Jesus is Lord
Weekly Worship
Joining in Prayer
Father of Light and Love we draw together at your footstool with our Worship and Praise, always remembering the gift of your only Son Jesus. His sacrifice on our behalf leaves us in the greatest of awe, and including the gift of the Holy Spirit, Father, that you sent us, through your Son to guide us and understand our feelings thoughts and deeds to present to you.
Although some normality is being encouraged now, help us to be aware and remember our social distancing and continued hand care etc. We pray for those people still in lockdown for various reasons, give them a heart of acceptance knowing that they are caring about others as well as themselves.
Continue Lord to protect all the personal involved in caring, nursing, admin, tracing cases to find and warn people possibly at risk. For our volunteers who have put themselves in the front line again by going to help Victoria in their time of crisis.
We are mindful of all the issues our politicians have had to, and are still, making to keep us safe. Theirs has been a heavy load to carry continue to give them wisdom.
For all the things on our hearts that have happened to us individually, throughout these months, things we have never done before, time to do unusual things to help us fill in time. Having time for extended daily devotions and what we have learned from them to share.
Guide us Lord as we seek to understand your reasoning for this Pandemic. We pray for those grieving not only for those lost due to this virus but for other reasons where a loved one has died. Give them peace as they travel through the processes of grief.
We pray for all the people of our town with the many issues that they have had to work through in their lives, loss of jobs, putting food on the table, paying bills. For those who suffer from depression and claustrophobia, panic attacks. May they find help and peace through your believers sharing and caring.
As we look forward to opening our church doors all be it within the legal requirements bring in new folk and give us the wisdom to welcome them as though they have just arrived home to be with family.
So many things on our hearts, we pray for each part of the world that is suffering from mixed messages about the virus and how it keeps on destroying, may we all work towards its end.
All that we offer and ask in our prayers to you Lord we ask through the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
Jenny Fahlbusch
6th after Pentecost
12th July 2020
Please read: Psalm 13
I can’t imagine anyone hearing a sermon or reading a devotion that does not make some reference to the times in which we are currently living. “Coronavirus” will always be the subject at the forefront of 2020 history. And without a doubt this pandemic has had the most profound impact on us, our society and our world. It has caused many deaths, required self or forced isolation, the shutdown of businesses – and church buildings, and has led to widespread suffering through loss of work and income to millions – and that’s just in our country.
However, God has, at least to this point in time, allowed less suffering among us Aussies than in most other parts of the world. Personally, I cannot claim to have suffered at all. Being retired from paid work has meant that I have found self-isolation pretty easy compared to others. And, knowing what the “body of Christ” really means, going to a physical building for “church” isn’t central to my faith. The “Church” is people. I loved a picture I saw that showed an empty church building with the words: “The Church has left the building.” And lately, with the easing of restrictions, I have enjoyed joining a small group during the week, or on the Sunday, to participate in worship online. Often on Sunday morning, it’s just my wife and I together as we join with our church family in worship via YouTube, led by our pastor.
It is true, is it not, that hardship and suffering always brings out the best – and the worst – in people. The majority of our Australian citizens have obeyed the instructions from our governments. The front line workers at this time have been amazing – doctors, nurses, ambos, police, etc. But there have also been those who have shown greed and self-interest by panic buying, as well as those who have refused to abide by any rules. Such people have thankfully been a minority,
And I haven’t even mentioned what is happening in other countries who have been hit hard by this pandemic, or the turmoil caused by black deaths and the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the USA and even here. The Syrian civil war, almost ten years old, which killed nearly a million civilians, hasn’t got a mention this year. The plague of locusts in Africa, which may cause the greatest famine in history, hasn’t got a mention this year. The large number of Christians persecuted and even killed for their faith never gets a mention in the media. And so I could go on.
I have introduced my message this way because I believe it makes the words of our Romans Bible reading today all the more precious: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1. This is my personal victory cry. As human and as sinful as I am, and no matter how good or how bad the world can be, this fact is true: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. As you and I share in the best and the worst of humanity, as we go through these uncertain, anxious times, and as we seek to tell others why we have this hope of forgiveness and salvation, there are no more comforting words in Scripture than here in the letter to the Romans – we have this certain hope because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:2.
I must confess to you that I have my doubts about God’s grace from time to time. How can he go on forgiving a sinner like me? How can he go on forgiving me when I continue to sin against him in word, thought and deed? I wonder what it really means to be set free from the law of sin and death when I and Christians around the world can be so loving, good and serving one day, and then so unloving, bad and self-serving another day. If you and I have not fooled ourselves with ‘churchy’ clichés, we know who we really are. We are God’s loved, holy, righteous children, safe in his care for eternity – and we are stubborn, rebellious, disobedient sinners who cannot earn even one “brownie point” with God on our own.
This is why in Romans 7, the previous chapter to our text, is also precious to me, because the apostle Paul saw himself the same way. 14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Romans 7:14-15. As Paul worked through what it meant to be in Christ Jesus, yet still a slave to sin, he came close to despair. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Romans 7:24. But he knew where his help and hope came from: 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:25.
That response can still be ours today because there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Do you believe this? Today, as much as any other time in history, we are still challenged to make our choices about what is important to us. In this time of uncertainty, loss of faith, confusion and loss of standards of morality, what do we cling to? What is critical to our happiness? Where does our help come from? Who can set us free from the law of sin and death? The apostle Paul has the answer to that question in our text, Romans 8:10 - 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And it is Jesus’ righteousness that he is referring to, because God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17.
Do you know how much God loves you? Whenever we doubt our worth to God, it is because we are looking at ourselves to earn God’s favour. The moment we focus on the world, on others, or ourselves, we are trying to be saved by good works, or we are in a state of complete hopelessness. But when we focus on our dear Saviour Jesus, on his obedience, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection, we receive that peace which only God can give us.
And that peace is far more than simply an emotion of non-anxiety. It is the absolute assurance and certainty that God has done everything he requires for us to be saved. In fact, Paul said in our text: 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. Romans 8:11. Here and elsewhere Paul gives us the assurance that the power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that raises us to the new and abundant life in Jesus now, and that will raise us from death to eternal life with him in heaven. And this certainty is what led Paul to say with absolute conviction: If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. Romans 14:8.
I am assuming that you need this assurance of God’s grace today as much as I do. In times such as these, when even our physical congregations are declining, and we have no idea what the future holds, we need to be reminded of the One who holds the future, yours and mine, in his hands. I’ve quoted a lot of Scripture because these verses keep “popping” into my head. It is so important that we cling to the very Word of God, which alone can calm our uneasy souls and give us faith and trust in Jesus.
So, Paul wrote in verse one of Romans 8: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And at the end of this same chapter he wrote these amazing words that I urge you to cling to in these chaotic, yet Spirit-led times.
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you, now and always. Amen.
Robert L Voigt
Pastor