Teaching

Sunday 7th July, 10:30 service (One Family Sunday), Running the Race.

Hear from David Walker on his last Sunday as vicar of Greyfriars & New Hope Church, as he preaches from Hebrews 12:1-3, reminding us to keep running the race.

We gathered as one family of 4 congregations at one service on Sunday 7th July, to celebrate the Walkers as they step out in faith to pastures new.

Sunday 30th June, 9:30 service, David Walker.

This passage takes a couple of reads to get your head round it! How often do we find ourselves doing things we don’t want to do? We want to do good, but more often than not we look back on our actions and realise that we didn’t do the good we wanted.

Paul here addresses the tension of what we often feel: that we might delight in God and love Him in our inner beings, but we are often drawn to sin in our own natures. But he gives us the reminder of verse 25 saying that Jesus has delivered us from sin once and for all in His mercy. This passage is a comfort to us trying to live Kingdom lives, as it serves as a reminder that all struggle with sin, but all have been delivered from it by Jesus.

Sunday 28th April, 9:30 service, David Walker.

Paul links Abraham’s faith with hope (an important concept for him) and brings out the truth —Abraham and Sarah were in a hopeless situation when they received the promise of God. Abraham’s faith was profound and its being reckoned to him for righteousness has meaning for all subsequent believers. It is clear that Paul has concluded his basic account of justification and that he is now moving on to the consequences (notice his “Therefore” at the beginning). Justification has results. The justified person has peace and joy, and Paul exults in this. In the process he further emphasizes the importance of the death of the righteous Christ for sinful people. The love of God is behind all this. Paul does not think of God as remote and indifferent but as full of love, and it is from his love that our salvation proceeds.

Jesus’ resurrection means everything!

Paul presents to us in Philippians 2 the servant of all, Jesus, who willingly gave up his life for us on the cross, and challenges us to love others the way Christ has loved us.

God is not like us. He is faithful, true, righteous and good. Some people in Rome were saying that our human sin and unrighteousness was ultimately a good thing as it would serve to highlight God’s goodness and righteousness more. This is not the right way to think!

We can’t earn our righteousness as we have all fallen short, but that’s what makes the Gospel of Jesus such good news for us. Where might we have been misunderstanding or even not realising the weight of our sin in comparison to God’s righteousness?

Sin plays a large role over the first three chapters. To understand the concept of grace, we must first get to grips with sin. Here, the big picture story is told of God’s wrath in response to our deliberate “turning away from God”. God’s wrath culminates in the “giv[ing] them over to sinful desires of their hearts”. Although God is both slow and reluctant to execute his wrath, we see it here in the early part of Romans in order to best understand the arguments made later epistle for the greatness of his grace; “it serves as the background to his ‘proper work’ of mercy”.1

From verses 18 to 31, the story depicts a commonly accepted view of the world to the Jewish audience, often as propaganda against the pagan world. However, Paul condemns those who wish to cast judgement on the pagan world, stating they are also worthy of judgement. God does not show partiality in grace, nor in wrath. We are all under God, and to cast judgement on others is futile, for we are all deserving of condemnation.

Just in case we thought God’s story through these people of faith was glorious, the writer of Hebrews tells us that their stories involve great trials and battles. They stood against powerful kingdoms and injustice (vs33), enemies in the form of lions (vs33), flames and swords (vs34), torture, destitution, stoning and death. But God……..had something far greater to come (vs40), which we now know as Christ’s salvation and resurrection.

As we continue the “hall of faith”, the writer of Hebrews reminds us that being part of God’s story involves us being tested (vs17), remaining faithful to God to the very end of our lives (vs21), standing firm for God (vs23) and choosing faithfulness over our own desires (vs25).

Christ is introduced in verse 26 as an example of how we are to live lives of sacrifice (vs26) and perseverance (vs27). Through this list of the “hall of faith”, we read of many characters who were far from perfect, including Moses who murdered and Rahab who was a prostitute. God works through all people of faith, regardless of our imperfect pasts!