Can we pray big prayers? If we can, why? Does God answer them? How do we pray big prayers without sounding self-confident? Dave sheds some light on all this and more from Psalm 139 and Mark 2, as we unpack more about the nature and character of God.

Have you ever heard someone praying and thought, "I wish I could pray like that"?
Often the work of becoming a confident, natural pray-er is less about the words we say and more about relationship with God we're praying too. Prayer grows out of relationship. Preaching from Matthew 6, Dave shows us what sort of relationship we can have with God that will fuel our prayers.

Many of us say The Lord's Prayer regularly, but immediately preceding the Lord's Prayer in Scripture (Luke 11:1) is a humble request from a disciple that we may not be familiar with: "Lord, teach us to pray." How we pray will largely be governed by who we understand God to be. In Luke 11 Jesus taught his disciples to pray to their Father, and in Psalm 139 David prays to a God of omnipresence. We, too, are invited to pray, but we may need to humble ourselves first and ask, "Lord, teach us to pray."

After 41 chapters of suffering, judgement, almost-wisdom, and actual wisdom, the story of Job comes to an end. And it would've ended with Job sitting in despair in dust and ashes, but for the grace of God. In a generous outpouring of his grace on Job, God lovingly lifts Job out of the ash heap and blesses his socks off. And that God is the same God who lovingly offers to lift us up and grant us life eternal through Jesus.

Finally, after 35 chapters of conjecture, almost-wisdom, judgment, justification, attack, and defense, God speaks. And as he speaks the ground literally shakes! Out of a storm, the voice of God thunders, asking Job, 'Where were you...?" God reminds Job that he and he alone is eternal and omniscient. Job need not fear God, but he also must not speak about that which he doesn't understand: a challenge for us all.

There are many things that our culture has accepted as true and wise, our own cultural proverbs, that don't pass the wisdom test on closer inspection. These are examples of 'almost-wisdom', and almost wisdom can be dangerous when accepted as true wisdom. Dave preaches from Job 32-37 about how Elihu's speeches fit between almost-wisdom and true, godly wisdom, and what it looks like to receive and live-out true wisdom.

On Sunday we took a break from our series in Job to hear from a good friend of the parish, Scott Doran-Sargent from CMS Tasmania. Scott preached from Luke 10 about the mission of 'The Seventy-Two' and what we can learn from them about our own mission locally, as well as around the world.

Stephen preaches on 'Where Is Wisdom Found' from Job 28, and what wisdom looks like as it is lived out.

The only thing worse than suffering alone is suffering alongside people who ridicule and berate you. This was Job's unfortunate experience. The story of Job doesn't give us a lot of help in how to care for someone who is grieving, but it does show us what not to do. Stephen's sermon helps us understand how to be compassionate friends when people we love are suffering and we don't have any answers for them.

There is much to marvel at in the book of Job, much to capture our imagination and pique our interest. But at the core of this incredible book is the reality of suffering. This story raises all sorts of questions, and in doing, gives us permission to ask questions about God that we may have thought were off-limits. In the opening chapters of Job, Dave shares how we are given permission through Job and Jesus to accept the inevitable seasons of life that feel like 'dust and ashes'.