When God Moves In - Leviticus 1:1–9

We’re in the season of Lent in the church year, the time of year where we’re encouraged to slow down and reflect on our faith and Jesus’ journey to the cross on our behalf and the resurrection. Lent lasts for 40 days, reflecting Jesus’ time in the wilderness, not counting Sundays, which are counted as little Easters. Lent’s a time of confession and repentance, this is why Leviticus is so applicable during Lent. Leviticus is about change from being slaves to being free; into a people shaped by who God is. Leviticus shows us how God’s presence transforms every area of our lives, calling us to live as holy people; “Be holy as I am holy,” found in Leviticus 19:2, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”

As part of our faith formation emphasis, you’re being encouraged to focus on your prayer life during Lent, on time with God. Holy is about being separated from the world and being devoted to God, and becomes linked with the character of God’s people as Paul describes in Colossians 3:12, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”

Leviticus is set at the foot of Mount Sinai. The tabernacle’s being built and Aaron and his sons have been chosen as priests. Israel’s been shown what it means to be God’s people through the 10 Commandments and laws given to them. Now in Leviticus, God’s giving them sacrifices and images to show them the depth of their sin and God’s commitment to them. The sacrifices point ahead to the promised Messiah; the one coming to save God’s people and make them right with God once again. It’s about God with his people, giving his people opportunities to be with him. This can get lost with all the sacrifices and laws, like seeing the trees rather than the forest.

The Lord calls out to Moses from the tent of meeting. The tent of meeting is where the Lord meets with Moses. Exodus 33:7–11, “Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp…. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses…. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”

The Lord tells Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When anyone among you brings an offering to the Lord, bring as your offering an animal from either the herd or the flock. “‘If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, you are to offer a male without defect. You must present it at the entrance to the tent of meeting so that it will be acceptable to the Lord. You are to lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you.” The first offering the Lord talks about with Moses is a burnt offering. This offering can be either a bull of a male lamb or kid. The important requirement is that it’s “a male without defect.”

Scholar R. Jamieson writes in his commentary that God uses a process that they would have been familiar with from their time in Egypt, “No animal was allowed to be offered that had any deformity or defect. Among the Egyptians, a minute inspection was made by the priest; and the bullock having been declared perfect, a certificate to that effect being fastened to its horns with wax, was sealed with his ring, and no other might be substituted. A similar process of examining the condition of the beasts brought as offerings, seems to have been adopted by the priests in Israel.” We hear an echo of this process in John 6:27 when Jesus is talking to the people after feeding the 5,000, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” The Lord demands that we bring him our best, just as he sent his best, Jesus, as a sacrifice for our sin so we can experience eternal life with God. This is what we celebrated in the Lord’s Supper this morning.

Israelites who bring burnt offerings to the Lord needed to follow the Lord’s instructions to ensure that they’re acceptable to the Lord. This offering is a voluntary offering; it’s not one of the offerings demanded by the Lord. But even our voluntary offering has to come from our best. This is a burnt offering, a sacrifice of atonement through the blood of the offering, an offering that’s completely consumed in the fire. This shows the seriousness of our sin, how sin prevents us from being in the presence of God. Sidney Greidanus writes, “sinful humans cannot approach the holy God dwelling in the tent of meeting without being consumed.” God’s holiness means that anything tainted by sin’s not fit to be in his presence. This sacrifice is an invitation from God to come close to him without fear.

Sin’s part of our lives. The doctrine of total depravity reminds us that every part of our lives is touched by sin, there’s no part of our life that’s perfect; reminding us of our need for a saviour. This doesn’t mean that we’re the worst that we can be, it simply means that there’s no part of our life free from sin, showing us that we cannot become holy through our own effort, but only through the work and grace of God. In Old Testament times, God makes it possible to come into his presence through sacrifices that need to be repeated over and over again; a temporary measure until the coming of the Messiah. 

This burnt offering is an offering to make atonement for their sin. Atonement’s all about reconciliation and the repairing of the relationship between God and humanity. In Christianity, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ reconcile believers to God; his sacrifice cleanses us and makes us righteous before him. Atonement is about healing and restoration; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 (NLT), “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.”

 Mark Gladman, in his article our Lenten Prayer guide opens with, encourages us to ask ourselves “Where do I need God’s healing love? Where have I been resisting transformation?” Our sin has a way of becoming entrenched in our hearts and lives so much that we don’t even recognize it anymore. It takes time with God to recognize just how great our need for the atoning work of Jesus on the cross really is. Most people only call on God when they need something. Tim Keller noticed, “the average churchgoer wants to come to church and be moral and thereby pay God off while living life their own way, determining for themselves what is right and wrong. This is ordinary lukewarm religion.” That’s not God’s plan; he wants to be in constant touch with us; that’s why we’ve been given the Holy Spirit. This Lent, you’re encouraged to be still with God in prayer, opening your hearts, minds, and souls to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Spending time with God, just like spending time with a spouse or dear friend or mentor, is how you really get to know someone, it’s how their influence is able to help you become more than you are right now. God’s inviting you to come close, to trust him, to find safety and strength in him.

In the tabernacle, God moves into the middle of the people of Israel, accepting them for who they are, working to transform them into his holy people. They’re constantly reminded of his presence through the cloud of smoke by day and the pillar of fire at night. While slaves in Egypt, the Israelites saw gods belonged in temples and didn’t care for people, but God is revealing himself to them as a God who’s present, who lives among and with his people. Now they, and we will learn what it means for a holy God to be with us all the time, giving strength through his presence when we encounter enemies or challenges. It’s like having a friend with you when you’re going through a hard time who knows your story intimately and loves you. Their presence gives you the strength to get through it.

In this burnt offering, we see a number of features of our sin and God’s holiness that we’ll touch on in the coming weeks: the need for a mediator between God and us, uncleanliness, the reason for blood, the cost of atonement, and the glory of God revealed in leading us to new life and holiness. God offers us holiness we’re unable to earn on our own. Holiness is not about following all the rules, holiness is something we chase after because our God is holy and keeps coming after us, in the wilderness, in Jesus, and now through the Holy Spirit. Through Jesus we’re made holy and invited to come close to God.

Work is Meaningless - Ecclesiastes 2:17-26

            

Our work, whether paid or volunteer, or even lack of work, is often central to how others see us, and even how we see ourselves. How quickly, when you first meet someone new, does the topic of what you do for a living, or where you work, come up in the conversation? For many people, a large part of our identity lies in what we do for a living instead of simply being something we do. Work is only one part of who we are as a person.

In Genesis 1:26–28, “God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” We’re created and given the work of caring for God’s creation, but our identity lies in being created in the image of God; we’re image-bearers of God who have a responsibility to care for and develop the potential God has placed within his creation for him and his glory. So often we do our work for our own honour and glory. The Teacher sees our work as meaningless in the long run.

The Teacher begins reflecting on work with some really strong words. He uses hyperbole, saying something in an extreme way in order to get his listeners’ attention, “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” I love my work, and like every job, there are days when you go “Wow” that was a good day; but there are also those hard days where you ask yourself “Why?” When things are bad at work, it can impact our entire life: our relationships with our boss, co-workers, and even families and friends as we carry the hard stuff home. There are days when you wonder if maybe your work’s meaningless in the long run.

The Teacher goes on, “I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless….  What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.” You can work your fingers to the bone, and yet in the end you die just like everyone else, rich or poor, and someone else benefits from all your work. This is a regret I’ve heard way too often, that they spent all their time working at the expense of relationships with their spouse, kids, or friends. This happens because we take a good-thing, work, and turn it into a god-thing that becomes our meaning and purpose in life over God, as Timothy Keller writes.

When we take reflect on gathering wealth in order to create a legacy, it’s wise to ask, “Are large inheritances wise, do we do our children and grandchildren a favour by leaving them large inheritances?” Do we value something we haven’t worked for; do we use it wisely? You may have worked hard for all the right reasons, to benefit your family, loved ones, community, but when you die, you no longer have any control. Research on passing down family businesses shows that “Only about 30% of family-owned businesses survive into the second generation; 12% are still viable into the third generation. Only about 3% of all family businesses operate into the fourth generation or beyond, according to research by the Family Business Institute.” Future generations are often more interested in finding their own career path rather than following in their parents’ footsteps. The second generation hasn’t put in the same kind of blood, sweat and tears that their father or grandfather did, so they don’t have the same passion. There are other reasons, but you may put your life into your work or business only to have it not make it anyway after you die. Meaningless.  

Yet work is good, we can take joy in our work. But we now live in a fallen world and our work is impacted by sin and brokenness due to the fall into sin. As God tells Adam in Genesis 3:17–19, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Yet we live in hope knowing that Jesus is returning and even our work will be renewed and restored to good and very good.

While the Teacher sees his work as meaningless, and as we saw last week, his work accomplished a lot of amazing things, yet our work is part of God’s plan for his creation, and for shaping who we are. God is our example in how he created “very good” and the very good carries over into Jesus’ work in redeeming us and all creation. The Teacher is looking at work as being “under the sun,” rather than looking at our work as part of God’s work. Our work is a way of creating shalom, of leading to flourishing, both as individuals and as a community. Business profits enable companies to create new things, offering ways to provide for their families through the pay employees are given; they’re part of the structure of our communities and contribute to the common good. Our work is part of our stewardship of God’s creation; it has meaning because we do our work as if we’re doing it for the Lord, Colossians 3:23–24, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

Our faith shapes how we work. There’s the importance of ethics in our work, honouring God’s values and ways in how we do our work and run our businesses and organizations. As bosses, our faith encourages us to invest in our employees, to help them develop the skills and talents they have, treating all those we’re responsible for with respect and honour, even if it means that they might outgrow your company and move on to work somewhere else. As employees, it means that we give a fair day’s work to our employers, it looks like encouraging your fellow employees and sharing your knowledge with them to help them grow, even if it means they advance over you.

All our work contributes, whether it’s at home, in the fields, in the service industry, white-collar or blue-collar work, it’s all part of God’s work. A person who was working in a care home, washing seniors, cleaning floors and toilets and people, felt like she was invisible both at work and in the community. She shared how she hadn’t seen the value of her work until a senior and her daughter stopped her in the hallway and thanked her for how she took care of her mother, sharing how the dignity she showed her mom impacted her soul. Her faith recognized that every person in the care home: all her co-workers, bosses, and directors, were all image-bearers of God. This shaped how she went about her day, understanding what Paul’s getting at when he calls us to do our work as if for the Lord, no matter what it is.

Ask yourself: how does my work contribute to the common good, how does it help people, how am I serving and growing my field of work? Am I showing my faith in how I do my work competently and with respect for the customer, boss, and fellow employees, are there opportunities to share how my faith shapes my work and life.

The Teacher offers this advice, “A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” The Teacher finally understands that in the end, it’s the simple things of life where we find joy and meaning with family and friends, thanking God for the satisfaction found in our toil. We work knowing that in the end God provides, this is why Jesus calls us to depend on the Father and not worry, but to trust that just as God cares for the birds in the air and the flowers in the field, he cares even more for you, allowing us to share together our food, our tables, and our fellowship.

 

Pleasure is Meaningless - Ecclesiastes 2:1-11

              

The Teacher began his reflection on meaning in life by focusing on how so much in life is hevel, vapour or smoke, it’s fleeting and hard to hold onto. Now the Teacher starts digging deeper into his search for meaning, for a sense of weight and meaning in life. The Teacher now moves into offering a philosophy on life, developing principles to guide us to growing our knowledge and ethics to shape how we should journey through life so that it’s more than simply hevel that slips through our hands. The Teacher’s desire is that we can look back over life, recognise in the present, and look to the future with the ability to recognize and determine what is hevel and what carries weight and meaning. Just a side note, when we talk about God’s glory, the word glory carries the sense of weight and majesty.

I love to laugh, as many of you have learned, but the Teacher begins by saying that “Laughter is madness.” The word for laughter in Hebrew is “simhah” and can also be translated as “mockery or derision.” In our culture today, it’s often easier to laugh at others in mockery, rather than to laugh with someone in pleasure. We see this in the word he uses for madness, “tollel” which can be translated “to be infatuated; to make look foolish; to make a mockery of; act like a madman.” This is not laughing in pleasure, but with cruelty, a type of laughter that’s much too common today. Our culture’s becoming crueler as we turn more and more to media for our information and entertainment.

Like so many people today, the Teacher turns to pleasure to find meaning in life, yet right from the start, he sounds doubtful, “What does pleasure accomplish,” and still goes ahead with trying to see if pleasure brings meaning to his life anyway. The word for pleasure is “siklut” and can be translated as “joy, gladness, or delight.” He doesn’t condemn pleasure; joy, gladness, and delight are good things, something we all desire to experience. Jesus enjoyed weddings, dinners with friends, and even created wine for the wedding. The word siklut in the Old Testament is often used as a response to worshipping God and something we can experience even in times of trouble; Psalm 51:10–12, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” We hear the call to find our joy in the strength of the Lord in Nehemiah 8:10.

The Teacher discovers that pleasure doesn’t truly satisfy in the long term. Indulging in pleasure doesn’t bring you lasting hope or meaning, it often merely hides the emptiness of your life. Much of the pleasure the Teacher seeks out is found in activities that emphasizes “sensory input to the body which gives entertainment to the senses,” the second definition of siklut. Proverbs 21:17 offers us this warning, “Whoever loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and olive oil will never be rich.”

The Teacher’s reason for exploring wine and embracing folly is to see what’s “good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives.” He claims that he doesn’t let go of wisdom, recognizing that wisdom is better than foolishness, that having some limits in place is a good idea. At its heart, this is worldly wisdom, not Godly or biblical wisdom. In how he writes this, laughter, madness, wine and folly are all closely intertwined. It’s no secret how quickly wine or alcohol can grab a hold of us, creating a dependency that can lead to addiction. Peter gives us insight into what the Teacher learns in 2 Peter 2:18-19, “For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” The chase after pleasure is one of the big idols today. Think of how much is spent on entertainment today in the search of pleasure; where our dollars go shows where our heart is drawn.

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World, writing about people who love technology which leads them to a place where they’re no longer able to think for themselves, reduced to passivity and self-centredness, and truth is drowned in an ocean of meaningless noise. People in Brave New World are controlled through pleasure, drugs, and beautiful women freely available in a consequence free world. Neil Postman uses Brave New World as an example of where we’re heading in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, warning that in our media-infused age, everything, politics, education, journalism, and even religion has become entertainment, and for many, meaningless. Something to think about as we flip through our apps and channels as we doom scroll on the couch.

Wine and laughter don’t bring meaning to life, so the Teacher tries a different approach, “I undertook great projects.” He does some pretty impressive things: he builds houses, plants vineyards, and gardens. He creates parks; the word for park in Hebrew is where our word for paradise comes from; he builds little paradises and fills them with fruit trees, an image of the garden of Eden. When you have parks and fruit trees, you need water so he builds reservoirs to water the trees. These are great and good projects!

The Teacher doesn’t stop with building projects; he accumulates all kinds of wealth and people. He buys slaves, and many slaves are born into slavery in his household, a foreign concept today to many of us, but not uncommon then. He develops herds and flocks, more than anyone before him, suggesting that the Teacher might be Solomon. He gathers silver and gold and treasure. He acquires singers and a harem, what he calls “the delights of a man’s heart.” In verse 10, the Teacher takes delight in what he’s accomplished and attained, and that delight is his reward, but ultimately, it’s not enough.

The experiences of pleasure all slip away through his fingers. Today that’s seems enough for many people, life’s all about the here and now, there’s no vision or thinking about the future. His heart takes delight in all he accomplishes, in all that he built and created and gathered for himself, even the immoral experiences like concubines. Solomon had over 1,000 wives and concubines, and built temples to his wives’ gods, and yet his heart and soul is empty. His many accomplishments don’t bring the meaning and weight that he’s searching for because he’s searching “under the sun” instead of seeking the Creator of everything under the sun. 

Bobby Jamieson wrote a book on Ecclesiastes called Everything is Never Enough, a reminder that one way to be unhappy is to get everything you want, only to find that everything’s still not enough. You get used to the feelings that come from doing something that brings you pleasure, but if you keep on seeking the same pleasure, you will need more in order to experience the same level of pleasure. The drive for pleasure leads to discontentment, frustration, and a continual searching for more. Thanksgiving and gratitude become difficult.

Too often we seek pleasure “under the sun” apart from God. Pleasure’s not bad, in verse 26 the Teacher even calls it a gift from God. Yet what do we gain from the constant search after pleasure? The answer is nothing permanent, it’s “chasing after the wind.” Materialism and consumerism fail to bring meaning into our lives. However, the word for pleasure can also be translated as “joy.” Joy is more a state of being than an emotion; it’s a result of choice. Joy is part of the fruit of the Spirit; part of the experience of being a Christian and choosing to follow the way of Jesus. In John 15:11, Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Joy comes in living for Jesus and following his teachings.

Many people today, Christians included, believe that the purpose of life is to be happy, and suffering has never felt happy. Randy Newman writes, “With a high premium placed on “joy,” or “fellowship,” and a distorted view of “the abundant life,” some people steer clear of any uncomfortable burdens connected with seeing a world in need. Sadness and burden, by definition, are excluded from a life that is supposed to be happy and full.” The chase after pleasure “under the sun” is “me” focused while Jesus comes to guide us into a “thee” focused living faith that embraces God’s call at Sinai to care for each other. We do this out of gratitude for Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin, loving God and neighbour, entering into each other’s struggles and help them see God’s presence, building our lives together on the foundation of Jesus.

Knowing Jesus is returning to overturn the results of sin: abuse, cruelty, injustice, violence, racism, poverty, and all forms of brokenness is where you’ll discover joy that has weight and meaning. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, ascension to heaven, and promise to return, we’re reminded that this world “under the sun” isn’t everything. Jesus is returning to bring renewal, to wipe away tears and fears, to bring eternal joy and hope. Joy is found in salvation, in reconciliation with God. Jesus talks about the joy in heaven when a sinner repents. Look for your joy in Jesus, in the community of believers, and in loving God and neighbour.

Stand Firm - 1 Corinthians 16:13–14 - Cadet Sunday

                     

Thank you, cadets, for leading us in worship this morning. It’s good for all of us to see your faith and the relationships you have with your counsellors as they lead you to trust in Jesus and grow into men who love and serve Jesus. Your cadet theme this year is, “Stand Firm,” reminding us that faith and trust in Jesus will not always be easy, that there will always be people who won’t understand why you trust Jesus and follow him. The verses from Paul also remind us that there will be people who will try to make you not trust Jesus and to even stop following Jesus. This is why the verses from your theme this year are so important to hear. 

These verses come near the end of Paul’s letter and out of his relationship with them. In some ways, these verses are like a prayer for them, to shape who they are in their faith. Paul’s writing as both a friend and a teacher. “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.” In these 2 short verses, Paul gives us 5 commands to help us in our faith: “be on your guard,” then he goes on with, “stand firm.” Paul then calls us to “be courageous,” and then to “be strong.” Finally, Paul tells us to “do everything in love.” When we live with Paul’s words in our hearts, we’ll be able to stand firm when challenges to our faith in Jesus show up.

Paul commands them to “be on your guard.” Guards protect the people; they actively patrol their area so that nothing bad happens and enemies aren’t able to sneak in and hurt people. any danger they come across they deal with quickly, even before the people they’re protecting even know about the danger. Peter talks about being alert and watching out for Satan, 1 Peter 5:8, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Paul warns about lies or temptations that might cause people to doubt Jesus and his love for us. We protect each other from the lies and temptations, and to do this, we need to know what we believe about Jesus and why. This is why Bible study is such an important part of the cadet meeting, this is why your counsellors have committed themselves to learning the Bible and Jesus so they can help you grow strong in your faith and recognize the dangers when they come and help you stand against them.

Paul then calls us to “stand firm in the faith.” This is a command to trust in Jesus and what you believe so that you don’t fall. It’s like when you stand and push against each other; it takes work to not fall over or step backwards. If someone is sneaky or tricks you, they can fool you into falling. This is why Paul puts standing firm in the faith right beside “be on your guard.” Satan’s not only like a roaring lion, he’s also a liar and trickster, always looking for ways to get you to do things that make God unhappy or even angry. Trust what your parents and counsellors are teaching you about Jesus, but also read the Bible yourself, talk to God in prayer asking him to help you stand firm, and come regularly to church on Sundays to praise God. These are 3 pillars of faith we’re focusing on in Bethel to help us “stand firm in the faith.”  

Now Paul encourages us to “be courageous.” Paul echoes Psalm 31:21, “Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.” Courage and strength are often connected to each other in the Bible. Courage is doing what you know is right even if you’re scared. It’s easy to do what’s right when everything is going well and everyone agrees with you. It takes courage to do what’s right when things are hard and people disagree with you, and may even be trying to get you to not do what is right, doing what the Holy Spirit is guiding you to do. They may try to force you to do wrong, they may trash your reputation, mock you, and chase your friends away, they may even try to hurt you, insult you, or do even more to stop you from doing what God says is right. It’s hard to be courageous, it can be lonely to be courageous, this is why God gives us friends who also follow Jesus, gives us a church family to help us be brave.

Along with being courageous, Paul calls us to “be strong.” How do you get a strong body; do you lie on the couch or bed all day watching videos, playing games, doom scrolling, or watching tv? Do you get strong by eating junk food and slacking off? It’s a lot of work to become strong physically, and it’s just as much work to become strong spiritually in the Lord. To become strong physically you need to eat right, work out and exercise, get enough sleep, and doing all the right things to build your muscles. It might make you sore at first, but it slowly becomes easier. To become strong spiritually to help you be courageous, it also takes hard work.

Becoming strong spiritually in your faith takes exercising your heart and mind. Studying the Bible with your family, friends, at cadets and church is one of the big exercises. It might seem hard at first and there will be lots you don’t understand, but slowly you’ll learn more and understand Jesus better. Doing the things Jesus tells us to do by putting your faith in action like helping others, even if it means missing out sometimes on things you want to do, being generous with your time and even money, encouraging each other and building others up, standing up for what is right, protecting those who are being bullied are some of the ways we exercise our faith to become stronger and braver. We do this together as cadets and as a church family so the world can see who Jesus calls us to be.

We become stronger in the faith together by putting God first, focusing on learning the Scriptures instead of your phone, talking to God instead of watching people online, spending time with fellow Christians and praising God instead of focusing on yourself. Satan will try to get you think that God isn’t really that important, he’ll try to get you to think that a little sin isn’t that bad and that website’s alright, he will try to distract you from paying attention to Jesus. Satan will try to use your hurt, use the things people have done against you to doubt God’s love. When we lose things that we love, Satan will use that to try and weaken our faith. The more you read scripture, pray, and spend time with your Christian friends and family worshipping, the stronger your faith grows and the deeper your love for God grows, the better you become at recognizing Satan’s lies. This is why your parents and counsellors are so important, because they set you an example of being strong for Jesus by trusting in him and following his way.

Paul ends these commands by encouraging us to “do everything out of love.” This echoes Jesus’ command “to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbour as yourself.” This looks like caring about others and wanting what’s best for them, even if you don’t like them. This means that part of love is wanting them to know Jesus and God’s love for all people. Love leads to a willingness to forgive and to offer grace even when it’s hard, even if it takes time to move from your head to your heart. Naomi Tutu writes, “How we walk through the world makes a statement about the world we want.” When we see in the Bible how much God loves the world he created by sending his only son Jesus to come to earth to bring us back to God, taking our sin away on the cross, and showing us how to follow God. We ask God to show us how to live in our world with others. We know how important being in a relationship with Jesus is, knowing why Jesus came for us, and together working to become the cadets and people Jesus teaches us to be as his followers.

Cadets and our church family help us to be ready, alert, strong, and courageous in living for Jesus, doing this together, not by ourselves. It’s not always easy, we need to help each other, encourage each other, build each other up so we can stand firm in what Jesus teaches. We can stand firm because Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit to help us be bold and strong for him to stand firm in the faith. When it gets hard, Jesus calls us to come to him and he’ll fill us with his strength and protect us, he will give us a place to rest our souls. We know that we can trust him because of his love for us. Trust in Jesus’ love and sacrifice, trust in his strength and promises, walking together as we stand firm in our faith.

Meaninglessness and Wisdom - Ecclesiastes 1:1-18; 2:12-16

This week we’re beginning a journey through the book of Ecclesiastes. This book is part of the Wisdom books in the Old Testament, books that reflect on life and life well lived as followers of God. J.A Louder observes, “Wisdom is concerned with the correct ordering of live. Wise action is that which integrates people harmoniously into the order God has created. The rules of life that prescribe how human beings must integrate themselves into that order are the precept of wisdom.” Scripture describes wisdom as living well with God, others, creation, and with ourselves, living according to God’s will. Wisdom is living according to who God created us to be as images of him in his world. Ecclesiastes calls us back to an awareness of God.

Ecclesiastes is written with 2 voices, a narrator and the Teacher. The Teacher’s talking to people like himself who are caught up in the things and values of this world, looking for something to fill the hole in their heart. God’s distant, not part of their everyday awareness. The Teacher is calling us to an awareness of our God who is close and engaged in our world. The Teacher’s a son from the line of David, some believe this is Solomon, while others believe it’s a later king or leader in Judah. Even though the author’s not definitively known, the Jewish people and church recognizes the wisdom within the book and how it’s relevant to every time and age.

The Teacher begins, “Hevel, hevel, everything is hevel.” Hevel has often been translated as “meaninglessness,” in Hebrew the literal meaning is “vapour” or “breath” or “smoke.” These are things that look like they’re solid and have substance, and yet when you try to grab hold of them, they simply slip through your fingers. As we journey through Ecclesiastes, this thought will come up again and again, the things we often chase end up having little or no lasting meaning or importance, they end up simply vapour or smoke. Ecclesiastes is written from a “this world” perspective, “life under the sun,” showing that the things we strive for end up as vapour or smoke because we chase them without God in mind. The Teacher is aware of how our daily lives are mostly lived apart from an awareness of God.

When we look at life, we see much beauty, wonder, and good in the world. Yet it can all disappear in a moment of tragedy. It feels then as if everything has slipped through your fingers. There’s right and wrong and justice, so why are good people hurt so often? As much as we want to control our lives, life’s unpredictable and can feel as if we’re “chasing after the wind.” The big theme through Ecclesiastes is found in verse 3, “What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?” As we go through the book, we will encounter the word “gain” 8 more times, the word “toil” 22 times, and the phrase “under the sun” 29 times.

Over the next 12 chapters, the Teacher is going to challenge the tendency we have to invest so much of our time and energy, and even our emotions, into things that ultimately are not going to matter, things that are “hevel.” Verses 4,5,6,7 reflect on verse 3’s question about what do we gain through all our work. These verses are written in what is called poetic parallelism: 2 thoughts put together in order to compare or contrast, here in these verses, to emphasize the sameness found in the rhythms of the world; nothing ever changes, so why bother working so hard. Professor Lisa M. Wolfe writes, “Qoheleth uses hevel poetically…. Poetry as a genre often prompts its readers to thoughtfulness about the meaning of life.”

In verse 4, the Teacher talks about how people are born and die, but only world lasts forever. Our lives are so short compared to the existence of the world, so what can we really expect to accomplish? We can work our fingers to the bone yet what kind of lasting mark do we really leave on the world? He goes on in verse 5 about how the sun rises and falls, repeating over and over again the same each day. If you’ve seen one sunrise or sunset, you’ve basically seen them all, and if you’ve never seen one, there is always another one coming. In verse 6, he turns his attention to how the wind blows north and then south, always following the same pattern, over and over again. It may blow stronger or lighter, but ultimately it all just repeats itself. The fascinating example for me is how the streams all flow into the sea and the sea’s never full – like our efforts to make more, have more pleasure, gain more wealth, power, knowledge, whatever – it never really amounts to anything, even the wisest man in history Solomon died. Even with all his wisdom, he still ends up kneeling down before meaningless idols for the sake of his wives. It makes us think about what idols we have in our own lives that we bow down to, who do we raise up in the place of God, what do we let have power over us? How much smoke do we fill our hearts with?

Jesus warns us against placing too much value or weight into the things of this world. He tells his disciples a parable about a rich man in Luke 12:16–20, “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’  “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” You can work so hard to become so wealthy that you can take it easy for the rest of your life, but we really have no idea how long that might be. When we die, no matter how much we have, it all stays behind for someone else.

Jesus warns his disciples about what’s really important in Matthew 16:24–26, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” Jesus warns us that what we work hard for “under the sun” also demands our attention, and even our worship, Matthew 6:19–21, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” It’s amazing where our heart’s desire will lead us, and if our desire’s not Jesus, but something “under the sun,” it won’t be towards what has weight and importance.

Verse 9 in Ecclesiastes 1 reminds us, “there is nothing new under the sun.” That’s the answer to verse 3’s question, “What do people gain from all their labours at which they toil under the sun?” Our pride tells us that we’re unique and wiser than all those who’ve come before, that our wisdom is greater, and yet it all slips away in the end if it’s all done only “under the sun,” rather than approaching life from the perspective of God. Living only “under the sun” brings no hope for now or the future. If nothing ever changes, why bother trying. Paul gets at this in Romans 1:21, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Their thinking became futile, just vapour with no substance or weight or value. They know God but fail to glorify or give thanks to God, making themselves the center of their universe and importance, living only “under the sun.” Everything we chase that’s not Jesus is vapour.

In Ecclesiastes, the Teacher concedes that in the short run, it’s better to be wise than foolish, but the Teacher looks way down the road. In the short run, fools might suffer for their foolishness, but in the long run, it doesn’t make much difference; both the fool and the wise person die. Into a world more focused on living “under the sun” than living under God, Jesus comes to do something brand new. The one through whom all things were created comes into life’s rough, hard places and goes to the Place of the Skull to be crucified, taking on the world because he loves us so much. Jesus shows us that we don’t need to put our trust or find our identity in the things we’ve gathered for ourselves, but rather in him, the one who came to show us the path of humility and vulnerability. He calls us to trust and live under him alone, to find our hope in him. Our identity comes from Jesus who is over all things, who created everything “under the sun,” who calls us to care for all things “under the sun” for him, giving us purpose and belonging.

 

 

Spiritual Gifts - 1 Peter 4:7-11

                  

Christmas wasn’t that long ago, and many of us can still remember how special it felt to get gifts from our loved ones, whether family or friends. What are some of your favourite gifts that you received, and were you able to give people you love special gifts too? God loves to give us gifts too! Just like the people like to pick out just the right gift for you so that you’ll love them and use them, so God loves to give us gifts that are spiritual and fit who we are, gifts that we can use. Spiritual gifts and abilities given to us by the Holy Spirit to help us for ministry, to bless the church, and to help others come to know the good news of salvation through Jesus. The best thing about God’s gifts is that they don’t wear out, in fact they get better as we use them, and they can’t be taken away from us by anyone else. God gives us these gifts to help us know him better and to become more like Jesus as we use them.

The fun part of being given these spiritual gifts from God is discovering which gifts we have and how we can use them to serve others. You can take a spiritual gifts test, or talk to your friends and other people that you respect and ask them what gifts they see in you. Then try using them. Sometimes it’ll come really easy and you’ll go ‘wow,’ and sometimes you’ll try them and see that you’ll need to work on growing your gift, and sometimes you’ll find out that you don’t really have a gift in that area, but that’s alright too, the important part is trying. Our gifts are not to make life easier for us, but to be used for others and for God.

Why is it important to know our gifts and use them? Peter reminds us that Jesus is coming back again as king over everything and everyone. Jesus returned home to heaven after being resurrected from the dead, dying on the cross so that our sins are washed away. Peter wants us to be ready for when Jesus comes back. Jesus said we should always be ready because he’ll come like a thief in the night when no one’s expecting him, but God doesn’t want anyone to be lost, so he’s patient in sending Jesus back so everyone will have an opportunity to know Jesus. Peter wants Jesus’ church to be ready and strong, praying for each other and for all people to come to accept Jesus as their Lord. We’re using our gifts to build our church on Jesus and his teachings and life. Prayer’s a powerful gift from God to help us in this.

Part of being ready is learning to live with love for each other. Peter tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. We hear an echo to the cross where Jesus’ love for us takes him to the cross where he dies to wash away our sin. What amazing love! Jesus tells us in John 15:12, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” Love strengthens our gifts: we receive gifts from God because he loves us, and he wants us to use our gifts in love to bless others, to help them see God’s love through how we use our gifts, especially when we forgive them when they do something wrong against us. We forgive them out of love like Jesus did. We pray to God to forgive them and help us to forgive them like Jesus, because this helps us to build strong relationships with each other. I see this happening every Friendship evening as you pray for each other and with each other, showing love, God’s love to each other, using your gifts of prayer, a really special time.

Part of love is showing hospitality to each other without grumbling. Hebrews 13:2 reminds us, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Hebrews is talking about when Abraham invited 3 strangers to eat supper with him and his wife Sarah. After they ate, it turned out that 2 of the strangers were angels and the third person was the Lord! This is why Paul reminds us in Romans 12:13 to “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” We never know when we might need to help someone out by inviting them to have a meal with us, or even providing them with a room and bed for a night or two. Hospitality is a spiritual gift that God gives some of us. This gift is rooted in love that comes from God, caring about each other and even strangers.

Now Peter tells us, “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 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.” We’re all called to use our gifts to serve others, and by serving each other, we’re sharing God’s grace with them. Jesus tells a parable about a king giving his servants talents to use while he went away. He was excited about the servants who used his talents and even made more, but he was angry at the one who did nothing, and so he kicked him out.

The Holy Spirit has given a lot of different kinds of gifts to the church because the church has so many different kinds of people. There are many different types of people in the world, so one kind of gift isn’t enough. Yet even though the gifts are different, they all come from the same Holy Spirit, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:4–7, “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

Some of the gifts the Holy Spirit gives are the gifts of teaching, showing mercy, wisdom, helping others, praying, encouragement, hospitality, giving, and lots more. The Holy Spirit gives each one of us gifts, there’s no one who doesn’t have a gift. My brother Glennie never spoke, never walked, he could smile and make different sounds for each one of us. But happiness was his gift, every time he saw you, he smiled and reached out to you.

Our gifts are not about making us look better, or to use for ourselves, they’re meant to be used to bless the church, to bless others, and to bring glory to God. When we use our gifts the way that God wants us to, we bring glory to God, and other people praise God through Jesus. When we use our gifts, we’re doing ministry for God, meaning that we’re all ministers! All Christians have things they can do in church or community for Jesus. We’re not called to simply receive the blessings of other people’s service, we’re also called to use our gifts and then, as Paul shares with us in Ephesians 4:16, “From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” The other wonderful thing about using our gifts is that using them for God’s work, it brings us joy, knowing that it pleases God. When we use our gifts to serve others, we should do it with confidence that we’re doing it for God and it makes the church stronger.

For us to use our gifts in healthy ways, we need to stay connected to Jesus. Jesus uses the image of a vine and branches in John 15:5–9, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” So, as we leave from here, go knowing that God has given each of you gifts to use to serve others and to build his kingdom. As we work together using our gifts, we’re able to accomplish much more than on our own. May you continue to discover new gifts that you’ve been given, new ways of serving and loving the Lord and each other.

 

 

 

 

Noticing God in the New Year - Luke 6:37-42

Today marks the beginning of a new year, 2026. As we look ahead, we make plans, we have dreams and hopes about what 2026 might contain, but ultimately, we place the year in God’s hands, saying with James, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” We have plans for the year ahead as a council. We plan on working together as a congregation on vision and mission. It’s a good time to reflect on the changes in our church family. There’ve been many events that have happened since our last vision/mission time: a new pastor, a pandemic, a complete turnover in our staff, new growth, and many important denominational conversations. We’re the same, and yet different church now than 10+ years ago.

While we cannot control the year ahead of us, we can choose how we’ll walk through the year ahead. I’m sure many of you wondered about choosing our passage this morning from Luke as a New Year’s Day passage. These verses come from what is often called, The Sermon on the Plain, which echoes a lot of what Matthew places in The Sermon on the Mount. Luke places these verses right after a call by Jesus to love your enemies and to do good to those who hate you. Now Jesus moves on to telling the people to be careful about judging others, or more importantly, the spirit with how you judge others.

At the heart of Jesus’ warning is that if you judge you’ll also be judged, so be careful how you treat others. As we enter the new year, we have a choice on how we are going to relate with each other, and with others in our lives and community. Will we look at others in critical ways, checking to make sure they do all the right things or hold the right values, or are we going to choose a different way? It’s important to note the context here, as the scholar David Brown writes, “The thing here condemned is that disposition to look unfavorably on the character and actions of others, which leads invariably to the pronouncing of rash, unjust, and unlovely judgments upon them. No doubt it is the judgments so pronounced which are here spoken of; but what our Lord aims at is the spirit out of which they spring. Provided we eschew this unlovely spirit, we are not only warranted to sit in judgment upon a brother’s character and actions, but in the exercise of a necessary discrimination are often constrained to do so for our own guidance. It is the violation of the law of love involved in the exercise of a censorious disposition which alone is here condemned.” It’s not wrong to hold each other to account for our actions, but it’s how you do it that Jesus is getting at here.

Jesus offers a different way, paraphrasing what he says, “don’t judge or condemn and you won’t be either, don’t worry so much about the speck in other peoples’ eyes, pay attention first to what’s preventing you from seeing more clearly.” Jesus offers a kinder way of living with each other, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” How we treat others will reflect back on us.

When we’re overly critical of others, they’ll return that same kind of criticism back on us. Over time, people withdraw from those who are harsh, recognizing that it will likely only be a matter of time before they’re the ones who’ll be harshly judged for not measuring up, and often, in self-defense will attack the critical person first. The reality is, none of us ever completely measure up. This is why Jesus came to take our sin and brokenness on himself and to bring healing and reconciliation with God and others.

The positive side of Jesus’ teaching is that “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap,” goes with other passages that talk about how God’s cup of blessing runs over. Jesus is using a business image here, a merchant who is generous with his customers will be judged and evaluated in a generous way by others. Another way of saying this is, the way you treat others is the way others will treat you, kindness and generosity create kindness and generosity in return. At the heart of this is beginning the year with the goal of becoming more like Jesus and joining him in what he’s doing; the best way to do this is to keep our eyes on Jesus.

How do you create eyes for seeing God and what’s he’s doing? What are some spiritual practices or ways of looking at the world through the eyes of God that might be helpful for noticing and responding to what God’s doing in the midst of the chaos of life. The Examen is a way of prayer developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the late 16th century that invites prayerful reflection back over the events of the day in order to recognize God’s presence and figure out God’s direction for our lives. A good friend in Montreal, Father David, introduced me to Ignatius, who developed the Jesuit order. Ignatius required his followers to practice the Examen every lunch and evening. It involves 5 steps:

1. Become aware of God’s presence. As you pray, ask the Holy Spirit to help you see God’s hand at work in the events of the day.
2. Review the day with gratitude. Gratitude is an important way of engaging our day and helping us to recognize God’s presence and the joys and little gifts that are part of each day. Look at the work you accomplished, the people you met, those you helped, and those who helped you, the food you ate, the small pleasures in the day. Give God thanks.
3. Pay attention to your emotions. Ignatius recognized that we often experience the presence of God through our emotions. When did we experience happiness, boredom, resentment, compassion, anger, contentment, and asking what is God saying through those feelings. Often it will be to recognize where we need to still grow, but often it can also help us recognize when something is wrong and act as a call to be God’s agent in making it right again.
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it. This may be an emotion you experienced, an event or person you encountered, or a direction from God to pay more attention to.
5. Look toward tomorrow. Ask Jesus for direction and guidance for the day ahead, and for the strength and wisdom needed for where he is leading.

End your prayer by talking with God, asking for forgiveness and grace, thanking Jesus for who he is, asking questions you have, and sharing problems you’re working through.

As we enter this new year, may your eyes and hearts be open to seeing the blessings and presence of God each day, and may this guide you through 2026.