From time to time I put sermons I give up here. Not because I think they are particularly good, even less that they are model sermons. I can't even guarantee that I agree with everything I said then - I am (of course) learning all the time. But someone may be interested.
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One problem with the Christian faith is that it’s largely about trusting in some promises that we can’t see. You can’t see God. You can’t see heaven. You can’t see sin or the forgiveness of sin. Which can make it all seem a bit “up in the clouds”. A bit unreal. Like the Christian faith isn’t in the real world.
I wonder how you think of God? Do you regard God as a blessing God, or a cursing God? Would you say that he is a God who enjoys spoiling our fun, or a God that is a delight to know? Does God dish us up with good things in life, or does God take from us the things that are most precious? What kind of God do you think God is?
There is no full script available for the sermon on Exodus 25-31, but instead you can listen to an audio recording of the sermon by clicking the button below.
There is no full script available for the sermon on Exodus 19-24, but instead you can listen to an audio recording of the sermon by clicking the button below.
About a month ago, we looked together at the account of the plagues on Egypt. If you were here then, you’ll remember that we said God is in charge of the whole world, even those bits of it where he is not acknowledged. But how he uses that depends a lot on whether you are one of God’s people. God is a God who makes a distinction between his people and other people; when it comes to his people, he makes all things work for good.
I’m sure there is not a child anywhere in the English-speaking world who has not had a phase of asking “why” to everything. Children are naturally curious. They want to know how the world fits together. So as they observe things happening, they ask why? They want to understand.
Much that we do here in church makes people ask “why” as well? Why do we eat a meal each week comprising a small amount of bread and wine? Why do we have readings from the Bible in church? Why do we have a sermon? And so on.
We don’t like plagues. We shudder to think what it must have been like to live through the various runs of Bubonic Plague in the middle ages. We fear illnesses like swine flu because of what they might do to our community. We get very anxious when we hear that Iraq might have biological or chemical weapons, that could make life very painful and uncomfortable for us.
So, if we are honest, the account of the plagues of Egypt is a difficult part of the Bible to stomach. It’s hard to read. It’s hard to preach on. It’s hard to listen to a sermon on. We start to ask: How could God do such horrible things to the Egyptians?
“… and they all lived happily ever after”.
We like stories that end like that. They’re lovely. At least – they’re lovely if you live in that period called “ever after”. The trouble is: That is only the ending because the rest of the story is somewhat more complex and somewhat less happy. That’s what makes “… and they all lived happily ever after” newsworthy.
For the people of God, the Bible is a story that ends “and they all lived happily ever after”. The trouble is that before we get to “ever after”, things don’t feel happy. In fact, it often doesn’t feel that we are living in a story that is going to end with the words, “and they all lived happily ever after”.
In real life, the fact of the matter is, the difficulties and pressures of daily life easily seem far more real to us than the promises and purposes of God. And the danger is that we end up with a mismatch between Sunday and Monday to Friday. On Sunday we come to church, and what we hear is that it all ends happily ever after. We hear about God, what he promises, and how he will look after us. Then we go out into Monday to Friday, and we wonder if it all makes any difference at all. What we see before us for six days of the week are not the fine statements we heard on Sunday, but the often cruel details of life.
I could have gone to a shelf in the newsagents and brought with me pretty much any half-dozen magazines, and the chances are that on their cover or inside they would have their own version of “Ten ways to be happy”. Whether it be “21 ways to have a celebrity-type romantic relationship”. Or, I think it was Men’s Health on the cover, “30 guaranteed ways to burn fat”. Or whatever it might be. “10 ways to find true and lasting happiness.”
Psalm 1 is the Bible’s alternative to those magazines. Psalm 1 starts, “Happy…” or “Blessed… is the man (or the woman) who…”. Psalm 1 tells us where we will go to find true and lasting happiness. Psalm 1 is for men and women. It’s as much the Bible’s answer to FHM as it is to Cosmo; it is as much the Bible’s answer to Men’s Health as it is to Red. Psalm 1 is the Bible’s answer to those magazines: where we go to find true happiness.