Sermon 6 - the Judges from Janet Binns

Eton Wick and Dorney 20/02/2011

Bible reading:  Judges 2  10- 23 & Matthew 21 33-46

Themes: Obedience Disobedience Salvation

 Application:  The struggles of God’s people to remain obedient but God’s forgiveness is always present.

1.      Introduction

-         Illus: meal out – relaxed atmosphere “ no rules”

-         However look carefully we are surrounded by rules

-         rules that we are quite relaxed about.

-         From booking, to being seated and given a menu.

-         We wouldn’t dream of walking in taking a seat

-         demand that the chef provide something not on the menu and then walk out without paying

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-         society has strong feelings against those who break rules of etiquette & good manners

-         Yet God has spoken, His rules are clear

-         the rules He gave us were commandments not  Suggestions

-         Not to be adhered to when the moods takes us

-          

-          it’s important that we are aware of the blessings of obedience and the consequences of disobedience in life.

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-         Abraham received instructions from God to leave his country, his people and father’s household, that he would be blessed and all people on earth would be blessed through him.

-         Passage tells us Abraham left as the Lord commanded

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2.      The Judges

-         In the Book of Judges, we see the consequence of disobedience .

-         during the time between the death of Joshua and the anointing of King Saul the people found themselves without a leader

-         It was a period of internal anarchy and external conflict, for the most part day to day administration of justice and oversight of community affairs was provided locally by the elders of various clans and tribes. God raised up Judges to deal with matters that could not be settled quickly or easily.

-         Ch 2 states, “The Lord raised up judges who saved Israel out of the hands of raiders. Yet they would not listen to the judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them” (16-17).

-         It was a disastrous time in Isreal’s history. God’s people were led to Canaan to conquer the land, but instead they became infected with the idolatry of Canaanite people.

3.      The Canaanites

-         They (Israelites) became a permissive society, drawing their standards from those around them. Finding themselves surrounded by settlements of unconquered Canaanites the Israelites became attracted to the practises of their neighbours

-         Their disobedience complete; they mutilated a captured king and, instead of driving them out completely pressed the Canaanites into forced labour

-         The book displays a clash of values.

-         the Canaanites were experienced farmers who had attributed their ability to control the soil and weather to the worship of various male and female nature gods the Baals and Ashtoreths

-         The Israelites were very attracted to these gods and increasingly mixed their worship of them with the worship of their own God.

-         Envitably their loyalty to God and to one another became weak and resulted in spiritual and moral decline, so serious it threaten to destroy Israelite community.

4.      Being Canaanised

-         Paul urges us to prevent the world from fitting us into its mold (Rom 12:1-2); we have to guard against becoming secular in our thinking, which can result in compromising our behaviour.

-         Sometimes we are content to be “Canaanised”; we grow far too comfortable living as the world dictates. But we answer to a higher authority; God has called us to higher standards.

-         Israel’s complete disobedience led to compromise with idolatry, inter-marriage, and eventually to everyone doing “as they saw fit” (17:6, 21:25)…”No rules”.

5.      Idols in our lives

-         We can slip into a sense of false security when we read about Israel’s idolatry—after all, we’re not bowing down to idols!

-         We forget that the old gods are still with us; they’ve simply updated their appearance, accommodating the times.

-         They still claim to provide meaning to life and they still promise to provide for our personal desires. They still demand wholehearted commitment from their worshippers.

-         Today’s most popular idols are materialism, comfort, power, pride, sexual immorality- greed etc. e.g. Bankers bonuses in the news this week.

-         The modern idols are no less unacceptable than the ancient ones. We need to be free from all idols,

-          Ancient and modern, and Christ offer such freedom!

6.      Parable of the Tenants

-         In the parable of the tenants Jesus begins his story with a very familiar hallmark of the Middle Eastern agriculture, a vineyard.

-         But Jesus’ parable of the vineyard is unique. It is not just a story, but an allegory, with each part representing something else.

-         A man (who represents God in the parable) plants the vineyard and then rents it to tenants.

-         Unlike today, tenant farmers are usually paid by allowing them to keep a portion of the harvest, with a fixed percentage going to the owner.

7.      The owners’ son

-         But these tenants didn’t want to share. When the owner’s representatives come to claim the owner’s share, the tenants beat and mistreat them

-         It’s pretty clear to the disciples who have heard Jesus’ teaching who he is referring to.

-         He sees the current rulers doing the same as their ancestors - killing the prophets who were sent to Israel to correct them and turn their hearts back to God.  

-         So in this parable, the tenants represent the unbelieving rulers, while the vineyard is nation of Israel itself. But this rebelliousness does not refer only to killing the prophets.

-         The owner’s son who should be offered respect is thrown out of the vineyard and killed him." (20:13-15a) the son is the Son of God whose death takes place outside the city on Golgotha.

-         "What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others." When the people heard this, they said, "May this never be!" (20:15b-16)

8.      Having our own way

-         Turn back to Joshua 24 and we see the renewal of the covenant at Shecham

-         Joshua said to the people ‘This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the Lord has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to God.’

-         We began looking at judges by talking about our own tendency to rebel against God and his will.

-         We want our own way, prefer our own way, and resent it when we can’t get it. Too often there are issues we war with God about – the loss of a loved one, a financial crisis, a difficult situation we have difficulty resolving.

9.      Land of Milk and Honey

-         The period of the Judges was a time of war. The Jewish nation was charged with driving out the Canaanites.

-         I’ve wondered why God would give His people an occupied promised land. You’d think this “land of milk and honey” would be vacant, open to development but instead of simply arriving and settling down; the Jews have to conquer Canaan.

-         After the hardships of the wilderness they are forced to deal with internal and external conflict. Possibly God’s reason was to cause His people to trust in His power to grant them victory.

10.   Christian Distinctiveness

-         In the Book of Judges we see a chosen nation risking assimilation by a pagan culture. God warns Israel that the Canaanites will be “thorns in their sides, and their gods a snare to them”

-         The challenge of this book for us is maintaining commitment to God in a hostile, secular environment

-         In our pluralistic society it’s uncomfortable to stand out, or to appear intolerant. Yet God has called us to be distinct, to show by what we say and do that we belong to Christ.

-         We are not to dilute the Gospel. We proclaim Jesus as the only Saviour and Lord, which sets us apart. The word “saint” literally means one set apart—we are compelled to be different from our unbelieving world, living our distinctive Biblical values and priorities and convictions - even if that means we don’t quite fit in.

-         As always in such circumstances, however there were faithful Israelites who continued quietly to pursue lives of genuine piety and holiness.

11.   Conclusion

-         As we continue to study the book of Judges this week, we’ll encounter familiar heroes such as Gideon, Deborah, and Samson, along with some lesser-known individuals.

-         A theme throughout the Book of Judges is that the God Who rightly casts us to the ground should stoop to lift us up.

-         No book of the Bible so clearly reveals our human frailty, but throughout we see unmistakable signs of God’s patience and compassion.

-         A God who time and time again calls back his people to himself in a covenant relationship that continues from one generation to the next.

Deborah the Judge

Well we are really reading bits that we don't normally look at in Church. It doesn't make amazingly comfortable reading and tent pegs into skulls is normally the province of rather nasty movies rather than Sunday services. I have to say these readings are very challenging to really see what God may be saying to us through them. If we truly believe as Paul wrote to Timothy "All scripture is God breathed" then this is too and we need to look to see what is behind it all. What is the context of this passage? Well we see the people of Israel yet again having rejected God and the consequence of this is loosing their identity as a nation and being captive to the Caananites. Again they have rejected God and there is a consequence of this. But God doesn't leave them there and the "Judge" Deborah who is faithful to God leads the people back out of the hands of the Caananite King and in turn they return to God, the result: Then the land had peace for forty years (Judges 5: 31)  We may not understand why things happened the way they did but despite this we see God's reaction to man's disobedience and then despite this his constant drawing them back to himself. The ultimate end to this disobedience and God's love is of course seen as we jounrney further on into the bible and read of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  The result not just peace for forty years but the offer of peace for eternity.

Joshua 1 - Be strong and courageous

I have always found God's words to Joshua in this chapter really reassuring. Be strong and very courageous and remember that I am with you.  The collect for last Sunday said these words:  
 O God,
you know us to be set
in the midst of so many and great dangers,
that by reason of the frailty of our nature
we cannot always stand upright:

How true these words - how often do we feel we can't stand upright, or we need supporting in order to do so. Perhaps at these times we need to remember God's words to Joshua again. Or indeed if we are holding someone up we perhaps need to remind them of these words.  As well as being strong and courageous Joshua is also reminded to meditate on the law, to deepen his relationship with God not only by recognising His presence with him but by getting to know him better through his word.  When we step out in faith we need to hold onto both of these.

Moses and the law - some thoughts 15th February 2011

I have been reflecting after Alison's sermon on Sunday (still waiting to recieve it and then I'll put it on the blog!) about judging others.  I am often brought up short about my judgmentalism when I find I have more in common with someone who I differ from in many ways.  At the heart of the bible is that we are all made in God's image perhaps to combat our judgmentalism we/i need to constantly seek to see God in the other.  Anyway, as well this morning in our reading we see Aaron getting things very wrong and Moses and of course God's obvious anger. Aaron's excuse seems weak but can we judge him too harshly - how easy it is for any of us to fail to see God working and in turn walk away from Him.  What amazed me though is the change in Moses.  It seems only a few chapters ago we were reading about him not thinking he was up to the job when challenged by God to lead the people. And then here we see his righteous anger and his ongoing growing relationship with God. When we look back at these Old testament accounts of the lives of men like Joseph and Moses I find it inspirational to see how God has worked to change and refine them as they step out in faith and follow Him.  Should we not be praying for the same thing to happen to us?

Sermon - an intermission Sunday 6th February

Sermon given by Rod Dollimore - E100 Catch up week.

And so after 4 weeks of our readings being based on our E100 readings – this week we take a break – an intermission perhaps -.

It might seem odd to stop almost as soon as we’ve started, but the pause gives us the opportunity to change our focus,
and so as we return to the lectionary readings we pick up on the second part of the Sermon on the Mount

Today’s Gospel follows straight on from Matthews’s account of the Beatitudes.

"You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”

Words so familiar, and ‘Salt of the earth’ in particular being in such common usage that its easy to forget that these are God's words, not those of a Tabloid headline writer.

They are Words that should challenge us in the way we should live,
Words that should challenge us in the way we should demonstrate our faith to others: -
Boldly, and full of confidence.

Because
Salt and light are powerful active things, not weak and passive

Salt is such a common and cheap commodity that we can so easily take it for granted,
2000 years ago it was a precious commodity, it wasn’t always pure, it was often tampered with – corrupted. In its purest form Salt purifies, preserves and flavours.
When it is tampered with or is corrupt it is useless.(from the time of Roman occupation salt gave us the word ‘salary’. the Latin salarium, was the money, paid to Roman soldiers for the purchase of salt. And the Roman fashion of salting leaf vegetables gave us the word Salad.)

Just imagine your reaction if you went for a meal in a restaurant and there in a small bowl on the table instead of a fine and white and salty condiment there was a bowl of road salt – that would certainly corrupt your meal!!

Some years ago a friend of mine trained under a world famous chef – He tells the story that while he was preparing a dish a pair of ‘eagle-eyes’ noticed that he was putting a number of pinches of salt into the recipe. The great Chef walked over to my friend’s station – took a fistful of salt, added it the dish – giving it extra flavour -and said: -
“We’ll put you down for MANAGEMENT! Because cooking like that you’ll never make a Chef!’

Nowadays the health advice is to minimize our salt intake, but that is because our intake has become excessive.
Because it adds flavour, and preserves, companies have found it a cheap and easy additive in manufactured food preparation, so we get more than enough of our intake from pre-prepared food.
I can still remember my Grandmother putting what nowadays would seem excessive amounts of salt into the boiling vegetables. – They were always sharp, colourful, and full of flavour.

And like salt, our witness must be sharp, and full of flavour,
not so flat that we are hardly noticed.

Our challenge though is to proclaim our faith in our daily lives

And if salt is essential what about light?

‘“You are the light of the world.

Light was there from the first of our E100 readings when we started with Genesis

Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good;

And from then on when God speaks to people there is usually a bright light, it happens throughout the Old Testament, and when Saul is converted on the road to Damascus, he is ‘blinded by the light’ as Jesus speaks to him.

If you took your car in for a service and on the way home you realized the headlights didn’t work you would say
‘How can they do that?”
It is essential to have light and for that light to shine brightly.

Good headlights might brighten the few minutes of a journey across Dorney Common.

But Jesus’ light changes our lives forever.

But it takes effort – the light goes out without care.

We need to make an effort to continually tend the light (as we are with our E100 readings and our prayers),

We need to live in the light, and we will grow in the light.

AND We need to share the light

Every time we come to this service we hear the words

“Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven.”
OR DO WE?
We probably never really hear them, as this is the moment when we dive into our pockets or purses to find that forgotten envelope. So we only hear them as a regular prompt to undertake a regular task. NOT as we should, as a call to joyfully make our offering to the Lord – and as a reminder that we should be beacons in the world.

There is an old Irish folk custom of leaving alight in a window to guide the way of strangers, and when Mary Robinson was President of Ireland in the 1990s she started the tradition of putting a symbolic light in her kitchen window in the Presidential residence, as a sign of remembering Irish emigrants around the world. Robinson's symbolic light became an acclaimed symbol of an Ireland thinking about its sons and daughters around the world.

That’s very nice – but again we need to be more active than that.

Its all very good to put a candle up at the window but “Let your light shine before men,” is a command.

We have been called to share the light of Jesus, And to take our light out with us into the World

Salt of the earth. And light of the world.”

Sharp, Pure and uncorrupted, and shining like a beacon.
Like a nice crisp salad. – Not a bunch of soggy leaves.

Well there we are, what started as an intermission almost certainly introduced reading E101!

But there again, there can be no inter-mission –
No rest with ice cream & popcorn for us, because every one of us has our mission to fulfill!

A burning bush moment



A modern day burning bush!

What has been your burning bush moment today?  I would be surprised if any of us had had a moment quite like Moses in the dessert with God. But I would not be surprised to hear how we have each recognised God today.  For me I have had two distinct moments when I have seen God at work today. Firstly the joy and excitement and wonder in a child's face during one of my morning assemblies.  They were singing "Be Bold, be strong because the Lord your God is with you" - and how true that was as I saw for a moment a real gem of a smile, God meeting me through that child.  And then a phone call to a friend, the calm reassurance from her amidst my panic of organising my daughters party! God ministered to me through my friend.  So my burning bush moments today haven't just been in the quiet times of prayer - though yes I can say for certain we met God when we prayed together at 8.15 this morning - but my burning bush moments have been there in my daily life what I needed to do was to recognise them as such. Perhaps if we took more time for reflection I/we would be able to do just that!

Sermon 4: Moses

Sermon given by Janet Binns 30/01/11

Bible reading: Exodus 12  1-19 & Matt 26

Themes: Faith Grace Salvation

 Application:  Our great and wonderful God can use unlikely people in his service

1.     Introduction

-         We live in a world that gets more complicated every day. Ask a simple question and more often than not you will get a very complicated response.

-         Illustration: [overcomplicated directions to the Vet]

-         Have you ever overcomplicated something? Sometimes we overcomplicate things and in the process we miss the point.

-         4^th week of E100 challenge

-         many complicated stories and journeys involved

-         This morning we are going to be looking at a series of complex events surrounding the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt. But rather than overcomplicate things I want to draw out the simple truth about God’s plan to save mankind.

2.     Joseph story recap

-         Last week’s readings introduce the situation in Israel. Joseph, the youngest and Jacob’s favourite son, had been sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers, largely because of jealousy. You could say Joseph asked for it by the way he taunted his brothers with his dreams. But what they meant for evil, God meant for good. Joseph became a force to be reckoned with in Egypt, becoming the second in command. The only greater power being Pharaoh himself. What we see is God using Pharaoh in an extraordinary way to nurture the very person He has chosen to bring great blessings to Israel.

3.     God blessings comes through unlikely sources

-         The events described in the early passages of Exodus bring us to a place generations after Joseph, to a time when the Israelites had become enslaved, were persecuted and even feared because of their increasing numbers.

-         Joseph had indeed gained great power in Egypt and Moses was raised secretly by Pharaoh’s daughter.

-         Here we see a principal that we do well to recognise in our own lives. That God is sovereign ruler over all the earth and is able to use whatever means he deems fit to deliver and bless his people. Just as God use unlikely people and situations. The blessings of God do indeed come through unlikely sources.

[Illustration: journey to Oxford on Wednesday]. Broke down in the middle of the road. The RAC helped. Went beyond the call of duty to take me to my intended destination. Going that extra mile made a huge difference to me.

God do indeed use unlikely sources to bring blessings to his people

4.     Moses’ life

-         Exodus 2 outlines Moses birth, the events surrounding his having to flee from Egypt.

-         Exodus 3 the Lord appears to Moses in the burning bush, the invisible becomes visible as God interacts with Moses, giving him instructions on what to do. I always find this interesting how Moses responds.

-         Who am I that I should ask the king, the mightiest ruler in the entire world to let the people of Israel go?

-          (Exodus 5) Moses and Aaron are standing in front of Pharaoh demanding that he let the people go so that they may worship the One true God.

-         Pharaoh response.” Who is the Lord that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go”. And to prove his point he made the labour of the people of Israel harder by forcing them to make mud bricks with no straw.

-         No doubt Moses and Aaron may have been surprised, but they should not have been. They had been warned. God was prepared he knew exactly how Pharaoh would respond, because Pharaoh heart had been hardened.

-         I wonder if that happens to us sometime? Our hearts are hardened to what God is asking of us.

-         Now come the series of plagues that God through Moses delivers upon Egypt in an effort to get pharaoh to relent.

5.     The ten plagues

-         I will go thorugh them briefly to demonstrate the length to which God goes in order to deliver and bless his people.

The plague of blood- god turn the Nile into bold

The plague of frogs; when frogs came up from the Nile and covered the land.  

The plague of Gnats.

The plague of flies.

The plague of the livestock; all of the livestock of the Egyptians died but none of the Israelites.

The plague of boils; men and animals alike were covered in festering boils.

The plague of hail.  

The plague of locusts; covered the land and devoured what crops were left over from the hail.  

The plague of darkness; as light hid itself from Egypt for a period of three days.  

 And finally the devastating plague was that of the firstborn.

6.     The plague of the first born

Moses message to Pharaoh was that God said that He would kill the first born of all the land of Egypt on that very night.

The passage tells us Pharaoh arose in the night after his son had been killed. This means he had been asleep. How could he sleep after what Moses had told him, that the Lord himself would kill all the firstborn of the Egyptians? He even told him what time it would happen.

After all God had proven through the previous nine plagues that he was real, more powerful than any god in Egypt, and he meant business.

But of course Pharaoh was stubborn, proud and arrogant- so he slept through the whole thing.

Only the children of Israel the children of the covenant made with to Abraham Isaac and Jacob.

Those under the provision of God’s sovereign protection were spared.

7.     The cross of Jesus revealed

-         What we see here is the paving of the way of the cross of Jesus. You see God made a way for salvation through the blood of the lamb. The spotless and blameless lamb which was sacrificed as part of the Passover meal. In the same way he made a way for salvation for the whole world through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

-         The Passover

-         Passover is the oldest religious feast/festival celebrated by any group of people in the world. Celebrated by orthodox Jews and by us in its fullness in the elements of Holy Communion.

-         The central elements of the Passover Feast are a lamb roasted over an open fire which speaks of God’s protection and provision for his people – Israel is God’s firstborn. The bitter herbs present in the meal represent the bitter suffering of Israel while in captivity in Egypt. The flat unleavened bread recalls the haste of their departure as they had no time to prepare the bread with yeast (leaven).

In Matthew 26 when the people celebrated the Passover the primary purpose would have been to bring to mind what God had done for his people in their deliverance from Egypt. And yet contained in this celebration is the fulfilment of God in Christ to free his people not only from earthly captivity, but from spiritual enslavement to sin and its eternal consequences.

-         The blood of the lamb which was sprinkled on the door post of the house of every Jew in Egypt to mark the home of God’s covenanted people

-         the blood of the Lamb of God would ultimately save all who would call upon his name for forgiveness.

-         There is no division to what we are taught in the Old Testament and what we are taught in the new.

-         Jesus said I have not come to abolish the law but fulfil the law

-         There aren’t two God, one of wrath one of grace. There is but one God of promise fulfilment and salvation, law and mercy.

8.     Conclusion

-         The prevailing theme remains that on the eve of the Passover, as God spared the first born of Israel and slay the first born of Egypt, God revealed Himself as the God of the Fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who remained steadfast in the covenant.

-         On the eve of the crucifixion, in not sparing  his son he quite simply with no complications what so ever revealed himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who had delivered His people Israel from Pharaoh and who offers deliverance to all who receive His Son; the spotless and blameless paschal (Passover) lamb!

The same God who delivered the people of Isreal delivered us! The same God who delivered His people from the bondage of Pharaoh and the affliction of slavery has delivered us from sin! The same bitterness represented by the bitter herb of the Passover has been removed from our lives as well.

Jesus is the Passover Lamb. He foreshadowed Passover lamb the only real question to ask ourselves is, “Is He my Passover Lamb?”

-         Last night’s visit to Soul Survivor 900 young people there.

-          the spirit is at work

-         In John 13 something happened at the Passover meal, Jesus washed the feet of the disciples.

-         And he wants us to wash each other feet.

-         Are the doorposts of our home  covered in the blood of the Lamb? Amen.