Sunday Service 9th March

Spiritual Wellbeing

9/3/25

Welcome to our meditation for 9th March.

Today sees the start of Lent, the preparation time for Easter. And often we look at this as a individual time for preparation, that our wellbeing is a personal development, however, as we will see from our reading, Paul sees personal wellbeing as developing within a community.

So let’s hear that reading.

From Romans 12: 1-8

Before we start our reflection on this passage let us pray.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, this Sabbath day, the first Sunday of Lent,

we come to worship in this community of ours,

bringing our true selves, just as we are,

to seek out what you might say to us.

We come with the intention of changing how we see life

praising you for the many blessings each day.

But seeing that despite all those blessings, despite your generosity, we are often selfish and fail to take the many opportunities;

to learn your word and be inspired, to show your care and be a help to others, to appreciate what we have and seek to then use those gifts to build up the faith of other believers.

Too often we seek our own comfort and seek to avoid shame or embarrassment.

So we hide your good news rather than share it widely. Feeling that if our lives are fine, then it doesn’t matter how the lives of others are doing.

Help us see those things we have been ignoring, or avoiding facing in ourselves.

May we have the courage to face them this Lenten season.

Give us the courage to accept your support in our movement forward.

Through this reflective time of year may we deliberately turn to you in prayer...seeking how you would have us change

We pray together now as,

Jesus taught his disciples...

Our Father,

Which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil;

For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever.

Amen.

Sermon

‘Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind.’

This week starts the beginning of Lent, that time when we prepare ourselves for Easter. It is a time to reflect on where we are and where we need to go.

That kind of implies that we are to seek to be better, to grow, to mature.

But what does that mean?

Where are the standards to be set? 

If you had asked me when I was a lot younger what that meant, I would have said that we just had to try harder, work harder, be more spiritual.

It was all very vague, probably because I didn’t know what exactly what I was thinking of.

I knew I had to be better, and mature, but I didn’t know what that looked like, so it was sufficient to just say, ‘I need to be better.’ And leave it like that.

I hadn’t realised until I travelled to India that if you say something like, ‘I need to be better,’ then you need to define what better is, what better looks like.

The reason I say that was in India I came across Success Theology. This is a belief that you can judge your maturity in Christ by how much God blesses you.

There is a very simple logic to this.

If you are close to God, then you are more open to God, and that means you are more open to his blessings. So the more blessings that you feel, then the closer to God you are.

Look it like this.

Imagine that you are poor, and God loves you and wants to bless you.

Now because you are a good Christian you pray a lot, and as you pray you look down and see a gold coin in the ground, just in the corner of your eye hidden under the skirting board. If you weren’t praying then you would never have seen it.

So because you were a good Christian, and faithful in prayer, you were able to see the blessing that God wanted to give you.

Now imagine the very same scene, the person in the house is just as poor, God still wants to bless them, but they are an evil heathen. Because they do not bow down, their eyes are never at the angle to see the coin that God has placed to bless them. So they stay unblessed, they stay poor.

It is a horrible theology; it is such a manipulative theology, even a selfish theology.

The minister I worked with lived in a brand new house and received a brand new car every two years, a gift from people as a thank you for all the work that he did for orphaned children.

Only the orphaned children didn’t live in a wonderful house, they slept on marble floors, ate the most basic of food, were not allowed to play with any toys that visitors left because they would be sold to pay for the orphanages so that other monetary gifts could be used to pay for the ministers luxuries.

On a Sunday the minister would tell people in his church that the more that they gave to the church, the more God would bless them.

And look at him as a minister, he was one of the wealthiest people in the area, because he was doing God’s work and God was blessing him.

I have used this example before but I just found it so shocking it always comes into my head.

There was this advertisement where they told the story of a woman who took out a bank loan, went into quite serious debt, because she believed that if she gave that money to the church, then God would bless her a hundred fold, because that is what the minister told her.

In her head it wasn’t a debt, it was an investment.

As it turns out a few weeks later her aunt died and she inherited a sizable sum.

That was then used as an example of why others should follow her example.

When Paul wrote his book of Romans there would have been theologies similar to this in his day.

He would be aware that there is always the temptation that when we want to get better, that it becomes a selfish endeavour.

That we judge ‘better’ by the standards of this world.

Better house, better job, better health, better environment.

The ideal life is the content life, and the more you have then the more content you are.

That if our world becomes more comfortable in some way, that we regard this as success.

And look at how the world looks regards success.

We look to those who are wealthy, we envy their lifestyles, or rather we envy the perceived lifestyles that we think they have because of the images they put on their

face book pages.

We have thousands upon thousands of people trying to be ‘influencers’ on social media?

Why?

Well they have money, they have fame, they have great lives; they can go round the world and do what they want.

Paul is horrified that when we are trying to be better, that that is where our heads sway towards.

So he is very clear.

‘Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind.’

So if we are to look to different standards then what do they look like?

Well the first thing to note is that Paul is very clear that we are not individuals trying to be better. We are part of a community and that everything we do is to help the community, we grow through the fellowship, the community.

So we are not just trying to be better, because if we just try to be better then all we do is compare ourselves with others.  Are we better than them, are we better than we used to be?

Instead we are to see that we are co-dependent on others.

They need us, we need them.

We are part of one body.

The eye doesn’t say, ‘Look at me, I have grown to have better eyesight, the clarity of my vision is such that I can watch the eagle fly as it soars at cloud level, so I don’t need the ear anymore.’

The leg doesn’t say, ‘Because of my training I can now run faster than ever before, I can reach places within a day that I never could have before, so I don’t need the arms anymore.’

We are not individuals, though our hearts often think of ourselves as individuals.

Instead we are to be of one heart with the community.

So the eye will say to itself, ‘I have grown to have better eyesight, the clarity of my vision is such that I can watch the eagle fly as it soars at cloud level, so now I can see better the hurts of my neighbour and use my arms to reach out in love.’

So the leg will say to itself, ‘Because of my training I can now run faster than ever before, I can reach places within a day that I never could have before, so now I can reach the food stores faster and feed my neighbour who is struggling.’

The betterment that Paul wants us to strive for is a heart that is closer to God’s heart.

Too often we make the mistake of striving to be closer to God’s work, but forget that we need God’s heart to do it.

So Paul gives us examples.

We might say to ourselves, ‘I would be a better person if I was less dependent on things, if I gave more things away.’

Isn’t that what giving up for Lent is all about?

Sure, but it only works if we do it with God’s heart.

If we don’t then we end up like one of my daughters who at the age of six decided to give up chocolate for Lent.

Initially I was over the moon that someone so young was trying to walk a better path for herself, open herself up to experience some of the suffering of others.

But she wasn’t doing it with God’s heart; she wasn’t seeking to grow closer to God, she had a very selfish heart.

As I found out when we were going through Marks and Spenser’s and we passed by a four foot chocolate Easter Bunny and she said, ‘You have to buy that for me as a reward for giving up chocolate for Lent.’

So Paul doesn’t say, ‘You need to give up stuff.’

He says, ‘If you give up stuff then you need to do it with God’s heart of generosity.’

Another example Paul gives is kindness.

You would think that if we did good things to help people then that would make us better people.

But not if we don’t have God’s heart.

There is nothing worse than someone helping someone else begrudgingly.

The ones receiving help can sense it and it just sours the gift.

That same daughter, many years later and a lot more mature, asked me to help out with something, and I felt that I was being forced into doing it and was moaning all the time about the sacrifices I was having to make.

And she just got fed up with it and said, ‘Dad, if you are going to do it, if you are not going to do it then don’t do it,

but don’t do it and moan all the way through doing it.’

That’s why Paul doesn’t tell us that we need to be kinder.

He tells us that if we are being kind then we do it cheerfully.

It’s not what we do that matters, it’s the heart we do it with.

A heart that is open.

Open to the needs of others, open to the love and help of others.

As we work our way through towards Easter, let us seek to grow closer to God, to be more like him.

That way everyone’s lives get better.

Let us pray

We appeal to you most Holy One, as did Paul to the Romans,

on the basis of your love, your mercy, and your wisdom.

Today we appeal for all of those  who are experiencing the lostness of depression,

for all who are searching for fulfilment but do not realise it is found in you,

for all who long for pleasant words but instead receive abuse and grief.

Allow those seeking help to find it in the kindnesses of others.

Merciful God,

we plead for those who find their body is a burden to them;.

for those who are in pain,

for those who experience mental anguish and loneliness,

for those who are anticipating treatment but scared of what is ahead of them.

Through the many hands that interact with them daily, may they be aware of your hope and presence,

Merciful God,

We are seeking health for the Church, especially in this time of great readjustment and uncertainty

May each congregation see themselves as a worshipping community who can begin to recognise new gifts as they combine in union of ministry.

Instead of worrying about what legacies may have been lost, may they flourish and share your love.

Merciful God,

We are seeking health for the World,

for improved air and water quality,

for improved soil and animal welfare,

to make a concerted effort to reduce harmful ways of living.

to be willing to work with others rather than see ourselves in competition with others.

Merciful God,

we plead that as we move closer and closer to the cross and resurrection, that we see our journey also as a time to killing the old self, to allow a new self, closer to your being, to be resurrected.

This may we be blessed, thus may we become a blessing to others.

Through Jesus, we pray.

Amen.