Instructions for Christian Households

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SUNDAY 14 OCTOBER 2018

Ephesians deals with topics at the very core of what it means to be a Christian—both in faith and in practice, it invites us to continue our journey of “Shema” - hearing and responding to the invitation and challenges God is placing on our hearts as individuals, households and as a community.

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Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. - Ephesians 5:21-33

From Death to Life

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SUNDAY 06 MAY 2018

Ephesians deals with topics at the very core of what it means to be a Christian—both in faith and in practice, it invites us to continue our journey of “Shema” - hearing and responding to the invitation and challenges God is placing on our hearts as individuals, households and as a community.

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Today Murray talks us through Ephesians 2:1-10 and its description of the three kinds of death: physical, spiritual and eternal separation BUT also how God has stepped in and that’s changed everything - not only that - God has raised us to a higher spiritual dimension where we can see the things that he is doing.

This whole passage is about the wonder of Gods grace - God is on the move with His incomparable grace - see Eph. 3:20-21

Judges - Activists, Leaders & Liberators

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SUNDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2017

The Old Testament is full of people - real people; whose lives are messy, their families dysfunctional and their obedience not always full or immediate, yet God used them.  Our study of their lives is to bring perspective, hope and instruction to ours - to recognise that at times we are tempted to sanitise or selectively interact with their stories and in that way make them heroes.  The reality is that their stories are powerful because they are human like us and face the same temptations and frailty that we do - yet God used them.

Judges 2:7, 10-14
One generation is all it takes to lose the awareness and heart to follow God.

Ehud
Judges 3:12,15, 20-22,30
The hero is a left-handed man - in those days left handed ness was considered a disability...you might have something you or others who regard as a disability...they weren’t expecting it - God can use anyone, don’t write yourself off

Deborah & Jael
Judges 4:1-4, 6-7, 14-15,17-18, 21-22
Many of us don’t appreciate the change the early Church brought to societal structure- in Galatians the coming of Jesus all 3 societal structures turned upside down: slaves led churches, gentiles led Jews and women led in their gifting - gifting not ministry is what defines leadership in the NT culture of Church.

Gideon
Judges 6:1,12-16
Low self image - lowest tribe, and the weakest one of them.
32,000 down to 300 - it’s a picture of what God can do with a small group of committed people.

Samson
Judges 13:1-5,24, 14:1-3
Great weaknesses: weakness for beautiful women, wouldn’t take advice, hothead

Judges 15:9-15
Lone operator - did all the things a leader should not do

Judges 16:1-3
Phenomenal strength - that is the gift of God, morally he loses the plot...that became his undoing

Judges 16:4-6,17,21-23, 28-30
Sad story of what might of been, so much promise of what could be.
Amazingly gifted, great heart, but couldn’t control himself and missed out in the end
The key contrast between GIFT & FRUIT
The gift doesn’t say anything about the recipient- it says something about God
Jesus said, it’s not be your gifts you’ll be known, it’s your fruit...
Gifts given spontaneously/instantaneously by God but fruit takes years to grow and at the end of the day it’s the fruit that counts.

The Rise and Fall of King David

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SUNDAY 15 OCTOBER 2017

The Old Testament is full of people - real people; whose lives are messy, their families dysfunctional and their obedience not always full or immediate, yet God used them.  Our study of their lives is to bring perspective, hope and instruction to ours - to recognise that at times we are tempted to sanitise or selectively interact with their stories and in that way make them heroes.  The reality is that their stories are powerful because they are human like us and face the same temptations and frailty that we do - yet God used them.

We know more about David than we know about any other character in the Old Testament, and Murray breaks down the whole story into six episodes:

1. The boy wonder (1 Samuel 17:45-47)
2. David and Jonathon (1 Samuel 18:1-4)
3. David and Saul (1 Samuel 18:6-9, 26:7-11)
4. Bathsheba and Uriah (1 Samuel 11:2-5, 14-15, 12:7-10)
5. Absalom's rebellion (1 Samuel 14:25, 15:1-6, 13-14, 18:9-10)
6. How not to finish well (1 Kings 1:1-4, 2:1-9)

Jacob the Deceiver

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SUNDAY 23 JULY 2017

The Old Testament is full of people - real people; whose lives are messy, their families dysfunctional and their obedience not always full or immediate, yet God used them.  Our study of their lives is to bring perspective, hope and instruction to ours - to recognise that at times we are tempted to sanitise or selectively interact with their stories and in that way make them heroes.  The reality is that their stories are powerful because they are human like us and face the same temptations and frailty that we do - yet God used them.

Murray breaks down the story of Jacobs life into six episodes of an interesting saga :

1. The Birth (Genesis 25:19-26)
2. The Birthright (Genesis 25:27-34)
3. The Blessing (Genesis 26:34-27:4, 27:19-29, 36-41)
4. The Dream (Genesis 28:1-5, 10-17)
5. The Marriage (Genesis 29:16-27)
6. The Encounter (Genesis 32:3-8, 22-31)

God had this great purpose for Jacob, he'd spoken to Rebekah about it... Jacob's great problem in life was that he was impatient, He wasn't prepared for God to work out His purpose in His way. Jacob was always grasping for something he didn't have.

Although God's promise was eventually fulfilled, the tragedy of Jacob's story is we will never know how the story would have gone if Jacob had the patience to trust God and wait for God to work his plan out in His way.

Jacob has to be humbled and broken. When he looks back on his life he describes it as short and troubling. it didn't need to be like that. God had this wonderful purpose for Jacob, but due to his impatience he couldn't wait for God to work out his purpose for him.

This can happen to anyone who is a believer. you can know that God got good things for you but so often people can't wait, not have the patience, to trust God to work things out in His way and His time. It's one thing to know God's purpose but it's another thing to trust his timing. But it's worth doing, because if you don't you end up like Jacob, trying to make things happen and it always goes wrong. Far better to trust God, so when you come to the end of your days you don't look back on your life as see them as few and difficult.