scaffolding while some refugees happened to be celebrating nearby.

ABC’s Media Watch summarised why fake news has such a power to be believed: “We love to hear things that confirm what we think and what we feel and what we already believe. It makes us feel very comforted.”

And this is exactly the premise behind these stories.

While the use of social media has seen these stories gain a widespread footing, the spread of false or misleading stories is not a new phenomenon.

People have always loved to hear lies that confirm what they already believe.

In the first book of the Bible we read that when the serpent whispered to Eve that she would become like God, and that she would not surely die, both Adam and Eve believed. They believed because this is the truth they wanted to hear.

Humanity craves autonomy from God and it is comforting to think that there are no consequences. But it is a lie.

The environment that has led the rise of fake news is that of our “post truth” world, (the 2015 word of the year!)

When two stories vary dramatically in the events which they report the question used to be “which one is true?” 

But that question is rapidly becoming irrelevant. Truth itself is becoming irrelevant.

But only truth will bring salvation.

Jesus not only speaks truth but is himself truth to our world. His good news is the only antidote to the fake news of sin.

Christ also brought you the truth, which is the good news about how you can be saved. Ephesians 1:13

Simon Chaplin

Last among equals

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We’re all members of the one body (CREDIT: Pascal via flickr.com)

Whether we like it or not, it’s natural for any group of people to form structures to try and organise its membership.

So, when you get together a bunch of people to play on a sporting team, it’s pretty normal for a captain to be appointed.

And when you have an organisation like a club or a small business, you can expect someone to be appointed to lead and take responsibility for the running of things.

This, too, is the case in a church.

God has made it clear in the Bible that he expects there to be some within the church who will lead others, taking responsibility for what happens.

But just because someone has a leadership role, it doesn’t mean that they are more important than the others.

In one of the Bible’s writings there is an encouragement to all Christians in the church:

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.  (Romans 12:3-5)

In other words, none of us should look down (or up) on anyone else, just because of what they are doing within Christ’s church.

So, whether a person is preaching into a microphone, or controlling the microphone from the sound desk, everyone is of the same value to God.

And just in case we need any further proof, Jesus, whom we serve as King, actually considers himself lower than everyone in the church.

And that’s the greatest model of leadership we’ll ever encounter.

An important reminder as school returns

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Back to school (CREDIT: Paradox 56 via flickr.com)

Whether it’s the school shoe sales or the return of 40kmh school zones, nearly all of us notice when it’s ‘back to school’ time.

And as schooling comes to our mind we should remember that education is a privilege we should never take for granted.

Many parents around the world would only dream of offering their kids the kind of education that is provided free to every child in Australia

Education empowers people to have a toolkit for life, whether it’s learning to read, write, add up or just relate to others .

The God who made all humans thinks that there is something that must be the foundation of all our knowledge and wisdom.

For, as we read in the Bible in the book of Proverbs, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7), and “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

So, a person can seem very knowledgeable and wise, yet if they don’t fear God, their very foundation of life is unstable.

This is why a comprehensive education will include the study of God as much as the study of all the other subjects.

For the children enrolled at Christian schools, the study of God is not only taught as a subject, but it should form the very heart of the syllabus.

Yet, due to the provision of Scripture (SRE) classes, children in our state schools can also be taught from the Bible about the God who made them and loves them and sent his son to die for them.

This means that even secular schools can offer parents and carers the choice to have their children taught the true foundation of education and life.

As we begin another year, pray that the Bible will be taught in a clear and compelling way to children in all kinds of schools, so that our kids will have a sure foundation for learning and for life.