Today I want to talk to you about God’s calling. As we know, our God calls his people in his time in and his ways. About 14 years ago, I served as a pastor at a Kiwi church here in Auckland. At that time, I struggled with speaking God’s word in English, not Korean. One night, I had an opportunity to attend a big Christian conference. The host invited some world famous Korean ministers. Among those, there was an American missionary. He spoke in Korean not English. His message touched my heart. His Korean was not fluent and he had unusual funny accent. Then I thought to myself, “he can do it. I can do it.” This encouraged me continue to speak God’s word in English as well as in Korean. Our God called me to deliver his word in his church. In the similar way, our God has called each one of you to be his people. He called you to share his love and grace with our family, friends, and neighbours.
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We conclude our sermon series Jesus is Greater where we consider Jesus from the perspective of Hebrews and discover what this view of Jesus means for our faith, confidence and way of life.
Sex, power and money are among the big themes in our bible reading today. These were make or break issues in the days of the early church as much as they are in our day. Look at any newspaper, listen to any podcast on current issues and often one, if not more, of these big three will be at the heart of the story. Of course, there is nothing wrong with sex, power or money, they can be of great pleasure and great good. They are part of everyday human life. But they also seem to be sources of the greatest heartbreak or scandals in our world. We continue our sermon series Jesus is Greater where we consider Jesus from the perspective of Hebrews and discover what this view of Jesus means for our faith, confidence and way of life.
If you were to able see me you would be able to tell my body was never meant for athletics. At school I considered cross-country running to be torture. Later in life I took up jogging for the good of my health and built up my endurance to be able to run 5km. I don’t know what came over me, but I decided to go on a 5km fun run. It wasn’t much fun and what I did could hardly be called running. I finished last but at least I did finish! We continue our sermon series Jesus is Greater where we consider Jesus from the perspective of Hebrews and discover what this view of Jesus means for our faith, confidence and way of life.
I remember a very saintly lady, a gentle soul, who while loving Jesus, was weighted down with a sense of being unworthy. Perhaps all of us, to some degree, feel unworthy. But this was crippling to this dear old saint. She wrestled with it. She fretted over it. This worry came between her and God. She lacked confidence before God. It affected her prayer life and she could not quite believe God would listen to a woman like her. We continue our sermon series Jesus is Greater where we consider Jesus from the perspective of Hebrews and discover what this view of Jesus means for our faith, confidence and way of life.
Today I will be talking to you about Jesus as God’s promise, the soul’s anchor based on Hebrews 6. The good news for believers is that our God had a promise to bless his people and this has continued until modern times. The promise in the Hebrew language is called berith (בְּרִית), which means ‘bind or tie’. It also means “covenant.” Our God binds his people with Abraham’s descendants to bless them through his covenant. God’s blessing has continued through Jesus until today. |
