The Daz Cast - grandson of a preacher man

A Daz Cast special: Unchanging Grace

Hercalitus said this, "There is nothing permanent except change" and on one hand this quote is true. Everything does change, something that the writer of Ecclesiastes well knew... "there is a time for everything... a time to be born and a time to die... a time to tear down and a time to build up, a time to weap and and a time to laugh…” – Everything does change.

"Distracted" - 1 Corinthians 7

Single minded, sold out for Jesus Christ.

"Sacrament" - 1 Corinthians 6

A sacrament is an outward sign of an inward happening. Paul writes to the Corinthians, reminding them that they are God’s holy people, saved by grace, called to live in the spirit. That inward happening is to be reflected in our physical body. I think that’s quite a challenge as we look at our physical and mental health? Even if you are the fittest and most attractive person in the world, is that because of inward spiritual happening? And it’s a challenge isn’t it, particularly for me, as I go for my first pint in a pub since lock down, because if Christ is at work in me, and if Christ is at work in you, then our physical bodies are a sign of that work of grace in our lives.

"Lidl" - 1 Corinthians 5

There’s nothing like fresh dough – first fresh dough is just that fresh and it smells lovely, but secondly you can do things with fresh dough – you can make bread, a cheese twist a chousamme de pomme or even a quiche! And that’s how God wants us fresh, mouldable and be ready to be turned into anything that God decides… But this for me is the best part of this fresh bread analogy. Paul goes onto say that we are to be like Christ, our Passover lamb, sacrificed for us. Bread is meant to be broken – broken in solidary with others, but broken bread reminds us of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, his display of love for us. As we say in our communion liturgy “we break this bread to share in the body of Christ. We have two choices Paul gives us. Old yeast and however that is displayed negatively in our lives and churches, or we can be ourselves like bread – broken and distributed to each other and to our communities in which we live and serve. Jesus said “I am the bread of life”.., and as we share in the body of Christ, so we too share in the bread of life, and as imitators of Christ we are ourselves to become fresh dough broken and shared with a world in need.

Yugoslavia - 1 Corinthians 4

The church in Corinth it might be said was all talk and no power. They had, in the eyes of the world, all manner of resources available to them. They were strong socially, economically and culturally but they had not fully grasped the upside down nature of God’s Kingdom. They had not started to display the fruit of the spirit which we read about in Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia. The fruit of the spirit is an output of God’s grace, and by living in the spirit. Paul’s charge to the Corinthian church was that they were living out of their own grace, their own strength, and their own wisdom, fashioned, perhaps understandably, by all the world had incorrectly taught them. No, that is a Kingdom of talk. And Paul says that’s God’s Kingdom is founded in the very power of God, where his weakness is stronger than our strength. Service then in God’s Kingdom is not empty words but rather as a result of being drenched, immersed, utterly transformed, renewed and powered by God’s very own essence; and from a knowledge of God’s grace. As we discussed in Galatians we can’t earn God’s grace, we can’t work for it but oh, when we receive God’s power and God’s grace – grace get’s to work. We can’t work for Grace, but grace works… And Paul outlines in this chapter what this grace in action, in service looks like.  Our dedication to Christ as Paul says, our service to him, even our slavery to Jesus will cause us to look like fools, to be ridiculed, to go hungry and thirsty, to experience poverty and persecution. To serve, is to work wearily with our own hands, to bless those who curse us, to be patient with those who abuse us, to appeal gently when evil things are said about us. It is to be prepared to be treated like rubbish… Saints, following Jesus Christ isn’t about church services, and I know many of us want to get back to all that once lockdown is fully lifted. That’s part of it of course, and I’m not seeking to diminish our Sunday worship together, but our corporate worship is best displayed in service of Jesus Christ to the world on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday. It’s service that is worship, it is worship that is costly. If it isn’t costly, it might not stand up to much heat in the refiners fire that we read in chapter 3! Service – that’s where the rubber hits the road.