Our 2024 St Michael’s Day Conference is coming up in one month’s time! On Sunday 22nd September at The Illawarra Grammar School we will gather with our wider church family for a whole day (8:30am to 3:30pm), to sing, pray, hear God’s word, and enjoy fellowship. This year we have Archie Poulos (from Moore College) speaking on ‘The Dependent Discipleship of Prayer’.
But what if you’re not sure about coming? Maybe you are not sure if the cost and/or time will be worth it? Or maybe conferences in general make you feel uncomfortable? What will help you to come along?
As we wrap up our preaching series in Hebrews, one of the most noticeable things for me has been all the ‘Let us’ commands:
Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest;
Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess;
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence;
Let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ;
Let us draw near to God;
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess;
Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds;
Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles;
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us;
Let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe;
Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore;
Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise.
There are a lot of them! And we can conclude that Christian community is essential for not only growing as followers of Jesus but also in running the race together.
We need each other.
We have mutual responsibility to care for and encourage one another. The letter to the Hebrews has warned us not to be consumers in community but rather contributors to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
But it isn’t easy…
This can be difficult in an age and society where the greatest commandment is no longer to love God and love your neighbour but rather to “be yourself”. And the problem with this, as Hebrews has highlighted, is that we have sinful unbelieving hearts that want us to turn away from the living God. And so looking inwards to find ourselves is a problem because we are sinfully flawed.
So what’s the solution?
We need to keep helping one another look beyond ourselves to focus on Jesus, the perfect human being. Only then will we find who we ought to be, by trusting and following Him. And when we do look to Jesus we have freedom because we let God guide and shape us into the people we were made to be. Which means we’ve been saved by Jesus to not live for ourselves anymore but to be the means by which God helps our brothers and sisters in Christ to persevere.
And that’s a good reason not to miss out on our upcoming St Michael’s Day Conference!
‘Let us’ love each other and keep running the race for Jesus!
In Him,
Liam Shannon
Senior Assistant Minister | 10am & 5pm
