Central Church - A church in Edinburgh, Scotland

The smallest step can start a journey. The smallest act can have the greatest impact. The smallest change can bring us together as a family. Being a disciple involves action that demonstrates the new life we are living!

Jesus cares about our relationships with each other. The life of a follower of Jesus is a life free of judgement. As we learn to be family together we need to follow this example given to us by Jesus to look to our own lives first before judging those around us. This doesn’t mean that we only mind our own business and never speak with correction into the lives of others but rather that Jesus calls us to attend to our own ‘stuff’ first. What are the most prevalent ‘planks’ in our church family? How does Jesus call us to live in relationship with each other, what does it mean for us to be true and truthful with each other.

Our confidence is found in God’s character and Jesus gives us an incredible picture here of what our Heavenly Father is like. He is our provider completely, he has an intimate knowledge of our needs. Jesus tells us again and again here ‘do not worry’, which in an anxiety-ridden society can seem like the best and worst thing to hear. How can we live by these words of Jesus not to worry today – it starts not with our circumstances which may induce worry but with our relationship with God and our knowledge and assurance of who he is.

Our society and culture glorifies possessions and money and a lot of us have a lot of it. Even if you don’t, the claim that treasure and money has over us is huge. Jesus does not forbid us having stuff and having money, but he is concerned with how we use it and how we view it. As we live a life of generosity, how does Jesus’ call to us here redirect our focus towards our stuff? How do we as followers of Jesus in Edinburgh live differently with our possessions and our money?

Karl Martin's last sermon as our Senior Pastor

Jesus leads us in the way of devotion to God through the practices of prayer and fasting. Basically, he tells us how to pray and how not to pray, how to fast and how not to fast. He undermines all the ‘religiousness’ that existed in his culture around prayer and fasting and that often exists in our own. Devotion to God is not back-bending to rules and regulations, nor is it putting on a front of piety. Devotion to God starts and ends with knowing God as Father.

A generous life fuelled by the words of Jesus is one that does not live for the approval of others. Jesus confronts head-on our attempts to ‘look’ good rather than ‘be’ good. As those who seek to love Edinburgh and beyond we are called to live lives of self-forgetful service of the needy, living for the reward of the Father’s pleasure.

A generous life fuelled by the words of Jesus is one of radical, active love. Being family together as followers of Jesus means that we should seek to possess a generosity of spirit that gives and gives just as God has given to us. It means we are to live lives of love – not limited love, but unlimited love, love to the just and the unjust, love as we have been loved. Generosity starts in our hearts. We will never know what to do with our stuff (money, possessions, time) if we don’t know our ‘why’ and the ‘why’ of a generous life is love.

As followers of Jesus we are called to live lives of truth and integrity. Anger is an issue in our culture, lust is an issue in our culture, fidelity and honesty are not modelled for us – we are called to be people who live differently. Jesus reveals in us the vicious cycles we get caught in but more importantly he shows us how to break the cycle and gives us a vision for life in his Kingdom.

Jesus brings fulfilment to all that we read in Scripture, he is its culmination, he is its accomplishment. Life in the Kingdom of God is one where we both live out (practice)and pass on (teach)the things of God. Jesus is speaking here to who he is, not just a revolutionary leader, not just a man of subversive and attractive views but one who is the complete fulfilment of all we have heard, Jesus in both his words and his ways can trusted, then and now.