St Mary's

Today Sermon

13th October 2024 from Rev'd Samuele Hameem

“May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you Lord my refuge and my redeemer amen.”

A vicar was in his office when he heard a doorbell. Wanting to impress the visitor, the vicar picked a cordless phone and start talking, opened the door and invited the visitor into his office.  The vicar stated that, “Yes, Bishop, I will get on this right away.  You don’t worry because now you have the right man for the job.  Thank you for thinking of me. Give my regards to your lovely wife” and he hung up the phone. The vicar than turned to the person and said, “Son, what can I do for you today”. The man replied, “Nothing sir, I am just here to fix the phone.”

Today is the fifth week that we, as the Rossendale team, have been going through this year's Autumn Sermon Series.

For the past few weeks we are thinking and learning about our main topic, “Growing the Church – The Evangelism Thing” with some other sub-topics, and today’s sub-topic in this regard is “Creative Communication” and in this regard today's primary reading is taken from the Gospel according to Luke, and the reading we just heard from this Gospel account, we are all very familiar with this parable.

According to NIV Quest Study Bible, Luke was Paul’s companion, and he was also the author of the Book of Acts. This Gospel account was probably penned down between 59 to 63 AD with a purpose to give us a variety of teachings, parables and events form the life of Jesus Christ.

And before we learn anything about today's subheading from today's main passage, we need to consider the context of the passage, which we just heard from the Gospel account. If we read from the beginning of the tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, we see that at the beginning of this chapter Jesus sends out the seventy new disciples in groups of two, saying that the harvest is plentiful, but labourers are few.

Then he curses the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida for their way of life and manners. After that, as soon as the disciples he sent returned, he rejoices after receiving a report from them on their return, and then his disciples also give him the good news that their visit has been very profitable. After that, he then takes his disciples apart and teaches them.

And then an expert in Jewish law asks Jesus a question, which is our today’s main reading. This is a question that people are still searching for the answer to. If we reflect on the question of this Jewish man, we can see how significant and essential his question is. Yes, it is true that he had other reasons behind asking the question, but the thing to remember is that the question was very significant and obligatory.

Because if we look around us, we see that people are running in a strange race. Some people are running after money, some are trying to achieve worldly things. Some people want to get promotion in their job, and some are working very hard to please their boss. Some are anxious about their jobs, and some are anxious about their lives. Some are concerned about the good future of their family, while some are wasting their life in materialist things.

To some extent, it is a natural and normal thing for us humans to worry about everything and such. But I want to say that by getting caught up in all these things and doings, we become uninterested in the most important and fundamental concern, and that is that we forget what the real purpose and mission of our life is. We forget why God gave us this life we are having, the job we have or had have, the family we have, the house where we are living, the friends we have, the community we live in, and this list can go on and on.

So, the thing to remember is that God has given us all this so that we can take the message of His work that He did through His Son our Saviour Jesus to the world. Our responsibility is to present Jesus to the world as the Bible tells us and teaches us. Because if we read or go through other religions of the world, we see that many people consider Jesus to be just a mere human being. Many religions are not ready to accept that he was born by the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is our responsibility to convey this message through our individual, family, and church life to the people for whom God has established us in this world. For which he has established his church in this world, for which he has established you and me in our respective places. And for this work we are to preach it day and night with our lives, as well as to preach the good news of the Gospel of Jesus whenever we have the opportunity.

And for that we must reflect on our ways and see how we are preaching the gospel of Jesus. Because if we study the earthly life of Jesus, we can see in what different and creative ways he fulfilled the purpose of becoming human. In what different and inspired and imaginative way did he teach his disciples and others. In what different ways did he perform miracles and forgive people of their sins.

If we recall the today’s Gospel in our minds, we see that this man only asked one question, but how the Lord Jesus answered his question not only taught him but also communicate with him in way that he shared the good news with him.

While we are thinking about this topic today, let's reflect on our own lives and see how we can reach out to people with God's message. And we can do this only if we stay connected with God and ask Him for help in everything we do.

In the end I just want to share a message with you which I received last week on my WhatsApp. I don’t know the origin of that message, but I really liked it, so I thought I would like to share it with you. The message goes like this:

If we take a fish out of water, it will die, and when we remove a tree from soil, it will also die. Likewise, when man is disconnected from God, he dies. God is our natural environment. We were created to live in His presence. We must be connected to Him because it is only in Him that life exists. Let us stay connected to God. We need to remember that water without fish is still water, but fish without water is nothing. The soil without a tree is still soil, but the tree without soil is nothing. God without man is still God, but man without God is nothing.

May God bless you all. Amen.