On Sunday Graham introduced our spring teaching series – Living Jesus’ Way. We’re going to be listening in as Jesus teaches his disciples (and the crowd) in Matthew 5-7. We often refer to this section as ‘The Sermon on the Mount’. If you’ve not listened to Graham yet, I would encourage you to do so – you’ll find it here: https://youtu.be/Ngico_9WOMM
Our logo/graphic for this series is a little orange fish swimming the opposite way to a school of white fish. Living Jesus’ Way will often mean that we will think and therefore behave differently to those around us.
Just look again about the list of ‘blessed are the …’ that Graham talked us through on Sunday (Matthew 5:3-12). Very few, if any, of these values and characteristics would make it on to most people’s list of ‘blessings’. And quite a few of these values and characteristics are looked down on and despised – think about humility, meekness, mercy and purity for example.
Some of these values and characteristics are out of our control. Mourning and persecution, for example, are to some extent out of our hands, even if they are to be expected. But how do we respond when they are our experience?
Being different and standing out from the crowd is really tough. We live in an age where diversity and difference is celebrated and yet it is done so within a broader context of conformity. Tolerance often appears to be a value that trumps all others – as long as that means believing everyone is right.
Swimming against the tide is exhausting. It’s much easier to roll over, float on your back and go with the flow. How are you making sure that you’re strengthened, encouraged, refreshed and patched up ready to go again each week?
Our vision talks about being disciples – and part of what church is, is coming together, to meet with others, and to be renewed and equipped to go again because it’s tough being an orange fish.
