Thursday, July 19, 2012

#3: We Have Kinship with Creation



'What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.' (Psalm 8:4-6).

'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.'  (Genesis 1:27)

You've got to admit, we humans are pretty awesome.  We are creative.  We have an incredible sense of humour unrivalled in the natural world.  We have the most complex and flexible language capabilities of any species on the planet.  We experience transcendence and immanence.  We worship, have rituals, show a depth of love that is likely unparalleled.  We have science and technology and complicated politics.  We have the most complex form of culture on the planet.  And according to the Bible, we are made in the image of God, beings just a bit lower on the hierarchy than angels, but higher than, and rulers of, the animals.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Home: A Sermon


The following is a sermon I gave at Pine Lake Life Camp (formerly family camp) over the 2012 May long weekend.

Read Luke10:25-37

HOME: What images or words does this word conjure?

The point for this morning’s talk is quite simple: we all desire home, so loving your neighbour as yourself, being a neighbour to others, means bringing home to the world.  That is the church’s mandate, and it needs to be the basis of our daily living decisions.  We’re going to go through Genesis 1 and 2 to see what home is.  We’ll see how humanity became homeless, but not just humanity; and then we will consider the work of Christ to make this world home again.  Finally, we will see that as Christians we are called to restore this home for others.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

#4: Creation Provides Knowledge of God



Romans 1:19-20 reads, '...since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.'