Hello and welcome to Tuesday’s foundations podcast.

Our reading today is 1 Timothy 1: 8-11. We’re going to focus on verse 8:  We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.

REFLECTION:

We’ve got two kids – Naomi and Isaac (excitingly number three is also on the way in the summer) and I love them very dearly but like all kids they certainly have their moments. As part of bath and bedtime routine, we try and pray together – “a good and noble thing to do” I hear you say!  We use the teaspoon model in encouraging them to pray. What we’ve found is that our kids are generally pretty good at picking up on something that they are thankful for – even if it is Postman Pat or the fact that we had sausages for tea. They seem to remember people in particular that we praying for and of course all our prayers always end by asking Jesus to help us sleep all night long (a no-brainer!). However we often find that when it comes to saying sorry for something they are a little more reticent. ‘Do you need to say sorry for anything today?’ we often ask our daughter. Her reply is often,’ No!’ And particularly when we’re tired and we’re trying to wrap things up for the day – trying to pull a sorry out for her can feel a little bit of an effort and a source of frustration to us.

As I read these words from Paul to Timothy today, I pictured those frustrating moments at bedtimes. And in part I think it’s because it’s hit on something we all know to be true – that we’re generally not very good at saying sorry. It often seems to be a battle to teach our children to say it but in part this may be due to the fact that they see the grownups struggling with it as well. How many times have I sat there in our prayer times and struggled when it comes to saying sorry? Perhaps it’s because we don’t like to dwell on the times we mess up, the times we fall short, the times a situation gets the better of us. If we’re being really honest we’d rather avoid that kind of self introspection altogether really – maybe that’s just me though!

Here’s the thing – saying sorry matters. In order to grow in our faith and to receive more of the better life Jesus has for us – our vision here at STC this year – then we need to embrace our need for a saviour. The better life we receive in Christ and in turn invite others to experience isn’t something we can just muster up ourselves, isn’t some kind of self help programme – it’s free, it’s grace, and it’s something that only God can bring us.

Why are we talking about this? Well Paul in today’s reading talks about the law. He’s talking about what we read about in the Old Testament. Moses and the Ten commandments and then beyond that further commands and instructions given to the people of Israel which helped them to understand how they were to relate to and be in the presence of the one true holy God.

Paul writes that the ‘law is good’ (verse 8). When we think of the law we often think rules and regulations and perhaps maybe the almost bizarre minutiae of it all – stuff to do with mildew and goats’ milk. We can look at it and think – this isn’t relevant to me. And yet Paul says that the law is good if it’s used properly.

And it’s good because it shows us just how much we are in need of a saviour. Just how far away we are from bridging the gap between us and God – the source of life and life in all it fullness. The Gospel means that we can’t save us. And that’s why the word sorry so often sticks on our tongue and sounds painful to our ears because, particularly in our western culture, we don’t like being told we’ve got it wrong. It’s always something else’s fault and not ours.

The thing is unless we embrace that fact that we do and will continue to mess up, that we lose our rag when trying to parent a toddler who continually tries to run away every time we take him out somewhere, or when we gesticulate at the person who cuts you up on the co...