The sermon for October 22nd 2023 is now available on the New Life web site.
In this sermon, which is based on Genesis 1:1-2:3, I talk about the implications of our world view.
Click here to listen or download.
Today’s Sermon
Month: October 2023
Quote for the Day
If you want to see miraculous fruit in your life, you must have faith as if it depends on God, and work as if it depends on you. Stephen Strang
Quote for the Day
The Holy Spirit’s power and presence can change everything in our lives. People are desperate to experience the power and to do so at a great level. But the culture discounts most things that have to do with being a Christian, and many lukewarm believers downplay the Spirit’s power as unimportant. Stephen Strang
Reflection on 2 Corinthians 9: 9-15
Scripture
For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and produce a great harvest of generosity in you.
Observation
Paul quotes Psalm 112 which says that God’s people share freely and give generously to the poor. God provides seed for the sower and bread to eat. In the same way, He will increase their resources and produce a harvest of generosity in them.
God will enrich the Corinthians in every way. When Paul takes their gift back to Jerusalem, the believers there will praise God for this generosity and they will pray for them with deep affection.
Application
God provides the farmer with the seed to sow as well as bread to eat. The test for sustainable farming in the ancient world was that even in the most severe of famines, some grain had to be saved to sow the following year. To fail to do this would lead to further suffering.
As Christians who are under God’s grace, we need to both sow into God’s kingdom and also retain some money to meet our own needs. There is no glory to God if we give away everything we have and then become dependent on others.
So discernment in the Holy Spirit is needed in knowing how to spend and invest the resources that God has given us.
In any event, if we are faithful to the Lord, we will reap a great harvest of generosity. The harvest God is looking for is not just a harvest of wealth, but a harvest of generosity. H wants our hearts changed to the point where the first question we ask we ask is, “How much how much can I give?”
Prayer
Lord, please develop in me this generous heart that seeks to give rather than get. Amen.
Today’s Bike Ride
Great ride along Culgoora Road this morning. #cycling #narrabri #Biketooter
Creation Or Evolution
I have been thinking this week about two stories of how we arrived in the world. The first theory is evolution, which says that we are just a product of random chemical reactions over a very long period of time. The second story is that of creation as described in the very first chapter of Genesis.
This is not the place to say whether one of these stories is factually correct, or whether we can blend the two together in some way. I do want to consider some of the ramifications of these stories and the results of believing one or the other.
As we read the familiar words of Genesis 1, we discover that God is greater than the world, the sun and moon, the stars and bigger than everything all put together. Science tells us that the universe is unimaginably huge and more complex than we can imagine, but God is bigger than all of this.
At each stage of the process, God describes the creation as good, until the last day when He makes the first people and He describes it as “very good.” It is as if everything is made for the purpose of supporting human beings.
The Bible teaches that we are created for a purpose and that we are the pinnacle of God’s creative activity.
On the other hand, evolution tells us that everything is random, from the birth of our planet (an insignificant lump of rock on the edge of an average galaxy), to the production of individual human beings (you are just a random arrangement of DNA, and it determines your life).
So we get to a place of despair because there is no reason for us to exist. There is no future because in the end the whole universe will just run out of energy.
From that depressing explanation of life, we reap a harvest of depression, purposelessness, sexual anarchy and lawlessness.
God made you for a purpose. He has a plan for your life and a destiny for you in eternity.
Praise God!
Quote for the Day
We must commit to doing only what the Spirit leads us to do if we are going to be truly Spirit led. Without Him, anything that we do is what the Bible call a work of the flesh. Instead of creating a problem by doing things in our own effort and then asking the Spirit to get us out of the mess we’ve made, we must wait upon Him and follow His leading. Stephen Strang
Reflection on 2 Corinthians 9:1-8
Scripture
God will generously provide all you need. then you will always have you need plenty left over to share with others.
Observation
Paul has been boasting to the believers in Macedonia about the generosity of the Corinthians. Their enthusiasm to help the church in Jerusalem stirred up the Macedonians.
Now Paul is sending some brothers, including Titus, to make sure that the church in Corinth is ready to contribute. But Paul wants it to be a willing gift, not one given grudgingly.
A farmer who sows a few seeds gets a small crop, but a farmer who plants generously will get a bigger crop. God god loves cheerful giver, and He will provide for their needs and enough to share.
Application
When we are surrendered to God’s purposes, He supplies what we need. Not only that, He gives us enough to share with others as well.
This is the mystery of God’s economics. The world tells us that we need to look out for our own needs and gain as much as we can for ourselves. God says that if we submit to Him and help others, then He will supply all that we need. In fact, our generous God supplies enough for us to be generous too.
This goes way beyond tithing. Tithing is supporting your local church and paying back for the spiritual support you receive. God wants us to support missions, help the poor and homeless, give to our neighbours, and so on. We must practise generosity in every part of life, being givers rather than takers.
As we give and give and give from the joy of following Jesus, we discover that you cannot out-give God.
Prayer
Thank you Lord for these promises about giving generously. Please help me to give freely at every opportunity. Amen.
Today’s Bike Ride
A quick ride around town this morning, what I call the Bunnings ride – along the highway to Bunnings, then around the edge of town, back to Violet Street and then around the Riverbend Estate. It always surprises me that agriculture continues right up to the edge of suburbia. #cycling #Narrabri #Biketooter
Quote for the Day
When we don’t know what to pray, we can pray in tongues, knowing that the Holy Spirit is interceding for us. Stephen Strang
New Life Narrabri 