Pastoral Letter 227
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I hope you all are doing fine by God’s grace, who is always with us in all our circumstances and the challenges we face in life. Let us keep trusting Him and bringing everything to Him, for He knows better. After all, to whom shall we go? He has the words of eternal life. He is our only hope and salvation, and He walks with us every day and takes care of us. Thanks be to Him.
The remaining of the items from the Market Morning have been taken to our neighbouring St. Michael’s Catholic Church for their annual Garage Sale. Now everything is cleared up and on the hall stage we have only the small hall music teacher’s baby grand piano.
Next Sunday we are going to celebrate Father’s Day and have an extended Morning Tea. Looking forward to seeing you all and especially the fathers.
On Sunday 15 September, the Lane Cove Community Chaplain, Liam McKenna, will take the service, while I will be away in Armenia for the screening of the documentary.
Wednesday, 18 September is Spring Fashion Parade and for more details please talk to Jan.
On Sunday 22 September, the Presbytery Chairman, Rev. Keith Garner, will visit us and deliver the message. Please note and make sure to join us.
Our next Combined Service with Lane Cove Uniting will be on Sunday 13 October in St. Columba’s for the Great Outback Fundraiser BBQ. The raised funds plus the plates of the day will be donated to the Frontier Services.
It has become our tradition to have John Flynn Service in October. This year the Service will be held on Sundy 27 October and again we will have with us as guest speaker Mr. Rob Floyd the National Director of Frontier Services.
There will be a Memorial Service for a previous St. Andrew’s member Gail Isaacs on Tuesday 3 September 2024 at 11:00 am. Service arrangements will be done this Tuesday, and we will have more information.
The documentary film is being rescreened tomorrow Sunday 25 August 2024 at 3:00 pm. If you want to see it and not to miss, please secure your tickets going the following link:
If you are not able to join us for worship, please light a candle and worship with us following to the attached Order of Service.
Here are some prayer points for this week:
- Pray for the sick, the poor, the homeless, refugees and those who feel lonely.
- Please continue to pray for Virginia and those who have lost loved ones.
- Pray for those who are under the pressure of financial burdens and struggling to make ends meet.
- Pray for world peace, especially for the Middle East, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon.
Best Regards
In Christ
Krikor
MESSAGE
To Whom Shall We Go?
John 6:53-69
For most people today the main priority in life is wealth and possessions. But we should know that life consists of far more than just possessions and we are called to make a choice.
In our reading today we see that Jesus gives the challenge to His disciples to make a choice. Jesus clearly stated that He was the Bread that came from heaven, which gives Eternal Life. Who feeds on that Bread will live forever. In other words, He was inviting them to make a choice between Him and the world. It was a choice between accepting and rejecting Him.
Hearing these words, many of His disciples or followers said: “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” They were offended, because He was presenting Himself to be the only means to establish reconciliation with the Father, receive forgiveness of sins and to have eternal life.
Each one of us has to decide. There is really only one decision, and that decision is to make our choice to accept Christ, the Holy one of God.
If we were asked today how we can find peace with God, how we can have forgiveness of sins, how we can find meaning and purpose in life, or how we can have everlasting life, what would be our answer?
We will be surprised how many different answers people give. We have many needs and the only way we can meet these needs is to come to Jesus Christ. Only He can meet these needs. We either choose to believe in Christ or we choose to reject Him.
By rejecting Christ, we reject God’s offer of forgiveness for our sins.
Accepting the Holy one of God is to receive forgiveness and eternal life.
Peter makes this clear when made his choice. He and the other ten apostles, everyone except Judas, chose to believe and trust Jesus Christ.
Everyone who makes the choice to accept Christ as Saviour and Lord, pledges to honour and please Him and accepts that He is all-sufficient. He is the One who can give us satisfaction.
Life depends on the choices we make.
Adam made a choice that still affects us today. He was given the choice to obey or disobey God – to choose spiritual life or death. He had the choice to eat or not to eat from the “fruit of the forbidden tree”. By eating the forbidden fruit Adam openly expressed his rebellion against God and His authority.
Obedience or disobedience to God is demonstrated in very simple ways. Belief in Christ and repentance makes the abundance of God’s redeeming grace available to us and gives us righteousness and eternal life. But God does not force this on us He gives us a choice.
We need to make a choice. We need to make a choice by accepting Christ as our Lord and Saviour. This is the only way to have a personal relationship with Christ.
Many people were following Christ who had no personal relationship with Him. They were more interested in what they could get from Him than in whom He is.
The situation is still the same today. Many people are following Christ just for Him to meet their needs. They have no personal relationship with Him and have the desire to please Him.
We can please Him when we rely on His sufficiency to meet our needs. God wants to have a relationship with us so that we can enjoy His life. He chose us but also leaves us the choice to accept Him. We see this in the life of the Israelites. God had chosen them and because of His covenant with Abraham brought them out of slavery in Egypt. He protected and fed them on their journey in the wilderness and gave them a land of their own. He was their God. They were His people; but His people did not choose Him. And as they stood at the threshold of Canaan, Joshua exhorted them to serve with fear and faithfulness the Lord who had chosen them. But God forced none of them to be His people. They had to make a choice – to serve the Lord or other gods. This seemed a very easy choice to make but from the history of the Israelites we realise it was not such an easy choice.
Unfortunately, today many people still find it difficult to make Christ their choice.
What is our choice? Who are we serving?
Making the right choice, choosing Christ transforms us and gives us the mind of Christ. Through faithful obedience we come to understand that receiving eternal life and living this life is only possible because of Christ.
Our new life demands a change in our behaviour. We are to put off the old man with his deeds. Before we can put on a new set of clothes, we have to remove the old. The believer is to put off the filthy garments associated with the flesh and to put on the new garments associated with righteousness. We are to put off or deal with greed, jealousy, lying and all other qualities, which characterised the old man. We are to put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.
If we have chosen Christ, it is not to serve our own purposes but Christ’s. Accepting Christ does not mean that we can now use Him, but that Christ can now use us to fulfil His divine will. God wants us to be conformed to the image of His Son and we can do this by our choice of the Holy one of God. This choice makes reading the Word of God and applying its truths to our lives a priority.
We have to have a change in our lives as we become more like Jesus Christ and others should see Christ in our lives as we grow in our knowledge of Him. The better we get to know Christ, the more we become like Him. The choice of the Holy one of God is the most important decision we make in life.
Making this right choice is not easy and if we choose this, we need to have a source of power to sustain it. Paul in the last section of his letter to the struggling church in Ephesus, gives some practical advice on how the members of the church could walk and fight the battle against the evil with Christ. To walk in the right path demands a source of spiritual power, which only could be through strong faith and commitment.
Upon receiving Christ and accepting Him to be our personal Lord and Saviour we need to be engaged in an unceasing fight and an unending war against the evil. Paul gives a charge to the Christian soldier. He says:
“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” Paul, in the conclusion of his letter to the Ephesians gives an important passage to the believers. He is informing the believers how to live a life under attack. He is urging them to, “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might”.
Here is a great order issued by the Apostle Paul, a word sent out to the Christians to struggle against the evil powers by putting on the Armour of God to stand against the power of the evil.
But what does it mean and how are we to do it? Be Strong in the Lord.
What is the true application of the Apostle’s precept?
It is to realise the need to be strong because of the power of the enemy and the fight for standing firm in the faith.
We have to conquer the great enemy with His power. The word strong means power, might, and strength. The believer must possess power, might and strength as he walks through the course of this life.
– The Lord’s power means His sovereign unlimited power and dominion over all.
– The Lord’s might, means strength, force, and ability.
The believer is to be strong in the sovereign power of the Lord, in the power of His might, in His ability to use His power exactly as it should be used.
Notice Paul says: “Be strong in the Lord”. In other words, Paul is saying be strong in our provider, be strong in our banner, and be strong in our protector.
We find our inner strength in Christ, when we align ourselves in Christ all things become acceptable in and through Him.
Paul asks us to examine our lives in Christ and find out where our strength is placed.
This strength for every situation we find ourselves in is part of the call we bring to others of strength, peace, love, hope and joy found in Christ Jesus alone.
He is the source of everything and especially Eternal Life.
To whom shall we go?
We should go to Christ who is our only hope and source of life.
Amen!