Sunday 23rd June 2024 – St John’s Parish, Abyei
Psalm 48; Deuteronomy 11:1-15; Acts 27:1-12
Today’s sermon could simply be summed up in the first verse of our reading from Deuteronomy – “Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.”
As Christian’s we are to love the Lord and keep his commandments. Others cannot obey him on our behalf, it’s something that each of us has to do. We have a choice – God never forces himself or his ways onto any of us. He tells us, through his word, what he wants and leaves the decision – whether to follow and obey or walk the other way – to us.
I’m sure that we all have stories of what God has done for us. In this morning’s reading Moses is speaking to those who had seen and experienced the discipline of the Lord. He’s not speaking to their children – who have simply “heard” the things that were done in the past – but to those who have experienced it first hand.
And so with us today. God speaks to each one of us who have experienced him. Those of us who have already made a commitment to follow Jesus will have experiences of walking with him – we’ll have heard – though his word, through dreams and visions, when praying – the things that he is asking us to do. We’ll have seen him act – as he answers prayers that we have prayed over the years – not always with a yes, sometimes with a no or a wait – but we all have experiences which we can point to and share with others. Our experiences may not seem as “big” as the parting of the Red Sea, but they are significant in our own lives. We can all tell others of our first hand experience and pray that they too may come to know God themselves.
In verse 8 we read “observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess…” we may not be taking over land today in the way the Israelites were but we do need strength to do the things that God is calling us to do – whether, like me, that’s to come somewhere far from home to work with the local church so that they can make a difference to the lives of people in their community; whether that’s supporting and showing God’s love to the refugees coming to Abyei as they flee the war in Sudan; we can do anything God asks us to do in his strength, But how do we get that strength? By obeying the commands he gives us – the first, and most important, being to love the Lord your God.
If we went further in this passage we would have read about the importance of storing up God’s word in our hearts – it’s not enough to come to church and to read our bibles, we need to really take the words that we read into our hearts – that they become a way of life for us, that doing what God is asking isn’t a difficult decision but the only thing that we want to do. In our training this week we were talking about how the Holy Spirit helps us to pray for the things that God wants for us. We’re told that if we ask we will receive, if we knock the door will be opened – we need to take action – to ask, to knock – before God will grant our requests. As we grow as Christians we learn to ask for those things that God wants for us, his children. The more we understand what he wants, and ask for the things that enable us to do that, the more we will see our prayers answered.
The training this week has been preparing us to minister in prison. Our reading from Acts is written at the time that Paul was a prisoner waiting to appeal. We see the officers showing compassion to Paul and allowing him to be tended by his friends – he was in prison because of his faith, not because he had done anything wrong; he was in prison to “please” the Jews who felt threatened by him. The officers could see the difference between Paul – who knew Jesus – and other prisoners and so they knew that if they gave him some freedom he would not run away. Earlier this year Kat and I were in Nyamlel leading prison ministry training; last Monday I was in Wau and met with Bishop Peter, he was telling me how they are seeing both prisoners and officers softening as they hear more about Jesus. When those who don’t know Jesus meet people that do they see a difference, they see Jesus’ love and compassion in the way they act.
As a Christian Paul would pray – just as we pray today. He was in a difficult situation and probably, like many of us, that would encourage him to pray more. I know there are times in my life where I “forget” to pray, when things are moving along without too much difficulty, and then something happens which reminds me that I can’t do anything in my own strength – as we heard Moses telling the Israelites, we need strength from God. God is a loving father who pours out good gifts on his children, when we are obeying him, when we are calling on him in the good times as well as the bad, he will give us all we need to go to the places, and do the things, that he is asking us to do. The Holy Spirit guides us in our walk with him.
So here we have Paul, a prisoner because of his faith, on a boat to Rome so that he can appeal his arrest; in the same way that God speaks to those of us who are Christians today, he spoke to Paul. He gave Paul insight into what would happen if the ship sailed and Paul shared this with the officers to warn them. Yet we are told that the centurion followed the advice of the ship’s captain – he didn’t listen to the man of God; the ship sailed and then got into difficulties.
If we continued reading we would see that, in an attempt to keep the boat afloat, they would throw items overboard to reduce the weight, they tried to stop the boat breaking apart but the storm continued for many days; the 276 people on board gave up hope of surviving; they didn’t eat for many days – not because they were fasting but due to sickness and a lack of food. Paul speaks again – “you should have listened to me”! How many of you enjoy it when you are found to be right? When people have not listened to you but, if they had, a situation could have been avoided? This is Paul saying, “I told you so”; but he continues, he urges them to keep their courage, not to lose hope, he assures them that no lives will be lost, just the ship. How does he know this? How can he make such a bold claim? Because God had sent an angel to tell him. When we walk with God, when we love him and obey his commands, he will speak to us. We all know that transport in South Sudan is not the best. I remember, many years ago, I was flying from Yambio to Juba, Archbishop Daniel was with us and we landed in Maridi to drop some people off and pick up others. The plane had been full when we left Yambio and there were more people wanting to get on in Maridi than there were getting off. Discussions took place between the pilot and Archbishop Daniel, the Governor was called. Initially I was concerned but, as I prayed, I had the overwhelming sense that God had more for me, and others on the plane, to do and that we would reach Juba safely – I remember sharing that with Archbishop Daniel. We took off with more people than there were seats for – but not as many as had wanted to travel – and we did, indeed, arrive back in Juba safely.
As Christians we need to be listening to God – in everything that we do – is he asking us to go or to stay; is he asking us to tell people something or to keep quiet; what does he want. There will be times that we mishear, that our own thoughts get in the way and we say or do the wrong thing; when that happens we come back to the cross, repent and move on.
We are not always in complete control – sometimes we can say what we think but then others are the ones to make the decision – as happened when Paul cautioned them not to sail.
Not everyone will listen to you – not everyone will accept the word of God; but that should not stop us from sharing it, from telling others what we think God is saying. Every day, as Christians, we have an opportunity to point other people to Jesus. We should not hide ourselves away in the church; we should get out in our communities, in our prisons, to speak to those who haven’t met him yet – to show them by our lifestyle that there is a different way. In the way that the officers could see Paul was a different type of prisoner – they could see that letting him have time being tended to by his friends wouldn’t lead to him escaping – people in the market, in our offices, in our communities will see that we are different. They will see the fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives, they will want to know more and it is part of our role to tell them more – through our words and through our actions.
Our Psalm begins with a declaration of the greatness of God who is worthy of our praise.
Our idea of how great God is probably falls far short of how great he really is. Our minds will not let us grasp the full greatness. You may have moments in worship where you’re in awe, where you get just a glimpse of his greatness. He’s worthy of praise and our praise – however good – is just a small step towards the amount that the Lord is due. We read that even when Kings – those with worldly importance – joined forces, they saw the city of God – protected by Him – and fled.
“As we have heard, so we have seen, in the city of the Lord Almighty, in the city of our God; God makes her secure for ever.”
As children of God we have security. In the same way the psalmist wrote of the city of God being protected, we too are protected; we are secure. We can enter into the temple, the holy place, and meditate on God’s unfailing love. The more we get to know God the more we will want to share him with those around. We’ll tell our friends, our family, the next generation, prisoners – those so often forgotten by society – but people who need to hear the good news.
Verse 14 – “For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.”
Have you put your trust in the Lord? Are you allowing him to guide you – every step of the way as you live your life walking towards an eternity with him?
In the same way that Paul prayed and listened to God, we too can pray and listen – God speaks now just he spoke then and he guides us. God told Paul that if the boat sailed there would be a disaster – Paul didn’t make the final decision to sail but he did share with those decision makers what God had said.
We cannot force anyone to listen to God, but we can pray, we can listen, we can share what we think he’s saying and others can weigh what we say. Just as God gives us free choice to listen and obey or to ignore and walk away, so he gives that free choice to everyone.
Where do you want to be? What do you want to do? For me, I know I want to be at the centre of God’s will for my life. It’s not always easy, even coming here to Abyei there were challenges with flights – I was reminded of when we came last year when the same happened – and I had to hang on tightly to God. I was sure it was his idea that I come, so why was it was so hard? When we’re doing what God wants us to do the devil is not happy. He will try to make us doubt, he’ll try to make us run away, to take the easy option. We have to remain strong, to stand on the promises of God. In our training we looked at the armour of God which Paul talks about in Ephesians 6:10-14 – we need to study our bibles, to know scripture, to be able to fight the devil with words from scripture – in the same way Jesus did when he was tempted. We need to extinguish the arrows that are thrown at us, we need to protect ourselves from things that are not of God.
That doesn’t mean that we hide away here in the church – only mixing with other Christians – we wouldn’t be able to share the gospel if we did that. But we do need to take care, we need people to be praying for us, we need to be praying when we are going out into the world – whether that’s our workplace, our school, hospitals or the prison. Wherever we are going we ask God to guide us, to walk with us, to speak to us.
May we be people who faithfully obey the commands he has given us – to love the Lord our God and to serve him with all our heart and with all our soul.
Amen.