Sunday's sermon

I have never tried this before... so have a read if you feel up to it and let me know what you think... just be gentle since its the first time I've uploaded a sermon. I tend to write them out in keyword format so you have to fill in the gaps (both grammatically and theologically... hehe)

The Reckless Sower

A man went out to sow seed in his field. He carefully scattered the seed onto the well prepared good soil, and lovingly made sure there was just the right amount of seed in his furrows. He cared for his crop until the time came for the harvest.

That’s not right is it?
Jesus used stories to teach, as was the culture of his day.
Now where was Jesus when he told this story of the sower?
In a dry, semi-desert climate, where famine and poverty is just a bad season away, you would expect Jesus to talk about being dedicated and careful – working hard to provide for God’s people.
But no… Jesus tells this story instead
Luke 8:4-15

Jesus paints God as a rather reckless farmer, chucking the seed about not seeming to notice or care where it lands.
What a waste of seed.
Or is it?
Jesus says this seed is the word of God, the word that was God and became flesh and lived among us, the word that is all that God is.
God the sower sows this seed, this word of God, everywhere. But its not a reckless act, its an amazingly abundant act. The story first and foremost tells us about the generous, extravagant, overflowing nature of God’s love for His people… ALL His people. We would love to think that God doesn’t like our enemies, that God only loves those who are like us, those who fit into our picture of what God likes… but God’s abundant love is poured out on everyone.
Rather we are the ones who are reckless with God’s love.
The four types of ground represent the different ways that we avoid God’s love.
PATH – God’s love consumed by evil: anger, bitterness, grudges, selfishness
ROCK – God’s love is dried out when we lose patience with God’s timing
THORNS – God’s love is strangled by all the other gods we hold onto: pride, fame, wealth, power,
GOOD SOIL – When God’s love is accepted by “an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patient endurance”
God is not a reckless farmer, chucking seed (His love) about
Rather God pours out this abundant love on everyone!
We are the one’s who through our selfishness, bitterness, impatience and false idols are reckless with this love that God offers…

back to the drawing board...

Once more my two favourite cartoons sum up the new wave of violence in South Africa:





Its yet another sad day as the violence has spread to Cape Town...
The ANC Youth League have called for an end to the violence... surprising from a group renowned for their tendency to shout about machine guns... pray for South Africa - for her leaders and all her people, guests and residents alike

YIKES

Ok, so blogging has never been my strong point...
I'm going to claim that a new baby takes up a great deal of time and so I simply haven't been able to blog anything
The reality is that everytime I've thought about adding something, I haven't felt like it... yup that's the truth of it, so sorry all my devoted readers (*snigger* as if there were any)

So yes, I am now a dad... that's a flippen weird thing to type!
Little Emma Leigh was born on the 16th April '08
I finally get to challenge someone (*chuckle*) to a quick one-question quiz: what is the mathematical significance of little Emma's birthday?
Here is my favourite photo so far of her highness (although favourite is such a loaded term - as if I could choose from the 300 photos so far accumulated...):



she was just one day old when we took this picture ... and no those aren't our hideous curtains, they are in fact the choice of the very helpful and wonderful midwives at Pembury Hospital!

Sleep is hard to come by, Emma will sleep for abour four hours once in a while, we're lucky if that happens to be at night... which was fine until I had to go back to my deadly 7am starts to get to random assemblies! So we've had quite a few nights that have a bedtime at 1.30am and wake up at 7am with a brief time of holding/rocking/shushing at 4am! anyway enough of that... its time for some attempted sleeping...