All of us realise that the world is broken. How could you not? Unless we live under a rock that is (or are somehow cut off from the news cycle). People getting shot while going to church. Hundreds of asylum seekers stuck in limbo. People struggling with depression or cancer.
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Men preying on women at every level of society. Heck, men preying on men at every level of society. Droughts, storms, hail, flooding, broken ferries. Almost everyone would agree that this world is not a perfect place and while we probably wouldn’t agree what that perfect world would look like, we would all agree that we haven’t got there yet.
This of course is a theme that the Good Book addresses quite early on. God made everything perfect, but then it got broken. How did this happen? Because humanity decided they would try to find the answers themselves, they would call the shots, they were going to be boss.
I am going to be the boss of my own life. I will be the captain of my fate. I am number one. And this of course is one of the radical messages of the Bible. It’s not all about you.
In order to win, one must be prepared to lose. In order to gain life, one must be prepared to lay it down for others. True life is about loving God and loving others.
But what does love look like? This of course is all the news these days. Love wins right? But we don’t want to be told what we can and should believe or live.
We all want to be free. But if this is why the world is in such a mess in the first place, how many of us would be willing to give up that freedom?
For followers of Jesus, we are reminded that he was willing to give freedom up (John 5:19, 6:38, Philippians 2:6-8). He willingly submitted himself to the will of the Father so that the world could be fixed.
Putting others ahead of oneself to fix the world. What a radical idea.
All brickbats, bouquets and banter welcome at pastor@pmbc.org.au