Sunday, March 4, 2018

Going to the heart of the faith - 10-2-1 A Framework for Living Life to the Full

Text for the week: Jesus said: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34,35

Welcome to our services today and a special welcome to any worshiping with us for the first time.

During our evening service we will be sharing in the Lord’s Supper.

In the lead up to Easter we are exploring what is at the heart of our faith.

My faith begins with a great big God who is nothing less than the God of all creation. As Job discovered an encounter with the God of creation in all its unimaginable immensity gives you a whole new way of thinking about the problems that can otherwise overwhelm.

But for all that, it’s not enough just to have a sense of some kind of God who is greater than anything we can ever begin to understand. Over the years it has become more and more important for me as a Christian to focus on Jesus. He lived a real life in the real world and it’s possible, I believe, to discover a great deal about the Jesus of history. One thing that emerges is that those who met with him found themselves drawn into a close relationship with God: it was as if Jesus opened up for them a window on to the God who is love.

And that’s not just something of interest in history. It’s life changing because the faith that’s important to me is a three-dimensional faith. For this God of love, made real in Jesus is made real today in our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit, unseen and yet so very real. We have a strength to draw on from beyond ourselves that brings us through Jesus into the living presence of the God who is Love. And that makes a difference in the living of our lives.

Today we look at the way 10 becomes 2 and 2 becomes 1 in the commandments that shape our lives.

Welcome and Call to Worship

189 Be still for the presence of the Lord

Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer

On the Mountain Top
The Ten Commandments – the Congregation



The Ten Commandments
As we listen to God's Commandments we pray for strength to keep them:
You shall have no other gods but me:
Lord, help us to love you
with all our heart. all our soul,
all our mind and all our strength.
You shall not make for yourself any idol:
Lord, help us to worship you
in spirit and in truth.
You shall not dishonour the name of the Lord your God:
Lord, help us to honour you
with reverence and awe.
Remember the Lord’s day and keep it holy:
Lord, help us to remember Christ
risen from the dead,
and to set our minds on things above,
not on things on the earth.
Honour your father and your mother:
Lord, help us to live as your servants,
giving respect to all,
and love to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
You shall not kill:
Lord, help us to be reconciled with each other,
and to overcome evil with good.
You shall not commit adultery:
Lord, help us to realise
that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
You shall not steal:
Lord, help us to he honest in all we do,
and to care for those in need.
You shall not be a false witness:
Lord, help us always to speak the truth.
You shall not covet anything which belongs to your neighbour;
Lord, help us to remember Jesus said,
‘lt is more blessed to give than to receive,’
and help us to love our neighbours as ourselves;
for his sake. Amen

A Hy-Spirit Song

A New Commandment I give unto you

Activities for all over 3



In the lead up to Easter we are exploring what is at the heart of our faith.

My faith begins with a great big God who is nothing less than the God of all creation. As Job discovered an encounter with the God of creation in all its unimaginable immensity gives you a whole new way of thinking about the problems that can otherwise overwhelm.

But for all that, it’s not enough just to have a sense of some kind of God who is greater than anything we can ever begin to understand. Over the years it has become more and more important for me as a Christian to focus on Jesus. He lived a real life in the real world and it’s possible, I believe, to discover a great deal about the Jesus of history. One thing that emerges is that those who met with him found themselves drawn into a close relationship with God: it was as if Jesus opened up for them a window on to the God who is love.

And that’s not just something of interest in history. It’s life changing because the faith that’s important to me is a three-dimensional faith. For this God of love, made real in Jesus is made real today in our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit, unseen and yet so very real. We have a strength to draw on from beyond ourselves that brings us through Jesus into the living presence of the God who is Love.

So to believe in that God of Creation who is made real in Jesus and is made real in our hearts by the unseen and yet so real power of God in the Holy Spirit makes a difference in the living of our lives.

Right at the heart of the Moses story in Exodus is a meeting with the God who is beyond our understanding who yet shapes the way we lead our lives.

Moses discovers God to be God with no name whose name is filled with mystery – I am who I am – and that happens in the mystery of that encounter with God in the wilderness at the burning bush.

it is on the mountain top that he encounters God once more – he comes face to face with God … and yet lives. 

Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God (19:17). The mountain is shrouded in mystery – smoke and fire – and Moses goes up the mountain and in that encounter with God warns the people not to try to look to see God … it is then that God gives these words that will shape the lives of the people.

We call them commandments. And commandments they are. But much more than that. They amount to a way of life to follow.

Eric Liddell of Chariots of Fire fame had that sense of the mystery of the presence of God and when interned in that Japanese prisoner of war camp he hand wrote copies of a book of discipline, a book of prayer to shape the lives of those he was so close to. And he commended committing to memory a few short passages of Scripture, first among them the Ten Commandments.

One God
No idols
Don’t dishonor the name of God
Keep the sabbath day holy

Honour Mother and Father
Do not kill
Do not commit adultery
Do not steal
Do not lie
Do not covet your neighbour’s family or goods

It’s a wonderful framework –

I am frustrated by the creeds. They speak of God in creation, of Jesus and all his cross and resurrection mean for us, and of the Holy Spirit and the church.

But they omit the way of life that God asks of us.

IN particular they skip the life and teaching of Jesus – they jump from born of the virgin Mary to suffered under Pontius Pilate.

I want to home in and have at the heart of the Faith for me the bit between.

Jesus brought healing in to hurting people’s lives.

And Jesus taught a way of life to follow.

Nowhere is that summed up more powerfully than in the Sermon on the Mount.

And that follows the two parts of the Ten Commandmnets.

Chapter 5 is all about the second set of commandments and chapter 6 is all about the first set of Gommandments.

They are traditionally on two tables.

Actually, come to think of it in many a parish church the creed is written on a tablet on the wall … and also the Ten Commandments.

But I want to home in on Jesus.

From 10 to 2

Reading: Mark 12:28-34

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.

So much that’s powerful there.

Jesus response to the scribe.

The scribe would have responsibility to write out Scriptures, laws, commandments.

Which is the first of all?

Jesus’ response brings in the word ‘love’.

Love God

Love your neighbour.

On another occasion Jesus finds himself asking an expert in the law who gives this very answer but wants to know who my neighbour is. That prompts the telling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Who is my neighbour – even the one deemed to be an enemy.

That plays out in all sorts of ways – not least in our contemporary world across the divides we are so aware of in our world.

The all inclusive nature of the neighbour.

But it is that word ‘love’ that catches my eye.

From 10 to 2 to 1.

It is as Jesus gathers aroiund the table at the Last Supper that he gives his closest friends a new commandment.

It is as if the ten are gathered into two and the two into one.

Reading: John 13:31-35

When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

It is in love for one another.

This is a framework for the living of our lives.

In a sense it is the framework of the God of creation – in the mystery of that mountain top experience of Moses.

It is the framework of the Jesus who makes the love of God real …

But I want to come back to what makes my faith three dimensional.

How can I love? Not in my own power.

It is in the power of the presence of God with me.

For love, with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, is nothing less than the fruit of the Holy Spirit.


269 Eternal Ruler

Prayers of Concern

173 Sing to God new songs of worship

Words of Blessing



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