Sermon preached by Rev. Stephen Nichols Sun 7 Dec 2014  on Romans 7:7–25 .

Here's the link to the All Souls Langham Place Audio 

Struggling not to sin is one of my daily, sometimes hourly, struggles. Envy, anger, pride, list... and more are too often my regular companions. 

Answer? By keeping on exactly as we were when we first came to know Jesus.

Our nature makes us want change. To get a better experience. But this mustn't apply to our Christian faith. Once we come to know Jesus we have it all!

Jesus is fully, fully, fully God and you have come to fullness in him. Jesus is the way that we will find fullness spiritual fullness, every kind of fullness, is found in him.

He concludes with these words...

In the Christian life you cannot move on from Jesus to something else because to move on from Jesus is to move away from him. Spiritual maturity is not going to be found in chasing after human philosophy or human wisdom or submitting ourselves to human rules and regulations. Rather the way forward in the Christian life is the way that we began.

We must be like trees which do not move an inch from where they were planted but instead send down roots deep into the soil of the gospel by which we were saved. And devote ourselves to growing fruits as we continue to have lives which are transformed by knowing Christ and honouring him as Lord.

A world view of Jesus' death on Good Friday, about two thousand years ago, would be at the least injustice. And for someone claiming to be a king, a disaster, and probably proof of their delusion.

The craziness grows when one hears that the 'creator of the world', not only stood by and let it happen but actually engineered it. The world doesn't like fathers who sacrifice their sons! 

Summing up, the world view is that any faith icon who's associated with a story like this isn't worth the time of day.

The Archbishop of Sydney asks and answers three key questions about Easter:

• What is the Gospel?
• Can we believe it?
• Does it matter

And the words that made me think big-time...

"If you really believe in the resurrection, it frees you to take risks now. You do not have to have every experience, every pay rise and career promotion and squeeze everything into this one life. There is another life and you can live vulnerably, sacrificially for others." Tim Costello

But for a long time the 'do not have to have's' are things I've sought after. And I've not lived, correction am not living sacrificially for others. Yet I do believe Christ rose from the dead on that first Easter morning.

The answer I think lies in words that Charlene used to a troubled Peter (The Cornish Vicar's Daughter - Chapter 17, page 360 )...

"I think Janet has helped you understand God's promises. And you believe them. But now what you have to do is trust those beliefs. Nobody can do that for you. The only way is to start trusting God and then find out he doesn't let you down."

So perhaps I need answer truthfully the challenges the Archbishop made just after Tim Costello's words. "Have I turned from self-rule, self-promotion, self-obsession?" I think I've got some work to do here!

... perhaps the most important Christian truth but one many people find the hardest to believe. After all most of the time, doesn't the world teach us gifts expect something in return? And certainly not to expect any favours we don't deserve. As a child I soon learned good behaviour was the way to get what I wanted. And bad behaviour worked in reverse. But not with God. Even when we really bad, God's favour holds fast.  And that means his love and offer of forgiveness remain.

I always thought the book of Proverbs was just made up of wise quips like 'A stitch in time saves nine'. [The actual words in this Bible book are 'Prevention is better than cure'].

.Ecclesiastes, I've never bothered with much. The one verse I do remember is Chapter 1 verse 9 '... there is nothing new under the sun.' This parallels with the words often used to belittle a new idea - 'we've been here before'.