Persevering in doing good 1 July 2020

1. Caring for the Doyles
Welcome back to Mike! He will be slowly easing back into church life. In the meantime some staff members and student ministers will share some encouragements and updates to you each week.
If you'd still like to support the Doyle's you can firstly pray for good rest for all! If you'd also like to support them practically, there are a limited number of spaces left to sign up. Please feel free to sign up to bring the family a meal here:
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2. Persevering in doing good - Reflection from Veronica Ng
This week, since hearing Sam’s sermon on Sunday on Luke chapter 13 I’ve been reflecting on what motivates us to do good.
I know sometimes when I fall short not even of God’s standards but just my own, I feel a sense of guilt. I know I should do better, I certainly encourage others to do good so I should do it too. When I feel bad about falling short, it can demotivate me and sometimes there are two responses that I might have:
The first one is:

'Oh, don’t ever let anyone know that I only prayed for my good friend for 30 seconds today when I told her I’d pray for her.'
My rebuttal to that thought is- even if no one else knows God knows. You can’t hide it from Him.
The second response is:
'Don’t you know that you’re saved by grace and not by works? You know God loves you not because you do good but because of what Jesus has done. Don’t worry about it.
'
My rebuttal to that thought is. Yes you make some very good points but what about Rom 2 which talks about being hypocritical..in verse 4 it says ‘or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?’ or Rom 6:1 says,’ what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!’ Paul says.In Chapter 8, Paul gives assurance of our hope in all of this. Even though our body is dead because of sin, the Spirit, in us is life because of righteousness. And so knowing this reality, we then can put to death the deeds of the body. And Paul talks about receiving the Spirit of adoption which he contrasts with the spirit of slavery which leads us to fall back into fear.
There is a certain courage that is needed when we are to do good isn’t there. It means not setting our minds on the flesh- which leads to sin and death, but waging war against it.
I recently read an article called ‘How to root out apathy with the power of habit. And the first heading in the article was ‘Legalism or laziness’. And I thought- wow I need to read this article! I think these two are typical responses when we struggle to do good. We either evade it or we say, ‘stop being legalistic, we don’t have to do this to be saved.’ The article is specifically about the importance of spiritual disciplines but I think it’s a helpful way to think about why we persevere in doing good when it’s hard.
The key word is endurance or perseverance. Maybe we don’t want to think of ourselves as lazy because we’d rather say, ‘I am exhausted, I am so busy, I just don’t have time, it’s not because I’m lazy!’ The article reminded me that growing and producing fruit requires perseverance. There isn’t a short cut. This is not legalism or preaching works based salvation. As Dallas Willard, one of my favourite authors once said, ‘Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.’
Watch the video to see what response I think is possible, besides laziness and legalism when we struggle to do good.
(You can read the article here if you're interested www.crossway.o...)
3. Family Bible Study
This weeks Family Bible Study is available. It can be done with your family, with your household - or even just by yourself! It doesn't matter how old or young you are! Families are starting a new series from the book of Acts. Quizworx have let us use their material for free - thanks Quizworx!
Why not get the kids to do it during Sunday Church? And don't forget to send your craft pictures to [e-mail]
The study can be found at this link:
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Lighthouse Berala
St James Berala
Veronica Ng
(on behalf of pastor Mike Doyle)