MY NEXT SERMON

I AM  PREACHING NEXT ON SUNDAY 26 OCTOBER 2025 - at ALL SAINTS' PARISH CHURCH, WINTERSLOW, WILTSHIRE - 9.15 a.m.  - BIBLE SUNDAY

SERMON 224 - SUNDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2025 - TRINITY 13

Sermon at Morning Worship, All Saints’ Farley - 13th Sunday after Trinity – Sunday 14 September 2025

Exodus 32:7-14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may these words be those of you, Lord, and may they be a blessing to all who listen and hear them.

Today’s theme is that of repentance, of turning round and returning after having either lost our way or deliberately having wandered off from the paths of life destined for us by God. All of today’s readings, therefore draw us into the very heart of God, a heart broken by our sin, but moved by mercy, and relentless in love. If we allow these passages to speak deeply to us, we will see that repentance is not just something we do, it’s something God makes possible through His mercy.

Beginning with our first reading, from Exodus 32, God says to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people…have become depraved.” The people, freshly delivered from slavery, could not even wait forty days before turning their hearts toward an idol—the golden calf. And notice the language: God says to Moses, “your people, whom you brought out of Egypt.” It’s as if God is disowning them, as if they are Moses’s people and not God’s!

There is a real grief in God's words. This is not a distant deity watching with cold detachment. This is a God wounded by the betrayal of those He loves. Sin is not simply breaking rules; it is breaking God’s heart.  Imagine, if you brought up a child, lavished love upon them and taught them the correct way to behave, and then they turned their back on you, behaved in ways totally against what you had hoped for,  how would you feel? Well, that’s exactly what God experiences.

But what happens next is amazing: Moses intercedes. He pleads on behalf of the people. And God, in His mercy, relents. The Hebrew word used implies that God allowed Himself to be moved with compassion. This is not God being indecisive, this is God being relational. Mercy wins.  We have seen this before, earlier in Genesis 18, when Abraham pleads with God not to destroy Sodom if there were at least ten righteous people living there or, allowing Noah to build the Ark in Genesis 6 and spared him and his family from the Great Flood.

This is the first movement of repentance: God grieving over our sin, and someone standing in the gap to restore the relationship. For Israel, it was Moses. For us, today, it is Jesus.

In our second reading, we have an example of God’s mercy to someone who has sinned. Paul writes: “I was once a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy.” Paul does not minimize his sin. He calls it what it is. And yet, again that sin becomes the backdrop for God’s incredible grace.

“I received mercy…so that in me, the foremost sinner, Jesus Christ might display His utmost patience.” Paul sees his life as a living testimony to what God can do with a repentant heart.

There is hope here, therefore, for every one of us. Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that repentance is only for the really bad sinner, people like Paul before his conversion. But if we are truly honest with ourselves and each other, each of us, in different ways, has turned our hearts to false gods, power, comfort, approval, pride, material wealth. And yet God’s mercy is bigger than our worst failures.

Paul teaches us that repentance is not about shame—it is about transformation. When we truly repent, we don’t just ask for forgiveness; we open ourselves to being changed.

Finally, in our Gospel reading, we meet a God who doesn’t just wait for sinners to come back—He goes out to find them. Jesus tells two parables: the shepherd who leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep, and the woman who searches her house for the lost coin.

What do these parables have in common? Pursuit. Persistence and Joy.

God doesn’t abandon us in our lostness. He searches. And when He finds us—when we turn back, when we repent—there is joy. Not judgment. Not a lecture. Not punishment. Joy.  We see this again in the wonderful parable of the Prodigal Son – and there is another lesson there, unlike the brother who stayed behind, we should join in that joy when others turn back from their sinful ways and encourage them going forward.

Jesus says, “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need repentance.” This flips everything we might assume about God. He is not looking to condemn us. He is longing to celebrate our return.

Repentance is not a one-time act. It’s a way of life. Every day we are invited to turn back to God—again and again.  That is why we have a time of confession in every service; to acknowledge our sins and turn away from them.

But how do we do this?  And like any good sermon there are three points, listing three steps we need to take:

First, by being honest. Like Paul, name your sins. Don’t justify them. Don’t sugarcoat them. Just bring them to the light.  No “I have sinned but…”

Second, by trusting in God’s mercy. Remember Moses and Abraham interceding, remember Paul being transformed, remember the shepherd lifting the sheep onto his shoulders. God is not reluctant to forgive. He is eager.

Third, by rejoicing in God’s joy. When we repent, we don’t grovel—we rejoice. We join the celebration in heaven.

And one more thing: As disciples of Jesus, we are called not only to repent but to become ministers of reconciliation. That means we search for others who are lost. We don’t write people off. We don't say, “They’ll never change.” We remember what God has done for us, and we extend that same hope to others.

Let us pray:

Loving Shepherd, You seek us when we wander and rejoice when we return. Thank You for never giving up on us, for carrying us back into Your arms with joy. Teach us to treasure every soul as You do, to celebrate restoration, and to extend mercy to the lost. May our hearts reflect Your compassion, and may our lives share in the joy of heaven when one sinner repents.

 

Amen

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SERMON 223 - SUNDAY 31 AUGUST 2025 - TRINITY 11

Sermon at Team Service at St. Mary’s Church, West Dean - 11th Sunday after Trinity –Sunday 31 August 2025

Ecclesiastes 10:12-18; Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16; Luke 14:1,7-14

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may these words be those of you, Lord, and may they be a blessing to all who listen and hear them.

Whenever my mother heard anyone, especially a politician, speak arrogantly about themselves or what they had done she had a phrase which I am sure is well remembered by many of you of my generation - “Pride always comes before a fall, you’ll see”.  Indeed, my mother really didn’t like people who were boastful or full of their own importance and, as the wife of a local politician, and later the mother of one, me, there were many occasions when she met and conversed with people with whom she struggled to like. She had been brought up as the daughter of a simple Norfolk farm worker who had a very simple philosophy – “You should remember you are what you are, and there is no room for “airs and graces”.  You are who God created you to be, was his philosophy, although he might not have put it in so many words. He was not an ardent church goer but he served the church in many other practical ways as verger, coffin maker and grave digger, and most definitely led a Christian way of life. He had observed so many corpses that he often said – “All the time I’ve been helping the local undertaker I have never seen pockets in a shroud”.  What material wealth you have you can’t take with you.

Each of our readings this morning reminds us of this philosophy and at its centre is the need for us to remember that it is not by our own efforts and wealth that we reach salvation, but in trusting in, and following God. 

In Ecclesiasticus, our first reading, the writer, presumed to have been King Solomon, states, right at the beginning, that human pride is to forsake the Lord – in other words, once we talk about ourselves in such a way that would not have received my mother’s approval, we are placing ourselves at the centre of everything and displacing God in our hearts. As I read what King Solomon had written, some 3,000 years ago, it seemed to me that he was also foretelling the state of the world as it is today. There is too much pride and arrogance being displayed by many leaders of the world’s nations, but this passage reminds us that those who act in this way will be brought down – there will be a fall following the sin of pride.  It is a matter for God to be proud of us, his creation, not us of ourselves.  It is this message, written by King Solomon, which is the essence of Jesus’s parable which we will look at in a moment, but it is another reminder of the importance of understanding the importance of the Old Testament in prophesying what was to come and that Jesus came to fulfil those prophesies and to teach us all how we are to treat others.

Our second reading is one which I reach for from time to time and has been such a great comfort to me through some of the toughest years of my life. As with pride, many believe that money and wealth, material prosperity generally, will keep at bay all things evil and troublesome.  This is the world many of us live in – believing that if we have lots of money we will be alright, we will have good health and never have worries or fears.  I am reminded of Harry Enfield’s character “Lots of Money” and his Birmingham accent “I am considerably richer than yow”.  That is the false teaching we find with the prosperity gospellers who spread this wrong message. Appealing to the vulnerable, the only people who prosper, materially, are they themselves, telling the weak and sick that they need to “sow a seed” of money into their ministry to receive a blessing.  The reality though is that this is a totally false premise. God does not need to be bribed in order to bestow a blessing on us. Jesus himself told his disciples that following Him would never be easy but that the treasure we store up in our heart is the heavenly treasure of eternal life. You will recall the parable of the farmer who built bigger barns to store his wealth. You will also recall the time when Jesus suggested to the young wealthy man that to enter the kingdom of Heaven he should give all his possessions to the poor and follow him.

Here the writer of Hebrews reminds his readers, and us, that we don’t need masses of money and especially we should not worship it or believe that “sowing a seed of money” will yield ever more wealth. That is the gospel of the greedy, not of the true Christian.

In our last, gospel reading, Jesus declares “don’t sit at the top table” when attending a function. As Tom Wright puts it “If this is a parable then it is not about table manners at a dinner party”!  It’s actually a warning to his contemporaries – to the leaders of Israel. God has promised a great wedding party, the “messianic banquet”, but if Israel thinks that it has an inalienable right to sit at the top table by virtue of simple obedience to the law, she has another think coming. Jesus is reminding those Jewish leaders that pride comes before a fall or humility before exaltation.  That is again the message for all – for those who would seek to think of themselves as better than others. Jesus is saying that such people, by their lack of humility towards God, the great host, are themselves already committing a great sin even though they think of themselves as superior through religious fervour.  We see this again later on in Luke’s Gospel (18:9-14) when we meet the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in the Temple.

Jesus’s message to all the great leaders of the world at the time, and is today, is a focus on the Cross – the epitome of humility where the highest was seemingly crushed; followed by the resurrection, it summons the powers of the world to humility – those who think themselves great are being confronted by their own true King shamefully executed – a sight which overturns all arrogance and unmasks all pretensions. He is saying that faced with the crucified and risen Lord of the world, the rulers of the nations will begin with shame to take the lowest place.

This gospel passage ends with a reinforcement of what the writer of Hebrews is saying.  Don’t do things in the hope of receiving something in return, or being repaid, or for monetary gain (this again is in direct contradiction to the theology of the prosperity gospellers), but do it for those who cannot repay you but need your help and assistance. You will be repaid at the end times, when there is foretold the resurrection of the righteous.

We all need to be reminded of these teachings often, especially those of us in positions of influence and power.  I am sure that there are many leaders of the world today, and I guess you could name many of them, like me, very easily, who especially need to take heed of these words of scripture and of Jesus’s teachings generally throughout his ministry on Earth. 

I can do no better than, before we say a prayer, conclude with a quotation from Paul’s letter to the Romans which, I believe, summarises the message contained in this morning’s passages of scripture and this sermon:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform 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.  ³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. (Romans 12:1-3)

Let us pray :

"Loving God, thank You for Your promise to bless those who help others in need, knowing that they cannot repay us. Forgive me when I only invest in those who can return my kindness. Father, open my eyes and give me the strength and resources to bless others, especially the poor and vulnerable, from whom I can expect nothing in return. May my actions bring glory to Your name and my body be a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to you. Through Jesus Christ your Son and Saviour” 

Amen

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