Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for today and that you love us. We pray that you would help us to focus and understand your word. Amen. Tilly's first reading is from Mark chapter 10 verse 35 to 45.
Then James and John, the sons of Zevity, came to him. Teach her, they said, we want you to do for us, whatever we ask. What do you want me to do for you? He asked.
They replied, let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. You don't know what you're asking, Jesus said. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? We can, they answered.
Jesus said to them, you will drink the cup, you will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. But to sit am I right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared. When the 10 heard about this, they became indignant with James and John.
Jesus called them together and said, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their high officials, exercise, authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great amongst you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.
But even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. The next reading is from one Peter chapter four verses seven to 11. The end of all things is near. Therefore, be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray.
Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins. All for hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.
If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength of God that God provides so that in all things, God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. This is the word of the Lord.
Father, give us fresh insight to see what community could be like. Give us divine strength to believe in your love and give us new courage to follow Jesus, our Messiah, in whose name we pray. Amen. So, a question, how do you live as a follower of Jesus in a world where you're told to be master of your own destiny, to choose your own path, and to follow your desires?
And if you're honest, to determine, even if by some sort of consultation process, to determine your own morality, your own morality. We live in a culture that's removed from a specific moral plumb line, and we have been over the last 20 to 50 years steadily removing God from the public square. And so we're no longer connected to his truth or his grace. And so we live, ironically, in a morally adrift world with plenty of morals, tied down, and in a world that has been stripped of grace, I'm not the first to say it, theologian, Muris Laphov, says that perfectly.
How do you live when the silent contract between adults is, I won't judge your behaviour if you don't judge mine? So we just separate ourselves. And so therefore, how do you do community in that world? How do you do community in that world?
This expressive individualism, expressive individualism, I am who I am, don't judge me, is the new way to live. How do you bend wills to live in community? One of my favourite quotes from Dr. Timothy Keller, the late Timothy Keller of New York City, everyone loves community until it gets to the way of their agenda.
I think one Peter 4, 7 through 12 is a perfect section for the topic that Tom gave me, which has been God's Church, and specifically serving in community. As the apostle Peter wrote this book a short, you could read it on a commute, redeem your commute, don't do the reels. If you read the book, Peter calls us to see ourselves as exiles in the world, exiles in the world, namely citizens of two places, not just Australia, here, yes, or wherever you're from, but also if you're a follower of Jesus of the Kingdom of God, I have one passport Australian, but I have two citizenships. Peter calls us to look to Jesus as both our model and our salvation, our model and our salvation.
And specifically, he didn't give away to fear, he did not give away to fear, he didn't give away to fear. He died to bring us to God, and he then calls us to live such lives, such lives here in Sydney that even those who oppose God might be gobsmacked. That's the idea, gobsmacked, and even to find themselves glorifying God. And Peter says, you heard a moment ago from Danny, your view of the end of all things, you start to think exists, the end of all things, your view of the end of all things will change how you live now, how you live now.
And if you have a Christian view of the end, you read the whole narrative of the world through the lens of Jesus Christ. You will gain a profound clarity about how to do life, especially in community. The poet John Dunn famously asked in one of his Holies Sonnets, what if this present were the world's last night? In other words, what if tonight were the world's last night and you knew it?
What if this present night were the world's last night? Now this is the premise of a dark comedy released in the last couple of years called Don't Look Up If You've Seen It, but if you haven't seen it, that's the premise. That's about a meteor and everyone knows that this last night, the world's last night, how would you act in the show, examine the comedy, some of the ways in which people view it? Would you act with panic or fear?
Peter who wrote one Peter says in verse seven, what you just heard, that if you knew that the end was near, you'd be alert. You'd be alert, focused. You'd be sober minded and you'd be alert and sober minded for a specific purpose, so you could actually pray. No panic, no fear, just prayer.
Maybe read it too, goes like this, it's on the screen. Peter writes, the end of all things is near, I'll explain that in a moment, therefore be alert of sober minds so that you may pray. The word end there in original language in the Greek is the word tell us, tell us of all things is near, and the end of all things is not sort of the moment everything blows up, but what it really means is something like the goal of all things is near. The goal, God's goal, God's purpose for the world isn't life as you know it, what you drink, what you wear, and conflict.
You know, this broken promises, frustration. What Jesus calls famously, the renewal of all things, Matthew 19, verse 20, so hopeful, the renewal of all things, or the world put to ruts. And so the end, when Peter's culture is at the end, it doesn't mean the end of everything, rather what he means strangely is the beginning of all new things. There's a Greek word for it, palangenciar, genesis of all things, regenances of all things.
Just like the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, God will resurrect this broken world and put it to rut. He will judge the world, 1.4, verse 5, they will give and account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead, the quick and the dead. He will judge the world, so don't think, you know, don't judge me. And he'll save, God will save the book opens with praise, be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, why would you praise him?
Because in his great mercy, he has given us new birth, new birth, a new start, into a living hope, not a dead one, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. That's written 20 years after the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus. And the end becomes the beginning. Now you know, I can explain this through pop culture.
Now I am of a certain age, which means I remember when the Truman Show came out in the cinemas, not so the young men and women of this church. A lot of you have seen it, and the Truman Show, look, there's going to be a bit of a spoiler here, but it's been 25 years. I haven't seen it then. I'm like, I'm sorry.
In the Truman Show, Truman will be like, this is a world that's built for him. You know this in the first few moments of the film. This is a world that's built for him, but he doesn't know it from birth. He doesn't know it.
And he senses something's wrong. He's like, you've seen something's wrong, don't you? He senses that something's wrong. He senses that he's a slave.
His hope of freedom is summed up in a badge that's worn by viewers of the television show, the Truman Show. The world watch Truman growing up. He's the only one that doesn't know what everyone else in the world knows it. There's a badge that fans wear called How's it going to end?
How's it going to end? And if you watch the show, it ends with a new beginning. Walking through a door, out of slavery, into freedom with all its troubles. It ends with a beginning.
It ends with a beginning. And that's a gospel story too. The end is the door, out of the world's slavery, and into what Jesus called the renewable things. It ends with a beginning.
Now people hold different views about how the world will end. You can argue the first one is the one which says there's only science, right? There's no revelation from above, no actor, no God acting in the world. So there's just the scientific one.
The world ends when? What? You know it? When the sun cools and grows and grows and grows and grows and swallows the earth in a billion years.
That changes nothing. It's interesting. But you may as well say eat, drink and be married. There's the catastrophic version that is we destroy the world ourselves.
The sun doesn't do it. We do it. Some fear nuclear war, it's me growing up. Others climate or climate collapse.
And this produces a lot of fear. You know this, the young people, panic, depression, not going to have children, not get married, or activism or all of the above. And the third one, especially for those of us who grew up in individual worlds, the personal end, my death. How's it end, my death?
That'd be when death follows up in my life. The one certainty they say, the great equalizer, life is fragile, mislike. And beyond control. I love when people say, I'm half way through my life.
And you answer back, how do you know? You could be 99% through it. What are we doing in circumstances? I don't know, focus.
Work harder, lockdown. But Peter says no. The end of all things is near. Doesn't produce laziness or panic.
It rather produces a settled, awake love and care in community. It produces the beautiful ordinariness of Christian life. The end of the world is near. It's not panic, but beautiful, intentional Christian community.
Peter says, if you get it, if you get it, you'll do six things with increasing passion and skill. You'll pray. Verse seven, the end of all things is near. There will be a alert on the silver mines so that you may pray.
No doubt Peter, when he wrote this, is recalling Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knew that his end was near, that it has finished his around the corner. And he prayed there in the Garden of Gethsemane with sweats, like drops of blood, not my will, O God, but yours be done. And Peter, who wrote this, Peter, he slept.
He slept. No doubt, Peter, had this in mind when he was writing these words, I believe. Jesus said, Simon, Peter, are you asleep? Couldn't you keep watch for one hour, watch and pray that you will not fall into temptation.
I think I'd say Peter writes to be alert him, silver mines so that you may pray. So don't be a sleepy Christian alive, but an awake to God. We're so often alert to every pleasure and every pressure and every pain point, but we're dull to prayer. We clear-eyed, clear-thinking, clear-hearted for a purpose to pray, to live in light of the end is not the panic, but to have, I believe what alcoholics commonly refer to as a moment of clarity.
You'll pray. But you'll also love in community. Above all, since the end of all things in it, love it to the deeply. Love covers over a multitude of sins.
Love each other deeply, earnestly, vigorously, practically, intentionally be ready to love, to listen, to help and to be curious. Why? Because love covers over a multitude of sins. First, that sounds odd.
Don't you uncover sins to deal with them in the ear of accountability? Yes, of course. But Peter's quoting Proverbs 10. Hatred stirs up the tension.
Hatred stirs up the tension. But love covers over all wrongs. He's talking about a love that isn't harsh or brittle. That's what mirror accountability gives.
That's a love that has some given it. Some given it. It's great for people who are married, by the way. People who are living in fighting situations.
They're complex. Grace, forgiveness and mercy are. If I can use a metaphor, the suspension of a car. I don't know nothing about cars, but I know about suspension.
They're suspension in a car without suspension relationship to break up on tough roads. It's just all over in seconds. Because it's pointing fingers. Where love is lacking, every word is suspect.
Every action misunderstood and conflict abounds. You need this suspension in the car. Love deeply. Where you'll do anything to overcome a negative sentiment overdrive.
For those of you who have taken up my suggestion to read John Gottman. Where love is abundant, there's grace and flexibility. Love deeply. Third, you'll learn to offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
You can change the world by opening up your home. You can change the world by opening up your home. Jesus did much of his ministry around the table. He's a UK writer that says, Jesus' mission strategy was a long meal stretching into the evening.
He did evangelism and discipleship around the table with some grilled fish, a loaf of bread, and a pitcher of wine, off hospitality without grumbling. Open your table in your life because Christ opened his life to you. Then you'll use your gifts. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received from God to serve others, not to gain a sense of self.
I mean, you do gain a sense of self-use of gifts, but that's not the purpose. You use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. You're a steward of God's grace in its various forms, particularly as it is given to you. Grace doesn't come in one form, but many.
So identifying and intentionally using your gifts wherever they are to build a body of Christ. You can do this, by the way, as we can become better at community of just identifying gifts. Just saying, will you have three gifts? I can tell them.
We'll talk later. Lastly, speaking. If anyone speaks, write a letter. Second, they should do so with the strength.
Sorry. If anyone speaks, they should do so with one who speaks to the very words of God. That's a big call. You are ambassadors for God, not speaking for yourself, but with the seriousness of purpose of one who speaks God's very words.
It's about how you speak to your family, your church, your colleagues, your friends. It excludes gossip, slander, snide remarks, cruel words. It excludes ghosting. I mean, it can't have boundaries, but it excludes ghosting.
Instead, let your speech be full of grace and truth. And lastly, if anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides so that in all things, God might be praised through Jesus Christ. So not in your own strength, but the strength God supplies. He enables more than you can imagine in a way that produces humility and grace, the Hindu glory and the power forever and ever.
Amen. A day is coming when God will judge the world, the living and the dead. For Peter, because of the grace of God, the death of Jesus for seeing his resurrection and your life his eternal love, we can be confident and centred. Jesus said, those positions of greatness, it's not meant for me to grant, but he said, even the son of man didn't come to be so but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
So Jesus modeled this on his last night, ahead of the resurrection, sweating tears mixed with prayer and faith. In him we have new birth into a living hope, and we bring that grace and love into communal life, settled, ordered, intentional community. God laid the foundation for community by his grace, covered over a multitude of sins. Now we know how to love one another, not with negative scrutiny, finding a revolt, but with positive generosity covering many sins.
Tertilling in the second century, he said, see how they love one another, Christians. See how they love one another. See how they already even to die for one another. May the beauty of God be seen in us, not bitterness and not hatred.
Not great if that was set of our churches. Digi Bonhoeffer once wrote, because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because he's already balanced together in one body with other Christians in Christ. He's long before we ended into common life with him. Before we even met, we had commonness.
And because of this we entered into that life, not as demanders, but as thankful recipients. Not as demanders, but as thankful recipients. We thank God for giving us sisters and brothers who live by his core, his forgiveness, his promise. We do not complain about God does not give us.
Rather we thank Him for what He does give daily. Let's pray. Father Peter wrote, all of you clothe yourselves with humility towards one another because God opposes the proud and shows grace to the humble. Show us grace.
Show us grace. Lift us up under your mighty hand in due time. We cast all our anxiety on you, because you care for me. Amen.