Sermon 13th March 2011
Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker preaches based on our Lent series, The Purpose Driven Life.
25 550. That should be a number that's familiar to many of you, after this week: 25 550. But why? If you need a clue, think Wednesday; as in Ash Wednesday ...
Any offers? ... That's the average number of days that most of us will live for! It's quite simple maths to work out that Rick Warren is assuming the biblical ideal of 3-score years and 10 is where we have reached. Any quick Internet search will show that's not the case, though. The UK is joint 20th in the world in terms of life-expectancy. Males born here in this century can expect to live until they are 78, and women to 82, rather than the Bible's 70 years. By the way, that's double the figure for Swaziland, which has the world's lowest life expectancy. To save you working it out, that UK average is then about 28 400 days for men, and 29 900 for women.
Be that all as it may, the more significant figure that I'd hope is in your minds today is 40. I'd hope that it's there even if you've not started reading our Lent book, The Purpose Driven Life. It should be there even if you didn't come to the Ash Wednesday service, which marked the start of Lent. I'm hoping that you are all good enough Anglicans to know that Lent is this 40-day period that is purposefully set aside for us to prepare for Easter. It's a long-standing practice of the church, dating back to the 1st Century. It's based on the example of Jesus before the start of his public ministry. It's also the principle that underpins our studying this book together this Lent: important events and occasions need, and are worth, getting ready for.
In this book Rick Warren has in mind an even bigger occasion than Easter that we need to get ready for. It's hard to think what could be bigger than Easter, I realise. But what is bigger is what Easter has opened the door to – and that is to eternity itself! So Rick Warren is quite right to challenge everyone to use a mere 40 of our supposed 20-something thousand days at least to ask ourself relevant big-picture questions. Is there more to life than just here and now? What on earth am I here for? Do I matter? What is my purpose in life? And how then should I live my life?
Having posed those questions, Rick Warren moves beyond them almost immediately! As many of you will have read on Wednesday, “It's not about you” is the first line of his first chapter! Yes this book is a genuine invitation to ask big life-questions. It is a process that occupies this biblically-significant 40-day period, at the rate of 1 short, challenging chapter per day. But his assumption from the start is that none of these questions – like life itself – make any sense unless we accept the existence of the God of the Bible. As the author puts it, “If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born BY his purpose and FOR his purpose.”
These are the sorts of phrases that hopefully many of us have been reading since Wednesday. Even as I read it yet again, I'm finding this helpful, challenging stuff. And I know that there is plenty more of the same to come! However, I'm sure that you will also have discovered already some of limitations of the book. It's far from perfect, in its language and also in its thought. But even in those places you can still use it, to help you to clarify what you believe, and why. And that in itself is a useful exercise, specially if you accept Rick Warren's key proposition. He believes that one of the main purposes of our life here on earth is to prepare to spend eternity in heaven with God. And that needs quite some preparing for!
That is the main thrust of the chapter that many of us will have read yesterday. We have been made for eternity with God; and we need to be, or get, ready for it. Beyond this point we will be going to places that few have reached yet, then. I am unfortunately having to cover rather a lot of ground today. The original plan was for us preachers to use these Sundays off to reflect on the section of the book that we'd all be in the middle of reading. Given when the school holidays fall, though, we only have 5 Sunday for this series, rather than the 6 we need. That means that I'm having to speak on the seven-day introductory section – plus the first of the 5 life-purposes that Rick Warren then sets out, 7 chapters at a time!
The first thing to do is to point you to our web-site, then. You'll find there all the sermons from our first run-through of this book. That includes full sermons on the introduction, and on how we have been planned for God's pleasure – as well as the 4 other God-given life-purposes. That series finished just last week, to help us get as ready for Lent as possible. We're doing it twice, like this, partly because we have always known that there's more material in each section than we could sum up on any one Sunday. It also reflects just how important these issues are – even for those who are already Christians. Our intended aim is to enable us to live truly focused, Godly-purposeful lives; for, and in, Him. We want that for us as a church, at St Paul's and at St Saviour's, and we also want that for us as individuals.
Back to today, in some ways it's a shame that the timings are like this. I was looking forward to keeping my promise to tackle the 3 key biblical life-metaphors! I could speak with feeling on how life is portrayed in the Bible as a test of our faith and trust in God, when circumstances aren't as we'd choose them! Globally that would be relevant in the light of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It could apply personally too, after the past fortnight when Jocelyn when has barely been out of one hospital or another. First it was for surgery on her transplant scar, and then because of a whole range of complications that have arisen from that. And we have not yet got to the end of this process either!
However, the Bible portrays any number of ways in which God can, does, and will test us, our faith and hope – and Rick Warren makes good use of many biblical examples. You can read those for yourselves, and also about how life-metaphors unconsciously shape how we live. In case you have missed the connection, I will point out that the Bible sees life here as temporary assignment because heaven is our home for eternity. And I will also mention briefly the third Bible life-metaphor now too: life is a trust because God watches how we treat what He entrusts to us – gifts, time, talents, money, people, and in every other way. Details of that are in the relevant chapters coming up – but do note there are eternal consequences to that, both ways!
On the basis that Rick Warren is right, that life is a test, a trust and a temporary assignment, what comes next? Well the logical step is to do exactly what we are urged to at the end of today's reading – to understand, or to find out, what God wants us to do. In passing, I should also point out that in this series we'll frame each section with Bible passage, instead of speaking on one, as normal. This passage frames our task for the rest of Lent, and beyond – understanding God's will for our lives. Rick Warren says that our whole life-purpose is to bring God glory, in what we do, and in how we do it. Life is not for or about us remember; it's all for Him! What we then read in God's Word, His revelation of himself, are these 5 key life-purposes that Rick Warren writes the rest of his book about.
Clearly I don't have time to say too much on the first of those purposes now. Gill covered a lot of the ground first time; and you will have 7 chapters of material on it to enjoy from the middle of this week. But I do want to encourage you to take very seriously this idea that you, yes YOU, have been planned for God's pleasure! When asked, Jesus said that the greatest commandment from the Old Testament is that we are to love God first and best, with everything we've got and are! We do that in response to God's love for us, of course. The Bible is full of expressions of God's love for us, in word and in deed. We see His love for us most clearly on the cross – where Jesus died so that we don't have to, but rather can love him back.
As anyone who has ever loved knows, when you love someone you want to make them happy. You want them to enjoy you as much as you enjoy them – and God is no different! In fact, we are made in God's image: He has given us our 5 senses to enjoy Him, and His world. What He wants above all is for us to use all of that for and with Him, in ways that He enjoys! That's as good a definition of worship as I have ever heard. It's wonderfully put in the Message version, like this: “Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life and place it before God as an offering”. How can we live for God's pleasure? By doing exactly this, every day, day after day – for Him!
Of course nothing is ever quite that simple! But maybe it's a whole lot less complicated than we sometimes make it! I'm sure that we'd all do well to read, and heed, Rick Warren's simple advice in these chapters. It can show us how to: obey God; trust Him; communicate with Him; surrender to Him; be His friend; and give Him our all – in bad times as much as in good. And these are lessons and stories that we can come back to time and again in the months and years ahead. This series isn't some passing fad: it's purpose is to help us to learn to live permanently changed lives – so preparing ourselves for the eternity during which we will be enjoyed by, and enjoy, God! So let's pray that it will do just that ...
25 550. That should be a number that's familiar to many of you, after this week: 25 550. But why? If you need a clue, think Wednesday; as in Ash Wednesday ...
Any offers? ... That's the average number of days that most of us will live for! It's quite simple maths to work out that Rick Warren is assuming the biblical ideal of 3-score years and 10 is where we have reached. Any quick Internet search will show that's not the case, though. The UK is joint 20th in the world in terms of life-expectancy. Males born here in this century can expect to live until they are 78, and women to 82, rather than the Bible's 70 years. By the way, that's double the figure for Swaziland, which has the world's lowest life expectancy. To save you working it out, that UK average is then about 28 400 days for men, and 29 900 for women.
Be that all as it may, the more significant figure that I'd hope is in your minds today is 40. I'd hope that it's there even if you've not started reading our Lent book, The Purpose Driven Life. It should be there even if you didn't come to the Ash Wednesday service, which marked the start of Lent. I'm hoping that you are all good enough Anglicans to know that Lent is this 40-day period that is purposefully set aside for us to prepare for Easter. It's a long-standing practice of the church, dating back to the 1st Century. It's based on the example of Jesus before the start of his public ministry. It's also the principle that underpins our studying this book together this Lent: important events and occasions need, and are worth, getting ready for.
In this book Rick Warren has in mind an even bigger occasion than Easter that we need to get ready for. It's hard to think what could be bigger than Easter, I realise. But what is bigger is what Easter has opened the door to – and that is to eternity itself! So Rick Warren is quite right to challenge everyone to use a mere 40 of our supposed 20-something thousand days at least to ask ourself relevant big-picture questions. Is there more to life than just here and now? What on earth am I here for? Do I matter? What is my purpose in life? And how then should I live my life?
Having posed those questions, Rick Warren moves beyond them almost immediately! As many of you will have read on Wednesday, “It's not about you” is the first line of his first chapter! Yes this book is a genuine invitation to ask big life-questions. It is a process that occupies this biblically-significant 40-day period, at the rate of 1 short, challenging chapter per day. But his assumption from the start is that none of these questions – like life itself – make any sense unless we accept the existence of the God of the Bible. As the author puts it, “If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born BY his purpose and FOR his purpose.”
These are the sorts of phrases that hopefully many of us have been reading since Wednesday. Even as I read it yet again, I'm finding this helpful, challenging stuff. And I know that there is plenty more of the same to come! However, I'm sure that you will also have discovered already some of limitations of the book. It's far from perfect, in its language and also in its thought. But even in those places you can still use it, to help you to clarify what you believe, and why. And that in itself is a useful exercise, specially if you accept Rick Warren's key proposition. He believes that one of the main purposes of our life here on earth is to prepare to spend eternity in heaven with God. And that needs quite some preparing for!
That is the main thrust of the chapter that many of us will have read yesterday. We have been made for eternity with God; and we need to be, or get, ready for it. Beyond this point we will be going to places that few have reached yet, then. I am unfortunately having to cover rather a lot of ground today. The original plan was for us preachers to use these Sundays off to reflect on the section of the book that we'd all be in the middle of reading. Given when the school holidays fall, though, we only have 5 Sunday for this series, rather than the 6 we need. That means that I'm having to speak on the seven-day introductory section – plus the first of the 5 life-purposes that Rick Warren then sets out, 7 chapters at a time!
The first thing to do is to point you to our web-site, then. You'll find there all the sermons from our first run-through of this book. That includes full sermons on the introduction, and on how we have been planned for God's pleasure – as well as the 4 other God-given life-purposes. That series finished just last week, to help us get as ready for Lent as possible. We're doing it twice, like this, partly because we have always known that there's more material in each section than we could sum up on any one Sunday. It also reflects just how important these issues are – even for those who are already Christians. Our intended aim is to enable us to live truly focused, Godly-purposeful lives; for, and in, Him. We want that for us as a church, at St Paul's and at St Saviour's, and we also want that for us as individuals.
Back to today, in some ways it's a shame that the timings are like this. I was looking forward to keeping my promise to tackle the 3 key biblical life-metaphors! I could speak with feeling on how life is portrayed in the Bible as a test of our faith and trust in God, when circumstances aren't as we'd choose them! Globally that would be relevant in the light of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It could apply personally too, after the past fortnight when Jocelyn when has barely been out of one hospital or another. First it was for surgery on her transplant scar, and then because of a whole range of complications that have arisen from that. And we have not yet got to the end of this process either!
However, the Bible portrays any number of ways in which God can, does, and will test us, our faith and hope – and Rick Warren makes good use of many biblical examples. You can read those for yourselves, and also about how life-metaphors unconsciously shape how we live. In case you have missed the connection, I will point out that the Bible sees life here as temporary assignment because heaven is our home for eternity. And I will also mention briefly the third Bible life-metaphor now too: life is a trust because God watches how we treat what He entrusts to us – gifts, time, talents, money, people, and in every other way. Details of that are in the relevant chapters coming up – but do note there are eternal consequences to that, both ways!
On the basis that Rick Warren is right, that life is a test, a trust and a temporary assignment, what comes next? Well the logical step is to do exactly what we are urged to at the end of today's reading – to understand, or to find out, what God wants us to do. In passing, I should also point out that in this series we'll frame each section with Bible passage, instead of speaking on one, as normal. This passage frames our task for the rest of Lent, and beyond – understanding God's will for our lives. Rick Warren says that our whole life-purpose is to bring God glory, in what we do, and in how we do it. Life is not for or about us remember; it's all for Him! What we then read in God's Word, His revelation of himself, are these 5 key life-purposes that Rick Warren writes the rest of his book about.
Clearly I don't have time to say too much on the first of those purposes now. Gill covered a lot of the ground first time; and you will have 7 chapters of material on it to enjoy from the middle of this week. But I do want to encourage you to take very seriously this idea that you, yes YOU, have been planned for God's pleasure! When asked, Jesus said that the greatest commandment from the Old Testament is that we are to love God first and best, with everything we've got and are! We do that in response to God's love for us, of course. The Bible is full of expressions of God's love for us, in word and in deed. We see His love for us most clearly on the cross – where Jesus died so that we don't have to, but rather can love him back.
As anyone who has ever loved knows, when you love someone you want to make them happy. You want them to enjoy you as much as you enjoy them – and God is no different! In fact, we are made in God's image: He has given us our 5 senses to enjoy Him, and His world. What He wants above all is for us to use all of that for and with Him, in ways that He enjoys! That's as good a definition of worship as I have ever heard. It's wonderfully put in the Message version, like this: “Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life and place it before God as an offering”. How can we live for God's pleasure? By doing exactly this, every day, day after day – for Him!
Of course nothing is ever quite that simple! But maybe it's a whole lot less complicated than we sometimes make it! I'm sure that we'd all do well to read, and heed, Rick Warren's simple advice in these chapters. It can show us how to: obey God; trust Him; communicate with Him; surrender to Him; be His friend; and give Him our all – in bad times as much as in good. And these are lessons and stories that we can come back to time and again in the months and years ahead. This series isn't some passing fad: it's purpose is to help us to learn to live permanently changed lives – so preparing ourselves for the eternity during which we will be enjoyed by, and enjoy, God! So let's pray that it will do just that ...
posted by Parish Administrator at 3:49 am
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