Talk @ Radley Chapel Mid week :: Gayle Williams

Imagine if helping someone out, let’s say explaining to them what’s for prep, or helping them to understand something they missed, involved a 10% chance of losing a pound on your shop account. Would you still do it?
Or how about, Imagine if community service on Wednesday actually cost you extra. Let’s you had a 50% chance that you’d get kicked out of your rugby team as a result. Would you bother doing community service?
How about if you wanted to help out children with disabilities to learn to live with their disabilities, but it involved living with no protection in a war zone, in a culture where people like you are murdered every week. Would any of us do that?
Perhaps you’ve guessed today’s famous Christian already. Gayle Williams said yes to that last question. Only two weeks ago the British aid worker was alive, working with the poorest and most unfortunate of the children in Afghanistan, young boys and girls who had lost limbs to landmines and bombs, teaching them the basic skills needed to survive in a harsh and violent land.
10 days ago she was murdered by the Taleban while walking along a quiet, tree-lined street in Kabul on her way to work.
Gayle Williams dedication was remarkable. She lived to serve the people of Afghanistan. Her mother said, "Gayle was serving a people that she loved, and felt God called her to be there for such a time as this,"
Unlike many aid workers, she believed in living among the people she served, staying in a modest private house, shunning an armed escort in favour of using her own two feet. She made an easy target for the two gunmen who had been lying in wait for her.
Gayle Williams was committed to serve a country not her own and prepared to pay the price. Committed to such an extent she had already made clear her wish to be buried there. In the 19 th century missionaries would head off from England to Africa with their possessions packed in a coffin. There was no doubt they would not be coming back. and I suppose Gayle Williams was the modern equivalent.
But why? What would drive a person to such immense sacrifice. Many of us, I suppose would find it hard to live our whole lives abroad in France, let alone a 3rd world muslim culture, let alone one where life is far more precarious commodity. Why did she do it?
The Chairman of her Charity, Mike Lyth said: "We are Christian - that is what gives us the motivation to go into a dangerous and difficult country to try to help”
The words we have just read in our reading, I imagine were quite familiar to Ms Williams. “
5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
………
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Why did she do it? I can see at least three reasons in those verses. A role model and reason and a resource for her sacrifice.
A role model in Jesus Christ. Gayle Williams’ Lord had relinquished the glory of heaven to come down to earth for mankind. Couldn’t she relinquish the comforts of her materially wealthy and secure existence for the people of Afghanistan. I wonder couldn’t we?
A reason. Another famous missionary once said, “If Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him”. I wonder can we identify with that?
A resource. Surely very few men or women could pluck up the courage to do this alone. Her mother again. Gayle “died doing what she felt the Lord had called her [to] and she is definitely with him”. God had called her and equipped her to do the job. She found it not in herself but in Christ to do this thing.

Talk @ Saygo :: Jesus is King :: 2 Samuel 7

The Promises of God

This term we’re looking at God’s promises through the bible. You could say the bible is a record of God’s faithfulness. It’s all about how God makes promises and keeps them.

In the first week we saw how powerful God’s words alone were. He spoke the universe into being. Then we saw his promise that after Adam and eve rebelled against him in the garden, they’d have to work the ground hard to get food out of it to survive, there’d be pain in child bearing, and they would eventually die. Since then we’ve heard about how God promised to Abraham to bless all people through his offspring beginning to reverse the effects of what happened in the Garden, how God later promised to save the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and then he did. We’ve learnt how God promised to be with his people in the desert. Every time God makes a promise he keeps it.

Today we’re jumping forward a few hundred years forward and  we’re going to look at a promise, God’s promise to David, king of Israel.

I want to focus just on verses 12-13 today.

This is what God said to king David.

When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

So there’s going to be a son of David whose kingdom will last forever. There’s going to be a son of David whose kingdom will last forever.

Great news for God’s people. 

But hang on. God said there’s going to be a son of David whose throne will last forever. Forever, as in starting from when he said it to now – and then on until forever in the future.

Can any one see an obvious problem there? 

What kind of a man was ever going to fulfil that? How was God ever going to fulfil his promise of a King if he had to chose from among men? 

Well that promise has not remained unfulfilled. The kingdom of David will remain forever, because Jesus has taken up that throne never to relinquish it. Jesus is the promised King. [SLIDE][SLIDE]

That’s my main point this evening, and if you take nothing else home with you this evening, remember that. JESUS is KING. [SLIDE]

How do we know it was Jesus God was speaking about? Well Jesus is the fulfilment of the Old Testament. He said that about himself, and the apostles believed that about him too. [SLIDE] Look at what Paul says. “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ” 2 Cor 1:20. The OT is full of promises waiting to be fulfilled. Questions waiting to be answered. Jesus is where the promises come true, he is the answer to every one.  

Take this for example. What did God say to David about the promised King in verse 14? “I will be his father, and he will be my son”. Hmm. How about when Jesus rocked up. As he came out of the water after his baptism, a voice rang out in from the heavens “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Still not convinced this verse in 2 Samuel is fulfilled in Jesus? Well look at verse 12 ‘I will raise up your offspring to succeed you’.  And Jesus is indeed a son of David. Have you ever wondered why there are long lists of who was whose father and so on in the bible? [SLIDE] It’s because the writers want us to know that Jesus is in David’s line. Jesus’ great great ….grandad was David. It all fits into the promise. But there’s more. God had said “I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” No man could fulfil that. But[SLIDE] Jesus burst through the grave and out the other side to live for ever. There will be no end to Jesus.  Jesus is the one who rules on God’s throne, for ever. 

So [SLIDE] Jesus is King. [SLIDE]And that has some big consequences.

Let’s get back to our far away island, Archibaldina and Enry the extra terrestrial.

There’s no doubt in your mind. You Archibaldina know the Arrival of a Monarch requires action. [SLIDE]Her position, [SLIDE]her presence and [SLIDE] her power demand you do something.  Because of where she is in hierarchy, because of who she is as a person  and because of what she can do, the Queen requires a particular response. When the queen comes, you can’t just [SLIDE] whack on your swimmers and go and do beach yoga like nothing’s any different.. [SLIDE] Oh no

[SLIDE] It’s the same with Jesus. If Jesus is King because of  his position, his presence and his power, because of where he stands in the order of creation, because of who he is and because of what he can do [SLIDE] we can’t just ignore him and carry on life as if he didn’t exist. [SLIDE] Jesus is King and requires a response. We’re going to look in turn at these three

So firstly, Jesus the King’s position.

The Queen arrives at the hotel, and the first thing you notice is that before you see anything of the queen loads of other people start flooding the building. The PAs and administrators making sure that all the right people are lined up for when she comes. The peculiar lady who comes and checks the loos are decent for when the queen gets in a spot of gastronomic bother. Each one of them carrying out the Queen’s wishes.

You see the Queen has a privileged position. Because of where she is in hierarchy, it is her place to give orders. The whole Island belongs to her. You just do what she says.

And so with Jesus. [SLIDE]Jesus has the highest, most privileged position. (you and me for comparison) He’s the King over all the earth. On that basis alone, because of his position, because he is so much higher than us, because he is so the top of the pile and we so aren’t, because every person, indeed every molecule owes its existence to him. [SLIDE] We should obey him.

Let me ask, do we believe Jesus is King? So are we prepared to obey him? For example, though of course this isn’t all there is to say, Not to join in the gossip about others at school, not to laugh at those who are weak, not to have sex until we marry, not to get drunk with our mates? Or actively, to sit next the person everyone else has written off in class, to honour our parents decisions, to take care of the new kids this year.  Put it this way. If Jesus says do one thing, and I want to do another. Which one do I end up doing? Because of Jesus position we should obey him.

[SLIDE] Second, Jesus the King’s presence.

This was something you, Archibaldina really struggled to explain to enry the extraterrestrial before the queen showed. ‘You’ll just feel it’, you said, ‘she’ll have an aura, a sort of force field around her. Wherever she goes there’ll be like an invisible cloud of significance all around her. People tend to stare, they go wobbly at the knees and make ridiculous sentences with words in the wrong order. They know they’re in the presence of greatness, and that makes everything different. You feel you owe her something somehow. You catch yourself automatically bowing your head in honour…”

Well if that’s a fair description of what it’s like in the presence of an earthly monarch, how much more being the presence of God’s King. And actually that’s where we are now, and at any time in fact. Perhaps you’ve had a glimpse of what it’s like to be in the royal presence of King Jesus. 

I wonder, do we [slide] honour Jesus in his presence? Or do we talk of him lightly even dismissively.  For Christ’s sake, Jesus Christ. That’s the name of our ruler and judge were dialling up there.  

Now don’t get me wrong it’s good not to take ourselves too seriously, we don’t want to prim and proper hypocrites, but do we ever make a joke of Jesus? Perhaps we’re tempted to laugh about his words in the bible, perhaps we joke about prayer, far more likely we’re just indifferent, unimpressed unmoved when he speaks. Does that honour Jesus? Have we ever sat there listening to his word, but our thoughts are somewhere else completely. Have we ever been challenged by him but instead of responding ignored him.

Jesus presence means we should honour him.

[SLIDE] Finally Jesus the King’s power.

Jesus is powerful.

Modern monarchs may be fairly powerless when it comes down to it. These days they command respect but not armies.

Not Jesus. Jesus is truly powerful. The bible says that he will come back not in humble form of an infant, but on the clouds of heaven with authority, glory and sovereign power to judge all peoples. [SLIDE] We may not see that now, but there’ll be a day [SLIDE] when there will be no doubt[SLIDE][SLIDE] Those who have recognised his rule, he will spare but those who don’t he will say I do not know you and throw them where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. [SLIDE] Jesus is truly powerful and we are right to fear Him. We don’t need to scared, not frightened because his awesome power works for those who fear him, not against them, but we should fear him.

I couldn’t put it better than C.S. Lewis when he describes how Eustace met the Lion Aslan. Aslan is the Christ figure in the book.

Eustace, who has been cursed and made into a dragon says,  ``Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it - if you can understand. Well, it came closer up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it.''

``You mean it spoke?''

``I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it.

[LAST SLIDE]

God promised a King whose kingdom would never fall. Jesus is that King. Let’s obey him, honour him and fear him.

PRAY

Talk @ Radley. Tempus Fugit - Do what counts Matthew 6:19-21

Imagine you were going to be dead in two years from now. Each minute of your existence eating into the 730 remaining days of your life on this earth. If you knew your life were going to end at that point, do you think you would have behaved differently today.

Would you still have had a lie in? Would you have gone to shop and bought a chicken roll for your mate as well? Would you still have worked on your coursework? Would you still not have worked on your coursework? Would you have played more or less cod? Would you have rung up the girl you’ve never rung up but always wanted to? Would you have prayed more or less? What would you have done differently if you knew time was short?

My cousin-in-law Johnny was a strapping lad just like you lot. Tall, strong, good looking, a great sense of humour and I guess many would have said, with the world at his feet. Not three weeks before his funeral he had been on a beach holiday celebrating his A level

results, looking forward to a fun-packed gap year in South America .

On coming home he fell ill and tragically died a few days later in late August  this year. He was 18.

Johnny’s death hit us hard as a family, but it left its mark even beyond the heart wrenching grief of losing a loved one. It gave a profound sense of “Tempus fugit”. “Time flies” or better translated “Time flees”.

2 years is about the average distance in age between you boys and Johnny. It’s  possible that one of us here has only 2 years left.  And when an end is insight boy does time fly.  Think of those dying minutes for Australia v Wales on Saturday. After that last minute try the wallabies must have felt every last slippery second of that match run away as they looked for just three more points before the whistle.

The fact is whether we have 90 minutes, 2, 20 or 80 years left, it makes no difference. At some point in life we will be counting the days, and asking ourselves what we’ve done with what we had.

“Tempus fugit” and That begs the question. What is it that really counts? What are we to do with all these minutes that we have? What constitutes a moment well spent and what’s a moment wasted?

 On the rugby field it’s pretty clear what counts. There a few rules that say stuff like if you chuck the inflatable oval thing on the floor and then boot it and it goes through the middle of the great big poles you get three points on your score board, Bottom line - what counts is the score at the end. A good minute is one that adds to the scoreboard.

How about in the game of life? What if anything, is the stuff that really counts? When the final whistle blows what are we left with? What will be forgotten and what will remains?

Is it possible to get it wrong? Like the skills show off in a game of football. You know how annoying it is, you’re out for an intersocial game of footy down the stro, and it turns out you’ve got the guy who’s obsessed with his own skills. Every time he gets the ball, he’s got plenty of options, he could lay it down the left wing, cross it over to the gap on the far side, but it’s head down and off he dribbles. I mean he’s not bad, he manages to shimmy past a couple of defenders but in the end he always holds onto it for too long and you lose possession. It’s just frustrating isn’t it? The point of the game is to score. When you go back to social no one’s going to ask you how were your skills. You don’t get points in football for leg work, it’s balls in the net that count.

How about in the game of life? Is it possible that in some way we live life like the skills show off, missing what counts. It looks good, we’re skilful, the centre of attention, in fact better than many people at a whole load of stuff, hockey, partying, lying,  going to church, schmoozing, bantering, philosophising, sacrificing, what ever it is, but we don’t ever get what really counts. So we get to the end of life and the scoreboard is empty.

What is it that counts in life?

Jesus said,

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

So there are things that last. There is a final scoreboard, so to speak, and it’s different from what we see and get now.

There are “treasures on earth” stuff that we want that looks good, but doesn’t last.  Fortune, Fame, Fashion. Fortune -We can’t take our cash, our car, or our castle with us when we die – even if we give them to our kids, they can’t either. Fame - even the coolest, most popular, most well known amongst us, even if they manage to escape besmirching by the sun will eventually be forgotten, and Fashion? well just like shell bedtime when you get to heaven you have to leave your ipod and your phone in a box at the door and no one really minds whether you have a David Beckham Mohican or not.

On the other hand, said Jesus, there are “treasures in heaven”. Stuff that you or I can do now which lasts for eternity, stuff that ends up on the final scoreboard of our lives, and from which we will benefit eternally. Treasure in heaven is what really counts.

How do I get it? I’m out of time, so perhaps you could take that one on yourself. May I humbly suggest you start your search with this book.

Gentlemen, let me wish you a happy, meaningful, Christmas, where we all learn to fill the elusive time of your lives with things that count.

 Finish with Prayer

“Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the wolrd, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. You turn men back to dust, for a thousand years in our sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom”

Christianity & Sport. Radley College Chapel Feb 08

It was the night before final team selection. I had been training with the Oxford University boat club for four months. We had started a month before the beginning of term and since then we had trained six hours a day, six days a week, every week. Early morning training on six out of seven days meant signing away any semblance of a social life, and all this for the sake of rowing success.
I had always made the team at school and rather fancied myself as a rower, but now I wasn’t so sure. Tomorrow was the final cut, and I was one of the four under the knife. For the two that didn’t make it, that would be the end. No consolation prize, no reserves team, just a quick word from the coach and then they wouldn’t be seen again. The atmosphere during training had a bitter edge, there was a little polite conversation, but you could see that inside everyone was nervous: the next days’ results would decide the success of their year, even of their time at Oxford.
From then on, how would they answer the question, “How’s the rowing?”? Would it be, “Great I made the team” or would they have to mumble out “I got dropped, I wasn’t good enough”?
For many, success in this world decides whether they feel accepted. And so everyone wants to be an achiever so that they will be accepted by be it by their teachers, their friends, their, parents, even by themselves. I wonder is that you as well? That was certainly how I worked. Everything, and everyone around me told me that life was about achievement, and if I wanted to be accepted I needed to be an achiever.

But over the course of my time at school I became a disciple of Jesus, and so when I sat on my bed that December, on the last night before team selection, as a follower of Jesus, I was able to open up this psalm and read with confidence, “O God you are my God, “. I cannot tell you what a joy it is to be able to speak those words and really mean them. You see for most in the rowing team, rowing success is their god, for others academic success is their god, or image, or relationships. The whole world around us tells us that life is all about GCSEs, sports teams, then A levels, University, degree, a massive salary, a nice big house, a beautiful wife or husband. The world tells us those are the goals of life. That is what really matters.
Sure, it’s good to give your all but achievement is a terrible thing to worship What if everyone thinks quicker than I do? What if they remembers more than me? Run faster? Make more money? Have a bigger house? are better at music? more popular? Looks better?. What if I’m never going to achieve?
The wondrous news for the followers of Jesus, however, is that achievement and acceptance by others just doesn’t need to be a worry, I don’t need to live with those goals. I knew that December evening that I need not worry about whether I get into the first team or the second team or even if I get dropped altogether. I don’t need to worry about acceptance by others. You see that’s not what life is all about.
You see, I can say boldly that I have been accepted by God, and that my ultimate goal is not boat race success, nor success in all my exams, nor getting on the rich list, or any other achievement, but my ultimate goal is heaven, eternity with God, where there will be no tears, no death, no mourning and no pain. And because of his amazing loving kindness, God takes me as I am, full of pride, hate, bitterness and godlessness, rowing blue or not. I can say that boldly not because of anything I have achieved, but because of what Jesus Christ achieved, dying on the cross to take the punishment for my sin. I can look forward to everlasting life, because God, the merciful, loving God of the universe, is my God. I pray that the same may be true for you.

Shell 5 version of Thine be the Glory

May the praise be yours immortal victorious Lord

your winning battle over mortality is unstoppable

godly people in colourful robes moved the rock aside

left Jesus' bandages where he must have slept

Don't worry about a thing,

cause death will never overcome our Lord

Oh the saviour comes to us, resurrected from his death bed

Kindly he sees us spreads fright and death

Let the chapel with happiness songs of winning proclaim

and now Jesus is alive, life is still better than dying

We do believe you now, wonderful Son of God.

There is no point in living in your absence, help us in our weakness

Let us rise above the risen, using your eternal forgiveness and love

Guard us on our journey to your sacred place above

Holiness:: Radley Chapel 24.02.08

Text: 1 Pet 1:13-16

Present Cheese to unsuspecting first year.

"what is this?"

“what adjectives could you use to describe it?”

"what are these? (holes)"
What adjective would you use to describe it therefore ("holy")
I'll give you a clue this is a characteristic which according to popular
opinion this cheese probably shares with the pope.
That was, I admit, a painfully cheesy joke, but at least I have your
attention.

I want to talk to you about holiness.

In the desert after they had escaped from Egypt, God told his people the following:

he said, “Be holy, because I am holy”. Be holy, because I am holy

Now there is a problem. Whilst I hope only a limited number still think I am talking about cheese, many, I would suggest, are nevertheless confused about holiness. You see, I think holiness, just like Britney Spears, gets a bad press. We are going to conduct a quick social experiment in chapel to see if that is true here.

I would like everyone to think of someone, one person in particular, who they think is holy. You have 10 seconds to think of someone holy.

Now, in order to conduct my quick social experiment, I need everyone to raise their right hand in the air.

Put your hand down, if the person you thought of was the pope.Now put your hand down, if the person you thought of was over 25 years of age.

So that’s pretty bad news. Basically no one here thinks of young people when they think of ‘holy’ people, and a whole load of you think immediately of the pope – who indeed seems very holy, but he’s not exactly an easy role model to relate to. But God said to all his people Be Holy. And that includes people like you and me under 25.

To clear up the confusion, let me tell you what holiness is not:

It is not religiosity,It is not being dreadfully solemn

It is not being boring, It is not wearing white robes, holding your hands constantly pressed together in the prayer position and taking ridiculously small steps so that it looks like you’re actually floating along, Holiness is not being old. It is not being ‘holier than thou’, you know, one of those people who walks around looking down on everyone else telling them with every glance how desperately immoral they are. It is not reserved for monks, nuns, vicars, popes nor indeed for cheeses.

Holiness means simply this:

It means being set apart. holiness means being set apart.

In fact, pretty much every one of you is wearing an illustration for me. We’re all in our Sunday suits. That’s one piece of clothing that’s set apart from the rest. It’s different and it stands out.

So being holy means just the same. It means being set apart. It means being different. Standing out from the crowd.

And holiness is what God wants. He said to his people “Be Holy, because I am Holy”

But, JFA, I hear the Radleian remonstrate. Why are you telling a bunch of adolescents to stand out from the crowd. If that’s what holiness is all about what kind of public school boy would be interested. I spend my life trying to fit in, trying to wear the right piece of clothing, say the right thing, not say the wrong thing, listen to the music that’s makes me cool, and go to the same holiday destination as everyone else. My life is about blending in, not standing out.

I’m a teenager, man, why do I want to be ‘holy’, ‘set apart’, that's social suicide?

In many ways, no one likes to stand out, to be different.

And you know, I’m pretty sure that’s why many people don’t want to follow Jesus. They associate Jesus with all sorts of weird things. They think becoming a follower of Jesus, becoming holy is going to mean obligatory sandal and white sock wearing. They think it means being boring, and having no fun. And quite frankly if that’s the kind of holiness God is suggesting I wouldn’t be interested either.

But being holy is more than just being different for the sake of it, it’s certainly not about being odd. Holiness means being set apart, yes but it means set apart for a special purpose. In fact just like your Sunday suit. It’s different but in a good way. It’s smarter than everything else in the wardrobe. It has a special purpose.

God said to his people “Be holy, because I am holy”. In other words, be set apart, be different, yes, but for a special purpose. That special purpose is to be like him, like God. Be holy, because I am holy.

Sure we often don’t like to stand out. But standing out for something special is everyone’s dream. Imagine your name gets read out by the warden in warden’s assembly for successfully getting into Oxford or Cambridge. You’re standing out for a special purpose. There’s no shame in that. And so it is with those who want to follow Jesus. God calls us to stand out for a special purpose, namely to be like him. What nobler purpose could there be than that?

To see what that looks like, we only need to look at Jesus. He was totally different from all those around him. In a culture of retribution he said love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. To those who treat sex casually he said sex is sacred and should be kept within marriage. To those who think money is all we need, he said that love of money is likely to exclude us from his kingdom. Finally, for all those who rejected him, scorned and mocked him in life, he, God’s chosen King, went to die on a cruel Roman cross so that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. That is the kind of special purpose Jesus proposes for his followers.

Let me give you a few more recent examples of radically different Christian living.

Jackie Pullinger is a remarkable Christian lady, with an upbringing perhaps not too dissimilar to ours. She had a vision in which she felt God was calling her to help those in the walled city of Hongkong. Against all the advice of those around her she left with little money and only a single ticket. Hongkong was nothing like the wealthy metropolis it is now. A part of the town, the walled city, was effectively out of police jurisdiction and ruled by the triad gangs. There were enormous problems of Heroine addiction and prostitution. When she arrived she got a job as a primary school teacher and started a youth club for the local kids. She earnt very little money and was in constant danger. Some of the Triad gang members came to her youth club. As many accepted Jesus, they found that he set them free from their addictions. The work has continued to grow in scope to this day. Jesus reached out to people with the Good news of forgiveness and a relationship with God. Jackie did the same.

That is a holy life, a life set apart for a special purpose, God’s purpose. Wouldn’t it be great if the world had more holy people like that?

Or take William Wilberforce. Brought up in the second half of the 18^th century in a privileged family in the North and educated at Cambridge. He lived in at a time where slavery was still upheld as morally acceptable, but when he began to follow Jesus, he became convicted that he should use his political power to fight it. After his conversion he channeled every part of his energies into campaigning for the abolition of slavery, which indeed he did see through.

He certainly stood out, indeed was ridiculed by some. Just like Jesus he believed all men had equal value irrespective of their race or upbringing. He was a holy man, living with the priorities of God, not of man.

Finally, an example closer to home. When I was thirteen and had just started public school, I went to the equivalent of Christian forum. A chap called Henry in the lower Sixth came up to me, welcomed me, asked my name and generally set me at ease.

I couldn’t believe it. You didn’t do that. You never talked with lower years, it would undermine your status. Where would your respect be. But this one boy decided that it was better to stand out, and obey God’s command to love his neighbour, than to follow the crowd. That is holiness too.

Who could say, whether Christian or not, that we wouldn’t be better off with more Holy people. More people who have set their lives apart for a special purpose: to love the outcast, campaign for justice, welcome strangers?

In each case they obeyed the call to “be holy, because I am holy”. I wonder what purpose you have determined for your life at the moment. It might be Olympic athlete, property magnate, banker, or simply a comfortable existence with a nice car and a nice house.God says “be holy, because I am holy”. I wonder, will your life stand out?

Talk to Saygo (st. andrew's youth group) 2 Timothy 2:1ff

Do you ever wonder, “what’s the purpose of it all?”. Do you ever question, “why on earth am I actually here?”

SLIDE This happened to me not so long ago as I was in a couple of feet of water. I was in Scotland and it was my first ever fishing experience. I was salmon fishing on one of the best stretches of river the British isles have to offer, at enormous expense to my incredibly generous father-in-law who had invited us to join him there.

It’s not hard to figure out the point, you say. The point, surely, is to catch salmon, is it not? Well yes and no, you can of course go to waitrose and buy delicious salmon without having to put any waders on, without standing in the shop for 14 hours, without waving your arm rhythmically back and forth for a good part of the day, and without the lottery aspect that you might not actually come home with anything at all. + it costs £2.50 a pop rather than about £100.
Now that fact does demonstrate the excessive simplicity of an answer like “catching salmon is the point of salmon fishing”.

I wonder do you ever get a similar confusion when it comes to bigger questions of life, and faith. Perhaps you’ve come to saygo with exactly that question. You’re not sure what you believe in, and you’re wanting to find out. What does Christianity say is the purpose of life? What is my purpose? What am I meant to be doing while I’m here on this earth? Those are fantastic questions, and I hope today you’ll get a little closer to answering them. Then again, perhaps you’re from a Christian family, or you’ve been coming to saygo for a while. You’re pretty sure you believe, but you still, feel, like me with the fishing, you don’t quite get it. You can see people around you, even people your own age, at saygo perhaps, just like mustard keen fishermen, who are so involved, they’ve got such a clear sense of purpose in their faith, they’re living all out for Jesus, but you can’t really see why you should want to do the same. You wonder, what is it that they see, and I don’t, which means they’re so keen, but I’m not really.
Perhaps you believe in Jesus, but instead of energising you, giving you a reason to live, you find that your beliefs are just a bit of a drag really. You come to saygo because you feel you should or because it keeps your parents happy, or because your friends are here, but to be honest you often catch yourself thinking “what is actually the purpose of being Christian?”, “what difference does it actually make?”, “I believe, but so what?”. “Why am I even here?”
I hope this evening you’ll hear some answers.

SLIDE
Let’s read verse one of chapter two. 1 Timothy is a letter written by the apostle Paul to his rather timid disciple Timothy as a spiritual encouragement and a guide to what he should be doing with his life as a Christian. What he writes to young Timothy he could easily have written to us.
“You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus”. x2

Young timothy may have felt like a bit of a spiritual weakling, as indeed we might, but God says “be strong”. Take your spiritual spinach. Or the way I would like to put it is “plug in to the grace of God”. Get connected to the grace of God so that it powers you up. We need some electricity to get our spiritual lives going – look at verse 1, “you and I need to be “strong””. How? verse 1 again “In the grace that is in Christ Jesus”. – we need to crank up some strength by hooking ourselves up to the ultimate power source - God’s grace SLIDE in Jesus Christ.
It’s like a lamp. Look at this lamp. A lovely piece given to us for our wedding. Beautifully crafted with a smoothed, swirling engraved wooden stand, natty lamp shade and velvet base to avoid scratching the table I put it on. Lovely.
But, let’s be honest, fundamentally pretty useless on its own. That is, until you plug it in. If you want this bad boy to it’s job you’ve got to plug it in. And when you do, boy it’s a beauty.
It’s the same with you and me. Ok we’re a bit different on the outside, I’m pretty ugly you’re all quite good-looking put by God’s standards, none of us is really any good at all if we’re not plugged in to his Grace. If we are to do our job properly, to fulfil our God given purpose we need to be strong or plugged in to the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

So what is Grace, and how can we plug in to it?

A good way of remembering what Grace means is this acronym SLIDE God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.
When we speak about Grace we mean all the wonderful things that we do not deserve, but God gives them to us, because Jesus Christ got hold of them for us in exchange for his life. God’s Riches At Christ’s expense.

It’s like this. God created the world, and put us in charge to rule over it and live off it. He gave us his laws to obey, and to show us how to relate to him, the one who thought up every cell in our bodies and every word on our tongue before we were even born.
But we don’t like that. You only need to watch a five year old being told to eat brocolli to realise that disobedience is our standard response to rules. We hate the idea that someone else should call the shots, and so we love to hate God and his laws. [SLIDES] We lie, we cheat, we show favouritism, we hate, we kill, we gossip, we manipulate, we ignore men and women, we are greedy, blind to our mistakes, quick to criticise another, impatient, obstinate, unfaithful, intolerant, foolish, full of sexual lusts, perverted, superficial, but above all proud, self-promoting, and self obsessed. SLIDE From our point of view we consider there is only one ultimate reality in life – that’s me, not God. There is only one King in our lives, that’s me not God. There is only one rule in my life,SLIDE mine, not God’s.
All that is what the Bible calls sin.
And it has consequences. Just like when you get £5.50 per hour in wages for stacking shelves at Sainsburys, the wages we get for sin is death. That’s what the Bible says. And after death, because God is just, we are destined to suffer eternal punishment in hell.
I find it hard talking about this, and if you’re anything like me, it’s hard listening to it. But that doesn’t change anything, does it? If I’m drowning in quicksand and you say to me “you’re drowning in quicksand”, and I say “that’s a bit harsh isn’t it, I don’t like that idea”, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m drowning in quicksand.
It’s tough to take, but the bible says we deserve to go to hell.SLIDE x 4

And this is God’s grace:
Just imagine a mass of billions upon billions standing with their back to God each wearing the crown of his life on his own head. there’s me … God says “despite what each of these has done, I love them so much I want them to live and not to suffer that punishment which they fully deserve.” So he puts into action the biggest rescue mission of history. He parachutes down himself in human form, Jesus Christ God the son, & lives a perfect life, and although he is completely clean from sin, SLIDE God the son gets up onto a cruel cross to bear the wrath, the anger of God the Father which was originally intended for us. And now each one of that massive crowd can turn back to God without fear of recrimination.

That is Grace.

And God commands us to be strong in that Grace. SLIDE To plug in to it. Plugging in to the Grace of God, just means knowing it. We need to know God’s grace. We need to know it deeply, in our minds and in our hearts.
So may I ask you, “Do you know the Grace of God?”
Have you ever known the wonder of complete forgiveness for all your sins, past present and future?
Have you ever looked in your mind’s eye at Jesus hanging on the cross, and thought, “he did it for me!”?
Can you say confidently, without hesitation, that despite your wrong doing you know you will not go to hell because you know Jesus has freed you personally from sin?
Are you SLIDE plugged in?

Perhaps you have, well, fantastic you’re plugged in, keep learning about Jesus, and you’ll be stronger and stronger with each day.
Or perhaps you were once plugged in but you feel like you’re not any longer. You’ve lost interest: to be honest Jesus doesn’t mean much to you at the moment. You could wake up tomorrow and find out he’s not there anyway, and it wouldn’t really make much of a difference to your life.
Perhaps you’ve never know this Grace properly. In fact this whole supposedly live-giving thing is a mystery to you. it seems completely new.
Keep coming here to saygo, find out more about this remarkable man Jesus, join a discussion group, ask Christian friends some questions, or pray. If you are one who feels like this you could even speak to one of the Christian staff after this. It’s hard to look at Jesus very long and not be gripped by his grace.
It might be that there is one other type of person here. You’ve understood understood what it means that Jesus died, but it’s not personal yet. You know Jesus died for all sinners, but you don’t yet rejoice to know that Jesus died for all sinners and that includes me! All you need do is ask God that you would benefit from that grace. Just pray to him and ask him. If that’s you, it would be a great idea to tell a friend or a leader so that they could pray with you.

That’s purpose 1. Don’t worry no.s 2 and 3 will be a lot quicker.

Look at verse 2 again,
entrust what you heard me say1 in the presence of many others as witnesses2 to faithful people3 who will be competent4 to teach others as well

Paul says to Timothy, that now that he’s plugged in to the Gospel, “what you heard me say” he needs to pass it on to faithful people who in turn will teach others as well. He’s saying Timothy needs to pass on the news about the Grace we just heard of.
If we think of it in terms of my lamp. Plug in, and then shine brightly. When you plug in and power up a lamp, it’s not just plugged in for its own benefit, it’s plugged in so that it can give everything around it’s light. It should be the same with us. We should shine brightly as Christians, and the light we shine should be the bright news of Jesus Christ who came to save every man. So we should shine brightly. In fact Jesus once said that a Christian who keeps the news about Jesus to himself is about as good a lamp that keeps all its light to itself.
If we feel we’ve got our head round grace, but we still can’t see why being a Christian should change our lives, we still don’t feel a strong sense of purpose. Here’s one way Jesus will never let us be the same again. This is God’s purpose for you – to shine brightly the message of Grace to your friends family and your community.
How do you do it?
Well, we can start by asking friends to saygo. This is a great place to hear the good news about Jesus. But they’re unlikely to come unless we invite them. In fact, that is God’s purpose for us.Thaddeus story.
Another great place to hear the gospel are the summer camps. That is exactly how I first understood about God’s grace. It was in the summer, when I was 14. How grateful I am that one person took the trouble of inviting me.

Plug in , shine brightly and Finally, a third purpose. Last the course.
Look at verse 3 “endure suffering as a good soldier in Christ”, or verse 10. “endure”. To endure means to last a long time. It’ll be tough being a Christian but God wants us to last until the end. Like a soldier we to stay focused on the battle , like an athlete we are to complete the race, like a farmer, we’re to work hard until the very end of the harvest.
There’s one more thing that’s key to a good lamp. The bulb has got to last. It’s no good if it stays on for while and then pops just as you’re trying to get your contact lens in. Put in the long lasting bulb.
That’s why I’m putting in a long lasting bulb. A bulb that will last the course.
Are you finding it hard to keep going in the Christian life. You’re not the only one, it’s never been easy. But ask the soldier, the athlete, the farmer, is it worth lasting the course? Yes they’ll say, always worth it. Paul’s third purpose for you and me Last the course.
You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
Plug in, shine brightly, and last course

The Prodigal Son for Radley Confirmation

Harry was just a little more rebellious than your average Radleian. He was a little bit cheekier than the norm in the shell, a little bit more streetwise in the remove, a time when he spent more than the average amount of evening down at the 'stro, and his character continued developing in the same direction from then on. He was deep into the dark tunnel of adolescence by the beginning of the fifths, and stared stubbornly into the middle distance when his French teacher told him he had got 0 out of 20 in his coursework.
In fact that was the year that things really did begin to go badly wrong in Harry's life. He came home at Christmas to his parents house in Chelsea - his mother was at home as usual and his father at work in his chambers - he was a barrister. Both were worried. They had heard from his tutor that he'd had a rocky term. When the reports arrived his Father called him up to his study, something he had only ever done once before when he deliberately hit his sister in the face using his x-box as ball and chain - punishment for her eating his last rolo.
They read through a few reports. It was a sorry tale through and through. Harry remembered a few catch phrases: "with great opportunity comes great responsibility", "It's only because I care for you, that I'm telling you this". but they were the same old, tired, tidy ideas of living life by the rules, thinking of the future, making the most of what he had been given, what he'd heard every single end of term for three years with increasing annoyance.
It was during that conversation that Harry decided he couldn't be bothered with all of this any longer and that he was going to leave home, and school as well, for that matter.
The next morning he looked up flats to rent in Fulham found one and arranged to be there at 12, threw some things into a bag, told his mum he was leaving until further notice and left the house.
His parents didn't hear from him for six months, he refused to answer their calls. He moved again so they wouldn't find out where he lived. He worked as a waiter for a year and then stacking shelves until he was eighteen. In all that time Harry had no contact with and no time for his Dad and his way of life at all, but his Dad was still useful for one thing. His Dad was sitting on Harry's inheritance. After he'd got that from him, he could break off contact forever. His Dad might as well die for all he cared. So One day he arranged to meet up with his Dad at his office and said "Dad, I'm eighteen, I want my share of the inheritance." That meant the flat that they were letting in Notting Hill. His Dad tried to reason with him but it was no use. Within a month the house was on the market, and in two Harry had an extra £200k in his bank account.
As he turned to walk down the steps outside his Dad's office it was as if he was turning not just to leave the place, but to break away from the person too. His back, his eyes, his mouth, and even his mind were turned away from his father and turned only towards his own life from now on.

He set off for Bangkok, Thailand, apparently the Sloane square of the East but without any prying parents, and resolved to live it up. He invited friends out there to stay with him at his own expense. He could be found in the best clubs and bars, buying the most expensive champagne, living the high and wild life with anyone he could find. In fact the wilder the activity the more he wanted to do it. He would pay for the most expensive prostitutes, and when he got bored of that he tried marihuana, and when that wasn't enough he went onto harder drugs, each time pouring the inheritance his father had given him into the bottomless pit of his own pleasure. He came back one morning from an all night full moon party and went to a cash point to get some money. But it was gone. As quickly as his life had changed, his balance had emptied.
He was thrown out of his living quarters, and had no money even to eat. Finally he convinced the local municipality to give him a job clearing up rubbish after the midnight revelers. His pay was just under a pound a day. He wanted to eat the remains of the discarded cold kebabs from the polistyrene boxes strewn across the beach each morning just to save himself from hunger.
After around three months and a particularly cold and wet night under some palm trees on the beach, Harry got to thinking for the first time about home and his parents, probably sitting around a warm fire with mum's carrot cake at that very moment. Suddenly he was overcome with longing to be back there, in the safety and warmth of home. but how could he? He had closed those doors for ever he thought. Effectively, asking for his inheritance so early, he'd wished his father dead, he'd rejected pretty much all that his family had fought for in his education, and all that they stood for. If that wasn't enough, he had squandered all that his loving father had prepared for him in his inheritance. He could never look his father in the face again.
No he couldn't go home. Not as a son. But he just couldn't face carrying on here either. Perhaps he could go back as gardner, just ask his Dad for the minimum wage, keep his head down and live his life out quietly.
In that moment he decided, just as he had so resolutely turned away at the steps of his father’s office, to turn back. He realised his mind had already changed, he no longer wanted the life he had made for himself out there, life without his family, focused only on himself. And so just as his mind had turned back to his family, so he himelf stood up and turned back to go to the city. There he sold his last pair of jeans and paid for half an hour to email home and ask, well, beg for some money for a flight home. Even before he logged off he had a reply from his father. “I’ll be in Bangkok airport tomorrow evening. Meet me there”. He got together his meagre bunch of remaining possessions and headed off to the airport the next day, rehearsing in his mind the words he would say to apologise and ask his Dad to employ him. “I’m sorry Dad, I’ve wronged you, I’ve rebelled against you, in fact I’ve done so much wrong, I’m not worthy to be called your son anymore, please just give me some menial job around the house, I can’t stand this any longer”.
No sooner had he entered the building, his Dad threw his arms around him and as stammered out “I’m sorry Dad, I’ve wronged you, I’ve rebelled against you, in fact I’ve done so much wrong”. But you couldn’t hear the end because his father’s embrace stifled it.
Harry’s father could hardly control himself for the joy of seeing his own son return to him. He calmed himself just long enough to ring his wife and tell her to get all their best friends around, get hold of a marquee, splash out on some top West London catering and get the celebrations going by the time they got home. He shouted ecstaticly down the phone, “Harry’s here, we lost him, darling, but we’ve found him again.”

Perhaps we’re thinking, a nice story a good yarn, particularly good for the real reprobates. But let’s face it we’re not going to run away from home, and we might not get on with our parents perfectly, but we’re certainly not going to ask them for the inheritance early.

But when Jesus told an almost identical story he wasn’t talking about family unity. He was talking about the relationship between man and God.
We may never have asked for the inheritance from the parents, but we’ve certainly all taken what God has given us in creation without so much as a whisper of acknowledgement. We may not have moved out of home, but we’ve certainly made sure we don’t spend too much time in conversation with God our creator. Perhaps we’d never think of turning our backs on our parents, and yet have we not all, so often treated God as if he did not even exist, turning our backs, our eyes, our ears, our minds and our hearts away from him?

We’d perhaps not squander the education our parents gave us like Harry did, but could any of us say that our hands, our lips, our intellects, our time has been consistently devoted to the God who gave them to us? Could we honestly claim that all that he has invested in us we have turned back to him?

Even if our physical reality is very proper and orderly, our spiritual reality is, metaphorically speaking, in Bangkok living the highlife far away from God.

So there we are with Harry I would like us to ask ourselves where we stand in that narrative that I have just related. It might be helpful to consider three stages.
Stage 1 Perhaps we are still in the heady days of independence from God. Just as Harry was, cashing in those cheques for whatever made him happy, completely oblivious to the one who had given him all that he had. If that is where we are, we need to repent. That is one of the three things you will declare on Sunday, “I repent of my sins”. It means change your mind. It’s like the moment that Harry looked around himself on that cold beach and said, this can’t go on, I’ve got it wrong, I need to do a complete u-turn.
So perhaps we need to repent.
Stage 2 Perhaps we identify more closely with Harry after he had changed his mind. Still looking around us, knowing we’re in a mess, knowing even how much better it would be to return to God but not sure what to do next. We’ve repented already, now what? If that is where we are, we need to turn to Christ. That’s another one of the three public statements you’ll make on Sunday. “I turn to Christ”. Just as Harry got up, and turned back towards the city, back towards contact with his father, indeed asked him for forgiveness and restoration, so we should turn to Christ. Despite all our guilt and sin, all that we have done against God, because of Christ’s death on the cross we can be forgiven.
In the parable it’s clearly a no brainer isn’t it. Harry had the option Stay there in the cold eating rotting kebabs or go home. You don’t need to think too long about which one to go for. Harry’s Dad’s part-time gardener had is five million times better than he is, let alone his brother.
It was better even to renounce completely his status as son, to go home as a lowly gardener than to stay in Bangkok, such was the misery. If it’s worth coming back to God even as a servant rather than living for ourselves, how much better would it be to return to him and be welcomed as his son. That’s what he promises. God is not waiting for you to return for him to slap you on the wrist, look you sternly in the eye, and let you in with an ‘alright then, just this once’. Go and sit over there with the naughty ones, and keep quiet. His arms are open wide longing to see you return. As the parable says, he’s longing to put a robe on your shoulders and a ring on your finger. To welcome you. So it’s a sort of soggy apple versus 5 courses in the ritz kind of situation – it’s just a no brainer. You’d go for the ritz, and you’d go for turning to Christ any day. So if that’s us then let’s simply ask the Lord Jesus to save us. Ask God to be part of his family once more. He has promised “ I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”
Wherever you are, send that spiritual email, pray to God and ask to return. He loves to welcome his children home.

Finally, perhaps you have repented, you’ve turned to Christ, and now you wonder what happens next. Perhaps that is a recent thing. This particular parable doesn’t touch on this aspect really, but the bible study we have just done illustrates it powerfully.
The third thing you will declare on Sunday is “I renounce evil”. The parable stops before we find out, but my guess is Harry doesn’t wait for the end of the party only to nick another grand from his Dad and get back to Thailand. He has a new life back with his father. Wasn’t Zacchaeus remarkable. When he met Jesus his life was completely changed, he renounced his former most likely corrupt and treacherous ways, gave half his possessions to the poor and gave back four times the amount he had defrauded. When a person meets Jesus he cannot remain the same, the change may happen slowly or quickly but he will long to renounce evil. That is the third thing which you will declare on Sunday. Let’s ask ourselves, have we yet made that commitment to live a life under Jesus’ rule, rejecting the example of the world around us, even our close friends at times, and renouncing evil.
So those are the three stages, and that is what you will be declaring on Sunday. I repent of my sins, I turn to Christ, I renounce evil. Let’s examine ourselves, can we say those things not just with our lips but also with our hearts?

Pray.

Change my life? OR “Morality is like Art. It’s a matter of Taste”

What is Christian morality, and why should I embrace it?
Consider: a few popular approaches to morality, contrast them with Christian morality
Ethical Hedonism
Perhaps the most common, least complicated and therefore most accessible moral system is Hedonism. It makes pleasure the most important pursuit of mankind, and in most cases, my pleasure.
So how do I know whether something is right or wrong?
Well the question is will it make me happy?
I don’t know if you looked at a self help book in WHSmiths recently, but they give us a real indication of what this will look like. You should do whatever will make you feel good about yourself. Are you feeling oppressed? Don’t be. Be confident and you can always get your way. Are you feeling angry? Don’t let it get the better of you, get it off your chest? Are you unhappy with your marriage? Don’t suffer needlessly, get a divorce. Are you unhappy with being pregnant right now? Don’t let it worry you, have an abortion.
The problem with this approach is that pleasure is a great by-product of life, but a dangerous goal.
I read part of Eric Clapton’s autobiography in the Sunday times a few weeks ago. It became so apparent that here was a man who, in all things had pursued unadulterated pleasure, and he had the tools to do it with as well. So he had a string of beautiful women, whomever he fancied at the time, whether he was married to them or not. He drank he took drugs, lived the high life, any pleasure that money could afford, and it left him a destitute man in the end, because no pleasure was sufficient to cure his yearning, and indeed many pleasures he obtained a great cost, a cost to his family and private life which he only paid later. The fact is an individual may get through his own life unscathed but the mess he will leave behind in other’s lives is untold. So pleasure is not a good one to live for.
Moral relativism – cultural morality
Secondly there is moral relativism. An individual guides himself not by any greater, higher moral principles but often, though not exclusively espouses a cultural morality, that means he chooses the path of least resistance according to the society he is in. He hates the apparent arrogance of those who believe there is one absolute idea of right and wrong. Who are we to lay exclusive claim to morality. What is right for one person may not be right for another. But since we have to choose some kind of code, he’ll go for the society’s consensus. If everyone seems to like the idea of giving to charity, sure he’ll give to charity. If it’s acceptable to dodge taxes, he’ll dodge taxes, If people around him are ganging up on the Jews, he’ll join in, if slavery is the norm in society, who is he to argue?
It’s attractive. The moral relativist doesn’t have to think much – because if morality is relative it doesn’t matter too much. No one can categorically say that what you do is wrong. So you don’t need to beat yourself up thinking about it.
The problem has already been highlighted. Without moral absolutes, ideas about right and wrong that are true for all time and all places, societies very quickly implode morally. The Moral relativist could not say, for example, that there was anything wrong with flying planes into the twin towers, cannibalism, the holocaust, or child labour. You see all these ‘crimes’ were committed by individuals who, according to him, have just as much right to decide what is right or wrong as he does.
You might be thinking, yes but how about moral relativism, only with a couple of unchanging ground rules, like don’t murder, don’t oppress etc.
But that isn’t moral relativism. The moral relativist who signs up to the Human rights Charter is no longer relativist. He is a moral dictator, an absolutist, he is not tolerant at all. The fact that lost of people agree with him does not make him any less absolutist.
Moral absolutism
So that leads us onto moral absolutism. That is laying down a code claiming it is the truth, living by it and justifying intervention in the affairs of others if they transgress against that moral code. This can be horrific, or quite acceptable. The Taleban in Afghanistan prohibited women from working; from wearing clothing regarded as "stimulating and attractive," including the "Iranian chador," viewed as insufficiently complete in its covering); from taking a taxi without a "close male relative"; washing clothes in streams; or having their measurements taken by tailors.
The fact is we are all in some way moral absolutists. Whether we call ourselves tolerant or not, whether we recognise it or not we all have some basic beliefs about right and wrong which we do not believe are cultural, or socially derived but are always true.
The problem is. Which moral absolutes are right. For example, why can you say it is wrong to kill someone because of their faith? What authority do you have over any other person?
But now it really matters. We are all absolutists of one kind or another and the bible says that is because we have God’s laws written on our hearts. Deep down, even if we differ on the rules, we all know there is right and wrong and we want to do right.

Christian Morality
This is where Christian morality comes in.
I believe it answers all those questions and more.
Christian morality has absolutes. But they are not just plucked out of the air, they are God’s commands. The only one in a position to make absolute, uncontestable judgments.
Why do Christians say murder is wrong? Not because they think they are clever, but because God says it.
Why do Christians believe sex is for marriage? Not because they think they are clever but because God says it.
Of course this is wonderfully liberating. Following the majority is an awful way of deciding what is right (imagine being a German during the 2nd world war), it’s just inconsistent to say that you don’t care about morality because everyone makes value judgments weighing up the good and the bad. So how should you live, well what better way than to live the way that the creator designed you. Imagine a monkey got hold of an excellent bottle of wine and went around hitting other monkeys with it because he knew no better. What a waste! How much better to do with it what the maker intended and drink it. In the same way, from our perspective we could easily make a mistake in the way we live because we do not understand what we were created for.
But Christian morality is far more than that. It’s not about following another set of rules, it’s about a whole new purpose.
Imagine you’re an extra terrestrial and your earthling friend invites you to a wedding. Unfortunately your rookie pilot took a wrong turn at the milkyway so you arrive late, only to hear the vows. You hear the following comfort her, honour and protect her,
and, forsaking all others,
be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?
Your English isn’t that good and so you miss the next bit until you hear “to have and to hold, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part” Now you have no idea of the background of the event and you can’t read human emotions Illustration about marriage.
You think marriage is just a bunch of rules. Getting married means committing to doing certain things and not doing others that’s all.
Well that’s a gross misrepresentation. Sure there are rules, but marriage is not about rules, the behaviour described in those rules is the outworking of a relationship. And they can’t be separated from the relationship. So, in a marriage relationship for example you can’t go and have sex with someone else who isn’t you spouse and then claim that’s ok because you thought married people are meant to have sex. It’s not just what you do, but who you do it for.
You can’t separate the action from the recipient of the action. It’s the same with Christianity. It is not simply a standalone moral code, which can be bought into according to choice.
Which means following a commandment in isolation doesn’t make you a Christian. It doesn’t make sense to say he’s nice to people and therefore is a Christian anymore than it makes sense to say he’s always doing romantic things for all sorts of different women therefore he’s a good husband.
Christian morality is not just following rules, it is embracing a whole new purpose. That purpose is to live in relationship to him and to live in honour and praise towards him through our moral decisions.

So – hedonism – doesn’t come up with the goods, and spells chaos for the world
moral relativism – an illusion, and who wants to say for example that genocide is a question of cultural context
moral absolutism – great but where do you get your ideas from?
Christian morality – wouldn’t it be a shame to be a monkey missing out on what life is all about because we failed to read the maker’s instructions.