1. St Matts, Evening Service
Sunday 5th September, 7pm
(1 New Line Rd, West Penannt Hills)

2. CoastEC Supporter’s Night.
Tuesday 7th Sept, 7-8pm
@ The Venue
(cnr Claudare and Acacia Sts, Collaroy Plateau).

see ya there!

Chris

God made us to work…and sometimes it’s satisfying, but lots of the time it can be pretty frustrating!

Ever had a day at work like this…

Genesis 2:2-3,15
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done…15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
Genesis 3:17-19
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

So is that it? Work sucks and then you die?
Thankfully no. We were made for much more than that!
Instead of looking for the prefect job, or an endless holiday, what you’re really yearning for is to enter the rest God has for His people…now, and into eternity.

Listen to the Sermon here:

Genesis 2:2-3,15; 3:17-19

Come and hang out for lunch down at south one mile after church (Palmgrove park). BYO meat, drinks and something to share. Kick off around noon. See ya there! Need a map? (see below). Chris

“Everyone should be able to choose what’s right and wrong for themselves. People’s morals are their own private choice. It’s my life and I’ll live it my own way”

Looks like it wasn’t just Adam and Eve who’s been listening to the serpent…

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:1-7)

The world is not as it should be because we are not as we should be…

Listen to the sermon here:

Genesis 3:1-24

So we thought this would be an excellent chance for us to join together and pray while this meeting is on.

Your welcomed to join us at 3:45pm (for a 4pm start, and 5pm finish), as we commit this meeting and local high school SRE to our awesome God.

We’ll be hanging out at Evan and Alicia Barnes’ place (8/9 Baird St Tuncurry), and everyone’s welcome.

Looking forward to it, and hope you can make it!

If you’ve got any questions about this, or would like to rsvp, please contact Alicia on 0422 880 711.

Also…if you can’t make it please be praying where ever you are!

Check out these scriptures which talk about our responsibilities to our government authorities.

Romans 13:1-13
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

1 Timothy 2:1-6
I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men

Here are some useful links and great resources to get you thinking and praying about your vote.

How should a Christian vote?
http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/life/culture/how_should_a_christian_vote/

Compare party policies
http://www.australiavotes.org.au/

Another helpful page from the Centre of Public Christianity

God made us male and female.
He invented sex and marriage.
He made men and women equal,
but different.
And he has greater purposes for our relationships than our own satisfaction or happiness.
Will you listen to your Creator about gender roles, sex and marriage and trust that his purposes are good?

Genesis 2:18-25
The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”…Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. the man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (Genesis 2:18-25)

Listen to the Sermon here:

They capture something of the Aussie larrikan spirit, and they remind us to not take ourselves too seriously. We have ads with blokes doing bombies into spa baths; cooking our national symbol on the bbq; enjoying late night lamb sandwiches (kebabs), catapulting deer into the clouds to make it rain beer (???), getting lifts home from the pub in pizza delivery cars, and speaking ‘woman’ to a mates missus to explain to her why he should be allowed to go away with the boys. And of course to be successful you’ve got have a really big canoe (which goes without saying really).

One of my fave’s is this one

Carlton Draught
“Through the power of dance Kevin did become a brewery worker”.

Awesome. And what a great slogan: ‘made from beer’

But I also like Aussie beer commercials because they touch on deeper issues.
They wet our appetite for something real and satisfying; they promise us a more fulfilling lifestyle; they present a solution to some of the drudgery in our lives; or they promise to quench a deeper thirst in us (provided of course that we drink that particular brand of beer).

Beer is good, but it’s not God…

The bible says alcohol is a good gift from God to be enjoyed to his glory. Not to get drunk. Or become enslaved to. Or to use to cause others harm.

1 Corinthians 10:31
whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Romans 14:21
It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall.
Proverbs 20:1
Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.

Beer ads point us to our deeper thirst

Here are a few Aussie beer commercials I found on youtube that pick up some themes raised in the bible.

Pure Blonde
The reason this beer is so good is because it’s been brewed in some heavenly, angelic paradise. It’s “from a place much more pure than yours.”

And that’s what we want isn’t it – something pure and good, something from out of this world that might satisfy us.

Bible
The bible says there’s a place much more pure than ours – heaven.
And Jesus came from there. He was God’s Son, born as a man, lived a pure life.
He came to show us what God is like, and to give us a taste of real life and grace and truth.

John 1:1-3,14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. …The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

He also came to quench our deepest thirst.

John 4:13-14; 7:37-38
Jesus said: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life…If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me…streams of living water will flow from within him.”

Pure Blonde
Like the dove we have ‘homeward bound’ longings – we’re looking for a return to Eden. But we keep crashing into cheap imitations. We know there’s a better world beyond the one we’re in, but we can’t find the way there.

Beer might help us to enjoy where we are; but it can’t get us to where we really want to be.

Bible
Jesus came to lead us home.

John 14:1-6
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am….I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Toohey’s New – “official currency of the beer economy”

Aussies are supposed to help out their mates.
And their mates are supposed to repay them with beer.
Apparently we’d do anything ‘for the love of beer’.
And the scabbier the job, the more beers it’s worth.

Bible
Jesus came to help out his ‘mates’. And he did the scabbiest job of all.
He died a brutal death, in their place, to take the punishment for their sin so they could be forgiven.
How many cases was that worth?
All the beer in the universe couldn’t pay him back.
But he didn’t do it ‘for the love of beer’.

John 3:16
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
John 15:13
“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

Jesus is the true friend, who serves us, and doesn’t expect payment in return. That’s why it’s called grace. We don’t deserve it, we can’t earn it, and we can never pay it back.

And that’s the new currency of God’s economy – grace.

James Boag
This beer is brewed with magical transforming water: “These pure waters are special, something goes in there, comes out different. But in a good way”.

I love the way these guys hit back!

Guinness

What would you like to dip into that pure water to make it come out better?
We should probably all throw ourselves in there. We all have a need to be transformed, changed, made different – but in a good way. Somehow cleansed from our impurities and made better.

But we can’t change ourselves. We need God to do that for us

Bible
Jesus shed his blood for our sin – to wash us clean and change us from the inside out, to make us better.

Hebrews 10:22
“let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water”.

Jesus also transforms us more and more into his likeness by his word (the bible) and the Holy Spirit, until we’re perfected in heaven.
Romans 12:2
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
2 Corinthians 3:18
“ we…are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

And our great hope is that one day,
1 Corinthians 15:52
“the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed”.
Philippians 3:21
“by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body”.

Hahn Super Dry – Steve’s sister
“Every call you make affects your man-brand. Stay premium gentlemen”

How’s your man-brand?
Have you always stayed premium? Of course you haven’t.
None of us have. We’ve all made calls we shouldn’t have.
It’s hard to say no to temptation and to always do the right thing.
And drinking the right brand of beer isn’t going to help us make the right choices.

Bible
God knows all this. That’s why he didn’t send a bottle of beer – he sent Jesus – a real Saviour, with real power to transform our lives to help us stay premium.

Titus 2:11-14
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Fosters – I Believe

What do you believe?
It’s one thing to believe that Australia is the best country in the world (and it is hard to argue against that)…but what do you believe about the bigger issues of life? Who is God? How can you know Him? How can you be acceptable to Him?

I believe
I believe beer can go from being a good thing to a god-thing.
We can look to it as the high point of our day (’I can’t wait to get home to have a beer’…or five?); we can rely on it to help us socially (’I'll be right once I get a few drinks into me’); we can turn to it for comfort or to escape from realities we’d rather forget (like being lonely, or hating ourselves for who we are, what we’ve done, or what we’ve become). But beer is not God, and it’s not the solution we need.

What did Jesus believe?
He made some huge calls that he was dead serious about.
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life”.
“I am the resurrection and the life – whoever believes in me will live even though he dies.”

Should we believe him?
Jesus wasn’t all talk – he backed up his claims with amazing miracles. (He made blind people see, crippled people walk, and dead people live again!) He even predicted his own death and resurrection – and it happened just like he said it would. Jesus is believable because He’s alive and he’s still changing people.
He can even change you if you’ll let him.
Do you believe that?

This last ad is a cracker.

VB – “it doesn’t matter which banner you march under, it doesn’t matter who you are”

VB is the drinking beer for ‘every-man’ – cashed up bogans, manscaper’s, blokes punching above their weight, me and you.

Bible
It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’re like, what you’ve done, or what banner you’ve been marching under – Jesus invites every-man to drink.
He invites YOU to drink. And it’s his shout.

John 4:13-14; 7:37-38
Jesus said: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life…If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me…streams of living water will flow from within him.”

Are you thirsty for real life?

Jesus won’t let you down.
He will quench your thirst, and lead you life – life to the full.

To find out more about Jesus, check out these talks:

Jesus – God with us, and God for us

Jesus turns water into wine

Guilty, but not condemned

To enter God’s kingdom you must…?