Author: Trevor

I grew up at Myponga, as the a son of dairy farming parents. I joined the South Australian Police Force. I later returned home to manage the family dairy farm. Having believed the good news, I now see its centrality and necessity to human life, and to our participation with proper hope in the world we live in. I teach Christian faith.

5. P2—God at Work in You (Philippians 2)

In Paul’s prayerful, affectionate, encouraging letter to the Philippians, we note 3 things.

  1. Our new life is ‘in the Spirit’. He encourages the church to take the mindset of Christ’s humble, self-giving ministry, as a pattern for their own. This is only possible due to their ‘participation in the Spirit’ (Phil. 2:1).   In the words of an early hymn: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:5-11).
  2. The self-humbling, self-emptying of God the Son, is not in order to become human. To become human is a wonderful matter. Rather, his humbling is in embracing the shame of sinful humanity, in the suffering and death of a Roman cross. Hebrews 2:9 says that Jesus was “crowned with glory and honour for the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone”. His crowning with glory and honour was not ‘because’ of what he underwent. Rather, He is King, for the purpose of this suffering. Do you embrace your sufferings, purposefully?
  3. It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). Through faith, and the reception of the Spirit of God, our lives have become the arena of God at work. At one time, there were highway signs saying, ‘Men at Work’. Our lives could have a sign up saying: ‘God at work’ in and through us.

Prayer: Dear God, our Father, we thank you that just as you were at work in the sufferings of Jesus on the cross, so too you are at work, by the Spirit, in every aspect of our lives, including, and even especially amidst our sufferings. Lord Jesus, we often don’t do suffering and humility very well. May we continue to rediscover the truth of your way of being truly human. Amen.

Trevor

 

The entire message can be seen and heard here:

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=107172053580

 

4. P1—Christian Maturity (Philippians 1)

This next four-week series is on Paul’s letter to the Philippians. The letter is written from prison. It is the only letter of Paul’s which is not addressing problems and issues, but encouraging the church to press on, to grow, to rejoice in suffering, and to mature.

In Acts 16:9-40, we can read how Paul first answered Christ’s call for him to go to Macedonia, where he was to be instrumental in planting the church in Philippi. It all began at Lydia’s riverside prayer meeting. And his first church members were “a Jewish fashionista businesswoman, a demon-possessed slave girl, and a blue-collar ex-GI duty bound to the Roman Empire” (Matt Chandler, To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain). Paul has a yearning affection for these people.

Philippians contains many short now-popular Christian sayings, such as ‘Rejoice in the Lord always’ and ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’, and ‘every knee shall bow’ and ‘every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord’.

In chapter one, we will consider 3 aspects of Paul’s teaching:

  1. To Live is Christ, to Die is Gain (Phil. 1:21).
  2. God has granted us the privilege of believing in Christ (Phil. 1:29)
  3. God has granted us the privilege of suffering for Christ (Phil. 1:29).

May we all join in thoughtfully reading this letter, and listening for God’s Word to us. For like Paul, ‘I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ’ (Phil. 1:6).

Prayer: Living Lord, may we press on to mature as Christians. May we have a settled confidence that you are Sovereign, and are moving by your Spirit, both in our living and in our dying. May we see the privilege we have in believing, and knowing our lives are full of purpose. May we see the privilege we have in suffering for Christ, that others may thus marvel at the truth of life.

Trevor

3. The Spirit of the Lord

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppresed, to bind up the brokenhearted…’ (Is. 61:1)

This song, below, has been produced to encourage Christians to join together across the globe, on May 27th 2017, to share with the world the good news that: God is Love.

There is some sheet music in a PDF file for congregations:

the-spirit-of-the-lord-music-sheetthe-spirit-of-the-lord-music-sheet

This is coming to you, from a group called: G.O.D.

Global Outreach Day.

See: http://www.globaloutreachday.com/

1. Jesus

Q. How can a person know God?

A. If God reveals himself to us. Otherwise it is all a guess, a stumbling in the dark. God has revealed himself in ancient times through theophanies like Moses and the burning bush. In many and various ways God has spoken to people through human history. In a deliberate way God chose to reveal himself and his nature through the call of Abraham (Genesis 12), and then through the nation of Israel (see the Old Testament).

God has now fully revealed himself by coming to earth, in the person of Jesus Christ (his own eternal Son), through his life and actions and character.

A person does not have to guess who God is, or what God is like, or what he (i) has done, (ii) is doing and (iii) will do. The life of Jesus of Nazareth, the long awaited Messiah-King (or Christ), and his life’s activity is the revelation of God’s own true being.

Jesus said: ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (God)’. See John 14:6

The full revelation of God’s character and holy heart of love for the world centres upon the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Jesus the Man—and the same Spirit of God, the Father, comes to us (is given personally to humanity), so that through the Spirit’s help we come to know Jesus by faith, as we relate to him, trust him, learn of him, and hear his voice now.

The Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke-Acts and John—as found in the Bible are all written so that we might read them, or hear them, and so come to know Jesus more fully.

To know Jesus of Nazareth is to begin to make sense of life—at last!

Trevor