“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

It is part of our ‘aussie’ culture or make up that we are cynical; sarcastic and like to knock down the ‘tall poppy’. This is the very opposite to what we are to be as God’s people. This is clear from the verse above. Notice it says ‘give thanks in all circumstances.’ This Sunday we begin a two week series on thankfulness and we’ll see that being thankful is not optional. It flows out of our understanding that there is one God and creator who is in control of all things who we should be thankful to. All we have is from God and so we are to be thankful to him. We are either known as thankful people or grumbling people. Which one are you?

On Sunday, I finished our summer series “Snapshots of Jesus” with the talk “What did Jesus Leave Behind?”, speaking from Matthew 28:16-20.

I was particularly enthusiastic about this talk, because disciplemaking ministry is the ‘bread and butter’ of Student Life, the university ministry I was involved with for 10 years prior to coming to Lakeshore. These principles never change, but it looks different in our local church to the way it looks on campus. So I’m interested in practical ways to apply Jesus’ mission to Make Discples in our everyday lifes.

I finished my talk by saying “If each of us start doing a few simple things aimed at Making Disciples…” So what might those few simple things be? Here are some from my talk, plus a few others.

- Who might the people be that you could “Make Disciples” amongst? Immediate or extended family, workmates, old friends you haven’t seen for a while, class mates, sports teammates, parents of your kids’ friends…
- One the best things we can all do to is be a friendly welcoming face at church. When people visit our church, it might be the result of someone else’s prayers! But if they leave feeling unknown and unwelcomed, we’ve let them down. So be friendly!
- Be hospitable. Inviting people to your place is one of the best ways to get to know them, and one of the best ways for them to see Jesus in your life everyday.
- Ways to keep learning as a disciple of Jesus yourself (a few mentioned in my talk):
1 Reading the bible regularly. (Several people at Lakeshore have begun using the McCheyne Bible Reading Plan this year, including myself.)
2 Getting together with someone else to read the bible. Church leaders would be delighted if you asked them about this. Why not approach LT, one of the elders or myself?
3 Joining a growth group to study the Bible with a few others. Growth groups are getting going in the next few weeks.
4 Getting everything you can from the bible talk by bringing a notebook to church, or by listening to the sermon again on the church website?
- Either now or in the future, you will be able to encourage other people to Make Disciples. You could be someone who leads a growth group. You could ask a younger Christian about meeting together to read the bible and pray. If you don’t work towards this, then the mission of Jesus is stopping with you – we have to make disciples who will make disciples.

There are obviously many more. If you’d like to suggest some in the comments, I’d love to read them.

Tomorrow at our Good Friday service I’ll be preaching from Matthew 26:27-28, looking for an answer to a question – an obvious question for Good Friday: “Why did Jesus die?

The answer is found in three religious sounding terms in those verses – “Covenant”, “Sacrifice” and “Forgiveness of Sins”. To find out more, you’ll need to come along, or wait a day or two and listen to the sermon online…

However, in a teaser, here’s a recent news article on the topic of sacrifice that I couldn’t quite make room for in my talk. (You can read the full article here on www.news.com.au)

Chinese Man Killed Catching Suicidal Girlfriend

A MAN has died after catching his girlfriend as she jumped from the seventh floor of an apartment block in China.

The young Chinese man, identified only by the surname Wang, held out his arms to break the woman’s fall as she plummeted from their apartment in Quanzhou in south-eastern China.

Mr Wang was killed by the impact of his girlfriend landing on top of him, while the woman suffered bone fractures and other serious injuries but was not in critical condition.

The witnesses reported seeing Mr Wang on the street below the apartment, trying to persuade his girlfriend not to jump.

The woman was under treatment for multiple fractures and required surgery, but she did not suffer any life-threatening injuries.

In this tragic story, a young man sacrificed his life to save the life of his girlfriend – who didn’t even want to be saved.

What , you may be asking, could this story possibly have in common with the death of Jesus?

As we discussed Hebrews Chapter 7 last night in our men’s growth group, we began to see two different ways of viewing the Old Testament.

The author of Hebrews was addressing a group of people who were apparently having trouble letting go of their Old Testament understanding of priesthood. So he goes to great lengths (as he does throughout the whole letter) to demonstrate that God’s new priesthood in Jesus is reliable (v21) and better (v19). Imagine the change these Hebrew believers were trying to come to terms with – the Old Testament priesthood was their whole heritage, their whole way of life! For hundreds of years, the very identity of the Jewish people had been tied to this way of relating to God.

We wondered whether the Pharisees, who could not accept Jesus’ teachings, reacted so strongly to Jesus for similar reasons. These Hebrew believers, and the Pharisees, could see the Old Testament only one level – the laws and regulations that defined the life of the people of Israel.

However the author of Hebrews consistently shows his readers a different way of viewing the Old Testament. As he encourages them to be faithful to Jesus as God’s eternal and better High Priest, he repeatedly calls on the Old Testament to support his argument. (In Hebrews 7, he explains the role of Melchizedek from Genesis 14 and Psalm 110 as a precedent for Christ). He understands that the Old Testament is the account of God’s relationship with His creation and His people that reveals, leads to and is fulfilled in Jesus.

And because he sees the Old Testament on this second, deeper level, he is able to freely admit that the first level is no longer needed – in verse 18 he states very strongly that the Old Testament priesthood is “set aside because it was weak and useless”.

So how do you view the Old Testament? If you are only viewing it as rules and regulations – as did the Pharisees – reading and understanding it can be a difficult and frustrating task – “How does this apply to me!?”. But if you understand that the Old Testament reveals Jesus, you will have on one hand a deeper and richer appreciation for the first two thirds of your Bible, and on the other an easier task in understanding all those rules and regulations.