Sunday Service 16th March
Spiritual Wellbeing
9/3/25
Call to worship
Hymn 166(JP): Morning has broken
Time for all: Gil
Hymn 169(JP): My God is so big, so strong and so mighty
Reading: Romans 12: 9-21 Amanda
Prayer
Hymn 264: Judge eternal
Sermon
Prayer
Hymn 192: All my hope in God is founded
Benediction
Welcome to our meditation for 16th March.
We are still in the season of Lent, the preparation time for Easter.
Last week we saw that personal development only really took place within a community.
This week Paul continues that theme to help us see what that looks like.
But we will reflect on that after the reading and prayer from Amanda
Call to worship
Let us gather in the love that is genuine, mutual, honourable, patient, hospitable.
Let us gather, in a community that is generous, in harmony, rejoicing, peaceful, affectionate.
Let us gather, in worship that is loving.
Sermon
Last week saw the beginning of Lent, that time when we prepare ourselves for Easter: a time to reflect on where we are and where we need to go.
That kind of implies that we are to seek to be better, to grow, to mature.
But what does that mean?
Where are the standards to be set?
And on our webpage you can see the sermon where we reflect that it’s not what we do that matters, it’s the heart we do it with.
A heart that is open.
Open to the needs of others, open to the love and help of others.
That means being in community, it also means reaching out beyond the community.
So as we work our way towards Easter, we can seek to grow closer to God, to be more like him.
That way everyone’s lives get better.
But that was last week.
This week Paul continues on that theme and shows us what that life should look like.
Let me tell you about the context, because the world of then was very different from the world of now.
His was a world where there was much poverty, the majority of the world was struggling, and yet there were people in power with amazing wealth compared to those without.
And those people in power seemed to be like gods; in fact they called themselves gods.
The cult of the Caesars was ever growing, temples were being built to these men all over the world, showing the world how powerful they were,
These people had phenomenal influence over others.
Look at Caesar Augustus. At the start of the Gospel of Matthew we have a Caesar proclaiming that everyone in the empire should be part of a census so that he knows everyone and what they earn and how they should be taxed. Whole peoples move from one part of the empire to the other on the whim of the Emperor just for a piece of administration.
Another emperor, Nero, would see Rome consumed by a great fire, probably because Rome was so packed that a fire was inevitable at some point. But because it happened on Nero’s watch and threatened his image, he created fake news to blame scapegoats.
Those scapegoats were called Christians. To justify this fake news he persecuted them, killing thousands just to protect his image.
Thank goodness the world has changed.
Thank goodness that we don’t live in a world where 1% of the richest people have 26% of the wealth.
Where a handful of people get to influence billions of others.
Where the poorest can starve to death on the whims of the weather, while the richest create vanity projects like monuments that seek to reach out to the heavens and touch God.
Do you know, it seems that nothing has changed?
In Paul’s world it was very easy to look to the wealthy and the powerful and feel that they had secure lives, they had good lives, they had blessed lives.
And if we want the same then we have to become like them.
And that is a huge temptation now as well.
That influence is all around us and seeps into our lives all the time.
Every advert is trying to tell us that we have the power to make our lives more secure, more at peace, better.
Just buy this car and you can have a wonderful life...look at the car owner, he is driving in empty streets where there is no vandalism and everything is peaceful, there isn’t even a bird in the sky that can poop on your car.
Or maybe she is driving in the country where everything is peaceful and pleasant. The roads are clear; there is not one pot hole to be seen, not a single caravan to get caught behind, not a single tractor blocking your path.
My wife is preparing for my retirement and watching all these programmes about buying a house, like escape to the country or escape to the sun. Every now and again I will be in the house and catch one of them before escaping to another room.
You know what I have noticed, the houses are all that matters, you never see another person...all these houses aboard have shared swimming pools, but no one is ever in them.
Where are the people?
And that’s the real lie all these things try to tell us.
Life would be better without anyone else in it mucking it up.
The only person that matters is me.
The image that they secretly give is an image of isolation.
Except, ironically, when they are trying to sell you something that isolates you.
Like online Bingo.
Online bingo by definition isolates you because you are online, alone, playing bingo.
It is scary how addictive it is, and how many people get into huge amounts of debt because of it.
Yet every advert I see for online bingo has all these people playing in a park, or at some party.
We have a world out there that tells us that power leads to security.
That wealth leads to happiness.
That we are in competition with everyone else and it is survival of the fittest.
Even churches get sucked into the lie.
Look at how many churches feel insecure just now.
Spending money on making their church building look good so that the higher powers will choose them to keep their building open rather than another.
I learnt so much from Camphill Queens Park, my first charge, though it was unofficial and possibly illegal.
They were going to close the building down because they were millions of pounds in debt.
The sanctuary was in disrepair and hadn’t been used for years, some vandals had broken some of the windows years before and no one had noticed and pigeons had got in and the sanctuary was a right mess.
They worshiped in a small hall at the side.
Everyone was old; the treasurer was in his 90’s and he was one of the young whippersnappers.
This is no lie, I once surprised them by doing a sketch on the platform and this was so shocking to them that one of them had a heart attack in front of me.
They had nothing...
Except God and each other.
And that was enough.
About three years later I was he minister of Castlemilk West, an official, real job, and I had just got engaged to Roseanna, they invited me to their fellowship to celebrate, because they loved to celebrate things of fellowship.
Their church building had been taken away from them; their official designation of ‘church’ had been taken away from them.
But they had God, and they had each other, and that was still enough.
We have a world out there that tells us that power leads to security.
That wealth leads to happiness.
That we are in competition with everyone else and it is survival of the fittest.
That is supposed to be true for us, that is even supposed to be true of our church.
And it is a lie.
The message of Paul is as relevant now as it was then.
The message of Paul is as counter cultural now as it was then.
Relationship is what gives us security.
Relationship with God, relationship with others.
It is in working things out between people that you find hope, not in competing with everyone.
Relationship is what brings us contentment.
Relationship with God, relationship with others.
If you gave me the choice between half an hour in a brand new Ferrari, or half an hour with my granddaughter on an old trampoline that has holes in it, there is no competition.
If you gave me a choice between being Elon Musk, the wealthiest man alive,
or being with my wife Roseanna and knowing that she would spend all my money in IKEA, there is no competition.
If you gave me a choice between being the minister of Willow Creek Church at its peak with over 20,000 people worshiping and not know 99% of them,
or being the minister of this church where I know everyone enough to know all your sorrows and struggles, there is no competition.
It is not wealth or power that gives us security or happiness.
We can chase those things if we want, but we will never achieve what we desire.
Relationship is what brings us contentment.
Relationship with God, relationship with others.
No matter how messy it gets, no matter how difficult it is.
In the end, it is relationship that makes the difference in our lives that gives them meaning and propose.
Let us pray
Gracious God,
This day we rejoice in your wonderful truths.
We come believing you hear our prayers and know our pain.
Your tell us that your kingdom is justice and mercy,
and we long for the day when that truth is complete.
But today we pray for justice in the world to spread.
To do that we seek to speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves,
to standing up for the downtrodden and seek a true judgement on those wrongfully convicted.
We think of causes like Grenfield, or the Post Office Workers, or the those that got contaminated blood where so many needlessly suffered and many died because of short cuts taken by those in power.
We think of those throughout the world that are starving because the people of the world have forgotten about them places like Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Yemen, Burundi, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria.
Where is the justice when the richest in the world can compete to see who can get their rockets into space while so many go hungry?
We pray for teaching that reflects your will, that encourages the faithful;
that challenges misunderstandings; and that brings us closer in relationship with you.
We ask your guidance to live peaceably with our neighbours,
locally and internationally.
We are reminded, in your abundance that there is plenty to share.
Help us to be loving and encourage us to be thoughtful; anticipating the needs of the lonely, the bereaved, and the lost.
In every action,
in every relationship,
may we aim to serve you, O God,
now and forever.
Amen.
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