New Years Day (PM)

[0:00] Aboriginal and community I'm lonely in the house Oh, sad love Oh, sad love Oh, sad love

[1:14] Oh, sad love Oh, sad love Oh, sad love

[2:44] Oh, good evening, folks It's very nice to see you And surprising to see you On New Year's Day here at church Welcome, this is wonderful My name is Aaron Roberts I'm the pastor of this service And this particular service today is a family service Which means the kids stay in the service For the whole time, it'll be shorter They'll have some, I'll have a special talk I'll give just to them They'll have some crafts to do We'll look at some artwork And the sermon I preach will be shorter as well It's gonna be wonderful Service begins with some scripture sentences Which you can find in your service sheet there Blessed be the Lord God of Israel For he has redeemed Visit and redeemed his people To give light to those who sit in darkness

[3:46] And in the shadow of death To guide our feet in the way of peace Folks, would you stand for our first temple? Joy to the world The Lord is come Let earth receive her King Let every heart prepare Him Let heaven and nature sing And heaven and nature sing And heaven and nature sing Joy to the world The Savior reigns Let men their songs employ While fields and floods

[4:51] Rocks, hills and plains Repeat their sounding joy Repeat their sounding joy Repeat, repeat their sounding joy No more let sins and sorrows grow Nor thorns infest the ground He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found Far as the curse is found Far as, far as the curse is found He rules the world with truth and grace And makes the nations prove

[5:55] The glories of His righteousness And wonders of His love And wonders of His love And wonders, wonders of His love Folks, let's come to God in humility And make our confession together Would you kneel with me?

[6:32] Almighty Father, Lord of heaven and earth We confess that we have sinned against You In thought, word and deed Have mercy upon us, O Lord Have mercy upon us Because of Your great goodness According to Your many mercies Put away our offences Wash us thoroughly from wickedness Cleanse us from our sins For Jesus Christ's sake Amen Mighty Father, You gave Your dearly beloved Son To die for us Because of Your great love Grant that through His cross Our sins may be put away And remembered no more And that cleansed by His blood And mindful of His suffering We may take up our cross daily And follow Him in newness of life Until we come to His everlasting kingdom Through Your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord Amen Now let's stand together Confess our faith

[7:34] I believe in God The Father Almighty Creator of heaven and earth I believe in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit Born of the Virgin Mary Suffered under Pontius Pilate Was crucified, died and was buried He descended to the dead On the third day He rose again He ascended into heaven He is seated at the right hand of the Father He will come again to judge the living and the dead I believe in the Holy Spirit The Holy Catholic Church The communion of saints Forgiveness of sins The resurrection of the body The life everlasting Amen Folks, you can be seated again I just have One quick announcement I'd like to make tonight

[8:36] If If you are Sort of exploring the Christian faith Or you don't feel like you have adequate answers to You know, some of the really big questions in life I just want to point you towards This short course that we're running Called Come and See Which Starts in January And in your service sheet at the back You can see all the details about it So what it's going to be is like a discussion group For folks who get a chance You'll have a chance to explore issues of purpose And identity And truth And hope In a place that's safe And warm And you'll also get fed And so It starts on January 11th And runs for a few weeks If you'd like to go You can register online So if you go to the website There's a thing called Events You go on there It's called Come and See And you can register for that

[9:36] And it'll give you all the details And it's run by Chris Lay Who's just a lovely guy And yeah It'll be brilliant It'll be brilliant Now what I want you to do is Just take a couple of minutes Just to greet each other Four minutes Just to say hi If there's people around you You don't know Would you make an effort to say hi to them?

[9:58] I'm sorry I'm sorry Listen to some What did I give take?

[10:09] What did I give? Did I give you sometak shoes high? Sorry Listen to me Listen to me That's a kind Of failure chapter Bethily described It'll be good We'll grab Now Toamız Small Wholeë Thank you.

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[14:40] Thank you. Alright, would you stand with me for our next song?

[14:59] O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him, born the King of angels O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord Sing choirs of angels, sing in exultation O sing all ye citizens of heaven above

[16:02] Glory to God, all glory in the highest O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning Jesus, to Thee be all glory in the highest Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord

[17:04] O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord Folks, you can be seated for our first reading.

[17:27] 2 Corinthians 4, verse 16 to 5, verse 10 This can be found on page 966 of your Pew Bible So we do not lose heart Though our outer self is wasting away Our inner self is being renewed day by day For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us An eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison As we look not to the things that are seen But to the things that are unseen For the things that are seen are transient But the things that are unseen are eternal For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed We have a building from God

[18:28] A house not made with hands Eternal in the heavens For in this tent we groan Longing to put on our heavenly dwelling Indeed, by putting it on We might not be found naked For while we are still in this tent We groan Being burdened Not that we would be unclothed But that we would be further clothed So that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life He who has prepared us for this very thing is God Who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee So that we are always a good courage We know that while we are at home in the body We are away from the Lord For we walk by faith, not by sight Yes, we are a good courage And we would rather be away from the body And at home with the Lord

[19:28] So whether we are at home or away We make it our aim to please Him For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ So that each one may receive What is due for what he has done in the body Whether good or evil This is the word of the Lord Thanks be to God Jaya, thank you so much Now kids, kids that are here I'd love to see you up the front I'm going to talk to you for like one minute And then you're going to do some crafts for me, okay?

[20:02] So kids, come up the front And you can use some right there for me Right there Hello Now kids, can you turn around so you can see the screen So some images will be coming up on the screen as well Now children, did you know That in the Bible The passage that Jaya just rents The Bible says that life Sometimes is like living in a tent Sometimes it can be awesome Like this The sun is shining You've got a great view But other times Life is not so great It's kind of like camping in bad weather And you're really stressed out And the wind is blowing And you're just kind of hanging on

[21:03] Because there's danger about And you are trying your hardest But you're feeling pretty overwhelmed It's an actual photo So life can be great But it can also Be hard and tricky Kind of like living in a tent But God says one day We'll be with Him in heaven And life won't be like living in a tent It'll be like living In a castle Wow A castle where nothing can hurt you There'll be no death Or pain Or sickness No bad weather Nothing can destroy Won't that be awesome Folks Kids I have something I want you to do for me Can you draw for me A picture Of what It would be like in heaven What a house would be like What life would be like Imagine like heaven Like a house

[22:03] What will that house Be like It won't be a tent That can fall over It'll be more like a castle Do you think you guys Could draw that Yeah Okay great So come over here Look at this So we've got some Coloring things here You can flip those over I love it You can use the other side You can use the other side Of the paper You don't have to use that side Use the other side And we'll draw some pictures And I'm going to speak To the adults now For about Eight to ten minutes Alright It'll be fine It'll be fine Okay It'll be a little bit mad But that's okay So this is our last sermon In the Advent Christmas series Looking at Christ's return And we are jumping Into two Corinthians So Paul Who wrote this letter To Corinthians

[23:04] Did not have an easy life He had Every excuse To kind of just Throw in his faith Just to kind of give up Too hard Too much drama Too much pain In two Corinthians He writes a list Of all the things That have happened to him Since he started his job As this like This traveling guy Planning churches And let me just Read to you This little section Two Corinthians 11 Five times I received At the hands of the Jews The forty lashes Less one Three times I was beaten With rods Once I was stoned Three times I was shipwrecked A day and a night I was adrift at sea On frequent journeys And dangers From rivers Dangers from robbers Dangers from my own people Dangers from Gentiles Dangers from the city Danger in the wilderness Danger at sea Danger from false brothers And toil And hardship Through many sleepless nights And hunger and thirst Often without food

[24:04] And cold and exposure And apart from all those other things There was a daily pressure on me Of my anxiety For all the churches I mean that's a That is a very Solid line up Of problems I think But despite all his problems Despite all the drama In his life He says In our passage We do not lose heart Actually he says it twice In chapter 4 We do not lose heart So the right question To ask is Like how does he How does he How does he do it How does he do this How does he keep going I think he summarizes The key to his fortitude In verse 18 He says Look not to the things That are seen But to the things That are unseen Look not to the things That are seen But to the things That are unseen You know one of my Favorite bible stories Is in Two Kings It's about the Syrian king

[25:06] He's going to kill The prophet Elisha Elisha's a good guy You know So overnight The Syrian king Does this kind of Night opsy thing Where he surrounds The place where Elisha's staying You know He surrounds it With his army Elisha's in there No one realizes it In the morning The servant of Elisha Gets up to You know I don't know Go to buy some milk Or whatever he's doing And verse 15 Picks it up In chapter 6 Of Two Kings When the servant Of the man of God Rose early in the morning And went out Behold An army of horses And chariots Was all around the city And the servant said Alas my master What shall we do He said This is Elisha Do not be afraid For those who are with us Are more than those Who are with them Then Elisha prayed And said Oh Lord Please open his eyes That he may see So the Lord opened The eyes of the young man And he saw And behold The mountain was full of horses And chariots of fire All around Elisha So Elisha saw What others could not The enemies That had surrounded him Were in turn

[26:07] Completely surrounded By another army It was God's army Thousands and thousands Of angelic beings And I think Like Elisha Paul is trying to Get us to see What we don't Normally look at Because our eyes Are so low Because we're so Grounded We're so like Grounded by what's Happening immediately Around us So what are these Unseen things That Paul wants To bring into Focus What are these Things that fortify him Despite incredible hardship And there are a couple In the passage I'll talk about two of them Paul is urging us To pay attention To these unseen things The first one is this The inner work That God is doing in us The inner work God is doing in us And secondly The hope Of our physical resurrection So let's go Let's go Let's have a crack At these two here Very quickly So what does the bible Say about inner work What does this passage Say about the inner work God is doing in us

[27:08] Verse 16 again For we do not lose heart Though our outer self Is wasting away Our inner self Is being renewed Day by day For this light Momentary affliction Is preparing us For an eternal weight Of glory Beyond all comparison So what's he saying Paul's saying His body's getting Knocked around By circumstances By age By such things But trusting in God's goodness Despite everything Going around Trusting in God's goodness By doing that It was adding to his faith Something was happening Internally into him In the midst Of suffering God was doing something Inside this man Again Look at verse 17 For this light Momentary affliction Is preparing us For an eternal weight Of glory That's beyond all comparison It's a remarkable It's a remarkable Thing to say The thing God was doing This inner work Was this God was shifting

[28:09] Paul's focus To the sheer I don't know how to say it Like the sheer tonnage Of glory That awaited him His focus was moved To this unseen future He had with God A future that So impressed on his heart So furnished his imagination That he could describe All his beatings And whippings And shipwreckings As these momentary Light afflictions That's how good it looked That's how good The future was With God He imagined Now hear me here Paul is not downplaying His suffering He's not saying It's insignificant Earlier in the chapter He says Because of his suffering He wanted to die He felt completely Overwhelmed by life So he's not saying You've got problems Get over them He's not saying Your bodily pain Doesn't matter He's not saying Emotional pain Doesn't matter Ignore it No What he's talking about Is the present world His present circumstances

[29:10] Contrasted To this future world And that future That God has for him Is so good It's so astonishing It overwhelms And outshines The darkest things That are happening To him So Paul in summary His focus was on This unseen Eternal reality This future reality And it transformed him And it's a game changer When we do that Because when your focus Is just this life Just what you can touch And see And buy When When your life When this life Is your entire horizon Your sources of joy Your resources For getting through life Shrink Because in your mind

[30:12] It's just all about now And this is all there is Joy can only be found In what's happening Right now But when we have The glory Of the future That awaits us In front of us I mean it's a game changer Very simple example Is imagine you've got Two folks They get a job In a factory It's a one year contract It's very mundane work One guy gets paid Minimum wage One year contract Minimum wage The other guy Is promised a million dollars At the end of that year Their experience Of their jobs Is going to be Vastly different Isn't it This is what Paul Is trying to tell us So again folks Paul wants The eternal To invade The temporary He wants The future To invade

[31:13] The now He wants The unseen To work Its way Into our life Right now And when that happens It renews us It strengthens us It fortifies us Against hardship That's point one So lift your eyes To what God Has for you Point two Paul is encouraged Because of the hope Of resurrection And that's what Chapter five Verses one To nine Are about I'll just read One verse from there We know that If the tent That our so earthly Home is destroyed We have a building From God A house not made With hands Eternal in the heavens It's closely related To the first Point But here Paul gets more Sort of Quite specific About this hope And the specific Things he wants To talk about This great future God has for us Is what it means For our bodies And in summary Paul says Be really encouraged In this life Because even though Your body is

[32:13] Sort of decaying It will be resurrected When you die With a new body That's at a basic level But there's a bit more To say At the time Of Paul's writing The Greeks The sort of Predominant way Of thinking About our bodies Was this Was that The material Things were bad And only the Spiritual was truly good And for them This idea Of this Greek thought The idea was that They wanted to Escape the body And exist as a spirit They regarded bodies As these throw away Things These cumbersome Containers That we should Sort of You know We'll discard At some point The official term For that The official belief System was Gnosticism This is not What Christians believe We are embodied People now In our future We will be embodied Matter Matter Matters To God It's good Matter is good

[33:13] It's how God Made us The body we have now Is like a tent Paul says And he was a tent maker So he knew That tents fall apart They rip They get You know They sag They lose pegs And stuff In verse 1 He says We have tents Fragile things But in the future We'll have a building It's a great comparison Our future bodies Will be More Solid Than what we have now I don't know What that looks like But Paul longs for it In verse 4 It says He groans For it And that's sort of Like an annoying Like It's like It means It means Eager anticipation It's like Little kids On tippy toes Looking through The window Of a candy store Or something like that Like they're like I really really want that So why is this important This idea Because tied up With this idea Of a new body Is the idea Of a new life New creation And it's one of the Great promises of heaven Isn't it It's restoration You get You get the body You always wanted You get the body God always wanted you

[34:14] To have So Our future With the Lord Is not just Life again With God It's the life You always wanted And perhaps You didn't get To experience here And what this means Is that now You know You don't You don't have to be The coolest person around You don't have to You know If you never get to see Paris That's okay Right If you don't If you don't get a degree It's okay If you're not great at sports It's okay You know If You know This fear you have That you're missing out On the good life somehow Because you felt like Maybe you had dealt A bad hand All the true goodness Of this life That you think You've missed out on It's coming in the future And you see That hope That hope Allows Paul To live confidently And courageously now So it's not this

[35:15] You know I've got this great hope So I can live this Quite detached life Now No It's It's It's not just Oh my life really stinks But I'll just hang out And I'm just going to Grind it out Until I die And then it'll all be good No It's like This hope Clarifies our life now It clarified Paul's life That future hope Gives this life purpose It gives this life Sort of moral acumen It gives this life Courage This is the other reason That Paul says We do not lose hope We do not lose heart It's the promise of A physical resurrection Doesn't that sound really good?

[35:59] It sounds wonderful Doesn't it? Let me wrap up here So Paul had a hard life But he could stay the course Because He recognised That the Lord Was doing this Inner work in him Even as he Experienced a body That was winding down He saw that God Was doing something Internally in him Be attentive To that stuff in your life What God is doing Inside of you Secondly The hope of the new creation His life was difficult He sacrificed a lot His body was scarred Because of it But he also knew That all of these things Were going to be remade The world was going to be remade Including him And that hope Outshone Any pain he was going through It's a wonderful hope

[36:59] And we know it's true We know it's true Because of Jesus Jesus has gone before us He's experienced All the stuff I just talked about Broken body Difficult life But a restored body And now He's with his heavenly father And he prepares A new home for us And it's Unimaginably Wonderful Now The kids Have been drawing Some homes And they are also Going to be Unimaginably wonderful So Let's I can see some Really good ones here Does anyone Want to show me A house That God Has made for us Can I look at this one Right here Can I look at it Can I just look at it Is that alright What's your name Nolan What is this Can you tell us about this It's a castle

[38:00] Who's this right here That's a guy That's awesome That is This looks like a great castle And it looks very shiny It looks like they keep it really clean Which I'm Which I appreciate What have you got there Oh my goodness This is incredible Look at this Love And joy That is a beautiful Castle Isn't it When you walk In the castle Like you see You see Like heaven When you walk In the castle You see heaven I love that Is there anyone else Look at the detail On this It would You had a You know what I think you did A fabulous job This is more three dimensional This is like a castle And you've got like a What is that called A steeple Is that what that's What's the English word For that A steeple Yeah That's really good Anyone else Anyone else Hey DJ

[39:00] Look at this That is amazing I absolutely love it And it has my name You did it You did it That's going straight On the fridge Right Straight on the frit That is a really Good one too Okay we'll look At one more We'll look At one more Here keep that Give that to your Mum and daddy They will treasure that Here we go Look at this Is this stained glass No it looks wonderful Rainbows Look I'd like to live there Well done Jaya Fantastic Alright kids You guys You can just leave Everything Where it is I believe we have People that will Clean it up for us Yeah You can take the Pictures with you Kids You can stand up And you can take The pictures with you Can you take this one To mama sweetie Good girl Oh good job Would you stand now

[40:22] There's pain in all Our growing For years He must reprove Refines the minds He'll glow All wishes Remove His strikes Are not for nothing Each blow With its own grace To spare our hearts When hoping On the spot Jesus Wraith Since it was found Essential That Christ Such wounds Should bear Trust Him Our Father Gentle Doubt not His love And care He pours out Blessing showers

[41:23] And gifts Sometimes To take Yet if He Suffer Outwards The glories Will His Make Perplexed With laments Voicing For woes Not yet At ease Young Suffers Still Rejoicing With love And perfect Peace Not having What is promised With eager Long Way The Spirit Helps Our weakness The Spirit For us To pray These light And momentary Afflictions

[42:24] Do you Bear A weight Beyond Comparing A weight To A tear Worn By this Consolation The Lord Will come Again And speak Such vindication Our broken Hearts To The End Our broken Hearts To The End Please join me In a posture Of prayer When I say Lord in your mercy Please respond with Hear our prayer Heavenly Father You alone Are the giver Of hope We are sorry For the ways

[43:25] We have tried To replace you In our lives Thank you for Giving us Your Holy Spirit Who lives in us And is transforming Us every day To become more Like you Thank you that Our bodies matter And are a part Of your good Creation We are so thankful For the hope You give us That you will Come again And make all Things new Help us to Have faith In you In all Circumstances Lord in your Mercy Hear our prayer Lord Jesus Here at St. John's We pray for all Those who are Sick or suffering May your grace Be evident To Jack and Ruth Tang Manny Rabi And Janice McDonald Martina and Grant Walsh-Biggings Michael Driel And Brenda Brumwell And Kay Griffiths We also take a moment To name out loud Or silently Those in our lives In need of your care Lord in your mercy

[44:32] Hear our prayer Lord God We thank you For this new year Of 2023 Whether feeling Hopeful Anxious Happy or sad We pray that We would come To know you Better this year We pray especially For the come and see Sessions Here at St. John's May all those Attending experience The goodness Of your Holy Spirit As they ask Important questions About life And faith We also pray For the church plant That you would Provide for their needs We ask that this Church plant Be a testament To your grace And provision Lord in your mercy Hear our prayer Father we continue To pray for places Around the world Where there is Unrest War And great suffering Bring peace And justice To all peoples Help us As your church To be a place Of healing And restoration Forgive us For the ways We have fallen short And give us New hearts

[45:32] That seek To be like you Lord in your mercy Hear our prayer Finally Lord God Thank you for giving us Your son Jesus Christ Who died And gave himself For us And thank you For giving us Your Holy Spirit Who works within us Transforming us daily Our hope is in you Alone And in your promise To make all things new Amen And now the collect Of the day Almighty God Who has given us Your only begotten son To take our nature Upon him And at this time To be born Of a pure virgin Grant that we Being regenerate And made your children By adoption and grace May daily be renewed By your Holy Spirit Through our Lord Jesus Christ Who lives and reigns With you And the Holy Spirit Ever one God World without end Amen And now Let's pray

[46:32] The Lord's Prayer Our Father Who art in heaven Hallowed be your name Your kingdom come Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven Give us this day Our daily bread And forgive us Our sins As we forgive those Who sin against us And lead us not Into temptation But deliver us From evil For yours is the kingdom The power And the glory Forever and ever Amen Would you stand now For our final hymn?

[47:07] Hark the herald angels sing Glory to the newborn King Peace on earth and mercy mild God and sins reconciled Joyful holy nations rise Join the triumph of the skies With angelic hosts proclaim Christ is born in Bethlehem Hark the herald angels sing Glory to the newborn King Christ by highest Christ the everlasting Lord

[48:10] May in time behold Him come Offspring of the virgin's womb Filled in flesh the God has seen Hail incarnate Deity Pleased as man with man to dwell Jesus of Emmanuel Hark the herald angels sing Glory to the newborn King Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace Hail the Son of Righteousness Light and life to all He brings Risen with healing in His wings Mild He lays His glory by Born that man no more may die Born to raise the sons of earth Born to give second birth

[49:13] Hark the herald angels sing Glory to the newborn King Glory to the newborn King Hark the herald angels sing Glory to the newborn King Praise God from whom all blessings flow Praise Him all creatures here below Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts

[50:16] Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Folks, if you'd like prayer There'll be some, um, a couple of people Just at the back of the church over there Who would love to pray with you And, uh, just want to invite you To stick around after the service We'll have tea and coffee At the back in the little chapel area At the back there Before we leave though Folks, receive this blessing The peace of God Which passes all understanding And keep your hearts and minds And the knowledge and love of God And of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord And the blessing of God Almighty The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit Be among you And remain with you always Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen

[51:24] Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Thank you.

[52:10] Thank you.

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[53:10] Thank you.