Friday 30th July 7:30pm

“The Cult of Christian Leadership: the Trojan Horse Within the Church”

(1 Corinthians 1-4)

Saturday 31 July 8:30am – Men’s Breakfast Crocodile Farm Hotel Ashfield

“Taming the Beast Within: On Becoming a Christian Gladiator”

70 places only RSVP by 24th July to wm.accounts@reformers.com.au

Saturday 31 July 3:00pm

“The Sex, Love and the Marriage Muddle in a Promiscuous Era”

(1 Corinthians 5; 6:9-7:40)

Saturday 31 July 4:30pm

“My Right to My Life versus My Productive Lifestyle:

How to Join the 30, 60, 100 Club of Jesus (1 Corinthians 8:1-11)

Saturday 31 July 7:30pm

“Chaos in the Christian Church: The Dysfunctional Family of God Begins Again”

(1 Corinthians 6:1-8; 11-14)

Sunday 1 August Morning Services (9:00am/10:15am)

How to Eliminate the Underlying Causes of Corinth’s and Our Problems:

“The Insurrection of the Body: How to Have a Good Death” ” (1 Corinthians 15)

Sunday 1 August 6:00pm

“The Resolution of Conflict in the Church” (1 Corinthians 16)

For further information contact Peter Hastie 02 9798 6572

APC Teaching Weekend Flyer PDF

Friday 30th July 7:30pm

“The Cult of Christian Leadership: the Trojan Horse Within the Church”

(1 Corinthians 1-4)

Saturday 31 July 8:30am – Men’s Breakfast Crocodile Farm Hotel Ashfield

“Taming the Beast Within: On Becoming a Christian Gladiator”

70 places only RSVP by 24th July to wm.accounts@reformers.com.au

Saturday 31 July 3:00pm

“The Sex, Love and the Marriage Muddle in a Promiscuous Era”

(1 Corinthians 5; 6:9-7:40)

Saturday 31 July 4:30pm

“My Right to My Life versus My Productive Lifestyle:

How to Join the 30, 60, 100 Club of Jesus (1 Corinthians 8:1-11)

Saturday 31 July 7:30pm

“Chaos in the Christian Church: The Dysfunctional Family of God Begins Again”

(1 Corinthians 6:1-8; 11-14)

Sunday 1 August Morning Services (9:00am/10:15am)

How to Eliminate the Underlying Causes of Corinth’s and Our Problems:

“The Insurrection of the Body: How to Have a Good Death” ” (1 Corinthians 15)

Sunday 1 August 6:00pm

“The Resolution of Conflict in the Church” (1 Corinthians 16)

For further information contact Peter Hastie 02 9798 6572

APC Teaching Weekend Flyer PDF

Encourage one another through well-directed speech

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15)

One of the strongest statements of the Trinity in the Bible is found in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. He begins the letter by referring to the contribution of each of the three persons, God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, to our salvation. He tells us that each of the members of the Trinity engaged in an eternal plan to rescue us from sin and destruction. They cooperated with one another to ensure that we received eternal life.

The Trinity, however, is important for another reason. It helps us to understand our own meaning and identity as human beings. The Bible tells us that God created us “in His image” and it reminds us that the goal of our salvation is to be “conformed to the image of Christ” (Genesis 1:27, Romans 8:29).  Here we learn that we are meant to relate to one another as God relates within Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God made us to enter into personal relationship with Him and with one another. This means that our supreme goal as Christians is to deepen our personal relationship with God and with our brothers and sisters.

Of course, the primary way that we build our personal relationships is through communication. The Scriptures remind us that speaking with one another is essential for our growth in personal relationships. So it’s not surprising that Paul reminds us that personal communication is the way that we are to “grow up in every way…into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).  This means that we must all become involved in encouraging one another to grow in godliness through thoughtful and well-directed speech.

This is not always easy to do. In the modern church scene, people often have little commitment to others in their local congregation. They are often attracted to a stand-off form of Christianity which does not require the kind of self death that Jesus expects of his followers.  These people go to church for what they can get – easy friendship, programs and the opportunity to feel good. They are always subconsciously asking a question: “What can church do for me?” They don’t want to get overly involved with other people’s problems.

However, Paul reminds us that our growth as persons always takes place in the context of the personal relationships within the body of Christ. This means that we must be committed to Christian conversations – offering words of challenge, stimulation, encouragement and edification to one another. It is through our conversations that we grow in spiritual maturity and advance God’s work in the local church. We are all called to be counsellors.

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.” (Isaiah 64:4)

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One of the most amazing things that we learn about the God of the Bible is that He works for those who wait for Him. Interestingly, none of the other religions of the world know anything of a transcendent, personal God who actually works for His followers. In the other world faiths, the reverse is the case – there is only talk of us working for God and advancing His interests. Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims all have to work to please God.

Our main problem is that our sinful nature leads us to think that God is depending on us and that He needs our work, when the reality is that God is the One who is working for us. Indeed, God is working for us around the clock. He does not take days off, and He does not sleep (Psalm 121). In fact, He is so eager to work for us that He goes looking for more work to do for people who will trust Him: “The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those who are fully committed to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

God loves to show his boundless grace and power by working for people who trust Him. Jesus Himself is the clearest revelation of this truth: “The Son of man also came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). Jesus worked for his followers on earth and He now works for them from heaven. Christ worked for Paul all his life. At the very end of his life, in his last letter, Paul said, “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength to proclaim the message fully” (2 Timothy 4:17). Through all his life Paul could say, “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). Jesus is the great worker who empowers the weak.

So the question we must ask if we want God to work for us is, “How do we wait for Him? And what does ‘waiting’ mean?”

Waiting for the Lord means, first, that we look to the Lord and consult Him before we draw upon our own resources. It means that we actively seek His will. In short, we wait for the Lord when we pause to pray before we act. The Psalmist warns us of an ever-present danger: “They forgot what He had done; they did not wait for His counsel” (Psalm 106:13). The first act of waiting is to seek God’s counsel in prayer before we make any attempt to solve the problem ourselves. And it should go without saying that when we wait for God’s counsel, we must be like good patients who have placed themselves in the care of a competent and sympathetic doctor. We must look to the doctor, and not ourselves, for advice.

Although we may think that the biggest news events in the world have all occurred in the last generation, all of them seem to pale into insignificance in the light of the announcement of the birth of Jesus Christ. If you have ever dared to imagine a news event that could possibly overshadow the landing of the first man on the moon, then God’s announcement that He was about to set foot on earth certainly fits into that category.

Of course, if modern advertising agencies had been given the brief for this event they would have bombarded us with constant thirty-second promotions on TV and plastered posters on  billboards all around the world. The newspapers would have run feature ads and radio talk back hosts would have discussed it for weeks.

However, when God sent His Son as the savior of the world, the Bible records it in a most understated way. As Luke tells the story, it takes place in the most unlikely circumstances. One scholar wasn’t exaggerating when he said, “the story of the Virgin Birth is about an astounding happening taking place in a ‘nobody’, in a ‘nothing town’, in the middle of nowhere.”

Why would someone make such an observation? The answer to that question is found in the fact that the angel Gabriel made a special appearance to a thirteen or fourteen year old girl called Mary in a town called Nazareth. Not only was Mary very young by our standards, but she came from an entirely forgettable location. Nazareth is hardly known in pre-Christian writings. The only reason we even know about it is because Jesus grew up there. It was a rundown, half-way stop between the ports of Tyre and Sidon, and Nathaniel wasn’t kidding when he said to Phillip, “Nazareth? Can anything good come out of that hole?” Nazareth was hardly a blue-ribbon Jewish electorate, having been overrun by Gentiles and Romans in previous centuries.  Martin Luther understood Luke’s point in mentioning Mary and Nazareth when he said, “God might have gone to Jerusalem and picked out the high priest’s daughter who was fair and rich… But God preferred a lowly maid from a mean town.”

Why does Luke focus on the fact that Mary was a common girl in an unknown town?  Surely his point is that God comes to needy sinners – people who know that they are weak and have nothing to boast about. Neither Mary nor Nazareth had anything to commend them. Yet Nazareth was a place where needy people lived, and God, in his infinite wisdom, sent Jesus to such a place to confound the wisdom of this world.

• 9:00 AM – This is the Easy English Service.
• 10:15 AM – This is the regular morning Service.
• 6:00 PM – This is the regular evening Service.

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Thought For The Week

“Communion with God is the beginning of heaven”  William Bates 1625-1699

Sunday, 13 June, 2010

Have you ever felt locked into a situation over which you have no real control – a health problem, a broken relationship or a financial setback? Have you ever felt that you have been thrust into less than ideal circumstances and that somehow your usefulness to God has been compromised?

If you have, you are not alone. This has been a common experience for many of the leading figures in the Bible. Take Joseph, for example. He was kidnapped, sold into slavery, forced to work for foreigners in Egypt, falsely accused of sexual assault and unjustly imprisoned. It is hard to imagine more trying circumstances. And yet he bore a faithful witness to God despite all his sufferings.

The same is also true for Ezekiel and Daniel. As young men – perhaps even boys – they were torn from family and friends, uprooted from their homes and taken as captives to Babylon. While Ezekiel lived as a refugee among his people, Daniel was forced to live and work in an oppressive setting where his every waking and sleeping moment was carefully monitored. How would we react in similar circumstances? Would we have given up living? Would we have lost our faith in God? Well, neither Joseph, nor Ezekiel, nor Daniel did. Instead, they entrusted their souls to God and continued to do good.

Interestingly, we see that Paul reacted similarly when he was imprisoned for almost 5 years from the time he left Jerusalem until the time of his trial in Rome. During this period, he survived several assassination attempts, a shipwreck and 3 months of deprivation on the island of Malta. Nevertheless, despite his limitations he always found ways to serve the Lord and preach the Word. Rather than being downcast by his situation, Paul saw his problem as an opportunity to advance the Gospel in a different way. In other words, he realised that whether he was free or not, he could always do good works.

I don’t know what circumstances you find yourself in at this precise moment, but I do know this – whatever our circumstances – whether we are rich or poor, strong or weak, healthy or sick, we can always do the will of God and witness to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. The aim of life is not personal success, wealth or happiness. If it was, Paul would have been a miserable man, but he was nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he was confident, optimistic and full of hope because he knew that, despite his sufferings, he could always glorify God and advance the work of the Kingdom by engaging in good works.

Sometimes, even when we are doing the will of God, we may pass through dreadful and unnerving experiences. This certainly happened to Paul on many occasions, one of which was when his ship was wrecked at sea. So, what are we to make of these kinds of sufferings in the Christian life? Are they a sign of God’s displeasure, or do they have some deeper purpose?

Writing to the Christians in Corinth, Paul says that some of the ‘close calls’ that he had experienced in life were not so much signs that he was out of step with God; rather, they served a deeper purpose by reminding him of the danger of self-reliance. He says that these experiences taught him that he must not rely on himself but on God who raises the dead.

Interestingly, in none of Paul’s letters do we find anything that might lead us to think that Paul was ever tempted to revert to a sense of self-sufficiency where he trusted in his own strength and works. Anyone who reads his letters to the Galatians and Romans is left with the impression that Paul would have been the last man in danger of trusting in himself. Yet here, as he writes to the Corinthians, he says that such a tendency lurks in us all. And he points out that sometimes God places us in situations of tremendous stress to remind us of how easily we revert to self-reliance.

The problem we face is two-fold. First, self-reliance is the default position of every one of us since the fall. This means that there is a natural tendency in us always to trust in ourselves. And second, self-reliance and self-sufficiency are qualities that people have always admired.

Nevertheless, God finds an attitude of self-reliance offensive. Indeed, He says through the prophet Jeremiah that self-sufficient people are under a curse: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord.” In God’s eyes at least, self-reliance or self-sufficiency is idolatry because it has the effect of putting ourselves in the place of God.

The Scripture is quite clear that, “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth”. In other words we should not look for ultimate help or support anywhere else other than God. Why? Because trusting in God is essential for salvation and determines our future and destiny. Faith is the most important thing about us, which explains why God is so concerned to perfect it.

(2 Timothy 1:7)

Here Paul reminds us of the Spirit’s ministry to believers when we are facing threats and personal crises. He tells us that God gives us courage, concern for others and self-control despite our deepest fears.

God’s solution to our growing fears is to empower us by the Holy Spirit. In other words, despite our emotional turmoil, God can strengthen us to face our deepest anxieties. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we will not experience conflicting emotions or escape times of extraordinary stress. Christians don’t have immunity from the unpleasant emotions of fear and foreboding. For instance Elijah, in his physically exhausted state, became terrified at the threats of Ahab and Jezebel. John the Baptist seems to have been confused and disorientated after Herod threw him into jail. Even Jesus was “deeply distressed and troubled” in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:33).

During these challenging and unsettling moments, God assures us that we will have spiritual strength to face our deepest anxieties. He gives us a spirit of love so that we do not become completely self-absorbed and unconcerned about others. His gift of power enables us to see things in a positive light and to look for solutions in a seemingly hopeless situation. He gives us a sound mind so that we can think logically and sensibly as we come to terms with the crisis we are facing.

Remember, this promise does not mean that we will never face daunting situations. What it does guarantee is that when we need help, God will give us courage to confront our deepest fears. He will give us a positive spirit, the capacity to forget ourselves and to help others, and a sound mind to think through our problems and work out good solutions.

This means that we do not have to run away from our difficulties. This is the typical reaction of unbelievers. When Paul was staring death in the face during the shipwreck (Acts 27), the sailors were so overwhelmed by fear that they decided to leave the ship and take a lifeboat. Driven by their anxieties, they decided to jump the ship of their present circumstances, desert those who needed them and find an easy way out. People often want to run away from their difficulties by finding a “lifeboat” that they think will save them from their problems.

However Paul says that we do not need to run from our fears. We can stand and face them. How? By trusting in God’s promise to fill us with the Holy Spirit so that we have courage, common sense and self-control as we confront the crisis.

In the account of the shipwreck in Acts 27, which involved the apostle Paul and 275 others, we learn that God sometimes puts believers through trials for the sake of others. We read that the storm had such a powerful effect on the crew that, “they gave up all hope of being saved.”

But “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,” and so it was here. When these men gave up all hope of survival, God thrust Paul forward. In the Greek, the words are literally, “he stood forth”, that is, he stood out among them with a different attitude and point of view. This is Luke’s way of reminding us that sometimes God’s plan requires that Christians pass through life’s storms for the sake of others who are unsaved.

It is clear in this story that Paul is on a ship, carrying criminals and other prisoners, as well as some fairly rough seamen, to bring about their salvation. From this specific incident, we learn that God often puts believers in places that they wouldn’t ordinarily choose, but nonetheless are for the blessing of others.

Now such a teaching runs counter to prosperity theology, which says that if you are in the will of God you can expect a trouble-free life. However, Paul reminds us in several places that Christians not only carry the life of Jesus but also experience his trials in their own mortal bodies. This means that when we face suffering, one of the reasons may be for the salvation of others.

If this seems strange to us, we should ask the question, why was Christ on earth? Was it not for the sake of sinners? Why does He eat with sinners? Why does He touch lepers? Why does He go into a cemetery and meet with a deranged man? None of these are pleasant encounters. Indeed, they are jarring – even shocking. But Christ came as a Great Physician to heal the sick and preach the Gospel to needy people. And He wants us to be partakers of his life and ministry by dying to ourselves and involving ourselves in costly service, which is why Paul found himself on board this ship in a storm at sea.

It is for the sake of other that God often puts Christians in life’s storms. When others have abandoned all hope of being saved, it is good to have a Christian nearby who can bring hope and blessing into their lives through sharing the Gospel.