Our Political leaders don’t always act rightly. How should the people of God respond?

INTRODUCTION We come to a new section in Luke, 18:15-17, which is of great interest to us because Jesus talks about children. Children play a large part in our lives and are very important to us. The world has many wrong understandings about children that need correcting. Children are viewed as discardable tissue or part of a woman’s body and so can be aborted at their convenience. Others see children as possessions that belong to them to shape and mold as they desire. Many have child idolatry where their sense of identity and purpose is wrapped up in children. Many think that children are angels that are sinless and can do no wrong. Today we are seeing an increase in seeking to make children independent and autonomous as young as possible, the key new role being defined for parents is one enabler, and facilitator of self-discovery and self-definition. The traditional parental role of helping our children to know the truth about God, the world and themselves is now perceived as oppression and an imposition. The Bible of course has always presented God’s view of these things, children are not a mass of tissue, nor even technically part of a woman’s body, they are unique human beings made in the image of God with an eternal soul. Children are not our possessions but gifts from God. They are not our idols but a stewardship that we will have to one day give an account for. They are not angels but sinners in need of salvation in Jesus Christ, and they need the new birth to help them produce Christlikeness. They are not autonomous self-defining deities, they are created beings accountable to God entrusted to the delegated authority of their parents who are obliged by God to love them, model good behavior...

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INTRODUCTION Christmas time is supposed to be a time of great joy. But many people are sad. You have heard of S.A.D., seasonally affected disorder. This usually describes people who react badly to winter weather because there is less sunshine, but many are affected by the approaching Christmas season as well. There are the usual reasons for feeling sad, maybe it is separation from loved ones, or the loss of a loved one. Maybe it is coming to the end of a rough year where many expectations went unmet and many hardships surprised us. There are added troubles this year as we have another Covid Christmas. The world is more joyless than usual at this time. There has been a 28% rise in Covid related depression, 53 million cases. There has been a 26% rise in Covid related cases of anxiety, 76 million new cases. There has been a 15% rise in eating disorders among young people during Covid. There has been an increase in domestic violence. On and on we could go, we live in difficult times.

INTRODUCTION Jeremiah 17:9 says of our hearts, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?’ Our hearts are self-deceiving, in other words we lie to ourselves. We deceive ourselves about many things but two stand out in our text today. We lie to ourselves about our own goodness; and we lie to ourselves about others sinfulness. We come another famous parable of Christ in Luke 18:9-14, the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Jesus has been speaking about how we ought to persevere in prayer, this parable too is about prayer. Jesus here teaches us the proper attitude that makes us and our prayers acceptable to God.

INTRODUCTION The Puritan Samuel Rutherford, in a letter to a man who doubted whether he was a Christian wrote this: ‘We being born in atheism, and bairns (children) of the house we are come of, it is no new thing, my dear brother, for us to be under jealousies and mistakes about the love of God.’1 Having atheist hearts that are in disposition contrary to God we call God a liar instead of believing He cannot lie; we believe God vacillates and changes instead of believing that He cannot change; we believe that God is against us when He says He is for us. We credit Him with injustice not perfect justice; folly not perfect wisdom; indifference not Fatherly care. There is no part of God that has not been attacked and doubted by our hearts.

INTRODUCTION Prayer is something that every Christian does, but nobody does well. Prayer is the native tongue of faith, but we trend towards doubt. Prayer is the hearts’ expression of love to God, but we are often cold towards God. Prayer is the outlet of holy desire, but we are full of sinful desires. We struggle to pray and we struggle to pray well. This could be because of sin in our lives that we withdraw from God’s searching gaze. This could be because of the business of life where the urgent drives out the important. It could be that our hearts have grown cold as we have binged on things that steal our spiritual hunger. We need to know how to pray like our bodies need to know how to breath. But here is the difference where breathing is instinctive prayer is deliberate. Add to this the fact that the Church and the Christian are often under duress. They experience trials from both within and without. Add to this the fact that God does not always answer prayer when and how we want Him to. This adds extra layers of difficulty to an already difficult task.

Overview We come now to the end of the book of Ephesians. This is one of Paul’s denser letters as it focused us on God’s work of building the church. Where Romans is a tour de force of the Gospel, Ephesians is considered Paul’s tour de force of the church. In concluding our sermon series let me attempt to give a view from 30 000 feet. The basic thrust of the letter is God’s work in Christ to make a new humanity for a new creation. Firstly, let me give the large sections that we covered. After the introduction of 1:1-2 we see a description of the new life we have in Christ in 1:3-2:10; then Paul describes the new family that we are in Christ in 2:11-3:21, in particular the idea of Jews and Gentiles in one body; then in 4:1-5:21 that new standards that we are to live by in Christ; 5:22-6:9 describes our new relationships in Christ, and 6:10-20 our new struggle with the devil in Christ.

INTRODUCTION We come to the last message on spiritual warfare. We have spoken about the strength that God gives us by His Spirit; and we have looked at the pieces of the armour as the equipment every Christian is equipped with for the fight. But our last message was on one of the most important aspects of our warfare and that is prayer. Prayer is indeed the greatest need of every believer and the greatest need of the church. Prayer is the God given means by which we appropriate all of God’s strength for the fight. Paul spends more time talking about prayer than any of the other pieces of the armour and so I have as well. Today as we end this series we will look at Ephesians 6:18-20 and the call to intercessory prayer, forgive me as I skip persevering prayer, this will be my next sermon next Sunday morning, ‘praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.’

Introduction It has been announced that on the 3rd of December all of NZ will enter the new Traffic Light situation. Along with many mandates affecting all areas of society, the church has not been left unaffected. We have been locked down and unable to meet; we have been told who can and can’t enter our buildings with and without vaccination certificates, and recently it has been mandated that all church staff who are not vaccinated will make the church liable for a $15 000 fine, whether you are asking for certificates or not. Our ability to meet, who we let through the door, and now the basis upon which we call a pastor have all been challenged and rewritten by the government. We are nearing the point of civil disobedience where we have no choice but to obey God rather than men.