I’m sitting in the SMBC library now. Of course, I needed to do work anyway, so it wasn’t a hard decision to come into college, but I have to say that the air conditioning was a big draw card. While you Northern Hemisphere people are copping a bit of a chill from what I head (particularly the Americans) it has been hovering up to 39 (100 farenheit) here in Sydney…
I love the house I am looking after in Lakemba, but it doesn’t have Air Conditioning.
Again, the AC was a draw card to visiting the Library…
Yesterday’s sermons went well (one sermon, two venues). I spoke a little too fast in the evening service, but felt I did a better job with the sermon as a whole though. John 10:1-18 was a really fun passage to do. Particularly, because you can go down two distinct tracks. Rather than focussing on Jesus as the Good Shepherd, an idea I suspect that most of us grasp easily, I was really taken by Jesus as the gate. The fact that He is very clear in making exclusive claims of himself. It is only through Christ that we can come into a proper relationship with God.
I was particularly struck by how the pharisees (and we ourselves) have a small picture of who Jesus us. The question that was floating in the air, which I too have been asked many times, is “how can you be so arrogant as to claim that Jesus is the ONLY way?”. While studying I was struck by the thought that if it is arrogant to claim that just one man could be the only way to God, then it is equally ignorant to believe that if God has come down in the flesh, that we would be able to approach God through any other medium!
God-become-man to rescue his people. Providing a gateway between us and God by laying his life down for us (being the Good Shepherd).
Anyway, enough of a potted summary. Now to answer a couple of quick questions and then deliver a couple of pictures for you visual types before getting back into some work.
Justin: Sermon went OK. I have another two shots at it next week, so hopefully I will improve further.
Dave: Wine & sermon prep at the same time. You just have to drink slowly, lest on impinges on the ability to perform the other…
Lara: Yep, it certainly is a moleskine. In fact, I have two!! One is a diary, the other is a little notes book. I write down little things that I like & want to use again in them…
Now for some pictures. I wont explain them, I’ll let you just enjoy (or critique if you want) them.