Sermons by Murray Lean (Page 14)
Murray Lean
The question of God’s fairness
Have you ever called out in a moment of frustration: “God, that’s not fair!”? Atheists use this argument about the God’s apparent injustice to question His very existence. Christians raise it in times of disappointment when they feel that God has let them down. Perhaps He isn’t good or powerful after all? If you’ve ever felt like this, then this message is for you. 400 years before Christ, the Israelites were accusing God of being unfair. God’s reply to this charge contains possibly the most profound teaching in the whole Bible on this complex subject. Listen in as Pastor Murray takes us through these verses and helps us see that we ourselves are a fundamental part of what’s wrong with the world, and that Jesus is the ultimate answer to all the injustice we see around us.
Warning to spirtual leaders
Where are the leaders today? Leaders in politics, business, civil service, education… and what about the church? There is an urgent need for strong, courageous leadership today. And so there was back in Malachi’s day 400+ years BC. Not only had the priests lost their reverence and awe of God, they were actually guilty of leading the people astray by their poor example and teaching. No wonder God was angry and warned them of His impending judgement against them. Surely there is a warning here for leaders in the church today, and especially those who teach. Join with us as Pastor Murray unpacks this verses in a practical and challenging way.
Will the real man please stand up?
Is there any such thing as a ‘stereotypical man’ these days? Where do you look for decent role models of manhood? No wonder many boys are growing up with identity confusion. One man whose life is worth a closer look is Daniel. Though now in his eighties, the most important facets of his life are put under the microscope when he defied the king’s order by continuing to worship God. Here we see a real man whose life was founded on a deeply personal relationship with his God, and the evidence is absolutely unmistakable. God was at the very centre of his life and everything else flowed from there. That’s a real man! A godly man! Does God make that sort of difference in our lives?
Worship that offends God
“Worship” is a word that conjures up different ideas to modern Christians, but to Israelites in 400BC worship always involved the temple, priests and sacrifices. This was how they met personally with God. But God was deeply offended by the quality of the sacrificial animals these people were bringing – the leftovers rather than the best. It was obvious that their hearts were not in their worship. Their worship was mechanical, burdensome and offensive to God. Today our worship doesn’t involve animals and sacrifices. Jesus has offered Himself as that sacrifice for us. But our worship involves the sacrifice of ourselves to God as our only proper response. Are our lives expressing this sacrifice? Are we giving Him our best or the leftovers?
The wonder of God’s love
In Malachi’s day the Israelites were very apathetic towards God. Their religion had become a chore instead of a joy, a duty rather than a privilege. And they were doubting whether God even loved them. This would have been very painful for God to hear, especially considering all He had done for them as His chosen and redeemed people. In today’s message Pastor Murray challenges our self-centred attitudes and expectations of entitlement, and urges us to recognise all that God – in His great love – has done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t deserve His love at all, yet He has chosen to love us …. and He continues to love us. If only we realised how truly blessed we are!
The Christian life – it’s all about Jesus!
The book of Hebrews links the Old and New Testaments, and shows how Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of all that God has been doing in biblical history. In a world that has relegated Jesus to just another figure of history, we need to recognise who Jesus really is… the divine Son of God… fully equal with God. In a world that wants to believe there are many different ways to God, Hebrews emphasizes that Jesus alone can save people from their sin through the sacrifice of Himself on the cross. And when we come to know Jesus personally as our Saviour, then we begin to “live by faith”, as we learn to trust Him through the daily ups and downs of life. That’s the message of Hebrews, and what the Christian life is all about!
Sound advice for serious believers
There is a real place for meaty doctrinal teaching (and there’s plenty of that in the book of Hebrews). But sometimes we need to hear what God says about things like: how to relate to church leaders, and being willing to suffer disgrace and humiliation for the sake of Christ, and what “worship” 24/7 looks like. When it comes to the crunch, you have to live the faith you profess. Join us as Pastor Murray unpicks these verses and challenges us to put them into practice personally.
Four indicators of genuine faith
God never intended faith to be a set of mental beliefs, isolated from real life. To be genuine, faith has to work in real life. As the writer of this letter starts to wind things up, he challenges his readers to put his teaching about faith into practice. Join us as Pastor Murray extends the challenge to us today in four particular areas of life – 1. how we relate to strangers, 2. how we care for prisoners, 3. how we preserve our sexual purity, and 4. how we stay content in a materialistic world. Whoever said the Bible isn’t relevant to the 21st century!
Encountering God personally
To those who genuinely look for Him, God promises make Himself known (Jeremiah 29:13). But how does He actually do this? Psalm 19 answers this question for us. Firstly, He “speaks” to us through the world of nature. Secondly, He “speaks” to us through His written Scriptures (the Bible). Thirdly, He “speaks” to us personally by exposing our sinful hearts and convicting us of our need to be made right with God Himself. As we take this journey of seeking to know God, it will eventually lead us to the One who alone can remove our sin and make us right with God… the Lord Jesus Christ… our Rock and our Redeemer!
Faith that never gives up
In the Bible the Christian life is often compared to a long distance race. But as we all know, many runners in these races don’t make it to the finish line. Sadly, that is also true of some who claim to be Christians today. For a variety of reasons they lose heart and give up. It seems that the book of Hebrews had these sorts of people in mind, and today’s passage is a word of strong encouragement to these people. Whatever difficulties you may be facing, and they are an unavoidable part of life for every Christian, it’s *always* worth it to run the race of life with perseverance and to keep fixing your eyes on Jesus. This is the faith that gets every genuine believer triumphantly to the finish line.
Choosing to believe the invisible God
For most people the whole matter of faith has a mysterious, even scary, element to it. Can I trust the parachute to open when I jump out of the plane at 2000 metres? What factors inform decisions like these? The Christian life is a life of faith and this fact is graphically illustrated again in our passage today as we look at the experiences of Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Jacob, Moses and Rahab. In many different ways they were all challenged to “see Him who is invisible” (verse 27). They were called to intentionally choose to put their hope and confidence in the promises of a God whom they could not actually see. And that is exactly what we are being asked to do today… to believe in the God who has given us Jesus Christ and invites us to put our trust fully in Him.
The journey of faith
The Christian life is a journey… a journey of faith. And perhaps no one models this better for us than Abraham. He was far from a perfect man (thankfully!), but his continual dependence on God over his lifetime still speaks powerfully to us today. Here was a man who implicitly believed the promises of God and clung to those promises year after year. Some of them were fulfilled in his lifetime. Some were not. Yet his unwavering faith that God would one day fulfil those promises enabled him to live and die a contented man. Even today those who have faith in Jesus Christ are called ‘children of Abraham’. The entire Christian life, ’from first to last’, is a journey of faith as we learn in daily life what it means to love, obey, trust and serve our faithful God.