Real Hope - Real Jesus

CREDIT: Photo UNED, via Flickr.

Last weekend Mandy and I attended the ‘Anglican Future Conference’ in Melbourne.

One of the keynote speakers, Wes Hill, encouraged us to think about the challenge of having our churches open to including people who experience unwanted, same-sex attraction.

He encouraged us to be ‘welcoming, not affirming.’

We are to be welcoming to people with all sorts of backgrounds and experiences, but do so in such a way that we do not affirm behaviour that is against God’s will.

As a basis for his encouragement, he led us through a Bible study on Romans 9 to 11, where he outlined the remarkable way in which God’s gospel makes believers go from spiritual death to life.

And when God acts to save his people, his salvation is unifying.

We who were excluded as non-Jews have been included into the nation of Israel, and it had nothing to do with how faithful we were to his law.

In fact, he included us in order that we might be dependent on God’s grace, not on our own merits.

The result is that “we must forsake our looking down on others.”

For this reason, our church welcomes LGBTQI+ people.

God’s saving message of his love and mercy is for everyone: we are all welcomed, but our sin is not affirmed.

For as we read in the Bible:

Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 9b-11)

JODIE McNEILL

CREDIT: Mitchell Joyce, via Flickr.

It is hard to claim that pyramid-shaped tea-bags have added much to the sum of human happiness.

They’re just another part of our society’s never ending quest for better and more luxurious things. The continual rise of technology has made products, once considered only for the elite, now available to everyone – the pyramid tea bag one such example! I’m not sure anyone expected that particular product to create a wave of new found happiness. But what of more sought after technologies? With the ability for more people to gain access to these goods we might have expected a steady rise in our society’s general happiness.

However as levels of wealth and technology have risen, levels of happiness have gone down. Technology was meant to bring a higher standard of living with less work. However all we have found is that the goal posts have moved. We don’t just want a higher standard of living, we want a higher standard of living than others. In other words we take for granted luxuries that were only dreamed of a generation ago, and we want more. We are now working more and are dissatisfied with what we have.

This should come as no surprise to Christians (although we too find ourselves caught up in this cycle). However what may come as a surprise is that any pursuit of happiness as an end goal, seems to lead to a decrease in happiness. The more we chase happiness, the more elusive it is. We often wish this goal for others with sentiments like ‘whatever makes you happy’, or  ‘I’m happy if you’re happy.’ However this goal in the end is simply counter-productive.

That’s because God has made us for a greater goal than happiness.

We are created to love and serve him, and to love and serve others. And a wonderful truth emerges here – the more we forget about focusing on ourselves and our own happiness, the happier we become.

SIMON CHAPLIN