Last Sunday was a great blessing for our little church family. It was a real joy to see so many friends and family here to witness the baptism of Eddie, Joseph, Hannah and Victoria. Once again I really need to thank those who have played an important role in the lives of these four young people. It is a team effort and there is much hard work in preparing people to hear the gospel and then to pray that the Holy Spirit will open their eyes to see the need for a Saviour in Jesus. I know that there has been much prayer for these four young people. Prayer works! God is ever so gracious! We evidenced this last Sunday! We also evidenced the results of people using their spiritual gifts in the building up of our church family here at Kogarah! This is indeed a loving church as Paul challenges us to be!
As I shared with you last week, we still have an immature understanding of our great and awesome God. There is still much for us to learn. There is still much growing needed in our understanding of this loving God we worship. We still need to be growing deeper and deeper in love with the Lord and with one another. The battle with selfishness and self-centeredness seems to never give up. Thinking of the needs of others sometimes is placed on the ‘backburner’ because of the challenges of everyday life. Yet, we are called to love like Jesus loved and that is a costly love!
How we act as a church family really matters in all we do. I note that our vison is to ‘be a Christ-centred church of all ages gathered together to learn from God’s word, building each other up and reaching out to the unreached in our community and beyond’. To achieve this vision we need to be thoughtful, and always looking out for others needs as we demonstrate the love of Jesus. We need to be mindful that our ‘Christian speak’ is done in such a way that is understandable to those who are from non-church backgrounds. The simple gospel message needs to be shared in a loving and patient way and in easy to understand dialogue as we seek be this loving church we are commended to be. Pastor Ernest will speak further on ‘the way of love’ this morning. There is some wise counsel for us in this fourteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians!