The Sunday Summary [12-09]

This week has been more eventful than anticipated, and not for particularly good reasons.

Monday night at Growth Group, we were down on numbers with ill health and union meetings taking out some people. We looked at Luke 10:1-24; mainly the sending out of the 72 by Jesus. We need to follow Jesus truly, not neglecting Him and rejoicing that our names are written in heaven. There was also some delicious banana bread cooked by Hollie.

Tuesday was a busy day with plenty of last minute Annual General Meeting bits and pieces, let alone the actual meeting, which saw a problem with the lights in the auditorium, meaning that the whole meeting was held in almost candlelight.

Wednesday I got to take a photo of the MTSers for the upcoming 2012 postcard. In the evening I headed out to Newtown for Geoff & I's combined birthday dinner. We were going to head along to a Scandinavian place called Gourmet Viking but unfortunately it was closed, now apparently only open on Friday & Saturday nights.

So we wandered over to Erskinville to Cafe Shenkin, a place serving middle eastern cuisine. I grabbed a skewer of chicken and a skewer of beef, with a roast potato with mushroom sauce, and Geoff got a Falafel wrap with halloumi. I tucked into my meal, but soon had some trouble eating it, with some of it getting caught in my throat. Now this is something that's happened a few times before, and has soon passed, so I thought that I'd be right. I soon found out that this night was worse than I'd anticipated. I tried ingesting a whole bunch of water to no affect, and also induced vomiting, but they didn't help. As we were walking back to Geoff's place, I came to realise that my saliva wasn't being swallowed properly and building up in my throat. As I was driving home I needed to continuously spit out saliva until at one point I needed to stop on the side of the road. After a fairly violent vomit, I thought that the blockage had cleared, and stopped in at McDonalds drive through for a meal, since I wasn't able to consume my first one. After drinking a mouthful of Coke, I found out that the blockage was still there, and the Coke came bubbling back. So as I continued to drive and ingest Coke, only to make a few pitstops on the side of the road, I messaged Gary who told me to go to the G.P. in the morning, or if it was serious to head along to Concord or Westmead hospital. So I ended up heading to Concord and checking myself into the emergency department. After triage saw me, I waited around for a doctor, who checked me out, looking down my throat, and asked me a whole bunch of questions. After a couple of consults with the ENT guys and a phone call to the gastro doctors, he decided to admit me overnight to be seen by the gastro doctors in the morning. I got a cannula put in my arm before being told to try to drink Coke again, which just came straight back up. So I was put into a chair with some kind of fluid in the cannula to relax me, and a shot of sugar in the arm. Then I waited around for a couple of hours, drifting in and out of sleep, before being wheeled up to the gastro ward and put into a bed. In the morning I was seen by about 4 doctors, and the blockage had cleared, so they decided that there wasn't anything needing to be done there and then, but as it was a recurring problem, that they would like to take a look and treat the problem at the specialist clinic. So after a liquid breakfast of apple juice and 2 orange flavoured jellies, along with a fairly long wait, I was discharged with some drugs and instructions to be on a soft food diet and drove home, via Carlingford Village for some congee; the Asian wonder cure food. After a quick stop in at home, I headed in to work, which was really quite quiet. I got out of there around 4ish and spent the remainder of the day in and out of sleep whilst watching some television, with my parents dropping in to deliver me some more congee.

Friday was a pretty uncomplicated day, but as we progressed through the day, the work ramped up again. Touch in the afternoon was light on again, despite the great weather that we had. We got to a 4 vs 5 game, and I got a couple of tries in there. It was interesting having quite a number of non-Christians along, almost more than the number of Christians we had there, along with the lacking seniority, as they seemed to run their mouths off a bit more than usual, swearing and carrying on in jest. The Christians that were there didn't seem to know how to react, it was as if they were disgusted with the language, but not bold enough to say anything. SALT was a good night as well, we continue to have more new-comers along, which is a great encouragement.

Yesterday was a fairly relaxing day with not too much happening. I got along to the Greenwood's garage sale in the morning, picking up some bargain electric salt & pepper shakers. Next stop was the Hall residence to drop off the hats and footy from touch, stopping in to say hi and ended up spending some time doing a puzzle with Rose. In the mid afternoon I headed over to my folks place to do some washing before dinner with them and Gary Koo's in-laws.

This morning I had a super scriptural Sunday. It started off with 7:45am Church going through the second order communion service from the Australian Prayer Book, before Bruce came to preach on Proclaiming the cross from 1 Corinthians 1:10-2:5, wrapping up his 4 part Crossway series. The main point of the talk was that we are all responsible to proclaim the message of the cross. We are responsible to do it together, because we are united by the work of Christ on the cross.

Next on the agenda was a sit down with my flatmates to read the bible together. We sat down and read through 1 Corinthians 1 & 2 discussing the wisdom of Man & the wisdom of God, and the spiritual man. Then it was off to my 1-2-1 with Nic where we read Hebrews 7 talking about Melchizedek and how he resembles the Son of God over breakfast at The Red Heart Cafe.

At graceat6 tonight Mike preached from Exodus 1-15, entitled Who is God that I should obey His voice?. It was a good talk with plenty of content in there. We learn a number of things about God:

1. He Keeps His Covenant Promises
2. He sees & hears His people's cry for help
3. His name is YHWH, I AM, & LORD
4. He is angry, but that anger is averted by blood
5. He uses His strong hand to deliver, redeem & judge
6. He brings salvation from judgement and through judgement (in the passover & Red Sea)
7. He fights to make Himself known (through the plagues)

We see the way in which Moses resembles or foreshadows:

1. Israel
   • Saved in an Ark
   • Adopted in the the Royal Family
   • Prepared for leadership by being educated in Pharaohs court
   • a sojourner in a foreign land
   • spent 40 years in the wilderness
   • comes to Horeb, the Mountain of God
   • covered from God's anger by blood
2. God
   • Looked on Israel's burdens
   • Struck down Egyptians
   • Judge
   • Makes rest for Israel's burdens
   • Israel grumbles to Him
   • Like God
   • Stretched out his hand to bring judgement
3. Jesus
   • God/Man
   • Baby survives the murderous intentions of a threatened king (Moses from Egypt, Jesus to Egypt)
   • Both kings had their plans frustrated by the disobedience of their intended helpers (Midwives & Magi)
   • Called & sent by God
   • Priest & prophet
   • Performed signs & wonders
   • Led people out of slavery

So how does this all affect & apply to us? We need to:

1. Know & Fear the LORD

   He is to be feared, His judgement is to be feared

2. Be covered by the blood of the lamb, by Jesus' blood

   Repent & believe that Jesus is the lamb of God.

3. Serve the LORD God wants Israel out of Egypt so that they can serve the Lord, worship the Lord. Salvation is not the end point; we are saved to serve

4. Remember & Celebrate Rejoice daily the death of Jesus; our passover lamb.

5. Don't have a hard heart that does not listen to the Lord Soften your heart, open your ear & bend the knee to the Lord

6. Cry out to the LORD God is one who hears & sees His peoples tears, and will act

7. Sing praises to the Lord

8. Make the LORD known God wants to be known, He seems to go to extraordinary lengths.