Creation waits for the revealing of the children of God

Here's the sermon that I shared this morning at St Gabriel's Pitsea:

We live in a world that, as St Paul described in Romans 8.12-25, is groaning because of its enslavement to decay and futility. What the Bible describes as the effects of sin impacts the world in terms of: our propensity to engulf the nations of the world in conflict; our greed which leaves some nations and individuals with too much by way of resources and others with too little; and our thirst for energy which has changed the climate in ways that threaten sustainability.

St Paul says that the solution to this is to be found in the reality and realisation that we are children of God. The creation, he writes, ‘waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God’ and it is only as the children of God are revealed that ‘the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God’.

This is because we naturally tend, as human beings, toward living life selfishly by putting ourselves first and looking after No. 1. This is what scientists describe when they talk about us having selfish genes which get us ready to live in a world that is about the survival of the fittest.

Jesus shows us a new and different way of being human, however. He gave his life so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. Jesus allowed his own life to end so that all people could know what it is like to really live. Not to live in the old, selfish, self-centred way of being human but to live in his new way of being human, loving God with all our being and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

It is this way of life that we enter when we realise we are God’s children and are baptised. When Jesus was baptised (Mark 1.9-15), he saw heaven opening, the Spirit coming down on him like a dove, and he heard a voice from heaven saying, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.” As he was baptised, he was immediately affirmed as God’s Son.

It is easy for us to think that that only applies to Jesus. That it was a special word spoken by God the Father especially to him and, on one level, no doubt it was. But the Bible makes it quite clear that Jesus came into our world and laid down his life to make us one with God so that, as Christians, we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters, members of the same family – God’s family – and co-heirs with Jesus of everything that he has.

Let’s remind ourselves of what St Paul says about this in Romans 8. 14-17: “Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children. For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, Father! my Father! God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him …”

So, baptism is about moving from the old way of being human to Jesus’ new way of being human. It is about dying to the old purely materialistic way of life and taking up the new way of life which Jesus shows to us. We ask those who are baptised to: continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers; persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord; proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ; seek and serve Christ in all people, loving our neighbour as ourself; acknowledge Christ’s authority over human society, by prayer for the world and its leaders, by defending the weak, and by seeking peace and justice; so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, that we may be rooted and grounded in love and bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. We ask this because, as Jesus said, it is by their fruits (their deeds) that true Christians will be known.

When we do these things we begin living the new way of life to which Jesus calls us and we are revealed as the children of God. As we live differently, selflessly, we impact the planet in different ways that are positive, not negative. This is why St Paul says the world is waiting ‘with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God’.

James Thwaites has written about this passage in Romans suggesting that the creation is crying out: ‘for its goodness to be fully realised and fully released. The creation cannot be good apart from the sons and daughters because we alone were given the right to name it; we are the image bearers who were made to speak moral value and divine intent into it. We were created to draw forth the attributes, nature and power of God in all things.’

He writes about the cry of sonship, pointing out that, because Christians have received the Spirit of adoption, they are sons and daughters of God who cry out "Abba, Father". He argues that this identity releases believers from fear and calls them into an eternal inheritance. 

He also notes the cry of creation and suggests that the physical creation is actively crying out for the full realization of its goodness. He argues that humans were made to be image-bearers who bring out the inherent possibilities and divine intent of the world through their everyday work and creativity. This is the task that we all have as human being and the calling on our lives our baptism. 

Then, he writes about the divine purpose in "all things". He looks at the phrase "all things work together for good" as proof of God's intimate involvement in the physical world and God's call for believers to engage with creation to bring it to its fullness. Ultimately, Thwaites uses Romans 8 to argue that followers of Jesus should stop treating the physical world as something to be abandoned. Instead, he believes Christians are tasked with noticing and nurturing God's goodness in their everyday lives and vocations.

This is the purpose for which we were created and for which the creation itself is crying out. Instead of the selfish and wasteful exploitation of creation’s resources – the domination and abuse – which characterises human engagement with the world, we are intended to creatively realise the inherent possibilities, the essential goodness, of creation through our imaginative ability as those who notice and name. We are able to do this because we have left our old, selfish way of life behind and have been adopted by God as his children, becoming brothers and sisters of Jesus, co-heirs with him of all he possesses. This is what we celebrate today and what we are challenged to be and to become as we begin to live the new way of being human that was first shown to us by Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Steve Scott - Different Kind Of Light.   

In Christ Jesus you are all children of God

Here's the sermon that I shared this morning at St Andrew’s Wickford:

Rowan Williams has written that, “all human identity is constructed through conversations, in one way or another.” First, we have to become aware of someone other than ourselves. Jonathan Sacks says, “we must learn to listen and be prepared to be surprised by others … make ourselves open to their stories, which may profoundly conflict with ours … we must learn the art of conversation, from which truth emerges … by the … process of letting our world be enlarged by the presence of others who think, act, and interpret reality in ways radically different from our own.”

Second, by these conversations we become aware of ourselves. As people, we are not autonomous constructions. Instead, our individual identities are gifted to us by the people, events, stories and histories that we encounter as we go through life. If there was no one and nothing outside of ourselves, we would have no reference points in life, no way of knowing what is unique and special about ourselves. In conversations we become aware of how we differ from others and therefore what is unique about ourselves.

Finally, in conversations we also become aware of what we have in common with others. Conversation is something that you can only do with someone else. Therefore, Charles Taylor has argued that, opening a conversation is to inaugurate a common action. A conversation is ‘our’ action, something we are both involved in together. In this way, conversation reminds us of those things that “we can only value or enjoy together” and is, as Rowan Williams has said, “an acknowledgement that someone else’s welfare is actually constitutive of my own.”

Although this is our natural way of learning our identity, there is an inherent danger which we see St Paul address in our New Testament reading today (Galatians 3.23-end). That is, by defining ourselves against others we can come to see ourselves as being so different from them that we either look down on them and consider ourselves as better than them or view them as our enemies. When we get into that mindset, we can ultimately scapegoat and attack others, as is the case currently when political parties blame migration for all the problems experienced in our society.

Jesus gave a good example of this happening when he told the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. The Pharisee in Jesus’s parable arrogantly compared himself over and against other people: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ The fundamental comparison that we make should not be with others, but with God. Jesus challenged us to ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ On the basis of that comparison, we all fall short. As St Paul writes, ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’

In Galatians 3, Paul says that, once we find our identity in Jesus, there is no need for other comparisons and we can see ourselves as all being children of God: “in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

When we find our identity in Jesus, we know that we are loved absolutely and fully as we are and, therefore, have no need to compare ourselves with others, whether we think we are better or worse that others. Then, all the labels that we put on ourselves to identify ourselves – old or young, white or black, gay or straight, Catholic or Protestant, West Ham or Spurs, whatever – cease to matter and we see ourselves as equals, brothers and sisters of Jesus, all together members of God’s family.

This is the route to harmony within society. It is the path to peace between nations and races. It is the kingdom of God on earth as in heaven. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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U2 - COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?)