Merredin Uniting Church

Texts: Luke 7:1-17; 36-50

We are preparing for our Strategic Planning Day on October 24^th through the Sunday sermons. We have looked at the development of vision, at our own Mission Statement and presently we are examining the person, character and mission of Jesus.

The church exists to be the bearer of the Good News about Jesus. It is not a comfort station or a recreation club – it is a rescue station, a hospital, an emergency clinic in the middle of a war. We are to bring healing and hope into people lives, to ready them for the battle and to love them in the name of the Lord.

Jesus was a strong man. He showed many signs of extraordinary physical strength. His stamina throughout the exhausting ministry demands of His three year mission was amazing.

And his resolute undeterred ability to suffer physical hardship during the final hours of his life shows an incredible ability to endure against overwhelming odds.

When a man is as tough as that, it is very rarely matched by any kind of extraordinary emotional and relational sensitivity, but in Jesus it was.

His power was perfectly matched to his love.

And amazingly Jesus did not discriminate in the giving of His love -Our text from Luke chapter 7 records three interactions between Jesus and individuals who were prime targets for discriminatory treatment, both in his day as well as in our own.

In these examples, we encounter Jesus as one who lavished his love on -

1.         People who “didn’t matter” in the social structure,

2.         People who were suffering deep pain and anguish, and

3.         Those whose sin had made them outcasts.

Rather than scorn, disregard, or patronise, Jesus meets these people precisely where they are.

He sees them, he values them, and he meets their needs. He indiscriminately loves them.

Lets look at each them in turn and see this amazing love that Jesus has for people.

The first relates to people who don’t matter in society.

The example we have is of the Roman Centurion and his servant. The servant was sick and about to die.

In Jesus’ day, as in our own, the social system determines who matters and who doesn’t.

And servants didn’t matter! And they don’t matter much today either.

But this case is even more interesting because it is the servant of a Roman soldier. The Romans were the hated occupying force of God’s land. They were Gentiles and therefore scorned by the Jews as people without God and without salvation.

And yet, as the messengers of the Roman soldier come to Jesus, He drops everything to go with them.

The centurion knows his despised status as a member of the occupying force, and he regrets having asked the elders of the synagogue to call Jesus.

“You don’t have to come Lord, just say the word, and my servant will be healed. You are a man under authority, just as I am, you need only say the word.”

Jesus is amazed – for he has not found such faith in all Israel.

Now listen to this….

There are only two places in the Bible where we read that Jesus was amazed – both have to do with healing and both have to do with faith. Here He is amazed at the extraordinary faith of the Centurion. In Mark 6, He is amazed at the lack of faith of the people in His hometown of Nazareth, for He could not do any miracles there.

Faith and love are intricately bound together – for faith speaks of acceptance and trust outside the bounds of our personal prejudices. In Nazareth, those who had seen Jesus grow up amongst them, did not truly love Him beyond the bounds of their view that He was simply the son of the local carpenter. They could not accept that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

The Roman centurion on the other hand went far beyond his own personal prejudice – Jesus was not a “dirty Jew”, He was One who spoke with an authority far greater than his own authority as a senior army officer. Jesus was amazed at his faith, and no doubt delighted with his love which not only accepted Jesus as Lord but which showed a deep concern for a sick and dying servant.

The love that Jesus has for people does not discriminate; it does not offer more to one and less to another based on social status.

That sadly is our problem.

We discriminate in the giving of our love. We give more to those who are socially acceptable and less to those who are not. We measure our love, and we do it badly. This is not the love that Jesus desires His followers to have. We do not accept, trust and love outside the bounds of our personal prejudices.

The love of Jesus is never shared out on the basis of social status, and as His followers –the bearers of His love to the world- we need to stop seeing some people as “those who do not matter”. Everyone matters to God! And if we truly want to reach people for Jesus then everyone must matter to us as well.

The second example is of Jesus’ love for people in pain and suffering. Jesus especially cared for these.

As He enters the town of Nain He comes upon a funeral procession. A widow is burying her only son. A triple grief – the death of her husband, the death of her son and the aloneness of losing everyone she truly loved. Her heart is breaking and she is weeping.

“Don’t cry,” says Jesus.

But these are not mere words; they are words of deep compassion and love for someone in terrible pain and anguish.

“Young man, get up,” He says to the dead boy, and He gives the living son back to his mother.

Jesus does not simply walk by, He does not just watch in respect as the funeral procession passes by –He reaches out in love to someone He does not even know because He sees her pain and brokenness.

Very often we feel helpless in situations like that. We don’t know what to do and which words to speak. The greatest act is to show love, to surround the grieving with your arms and your love.

You can’t bring back the dead, you can’t mend broken hearts but you can give the love that Jesus gives to you.

Our Lord knew that the death He faced would come in a most cruel manner, and that His Father would watch Him die –and perhaps out of this knowing He understood exactly how this widow felt. He reached out, the wounded healer to the wounded person.

Follow the way of Jesus and show your love to those in pain and anguish, and if you are in pain and anguish, know that Jesus really does care about you and loves you with a deep compassion, no matter who you are or how terrible your pain.

The third example we have is the sinful woman who comes to anoint Jesus feet at the home of Simon the Pharisee.

While the rest of the guests are disgusted at the presence of this prostitute in their midst, Jesus accepts her, receives the anointing, forgives her and blesses her.

And He uses the occasion to teach about God’s amazing grace that covers every sin of each penitent sinner. And more than that –He teaches that when we have understood God’s gift of forgiveness we will also understand what we are to do with the gift of His love.

“He who has been forgiven much, loves much; and he who has been forgiven little, loves little.”

If we are to have Jesus’ love for others in our hearts, we need to fully grasp how much God has forgiven us. In His death, He took the sin of the world as far from us as the east is from the west. He cast our sin into the deepest part of the sea –into The Abyss.

When we come to Him in faith as that woman did, our sins are forgiven. We are set free. He does not hold one sin above another, He does not count our sins against us.

And He wants us to be like that too. We find it hard to forgive the penitent sinner; we want to forever hold their sin against them. And yet God has already forgiven.

So who bears the ongoing pain of the sin –we do, because we choose to live in Unforgiveness. It bitters our heart, it tears at our soul we have forgotten that Jesus says, “love one another as I have loved you.”

Jesus’ indiscriminate love is still throbbing though the universe today—fully available to those who will open their hearts to him. And his indiscriminate love is to be expressed, here and now, through his followers who learn to love just as recklessly as he did.

Will you make a point of loving those who don’t matter?

Will you reach out to those in pain and anguish?

Will you love the sinners back to Jesus?

The power of Jesus’ indiscriminate love in the world today depends absolutely on how you love.

Praise the Lord. It’s Sunday again….

A change of plans though. I am not going to Nungarin this morning and so, because Bob is a much better musician than I am, he will be tinkling the ivories and I’ll be preaching, and of course, its Communion Sunday so we share the sacrament together as well.

I’m keeping the focus this morning on Jesus – to provide tools for us to know Him better and to be able to share our relationship with Him in a more meaningful way. Last week we looked at who Jesus is for us and we had a great response with people sharing about their own understanding of Jesus in GodTalk time which we put after the sermon. This morning we are looking at the fact that Jesus does not discriminate with regard to whom He loves. In three simple and sequential stories from Luke’s gospel we see first, that He cares about those who are often unloved by the world; second, that He has a deep compassion for those who are in pain and anguish, and third, He even loves those who have been made outcasts because of sin. Our nature is to think that Jesus only loves those who are perfect. But if you read the gospels, as I suggested last week, you will quickly see that Jesus didn’t have too much time for those who thought that they were perfect. His ministry was almost entirely, perhaps completely, focused on those who were imperfect – on the sick, the demon-possessed and the sinners; on ordinary fishermen rather than fancy priests; on the outcasts rather than the inner circle.

Our vision is to live the Gospel to radiate the love of Jesus – if we are going to do that we must follow the way of Jesus. Our lives should be filled with grace towards others, perhaps especially to the marginalized. But so often we think of the marginalized as those who have really sunk to the depths, those who, in our cultural terms, do not share our standards. The truth is that anyone separated from Jesus is marginalized in the sense that they do not know His love and they do not know the Good News about Him.

Our calling as Christians is not to gather ourselves within our ecclesiastic salt cellars (church buildings) and there to gaze at our navels. No! It is to live the Gospel in such a way that we radiate the love of Jesus to each other and yes, to the ones out there. This is going to be a major feature of our Strategic Planning Day on October 24^th.

The way in which we become an effective church is predominantly by learning grace. The way in which we are best able to draw others into the Good News about Jesus is by sharing that grace – for “It is by grace that you are saved, through faith, this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Eph 2:8) Grace is an amazing concept. It is about a forgiving attitude, it is about servanthood, it is about living for others, it is about allowing God to work in His own mysterious way. And that means that we do not need to help Him nor do we need to impose our way. God works through the gentle whisper, not in the powerful wind, or the earthquake or the fire. (1 Kings 19:11-13)

Prepare yourself to hear the gentle whisper of God on October 24^th at our Planning Day. This is planning in a way which you have never seen before. Don’t come with preconceived ideas about the outcome. Come expecting God to speak to us in His way and giving us His direction.

Last week I produced a table in the newsletter which briefly outlined the 12 keys to an effective church. Here it is again …

The most important characteristics are on the left – they are relational rather than functional. We are relational beings and we are drawn to things which build relationships so the first 6 characteristics draw us together. Relationships however need a framework in which to develop well. These are the 6 characteristics on the right. Good parking (Nº 10), for example, does not create relationships but it does allow us to come together easily. Relational characteristics draw us together, Functional characteristics keep us together. Our task on October 24th (book the date, we need as many as possible to be there) will be to identify our strong points perhaps only 3 or 4, and only then to work on what we can do to strengthen them. So once again, don’t come with solutions … our first step is to identify the questions. More on that in next week’s newsletter.
God love you….

Hello all, here’s some of the photos of the 41 shoe boxes we collected as a church for Operation Christmas Child. David and Margie took them down to the warehouse in Perth.

Hello all, here is the first photo of Lianie Coetzee with Suzette!  Lianie was born on Wednesday the 23rd of September. Please remember to keep Farnie, Suzette and Lianie in your prayers.