Today we have something a little bit different as our face-to-face  meeting was shifted online due to Covid. Instead of a regular sermon Geoff guided us through a Bible study using a range of visual tools to help show how he reads the Bible and prepares his messages.

These incredible stories are signposts for us in the gospel of Mark. Jesus didn’t heal everyone in the world or raise every dead person in the region. But in these examples, we see what his kingdom will be like in the time to come. God is remaking the world through Jesus and one day his kingdom will look like all the signposts that Jesus left behind in his ministry. The oppressed are set free, the afflicted are healed, the blind have their sight restored, the dead are raised, and all injustices will be made right. The greatest signpost of all being the cross upon which Jesus died as a sign of his great love and his power over sin and death.

The mustard bush was not a plant that any farmer would sow into his field. They are an invasive plant that grows and takes over! It is a weed! And the kingdom of God is like this, it will get into every nook and cranny, it will find every space and it will grow. There is no stopping it! The kingdom of God is going to uproot the kingdom of the world, it is going to overthrow the corrupt systems and rulers. It is going to restore what has been broken, and free the oppressed, and comfort the mourning. And it will be a refuge for all people.

Ultimately, spiritual maturity is about balance. We want to be sensitive to the subtle and emotive voice of the Holy Spirit whilst being tempered with the wisdom and discernment that the Holy Spirit offers. Simply being stoic and emotionless does not make you mature; it makes you a cold and unfeeling. At the same time, always being ‘led’ to do things without wisdom, discernment, and appropriate restraint does not make you a spiritual giant it makes you a weirdo. Neither of these extremes produce good fruit or are helpful in building up the body.

God is love. God is not some warmongering, violent, capricious, malicious, angry being in heaven that hates everyone who disagrees with him. God is love and he sends his son as the witness and example of that love, and his son dies for us. This is the ultimate example of love: To lay down one's life for one’s friends.

There are definitely things in your life that need a pruning. Old ways of thinking, habits, toxic ambitions, destructive behaviour, selfishness… even grief and hurt. These things must give way so that new things can grow.

Jesus’ physical incarnation, physical death, and physical resurrection, marked by Christmas and Easter, are central to his embodiment of humanity and show us that the flesh is fundamentally good and capable of housing the divine presence.

Our bodies are not bad. Our flesh is not bad. This world is not bad. When God created the earth and everything within it, he called it  ‘good’, and when he made humanity from the dust of the ground, he proclaimed us to be ‘very good’.

When the judgement ultimately comes it will not be the destruction of the world, it will be the destruction of death and the restoration of the world.

I choose to believe because the world truly needs to be saved and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the beautiful kingdom that he represents are honestly the hope of the world. As I have studied and travelled, as I have sought wisdom and truth, I keep coming back to Jesus as the centre of my life.