There is a time for every season – Revd Rob Penrith – 18 July 2010
I would like us to take a few moments just to recognize afresh that God loves us more than we can ever imagine. Do you really recognize that fact? I wonder. David certainly did. Listen to what he says is Psalm 139 – our primary reading for tonight..
Ps 139:12-16
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Keep that page open.
There can surely be no denying that we – every single one of us - are such self-centered creatures most of the time and it really hurts when I hear people say “how can God love me when I asked him to provide for a new car and it all fell through” “How can God love me when I prayed over the lotto ticket with all my heart and it never came in” “How can God love us when such bad things happen to such good people – why even last month I lost my engagement ring while swimming out at sea.” As if God is a ombudsman employed to make sure that we get a good deal in life.
How well do we really know God? Do we understand what his mind is for us. How well do we know God’s standards and principles and are we really able to apply them to our lives?
God knows more about me than I am able to comprehend. Talk about Big Brother watching!! [New series starting on DSTV – excited, anyone?? – DSTV’s big follow-up to the SWC]
God says: “Your eyes saw my unformed body.”
It is just such a beautiful picture formed in the mind of the Psalmist. Those who are able to take one passage and just chew over it for a while would benefit greatly from delving the depths of this particular verse. Surely this offering of love and intensive awareness of us needs to be reciprocated by us. We do this through worship and through honoring His decrees and standards and purpose for our lives.
Certainly, the word is pretty tough on those who do not see the need to grow closer to God and who fail the call to really know him for in II Th 1:8 we read He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Or as Eugene Peterson puts it Those who refuse to know God and refuse to obey the Message will pay for what they've done. Serious stuff!!
The psalmist certainly recognized that need and so in the verses following the ones we read it goes on:-…
Ps 139:16-18
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
So surely our everyday reflection and contemplation should focus on the Lord in every respect. His thoughts are so numerous that we can never and should never tire of seeking them.
But you know, we just don’t get it!!
Watched Aljazeera yesterday morning – documentary of the lifestyle of young committed and radical students at the Red Mosque in Pakistan. Learning every facet of Mohammed’s teaching by rote. Living it out fanatically in the confines of that Al Quaida enclave.
I just wish that we would have just a small percentage of that commitment to actually study the living and active, Spirit- inspired Word of God.
There is so much happening out there – so many calls on our time, so many opportunities, so much offered by way of entertainment and self-betterment, so much exciting sport and leisure opportunities, gyms and bicycles, and running shows that virtually carry you without you having to put in to much hardship, so many easily accessible holiday venues and rest opportunities and we just absolutely love it.
Just wish that we would have just a small percentage of that commitment to actually study the living and active, Spirit- inspired Word of God.
The media throw endless images of varying impact and influence and importance into our computers and TV’ and radio all the time. Arguments for and arguments against capital punishment, children’s discipline, accountability verses independence, morality from every perspective – some wholesome some utterly degrading. Abortion, promiscuity, marriage and divorce, addictions, idolatry…..
What are God’s thoughts on these matters?
You will never know unless you take time to study the Word of God and meditate upon his laws and his character.
We must let God define himself in our innermost thoughts and within the parts of our hearts and brains that govern our choices. If we define God according to things of this world we will never recognize him when he comes to us in love, in instruction, in rebuke and in correction.
Otherwise we will make the same mistake as a lady who came up to me a long while ago and said “you can’t be Rob Penrith.” I have been listening to your sermons that my sister has ordered for me from your church tape library and you are a much younger man with a better build. “You don’t look like you!” she said.
Well, it was very rude of me to disappoint the lady, but she was wrong. I looked like me. She could have checked my drivers license because she would have discovered that my face matched the picture on it, but that didn’t matter to her. She wanted a face to match her pre-conception.
She had an image in her mind that didn’t match the image she saw. She had to make a choice. She had to accept the true me or live with the wrong impression. We must do the same with God.
When we do, when we let God define himself, a whole new world opens before us. We begin to know him intimately and begin to make our decisions about the troubles of life and the world around us from a calculated and informed perspective.
So an opportunity like this, tonight, to sit around and listen to the Lord’s words and thoughts coming to us through the hymns and songs, and liturgy and readings and sermon and silence and sacraments must be a vital part of your discipline in reaching out to know the living God. But it has to go beyond this hour doesn’t it?
I have heard people say that the one thing they hate about our services is our preaching slot. Quite something to say to a preacher!! Well, of course the sermons might well be less emotionally exciting as some of our wonderful worship times. So they ask “Can’t we just have an extended period of worship and then some sharing amongst ourselves over coffee?” Talk about the blind leading the blind. Comfortable maybe – sort soek sort!
To say that “I don’t want sermons and scripture I only want worship and sharing” is a bit like a guy I saw on BBC lifestyle who never ever ate anything else but pizza’s, chips, crisps (specific brand only) white bread – NOTHING ELSE EVER. Got physically sick when he took his first taste of vegetables and could only manage fruit if there was no furry covering or mushyness about it.
Miserable fellow, high BP, High Cholesterol, bulimic, social misfit. Could not relate, in anyway, to the healthy, outgoing, vitally happy people around him.
Diet without a sermon or Bible study would also make you a social misfit in terms of the Christian culture and family of God. You would lose out on the healthy gift of God’ fullness in our lives and simply not be concerned at all about what God wants for you.
A bit like missing all the classes at school except break times and free periods. Hello? It might sound good but it will get you no-where. I registered for University once – bought the tie and the badge for my jacket, bought the hockey club kit and a beer mug with the universities crest on it. I filled that beer mug up at every opportunity and it nearly ruined my life. There was no qualification for what I did best – drink and have fun – and the qualification that I had signed up to do was not awarded because I had not attended class and forgot to study for my exams.
Today, your quiet times, your resting moments, your personal bible study, your bible class attendance, Alpha, Baptism Preparation, Marriage Preparation, Engaged Couples, Revelation teachings, Mission meetings, all opportunities that Christians should grab with both hands because they give us an opportunity to hear the Lord and to know him better and better each and every day so that when we are confronted with difficult decisions we will know what God thinks about the problem.
Can you believe this!!!!!!!!! In spite of broken families and stress and ignorance of God’s plan for our lives – over past few months we have had to cancel each of the following courses because of an almost total lack of interest…
Marriage Course, Woman of Peace Course, Alpha, Holiday Club 3, Evening service due to poor attendances over SWC – Well, it was the world cup, Rob. An amazing vibe and incredibly spectacular.
Sure, but that is exactly what I am talking about – choices, priorities.
Moral, ethical, spiritual decisions cannot be made from our emotions or by blowing a vuvazela but must be made from our understanding of who God is and what he expects of us. So, as I have indicated in the title of my sermon on the front page of the pew slip, When we plan to be with the Lord to fathom the deep mysteries of his will we need to give ourselves entirely to that.
I don’t want you to be sitting there thinking “I hope this isn’t going to go on for too long”.
This time is for you to grow closer to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Holy Spirit is here among us leading us into all truth and in this life we desperately need to guided in truth because as Eddie Askew writes – there are many voices out there with only one voice worth hearing.
I am committed to proclaiming the message from the one voice worth hearing – God’s
Paul highlights the centrality of preaching in our growth process. Let me give you a couple of verses to chew on:
2 Cor 4: 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. 6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
1 Cor 1: 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Cor 9:16 I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
2 Tim 4:2-5 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
My title from Ecclesiastes, in fact, is “there is a season for every activity under heaven”
That seems to me to be the message of the story of Mary and Martha. I said to someone earlier in the week that there was no ways that I was going to preach on the Mary and Martha passage because I would be on a hiding to nothing.
Some relate to Mary and some relate to Martha and I am not getting into a debate on whether Jesus was horribly unkind with the comments that he made to Martha. Listen to them….
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.
40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things,
42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
But, you need to take this portion of scripture in the context of the wider body of our Lord’s teachings and the teachings of the early Church.
First of all Jesus is the last person who was against exercising the gift of hard work. He himself was a carpenter and must have worked jolly hard with his father, Joseph. I expect Jesus would have been well developed physically. He walked hundreds of kilometers each year and so he would have been fit and strong. Yet he spent many nights in the mountains alone with his father.
Paul said these words on one occasion:-
1 Cor
We work hard with our own hands. And he commended the people of
On the other hand Paul also said to the Thessalonians that they should pray continuously.
There is a time for every season under heaven – says the writer to the Ecclesiastes. So – when you are in the presence of the living Lord, then that is the time to sit at his feet to listen to what he has to say to you. There is a place to sit at the SWC – but you cannot live and have your being there. It is an unbalanced diet
When that time of being in the presence of God’s teaching is over – that is the time to get on with the important work of washing the dishes and preparing the meal, mowing the lawn and sweeping the leaves, enjoying all the bits of fun and leisure that is available to you. BUT GOD MUST COME FIRST IN YOUR PRIORITZING!
We are not called to be either Mary’s or Martha’s – the individuals are not the important subject of our story today. Their appropriate response to being in the presence of the Lord is what is in contention.
The problem with classifying yourself as a Martha means that you will always place hard work (or even fun and self-centred activities) above contemplation and prayer while those who pride themselves as being Mary’s will probably be of no earthly good to anyone. Get rid of those boxes and understand that there is an appropriate time for every activity in Christ.
And make use of every opportunity to pray continuously and to work hard to the glory of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.