The Ascension is not a story about the absence of Christ, but of Christ’s extraordinary presence with us everywhere and always.
Seeking and Sharing the Fullness of Life
Seeking and Sharing the Fullness of Life
Sermons on Colossians
The culture of God’s beloved Son is born at the cross and takes root amidst a hostile world, spreading forgiveness and hospitality.
A sermon on Hosea 11:1-11, Luke:13-21, Col 3:1-11 by John Fowler 4 August 2019 The Colossians reading – which I am going to focus on tonight – goes like this – Nathan’s paraphrasing: “If you are fair dinkum when you say you have been raised to new life with Christ, then commit yourself to the things that belong to such a life.…
Jesus models for us a willingness to listen, learn and grow rather than a domineering certainty that insists on knowing who’s right and who’s wrong.
If we delight in shaming and punishing wrongdoers, we will not recognise the scandalous love and mercy revealed in Jesus, but instead find ourselves being harshly judged by an outraged condemning god who we have created in our own image.
We grow into the likeness of Christ as we model ourselves on him, and he is a model of growth rather than a model of static perfection.
God’s call to us is to be the embodiment of divine compassion.
Christ calls us to continue to grow in the measure of our love, prayer and good works.
With Jesus as our pattern, we find a new identity in our uncompromising allegiance to God’s ways.
The Cross is the tree at which we come to know the fullness of good and evil, and as we choose to bear the consequences of good and evil, it becomes for us the tree of life.
God has given us a new identity and a new allegiance in his kingdom, and our loyalty is now to truth and compassion regardless of their consequences for the interests of any other communities or kingdoms.