PREVIOUS SERMON  (sorted accordingly,starting from recent )

In times of crisis we all long to have our family and friends around us. How comforted Lord Jesus must have been in His agony on the cross to see His mother and John, His closest friend and follower, standing there. Typically, the Saviour thinks more of them than He does of Himself, and comforts them with the amazing and creative words we read in today’s passage. Speaking to His mother He says, “[[b]Dear] woman, See, [here is] your son!”, and to the disciple He says, “See, [here is] your mother!” as seen in v27. It was here on the level ground at the foot of the cross that the Church was born; that first gathering of those who love, trust and believe in Lord Jesus Christ and they includes His mother and John with His close friends and disciples. Listen to what Richard Bauckham and Trevor Hart have to say in this connection: ‘Just as Lord Jesus’ mother and the Beloved Disciple would not otherwise have been related had not Lord Jesus at His death brought them together, and charged them with being mother and son to each other, so the Church is the community of people who would not otherwise be related, but whom the crucified Lord Jesus brings together, forging new relationships through His death for us.’ The Church of Lord Jesus Christ is not an abstraction but a community of believers who have flesh –and –blood relationships characterized by family affection, brotherly love and the bonds of trusting friendship. So here in House my aim all these years has been to build up this divine relationship but more often than not the devil using members tries to attack it aiming at preventing it not to be but I charge all of you today to cultivate and imbibe this spirit so that together we will achieve it for Lord Jesus Christ! What greater incentive is there than the cross to call us to unity as Christians? However, the Church, which as Scripture tells us is the Body of Christ, is in so many places torn apart by fractions and divisions. God help us to return to the level ground beneath the cross and drink of that fountain of love so that the world might know we are Christ’s true disciples by the love we show to one another as seen in John 13:35 saying, “35 By this shall all [men] know that you are My disciples, if you love one another [if you keep on showing love among yourselves].”

Can you imagine the extent that evil and wickedness in man can go; disgracing an innocent being Lord Jesus Christ just because His life style exposes our own wicked and evil life style and instead of learning from Him by humbling ourselves having seen truth in His life style; we man thinks that our only way out in other to covering our erroneous sinful life style and continue in it is to kill and eliminate the innocent Christ Jesus but little did man know that by so doing he man has ruined and killed himself because God will surely judge all our evil deed against our fellow man. Let us learn of Christ and amend our evil ways, Lord Jesus said in Mat. 11:29 ‘Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls…’. Do you now see why we do not have relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quietness in our soul and heart, because we are not making any effort to learn to live our life on earth like Lord Jesus Christ lived, we are not learning from Him and emulating His meek and lowly life style while on earth. We are not exhibiting and practicing the right divine social and family meek and lowly spirit because envy, jealousy, wickedness, witchcraft spirit possessed by some humans, and the ‘I have arrived syndrome’ is not allowing us do so divinely. Last week we related the question ‘Where is your brother?’ to the nation of Israel; we relate it now once more to the elder brother in the story about the prodigal son as seen in Luke 15:11-32. The elder brother, as we saw, was angry at the way the father lavished on the returning prodigal such mercy and grace which is exactly the same with our attitude when something good happens to our fellow man, instead of our being truly joyful with the person, we begin to think why is it not happening to us. In that wrong family and social spirit, so great was his elder brother’s anger that he distanced himself from his family altogether and did not participate in the feast for his brother and even if he did participate, he did so halfheartedly just as some of us use to do. Notice how disrespectful he was to his father by not even coming into the house. In fact, his father had to go outside to plead with him to come in as seen in Luke 15:28 “28 But [the elder brother] was angry [with deep-seated wrath] and resolved not to go in. Then his father came out and began to plead with him.” In response to the father’s entreaty, he used a phrase that tells us a lot about what he really felt: “30 But when this son of yours arrived, who has devoured your estate with immoral women, you have killed for him [b]that [wheat-] fattened calf!”. This son of yours One can imagine him spitting out those words contemptuously. The elder son expressed fierce opposition to his father, yet the father went out to him in the same way that he had gone to greet the prodigal. Similarly, God will not let us climb on our high horse and disown those whom He pardons and forgives. This is a great lesson to all of us, we have to realize that it is God’s right to give His mercy and grace to whosoever He like and love and the way He wish and nobody can question God! A Roman Catholic priest in Dublin, shocked his congregation when he preached on the prodigal son because he told them, ‘There are some of you here who would be greatly upset if God announced He had done away with hell. You would be upset because you have interest in people’s judgment than in their forgiveness.’ That is the attitude Lord Jesus displayed in our key verse today. When forgiving those who were crucifying Him, He appealed to the Father’s forgiving nature. A true believer rejoices in the restoration of prodigals as much as the Father and Lord Jesus do. It is the family Spirit which all of us are called to emulate of Him Lord Jesus.

Several times in these meditations, as you are aware, we have related what we have been saying to both the story of the prodigal son and the nation of Israel. The question ‘Where is your brother?’ was in one way or another directed by God to the nation of Israel many times in the Old Testament. Israel’s first obligation was, as today’s text makes clear, to love their neighbour. Mindful of the oppressive and unjust social system, being a ‘social being’, the Israelites had endured under Pharaoh, the nation was entrusted with a law which aimed to create precisely that just and free neighbourly society which had been denied in Egypt. Among a people who had once been slaves in a foreign country and knowing how it feels, aliens and slaves were to be treated with special respect by the Israelites but did they do that with love bearing in mind when they were in Egypt? So it is with humanity today, God’s essence in creating man a social being has not yet been reflected by man which is why currently God is making Ndi Igbo to pass through many things in Nigeria such that when eventually He God will float a new nation for them, unlike other nations Ndi Igbo will handle every other nationality with divine respect knowing that is God’s aim which is why God asked Cain ‘where is your brother’? When God’s people forgot this calling, the prophets forcefully reminded them of their obligations. Time and time again in the Old Testament, we read of prophets raising their voices in the protest at the way Israel behaved in relation to others. Take Amos, for example. In the eight chapter of his prophecy, he condemned those who went into the Temple of the Lord on the Sabbath, proceeded to worship God and then the next day, in the marketplace, exploited the people by jacking prices and using false balances as seen in Amos 8:5-6 “5 Saying, When will the New Moon festival be past that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale, making the ephah [measure] small and the shekel [measure] great and falsifying the scales by deceit, 6 That we may buy [into slavery] the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals; yes, and sell the refuse of the wheat [as if it were good grade]?” You see cheating everywhere, maltreatment and inhumanity to man everywhere, a situation that God abhors! What Amos was saying on behalf of God was this: ‘Where is your brother? Why do you treat others in this way?’ Today, the voice of Lord Jesus calls out to the whole world, asking that question of every bank, every business, every community, even to the united nation ….and every Church. Where is your brother?

Several times in these meditations, as you are aware, we have related what we have been saying to both the story of the prodigal son and the nation of Israel. The question ‘Where is your brother?’ was in one way or another directed by God to the nation of Israel many times in the Old Testament. Israel’s first obligation was, as today’s text makes clear, to love their neighbour. Mindful of the oppressive and unjust social system, being a ‘social being’, the Israelites had endured under Pharaoh, the nation was entrusted with a law which aimed to create precisely that just and free neighbourly society which had been denied in Egypt. Among a people who had once been slaves in a foreign country and knowing how it feels, aliens and slaves were to be treated with special respect by the Israelites but did they do that with love bearing in mind when they were in Egypt? So it is with humanity today, God’s essence in creating man a social being has not yet been reflected by man which is why currently God is making Ndi Igbo to pass through many things in Nigeria such that when eventually He God will float a new nation for them, unlike other nations Ndi Igbo will handle every other nationality with divine respect knowing that is God’s aim which is why God asked Cain ‘where is your brother’? When God’s people forgot this calling, the prophets forcefully reminded them of their obligations. Time and time again in the Old Testament, we read of prophets raising their voices in the protest at the way Israel behaved in relation to others. Take Amos, for example. In the eight chapter of his prophecy, he condemned those who went into the Temple of the Lord on the Sabbath, proceeded to worship God and then the next day, in the marketplace, exploited the people by jacking prices and using false balances as seen in Amos 8:5-6 “5 Saying, When will the New Moon festival be past that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath that we may offer wheat for sale, making the ephah [measure] small and the shekel [measure] great and falsifying the scales by deceit, 6 That we may buy [into slavery] the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals; yes, and sell the refuse of the wheat [as if it were good grade]?” You see cheating everywhere, maltreatment and inhumanity to man everywhere, a situation that God abhors! What Amos was saying on behalf of God was this: ‘Where is your brother? Why do you treat others in this way?’ Today, the voice of Lord Jesus calls out to the whole world, asking that question of every bank, every business, every community, even to the united nation ….and every Church. Where is your brother?

We are seeing that we are inescapably social beings. Whenever we try to live on a ‘they -I’ basis we lie outside the basic laws of our being. We are made to relate not only to God but also to others. ‘It is not good for man to be alone’, said God in Genesis 2:18. And when you go to Genesis 1:27 it tells us, “So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them”. So Created in God’s image, humanity is called to reflect that image through ‘male and female’. Some believe this refers to the institution of marriage, but it refers also to larger issue that is within the God -given joy of being unique individuals we can know what it is to be a true human being only in relation to others. Our relationships with our fellow human beings as well as with God have helped to make us who we are. Those who do not feel they belong have no clear sense of identity. David F. Ford, in The Shape of Living, speaks of the ‘community of the heart’ made up of all the voices and faces we have given a home to. Many of these permanent and welcome residents, giving warmth and nourishment when we think of them. Other voices and faces make us feel less comfortable, bringing a challenge to our conscience or a sting to our memory. Inside us live the faces and voices of those who built us up, energized us, believed in us. But alongside them also are the faces and voices of those who put us down. Yet no matter how many negative faces and voices we have seen and heard, when Christ lives in our hearts as the Chief Guest, He enlarges our capacity for heart -hospitality. Through His love working in us, we can extend our boundaries to give a touch and taste of Lord Jesus to all we meet. So it is only Christ in us that can give us the capacity to accommodate both negative and positive voices and faces because it is only the guidance of Christ that can make us not fall victim of the complexity of society today!