WE GATHER IN GOD’S PRESENCE:

Lighting the Candle:

Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness

but will have the light of life.’ –

Let us be mindful of each other as we engage in worship,

those who worship at home

and those who worship in the chapel:

Greeting:

The Lord be with you AND ALSO WITH YOU

We Focus on God     (Romans 8:6,2,15,16)

We gather to focus our minds on you beyond us, O God,

FOR WE YEARN FOR YOUR LIFE AND PEACE

We gather to focus our minds on you within us, O Spirit of Christ

FOR WE YEARN TO BE SET FREE FROM SIN AND DEATH

We gather to focus our minds on you within us, O Spirit of God.

FOR WE ENTRUST OUR LIFE BEYOND THIS LIFE TO YOU

Therefore we cry, Abba, Father…

AFFIRMED WITHIN OUR SPIRITS BY YOUR SPIRIT,

WE ARE TRULY YOUR CHILDREN…

We Sing: TIS 114 BLEST BE THE EVERLASTING GOD   4vv

Prayer

Gracious God,

you welcome us as your children

integrated into your family as co-heirs with Christ.

Such status is overwhelming;

we pause the daily routine of our living

to offer you this time and our focus.

Grant us sufficient insight into your requirements of us

that we might truly leave

choosing to live according to the mindset of the Spirit,

offering you ourselves, and what drives us,

as instruments of righteousness…

therefore we pray as our Lord taught us to pray:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours

now and forever. Amen

WE LISTEN FOR A WORD FROM GOD

Scripture

ROMANS 7:19-8:17

19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

8 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

In this is the Word of the Lord   WE HEAR AND OBEY, O LORD

MATTHEW 15:10-20

¹⁰ Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: ¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’ ¹² Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offence when they heard what you said?’ ¹³ He answered, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.’ ¹⁵ But Peter said to him, ‘Explain this parable to us.’ ¹⁶ Then he said, ‘Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.’

This is the Gospel of our Lord  PRAISE TO YOU LORD JESUS CHRIST

Prayer of Confession

Holy yet merciful God,

we come as your children only too much aware of our shortcomings:

we come confessing how easy we have found it

to focus only on what the NEWS programs bring us,

allowing anxiety and doubt to overwhelm us at times,

Lord have mercy   LORD HAVE MERCY

we come confessing how easy we have found it

to appropriate without question, the values and priorities

presented to us through T.V. reality shows and soapies,

then thinking this is what life must be like…

Christ have mercy CHRIST HAVE MERCY

we come confessing how easy we have found it

to just go along with shock jocks,

social media rants and criticisms

about people or situations,

so that grace and kindness disappear from public debate…

Lord have mercy   LORD HAVE MERCY

Declaration of Reconciliation

Paul informs us:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

Through Christ sin is forgiven us!

so we say with joy in our hearts THANKS BE TO GOD

Passing the Peace.. as we raise our hands in blessing to those unseen…
The peace of the Risen Lord be with you all  AND ALSO WITH YOU.

We Sing:  TIS 397  COME, HOLY GHOST, CREATOR, COME  7vv

Contemporary Word  

19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do

wrote the Apostle Paul (Romans 7:19).

Francis Spufford has written a rather pacey response to the attacks by atheists such as Richard Dawkins on theism, particularly Christianity, published by Faber and Faber in 2012.  He does not claim to be a theologian, merely an active Anglican; he is an accomplished author!

The book hurtles on in pace, (it reminds me of reading the Gospel of Mark – in a translation without paragraph headings particularly) and be alerted, may startle in language!  The book is entitled, Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense.[1]  As the title suggests, his approach to defending religious convictions begins with an appeal to a commonality of human emotions. He claims:

Our culture is smudged over with half-legible religious scribbling,[2]

and goes on to state: The vocabulary that used to describe religious emotions hasn’t gone away, or sunk into an obscurity from which you could carefully reintroduce it, giving a little explanation as each unfamiliar new/old term emerged. Instead, it’s still in circulation, but repurposed,

with new meanings generated by new usages; meanings that make people think that they know what believers are talking about when they really, really don’t.

So within this book he uses words which have a religious heritage and theological meaning, e.g. sin, grace, guilt, judgment, mercy,

to reveal their emotional presence and influence

within contemporary society and modern people.

These religious emotions, whether people recognize them as such or not, point to an awareness of Someone beyond ourselves,

and discrepancies within ourselves. 

He takes the word SIN. He points out how this word has become a descriptive, brand name even, of luxurious delicacies e.g. of chocolate, of ice cream; taxes on tobacco and alcohol were known as sin taxes (not to be confused with syntax!) He invites the reader to think of other current examples, and concludes with  

Everybody knows, then, that ‘sin’ basically means ‘indulgence’ or ‘enjoyable naughtiness’.[3]

On the basis of this, he claims to avoid using the word,

(though he has planted it in the reader’s mind!)

not wanting to be labelled as an enemy of life’s ordinary joys and pleasures.

He then defines ‘the word I am not saying to you’ …

as something much more like the human tendency,

the human propensity to mess stuff up. 

It’s our active inclination to break stuff,

 ‘stuff’ here including moods, promises, relationships we care about,

and our own well-being and other people’s, as well as material objects whose high gloss positively seems to invite a big fat scratch.

He goes on to list dramatic moments when this awareness occurs

such a job loss, a relationship breakdown,

or when a casual drink, or recreational drug,

becomes a power exercising veto powers over every other hope and dream.

However, it need not be dramatic…

he mentions lying in the bath, the water cools,

and you glimpse an unflattering vision of yourself

as a being whose wants make no sense, don’t harmonise:

whose desires, deep down, are discordantly arranged,

so that you truly want to possess and you truly want not to,

at the very same time.

You’re equipped, you realise, for farce (or even tragedy)

more than you are for happy endings. [4]

He describes of course, what Paul describes in Romans 7:7 onwards!

James B. Nelson looks at Romans 7 from his own perspective,

in his own words:

as both a Christian ethicist (retired)

and a recovering alcoholic (from which there is no retirement).[5]

He writes: I have no doubt that crossing the line from normal alcohol use into addiction, whenever it occurs, is invisible to most drinking alcoholics.

It was to me.

After all, denial is a major characteristic of our disease.

But as we hit the bottom that brings us into recovery,

most of us see with crystal clarity the marks of our addiction.

They are summarized in Step 1 of Alcoholics Anonymous:

our powerlessness over alcohol and the unmanageability of our lives.

Believing in the disease interpretation of my drinking

did not undercut my personal responsibility;

instead it happened quite the other way around.

It was my slowness to accept the reality of my disease

and to enter into treatment that diminished my moral power.

As long as I was convinced (contrary to all the evidence)

that I could get my life under control by my own will power,

the disease was steadily eroding my capacity as a responsible moral agent.

He then points out that the word addiction 

comes from a Latin word that had a common courtroom use:

it referred to assigning a slave to a master;

And goes on to argue:

For both Paul and Augustine the intense inner conflict

between will and desire was the power of sin.

Paul’s words are familiar: “For I do not do the good I want,

but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Rom. 7:20).

Augustine, with his strong emphasis on creation’s goodness,

saw that this inner conflict stemmed not from the existence of evil things, but rather from the inordinate,

idolatrous desire for good but inferior things.

The substance alcohol is not evil, then.

It is part of God’s good creation.

Alcoholism’s destructiveness comes from distorted goodness.

Alcoholism is the idolatry of alcohol,

the centering of one’s life on that substance and its promises.[6]

He recollects:

The Pauline-Augustinian analysis rings deeply true for me.

During my month of in-patient alcoholism treatment,

I read Romans 7 again and again and saw myself on the pages.

And though I lacked the foresight

to take a copy of the Confessions with me,

I vividly remember pondering Augustine’s haunting description

of the way good is corrupted, becomes an idol,

fails in its promises and destroys its believer.

However, all is not self-reflective doom and gloom,

James Nelson concludes with:

Even more vivid than the memory

of my ruminations about the sources of my addiction problem

is the recollection of my intense, agonized hopes and prayers for grace during my month in the treatment center.

Not only Romans 7 but also Romans 8 is applicable here…

grace is the only road to addiction recovery,

both the grace of Jesus Christ for Christians

and God’s common grace found elsewhere—

in therapies, anticraving drugs

and the Twelve Step movement.[7]

It is grace which Francis Spufford also names

as the ultimate corrective

to the human propensity to mess things up.

He tells of John Newton and his experience of grace,

the experience behind ‘Amazing Grace’.

He, like James B. Nelson the recovering alcoholic,

alerts us to a prior emotion

which creates the space for grace to slip in…

a recognition of our situation,

how miserable it makes us feel,

how weighed down …

how hopeless…

how we bear responsibility,

how we carry guilt,

how incapable we are of getting on with life…

As Paul describes, reflecting on his zealot anti-Christian activities,[8]

and taking on also the persona,

the I of his Gentile readers,

in the texts which move from ‘we’ to I [9]

Wretched man that I am!

Who will rescue me from this body of death? (7:24).

Having posed the question, Paul offers the answer:

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

There is therefore now no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus. 

2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free

from the law of sin and of death (8:1,2)

We have likened SIN to a virus, to cancer,

to an alcohol and chemical addiction…

and we likened the grace of God

operative through Jesus Christ

effecting life enhancing change

gifted by the indwelling Spirit of life

to a vaccine, or a radical therapy which kills the cancerous cells,

and the power to negate addiction’s urge!

We gratefully accept the presence of the indwelling Spirit

to squeeze out sin;

the law of sin that dwells in my members (7:23).

This leads towards the regular Pauline contrast between flesh and Spirit.

“The flesh’s way of thinking is death,

whereas the Spirit’s way of thinking is life and peace” 8:6;

(see further Gal 3:3; 5:16–17, 19–23; Phil 3:3).

This explains the outright opposition to flesh

in some of Paul’s exhortations (Rom 8:7; 13:14; Gal 5:24; 6:8),

and the striking way in which Paul expresses his concerns about “flesh”

by using the phrase “according to the flesh.”

According to the flesh, denotes an attitude shaped and determined by the flesh, by the priorities of the flesh (again human appetites).

An according to the flesh attitude is simply inadequate to appreciate God’s priorities (1 Cor 1:26; 2 Cor 1:17; 5:16; 10:2–3; 11:18).

To live according to the flesh is a self-afflicted sentence of death

(Rom 8:5, 13; Gal 4:23, 29).

In all this it is important to recognize that Paul is not working

with a physical dualism between matter and spirit

or between bodily flesh and Spirit.[10]   

Rather his concern is that the weakness of the flesh

leaves the believer all the time vulnerable to the power that is sin,

that excites the human appetite for envy, acquisitiveness,

and self-satisfaction (“sinful desires”).

It is the flesh focused mind set

which results in the attitudes and behaviours

Jesus warns against in the Matthew reading…

More subtly, living in a mindset of the flesh can express itself

in subtle forgetfulness of God.

John Wesley called people with this kind of forgetfulness

“practical atheists, as have not God in all their thoughts.”

Augustine describes the flesh focused person in this way:

a person “seeks these lesser, transient goods

and fears to lose what must someday be lost.”

In other words, when we disregard the Creator,

we then overvalue the stuff of creation.

As long as we are fixing our attention on things that will pass away,

we are not fixing our attention on God.

This forgetfulness is just as effective as open hostility is

in showing allegiance to sin rather than to God,

and preventing us from pleasing God as we should. Even people who acknowledge the existence of God are prone to this problem.^[11]

Paul recognizes that the always pressing threat of human mortality

pushes the human being toward short-term gratification and power plays.

For Paul, therefore, it was imperative that believers be resolute

in resisting such temptations, for in Christ we have already died..

We can focus on looking to the Spirit for priorities and enabling,

and in endeavouring ever to follow Christ’s example.^[12]

Note here the challenge to the believer:

To set the mind on the flesh is death,

but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.(8:6)

This sentiment is repeated several times,

and echoes the challenge of 6:13,14

No longer present your members to sin

as instrumentsof wickedness,

but present your members to God

as instruments of righteousness

We have a choice to make where we put our allegiance…

What or who will be our addiction,

recalling what James B. Nelson tells us about the origin of addiction;

it comes from a Latin word that had a common courtroom use:

it referred to assigning a slave to a master;

Paul has gone to great lengths to emphasise earlier

how ownership of us has transferred from the domain of sin

to Christ Jesus, the domain of God!

Is our loyalty to Christ and his way truly addictive?

Do we yearn for the life God has in mind for us

as desperately as the alcoholic craves alcohol,

or the drug addicted person craves their speed, or heroin, or crack…?

Just when we think we have reached the bounds of God’s grace

through what is offered us,

Paul presents us with an explosive truth!

you have received a spirit of adoption.

When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ 

 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit

that we are children of God, 

and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—

if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

A child of God! A member of the family of God!

Heirs of God! Joint heirs with Christ.

We share in all that God has!

To live up to such a calling comes with a cost,

as Jesus discovered;

as we will, if we begin to live out God’s kingdom values

in lives which are aligned to an obedience of faith!

WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD

We Sing: TIS 609 MAY THE MIND OF CHRIST MY SAVIOUR 5vv

We Bring Our offering to God

setting aside our gifts to support the local and wider work of the church

and bless our gifts in an act of praise…

We Share Our Community Life 

Prayers of the People

following: Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER

Almighty God,

kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace,

and guide with your wisdom

those who take counsel for the nations of the earth,

that justice and peace may increase,

until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love;

Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER

O Lord our God,

you have made all races and nations to be one family,

and you sent your Son Jesus Christ

to proclaim the good news of salvation to all people.

Pour out your Spirit on the whole creation,

bring the nations of the world into your fellowship,

and hasten the coming of your kingdom.

We ask this through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER

Gracious God,

the comfort of all who sorrow,

the strength of all who suffer,

hear the cry of those in misery and need.

Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER

We think

of those living in the midst of violence,

such as witnessed in Lebanon,

of those struggling with ill health,

such as the virus within our land and overseas,

such as those in our congregation,

with cancer, arthritis, undefinable neurological disorder,

reduced mental capacity, the aches and pains of old age…

In their afflictions show them your mercy.

Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER

Give us, we pray, the strength to serve them,

for the sake of him who suffered for us,

your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER

AMEN

WE GO OUT TO SERVE GOD

We Sing: TIS 653 THIS IS A DAY OF NEW BEGINNINGS 4vv

Sending Out

We constantly have choices to make;

we go as a people determined that our choices

remain consistent with that life choice

we made of following Jesus

as we set our minds on the Spirit

so we may live the Spirit life! 

Blessing

God the Father welcome and affirm you

as children of God, co-heirs with Christ;

Jesus Christ grant you sufficient grace

to show familial likeness in your living;

The Holy Spirit bind with your spirit

to unite all now and into eternity…

AMEN AMEN AMEN

---

[1] Please note that my reading of the book may not necessarily be what the author intended! I merely hope it is.

[2] Spufford, Francis. Unapologetic: Why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense (p. 24). Faber & Faber. Kindle Edition. The Kindle edition is just under $11; great value for a very worthwhile book!

[3] ibid p. 26

[4] ibid p.28

[5] Christian Century February 06, 2007 issue.

[6] ibid.

[7] ibid.

[8] I (Jewett) suggest that Paul’s speech-in-character is artificially constructed in the light of his preconversion experience as a zealot, but with an eye to the current situation in the Roman churches. It is formulated in such generic terms that persons outside of Paul’s circle of experience can apply the argument to themselves.  Jewett, R., & Kotansky, R. D. (2006). Romans: A commentary. (E. J. Epp, Ed.) (p. 444). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

[9] see Eisenbaum, Pamela. (2009) Paul was not a Christian (pp229-233) New York: HarperCollins.

[10] Dunn, J. D. G. (2006–2009). Flesh in the NT. In K. D. Sakenfeld (Ed.), The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible

(Vol. 2, p. 462). Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.

^[11] Lancaster, S. H. (2015). Romans. (A. P. Pauw & W. C. Placher, Eds.) (First edition, pp. 134–135). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

^[12] Dunn, J. D. G. (2006–2009). Flesh in the NT. In K. D. Sakenfeld (Ed.), The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible

(Vol. 2, p. 462). Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.