Sermons

I wonder if you remember the old children’s cartoons. Characters chasing each other, round and round a lamppost, knocking down the china, wacky races in their cars, Tom and Jerry. Ingenious and slapstick ways to trick or trip one of the other characters so that you get ahead, catch them in the neck of a bottle, or whatever it is.

So: How do you find praying?

Not a question many of us like to be asked. Prayer is a subject that makes us feel guilty. We don’t pray as much as we know we ought to. Or helpless. We don’t know where to start. Or both.

Jesus talks about prayer in the passage we’re looking at this morning.

But he doesn’t do it to make us feel guilty. He wants us to enjoy praying. He wants prayer to be something we all do. And to make that happen, Jesus focuses our attention on God. If we can start to grasp what God is like, that will transform the way we talk to him.

One thing many people today hate – is hypocrisy. When someone doesn’t live out their faith.

A few years back, I parked the car badly. I found a note on my windscreen that simply read: Do you call yourself a Christian? Well, I do. But it’s why a fish sticker is a bad idea – unless you’re a very courteous and careful driver. It gives other road users two reasons to dislike you. Not only are you a bad driver, you’re also a Christian and that makes you a hypocrite.

There’s nothing more wonderful than a Christian who lives what they believe.

Jesus said: What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and forfeit their life?

That’s Mark chapter 8, verse 36.

It’s a good question. Our society is very good at helping us to add things to our life. Much less clear what life itself is all about.

Which makes Jesus’ question frighteningly relevant. What if someone did manage to gain everything there is to have? But what if they also missed out on life itself?

1 John chapter 5 is about how we can avoid making exactly that mistake.