As most of you know, Keiyeng’s Granddad sadly passed away last Friday morning. He is much loved, and will be greatly missed. His funeral is being held tomorrow (his 91st birthday) in Ottawa, Canada. We have been mourning, because death is a horrible intrusion – an unnatural enemy. We were made to live and love, and death breaks this intimate connection. So we mourn.

But below is the great news of Good Friday (1 Corinthians 15:55-57), captured in conversation style by John Piper. This is true for Keiyeng’s Granddad, and true for all who put their faith in Christ. It’s the reason why Good Friday is truly good.

A Conversation with Death on Good Friday
by John Piper | April 10, 2009

CHRISTIAN: Hello, Death, my old enemy. My old slave-master. Have you come to talk to me again? To frighten me?

I am not the person you think I am. I am not the one you used to talk to. Something has happened. Let me ask you a question, Death.

Where is your sting?

DEATH, sneeringly: My sting is your sin.

CHRISTIAN: I know that, Death. But that’s not what I asked you. I asked, where is your sting? I know what it is. But tell me where it is.

Why are you fidgeting, Death? Why are you looking away? Why are you turning to go? Wait, Death, you have not answered my question. Where is your sting?

Where is, my sin?

What? You have no answer? But, Death, why do you have no answer? How will you terrify me, if you have no answer?

O Death, I will tell you the answer. Where is your sting? Where is my sin? It is hanging on that tree. God made Christ to be sin—my sin. When he died, the penalty of my sin was paid. The power of it was broken. I bear it no more.

Farewell, Death. You need not show up here again to frighten me. God will tell you when to come next time. And when you come, you will be his servant. For me, you will have no sting.

O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

Last month, a number of 5:17ers went to a church service to send Dene and Rachel, Elliot and Simeon Hughes off to Japan. As a church, we’ve committed to pray for, care and financially provide for the Hughes as they serve university students in Japan. The ministry they are serving with is called KGK.

We’ve been sent a link to a great vimeo from one of their Staff, Shige Oshima takling about KGK ministries. Here’s the vimeo. It’s encouraging. So have a view, and then remember to pray for the Hughes and the ministry of KGK.

Shige Oshima: KGK staff worker in Japan from CMS NSW & ACT on Vimeo.

Shige Oshima: KGK staff worker in Japan from CMS NSW & ACT on Vimeo.

For all our city workers:

When was the last time you had an honest look at life? Sometimes the sheer busyness of life stops us from stepping back to reflect on our lives and where they are going.

Why not join us as we step off the treadmill for a moment with three opportunities for an honest look at life.

Tuesday 6th March – “Ground hog day.”

Wednesday 7th March – “Why is there never quite enough money?”

Thursday 8th March – “The level playing field and why we’ll all be under it.”

Time: 12:30-1:15pm

Venue: Premier Room, Berkley’s on Ann, Corner of Edward and Ann St, Brisbane CBD

Speaker: Al Stewart

There is no cost for this event. Our speaker Alan Stewart will give a presentation exploring ideas the book of Ecclesiastes from the Bible. Why the book of Ecclesiastes? It is like the minority report of the Bible. It takes a long hard look at life and asks the bigger questions. There will be an opportunity for discussion and comments.

Register your interest here and we’ll send you a reminder email the week before and on the days of the series.

In this week’s Community Group study, I quoted Tim Keller’s definition of ‘the fear of the Lord’. One of the guys in our group asked exactly where I got it from (my apology for not referencing it properly). It was from Keller’s “The Meaning of Marriage”. Below is the quote.

“Fear in the Bible means to be overwhelmed, to be controlled by something. To fear the LORD is to be overwhelmed with wonder before the greatness of God and His love. It means that, because of His bright holiness and magnificent love, you find Him ‘fearfully beautiful’. That is why the more we experience God’s grace and forgiveness, the more we experience a trembling awe and wonder before the greatness of all that He is and has done for us. Fearing Him means bowing before Him out of amazement at His glory and beauty. Paul speaks of Christ’s love ‘constraining’ us (2 Cor 5:14). What is it that most motivates and moves you? Is it the desire for success? The pursuit of some achievement? The need to prove yourself to you parents? The need for respect from your peers? Are you largely driven by anger against someone or some people who have wronged you?” (p.68)

Keller has a wonderful gospel-centredness that permeates everything he writes about – including marriage (these quotes are from a book on marriage). Here are some great quotes on what the Christian gospel is:

“The gospel is this: we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves that we ever dared believe, yet at the same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope… God’s saving love in Christ is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God’s mercy and grace.” (p.48)

“And what is [the] gospel? It is that you are so lost and flawed, so sinful, that Jesus had to die for you, but you are also so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for you. Now you are fully accepted and delighted in by the Father, not because you deserve it but only by free grace.” (p.55-56)

“The gospel is not what we think – that we amass a good record, give it to God, and then He saved us. Instead, the gospel is that Jesus Christ has amassed a perfect record and when we believe in Him, He gives it to us. he lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died in our place, so that when we believe, our sins are pardoned and we are “counted righteous in His sight”. Then we are completely accepted and loved by the only One in the universe whose opinions really count.” (p.69)

This series of talks are currently happening at church in the hope that we will bust some of the myths surrounding Christianity and set the record straight. We’d love you to come listen to any or all of them, examine the Bible with us, ask questions, and hopefully get meaningful, satisfying, and even life-changing answers from God and His word.

On our part, we promise to respect where you’re coming from, and not demand anything from you. And we promise free dinners after church! We sincerely hope you’ll check us, the Bible, Jesus, and Christianity out.

09/10 – Christianity is for mindless morons
16/10 – Christianity does more harm than good
23/10 – Christianity is for wimps
30/10 – Christians hate homosexuals
06/11 – Christians are all hypocrites
13/11 – All religions are the same
20/11 – You can’t take the Bible literally
27/11 – …so what does all this mean for me?

Sometimes I feel scared of sharing the gospel. People might think, “but you’re a pastor, it’s part of your job”. But sharing the gospel with my friends and family can be hard. I’m scared of being rejected. It is easy to think “how can my words change their lives?” I’ve always felt that I’m not a good speaker, or a clever debater.

It’s easy to think lowly of myself. I’ve always had a fairly low view of my abilities. It’s part of my family genes I think. Although I love reading Christian biographies, many of them make me feel so small, especially when I read of the amazing things that God did through people like the Apostle Paul. Paul is deservedly one of my heroes. It’s easy to put Paul up on a pedestal – thinking that he was super human. But I have found so much encouragement that Paul felt the same as me in many ways. He said in 1 Corinthians 2:3-4 – And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom.

How did Paul become such a great evangelist when he struggled with weakness and fear and much trembling? Paul answered this question in Romans 1:16 where he said, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Paul wasn’t ashamed of the gospel.

What is the gospel? – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Why wasn’t Paul ashamed of the gospel? Because he knew that the gospel is the power of God to change human lives. The power was not in Paul. Paul’s eloquence of speech and his way of arguing did not change people’s lives. It is the gospel which is the power of God to turn hopelessness into hope. Paul knew we Christians are never called to convert people – only God can do that. But we are told to share the life-changing message of the cross. I may sometimes feel weak, fearful, trembling at the thought of evangelism. But Paul reminds me that I have no reason to be ashamed of the gospel. It changed my life. It can change others also.

A prayer for the timid gospel messenger: “Father, help me to trust in your empowering, and help me to declare your salvation to all, boldly and unashamadly, as I should. Please be strong amidst my weakness so that many may believe in your Son, the Lord Jesus, and have new hope and life. Amen”

Roof Top Chill Out! Sat Aug 6th
You haven’t been to a fundraiser like this one before! It’s kinda like a café, on the roof, in the Valley, in winter!?! The Rooftop Chillout is a fundraiser with a goal of raising $5000 to help us send Dene and Rachel Hughes to spread the good news of Jesus Christ in Japan. You can pop in at any time between 10 am to 10 pm and stay for as long as you want. A great atmosphere, with real coffee, live music, café style food and dessert, Japanese food (I promise it won’t be ‘live’). 

Hello everybody!

As advertised at 5:17 church, the highly recommended BLT+ is happening again this year. It’s on August 12 to 14th at PCYC Bornhoffen (the Gold Coast hinterland). We’re hoping as many 5:17ers can make it as possible. It will be an encouraging time away, together as a church, with people from around eight other churches. And we’ll be looking at our role in bringing the love of Christ to the world around us – the title is “To the Ends of the Earth”.

BLT+ is aimed for everyone – no matter where you are at as a Christian, or how old you are. It’s on the weekend so you don’t have to miss any days from work. And church will still be on on Sunday – so you won’t have to miss any 5:17 services (phew, I hear you say!). The speaker is Sam McGeown!

Chat with me (Steve), or Keiyeng for more details, or go here for additional information. Registration can be done here.

Prices are:

Early Bird Rego (Before July 18th, 2011)

Student: $75;

Worker: $85;

Part time (Sat only): $30 (no discount for part timers)

Normal Rego (After July 18th, 2011)

Student: $85

Worker: $95

Part time (Sat only): $30

P.S. Payment is by electronic payment only either with PayPal or Electronic Funds Transfer which is on the web form when you register. Keep in mind Paypal charges some additional hidden costs (+ around $2) so we recommend you to transfer your funds electronically to save on that $2.

The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to died for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me.

This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself, nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.

Source: Timothy Keller, The Reason for God,

Last Sunday and at (some) CGs this week, we took a good look at Jeremiah 31:31-34 where the LORD promises to make a New Covenant with His people. I got pretty excited at CG studying the passage in conjunction with Hebrews 10:11-25, and it’s one of the units from Bible College that impacted me the most too. (It’s an unusual privilege when you actually enjoy writing an exam essay because the content is so fantastic!) Why so excited? All to do with how superlatively better the New Covenant is compared to the Old.

…but as we pointed out at CG, it wasn’t that the Old Covenant was a bad system in itself. God doesn’t institute bad systems; He’s not a bully for introducing something that He knew would ultimately ‘fail’. But it was a system that He knew wouldn’t be able to work perfectly because it was a Covenant made between Him (a perfect God with perfect standards of holiness) and a broken, sinful, and thus unreliable people. Namely, from Exodus 19:5, Israel was supposed to obey God fully and keep (or obey) His covenant – the process of which was fully described in the Old Testament moral, political, and ceremonial laws. If (or rather when) the people didn’t obey, they were to apply the procedures of the sacrificial system – as an animal died and its blood was shed on their behalf, the people acknowledged that the due penalty of their sin against God was the separation of death, but that an animal was taking this punishment upon itself in their place. A lot of sin was committed, and so a lot of animals died*.

But there was a bunch of other stuff – as we learned from the (translated!) Latin summary phrases in Sunday’s sermon, a fallen humanity is not able to not sin. So there remained this separation, this relational distance between a sinful people and an awe-fully holy God as they struggled to obey, yet kept failing. A new system was needed – one that didn’t depend on sinful people to ensure its success, yet one that didn’t compromise this awe-full holiness of God’s. What? How??

Enter the New Covenant.

Imagine if there were someone who could perfectly keep the human side of the Covenant, and then ‘lend’ this perfect obedience to the rest of humanity? And imagine if there were a blood sacrifice with blood so ‘potent’ it was sufficient to cover all sin for all time – so the animal sacrifices could stop? And imagine if there were a life of infinite worth that if sacrificed, would be sufficient to take the separation of death-punishment for all other lives?

Enter Jesus.

- the perfect Adam, and the perfect Lamb – the human who because of the infinite worth of his divine life, could represent all humans: as he both perfectly obeyed the perfect standards of God, AND as he offered himself as the perfect and final ‘animal’ sacrifice to completely take the punishment due all humans for all their sin.

So if he kept Covenant perfectly, and if God allowed this Covenant-keeping perfection to belong to sinful me, then … wow! Imagine all the benefits that would be mine! (Actually you don’t have to imagine – Hebrews 10:11-25 is a good start, and then you could read the rest of the New Testament to round it off!)

So this is why I get excited thinking about the New Covenant, and how it’s better – not at all because I’m better or more sophisticated than an Old Testament Israelite, but because a Better Person has kept it perfectly for me. And God by His stupendous grace, somehow sees fit to allow Jesus’ perfect Covenant-keeping righteousness to be MINE – so that God sees me as if I’d never sinned, and is changing and empowering me so that I sin less with time, and will one day perfect me so I can’t sin at all. Plus I get to have GOD as my friend, not a distant Creator or angry Lord, but as loving heavenly Father, and Jesus as my brother.

I’ve gone on for several paragraphs now, but I hope you’ve seen why this stuff makes me excited. It’s the Gospel – the heart of the Good News we believe as Christians – that God should be so good to me by including me in this New Covenant is too wonderful for words. I hope it makes you rejoice too, and if you haven’t yet experienced it for yourself, I hope it makes you want to. Find out how here.

—

*Gory? yup. But a primitive system of blood and death by an anthropologically immature people that later became outmoded as they developed a more sophisticated religion? (this is how some schools of thought would describe it) no. Yes, this might seem to be a plausible explanation, but a careful reading of the whole Bible helps clarify why the system changed – and it isn’t due to a group of people becoming more sophisticated. Actually, keep reading above for the Bible’s explanation.