MAC KIRK

  Mercy in our Relationships.  Luke 6:36-42      We are all well acquainted with the Sermon the Mount,  but Luke has Jesus delivering it on the plain. It certainly is not a contradiction as Jesus delivered it and Luke repeats it in his own way; it describes a way of life .  Luke adds woes to his descriptions of the Christian life at the end --- the woes are there to strongly remind us of their truth.  I think the heart of today's message is the first word we heard. " Be ye merciful...." The word is strong in the orig language---compassionate, experiencing deep pity (lamentation) as God has for people.  The word means a deep feeling of compassion. VISCERAL | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary---based on deep feeling and emotional reactions rather than on reason or thought. The human brain is divided into two hemispheres connected by a bundle of nerves. The left hemisphere controls movement for the right side of the body, while the right he...

  A Balance to Justification Romans 6     Last week we discussed the area of grace in the operation of our salvation.  We saw in Romans 5:1-8 that salvation, we call it justification is by faith through the un-merited grace of the Eternal Trinity. Without peace with God we have no eternal life.  That peace with God and the person of Christ is there as we develop relationships with other Christians in the Church. This is what was so important. "That is to say, in the Christian community we do not relate to one another “immediate[ly],” we relate to one another mediately – through the “mediation of Christ.” For that reason, we love others not directly, but for Christ’s sake."  Article on Life Together by Bonhoeffer.    We said in summary we are not seeking a rules-based Christianity necessarily,  but have grace to access to God through His life-changing Gospel of the good news, that Christ died for the ungodly, and we were all that before Christ...

  Romans 5.   ....      I imagine some of us through the tests of life and the storms need encouragement.   We have enough sometimes and just need a rest in God's Scripture.  The calm and lovely places of Scripture do just that. They calm our souls and refresh our spirits.  Much like a summer vacation away from the hub bub , we need such still waters to reflect and grow in this season of summer.   The critics and legalism majors among us do not know that the Gospel is just what I am going to talk about .  It is not our behavior.  A Christian begins with something else.  No wonder people are put off by our so called rules for others.   Start with ourselves, not others.  The Critics are among us, but not of us John would say.  We can be Pharisees putting rules on others before we understand that the Gospel is not that.    1. Romans 5:1 tells us that because of being "justified by faith...

  Holy Communion- Gospel -Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26    " Faith goes up the stairs that love has built, and looks out the windows which hope has opened."  Charles Spurgeon  In today's Gospel reading we hear our Lord telling the Pharisees , " They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Matthew 9:12 Then Jesus quotes from Hosea 6, " But go ye and learn what that means, ' I will have mercy and not sacrifice'"  In Hosea it continues, " and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." Jesus was critically spoken of by the Pharisees in Matthew 9 because he was eating with the publicans and sinners . He even called a tax collector as a disciple . ----Which group are we in?  Who do we associate with?  Who are our friends?  Who are we befriending?  Faith goes up the stairs that love has built, and looks out the windows which hope has opened. ---Should our Lord be our example in the lesson today from Matthew?  Our tendenc...

 Trinity 2023  I begin with this illustration, ---St. Augustine on the Trinity One day when St. Augustine was at his wits' end to understand and explain the Trinity, he went out for a walk. He kept turning over in his mind, "One God, but three Persons. Three Persons--not three Gods but one God. What does it mean? How can it be explained? How can my mind take it in?" And so he was torturing his mind and beating his brains out, when he saw a little boy on the beach. He approached him to see what he was doing. The child had dug a small hole in the sand. With his hands he was carrying water from the ocean and was dumping it in the little hole. St. Augustine asked, "What are you doing, my child?" The child replied, "I want to put all of the water of the ocean into this hole." St. Augustine asked, "But is it possible for all of the water of this great ocean to be contained in this little hole?" And then it dawned on Augustine, "If the water of...