Second Sunday of Trinity – 29th June 2025 – POC
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-end; 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-end
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing in your sight o Lord our rock and our redeemer.
Bishop Thomas asked me to preach a lively sermon – I’m not quite sure I can do lively but we’ll try!
We started our readings in Psalm 77 and that is where I would like to begin. Here we find the psalmist crying out to God in the midst of deep distress. “When I was in distress, I sought the Lord,” he writes. There’s something profoundly honest about this psalm. It captures the human experience of pain and the longing for God’s presence when He feels absent.
It is often tempting, when life becomes difficult, to run to other places for answers—advice from friends, distractions, even despair. But the psalm reminds us of something vital: when we are in distress, the first place we must turn is to God.
It’s not easy, I’ve had times when I’ve asked God to intervene or give me a word for a situation and He has been silent. And when God is silent, it can feel like He is not there at all. Verse 2 captures that: “and I would not be comforted.” Even when we’re doing all the “right” things -praying, seeking, waiting – we can still feel abandoned.
And that is precisely where the enemy loves to attack. If we are not hearing from God, Satan whispers that God has left us. But that is a lie. Silence is not absence. Delay is not abandonment. God is still at work.
In the middle of the psalm, there’s a turning point. In verse 11, the psalmist says, “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.” It is important in the difficult times, when we cannot see what God is doing now, that we stand firm in our faith. We can do that by looking back and remembering the truth we have heard. We can do it by remembering the times we have known God being close and the events that we have seen His hand in. David is saying this in vs 11 – “I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.” It’s good to take time to reflect on what we know God has done so that when we are going through difficult times we can call them to mind.
This is not just something that’s nice to do – it is a spiritual discipline. We remind ourselves of His faithfulness in the past to strengthen our faith in the present. I encourage you to keep a record of what God has done in your life – those answered prayers, the moments of peace, the breakthroughs – so that in the difficult times you have somewhere to go to remember. If you can, write them down, and keep them in a safe place.
That same message carries into our epistle reading today. Paul writes to the Galatians: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then…” That call to “stand firm” is a call to active, determined faith in the face of pressure. A call not to run and go back to worldly ways when the situation is difficult but to remain trusting God, keeping His commands and going where He leads.
To have the freedom that Christ died for we need to do our part – to believe and trust in Him and to stand firmly on that belief.
We are told not just to stand still, but to “keep in step with the Spirit.” Discipleship is a daily walk, a journey in rhythm with the Holy Spirit.
The focus of Keep in Step International, the organisation I set up three years ago today, is discipleship, because discipleship affects every part of our lives. It’s about living a life that reflects Jesus, not in isolation, but in community, with the Holy Spirit as our guide.
We’ll come back to Galatians, but before that let’s look at the gospel. Jesus is talking about the cost of following him. People are saying they want to follow Jesus but… But let me bury my father first; but let me say goodbye to my family. In some ways these appear quite extreme examples – part of me following Jesus is coming here to South Sudan but – so far – the Lord has let me say goodbye to my family before leaving!
The message that we are reading in Luke is that following Jesus requires all of us – not just a part. To be a Christian we need to be a Christian every day, not just on Sunday’s. Following Jesus is a way of life – it’s living with honesty and integrity, it’s loving our neighbour, forgiving those who hurt us – that isn’t easy, especially when those we need to love and forgive have killed our fathers, husbands, sons, have stolen our cattle, our homes.
It’s not easy following Jesus – we need to help each other. Jesus didn’t leave us on our own. He gave us the Holy Spirit to help us, to guide us. That’s why Paul tells us that we should “keep in step” with the Spirit.
The starting point to being a disciple is making a commitment to follow Jesus, leaving behind distractions and things of the world and keeping in step with the Spirit.
The ways of the world are listed in Galatians 5 “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” Some of those may be things that are traditional in our cultures but they aren’t of the Spirit – they aren’t of God. There is conflict between things of the Spirit and things of the world. As Christians we have to stand firm on the side of the Spirit, even when that puts us against our own families – it’s not easy, it is costly.
As we do that those around us see the fruit of the Spirit – we don’t pick and choose the part that we want, the fruit of the spirit is one fruit, not many. Sometimes it is helpful to think of it like an orange – it’s one piece with many segments. We all have different levels of love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control, faithfulness and gentleness – they are something that we have to keep working on, I ask God for more patience most days! We won’t be perfect until we get to heaven but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be trying to achieve perfection.
As we go about our daily lives we can ask the question, what would Jesus do in this situation? As we think about that and do the same then we grow in our faith and become more like him.
Freedom in Christ is different from freedom in the world. I know prisoners who have freedom in Christ because they have turned their lives around and accepted him as their Lord and saviour. They are still locked up at night but they have real freedom in their hearts. They keep in step with the Spirit and have turned their back on the things of the flesh
Everyone knew that Elijah’s time on earth was coming to an end. As Elisha was with him that day he wanted to stay close to Elijah and go everywhere with him. We should want to do the same with God. At the guest house here in Juba I have a dog. Each time I arrive in Juba the first time he sees me he comes running over, often jumping up, and then he follows me – everywhere! He wants to be with me. Then, after a few days, he’ll go back to his own things – he’ll still spend time with me, but not as much. It can be like that for us as Christians – when we first make a commitment to follow Jesus we are excited, we want to tell everyone about Him, we want to sit and listen to the word, we want to know everything there is to know. Then, as that becomes familiar, we start to do other things, not always in line with God’s will. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to help us keep in step and to help us remember the things God has done for us in the past.
On Friday night I was at a prayer meeting, there was an opportunity for testimonies, and I was listening to people telling what God had been doing in their lives, then a friend stood and told testimonies of answered prayer in the lives of others – I started thinking, that’s great, and yes, you were praying for that person, but that’s their testimony to God’s goodness, what’s yours?! I can stand here and tell you about the times I’ve prayed for people and the testimonies I’ve heard from others but that means nothing to you – you don’t know those people; what has more value is when I tell you about the time God healed me, about the time He brought about reconciliation in the relationship with my father after 20 years of not seeing each other. Those are my testimonies of God’s goodness, they are the things that I will reflect on when the enemy is trying to make me walk the opposite way.
There probably won’t be a life changing moment in every day of our Christian journey, some days might even seem boring, but so long as we fix our eyes on Jesus, ask for guidance in what to do and where to go each day, and don’t return to our old worldly ways. Because Paul continues that “those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God”.
Being a Christian is costly, it isn’t just for Sunday’s.
Are you here today because it’s Sunday and we go to church on Sunday or are you here today because you have made a commitment to follow Jesus and you want to spend time with Him?
Let us daily remember to:
Seek God first – especially when things are difficult
Stand firm in our faith – recall the things He has done and trust Him to do more miracles
Keep in step with the Spirit – let Him lead you and help each other along the way.
As brothers and sisters in Christ we are part of a large family, scattered around the world, who learn from each other.
Share your faith with those around you – in your homes, in your family, in your community.