Hello Team SCPC

I can’t wait for our SCPC family Olympics day on Sunday! What a fantastic way for families in our
church to connect with families in the community. Now, are you welcome if you’re single? Absolutely – you are part of our family! So, everyone, come and enjoy the fun and colour on Sunday morning at 9:30am, and then we have our regular 6pm gathering.

Now, our day does mean we will still tackle the question ‘Who is God?‘ But the way I approach it is very different to the study I prepared on Christian doctrine. I am thankful for having gone through the study with others during the week to help me consider how to ‘pitch it’ to a community member. But this has meant I will use Psalm 139 as an invitation to meet the God who knows you, and finish with the invitation to know God by knowing the son of God, Jesus, who is gentle and lowly.

Thus, as you engage the study next week, you will get no help from Sunday’s Bible talk! In the study I was following a traditional theological approach that suggests we can know God through his creation (see Psalm 19). But sadly, and devastatingly, due to the fall Romans chapter 1:18-32 reveals we (as a collective humanity) have a disposition to supress the truth, even though we can witness the majestic creator God in creation.

Now, not only does creation sing the praise of the majestic God (Psalm 96), his word the Bible reveals his character, nature, likes and heart to our world. Then, in fulfilment of the God who is Trinity, the Word (Jesus) enters our world. We see this powerfully in John’s gospel when Philip asks to see God, and Jesus replies (essentially) that you are looking at him! [1] This idea reveals the questions on the Trinity, and as I worked through the study during the week with others, and we saw the repeated passages that capture the Trinity, I found it very powerful personally!

Finally, the study ends on the wonder of God radiating his presence to the world, through the son, who is the exact representation of God.

So there you have it.

This Sunday we will see the God who is knowable and knows me from Psalm 139, then next week in your DNAs you will see the knowable God found in creation and his word (Psalm 19), who became flesh as a human in the God-man Jesus (Hebrews 1), and whose radiant glory can be exhibited in us through the Holy Spirit’s ministry, as we exalt the spectacular son Jesus Christ.

I simply loved preparing this material and benefited immensely from Michael Reeves’ book The Good God, a Moore College distance education course (you might like to enrol) and Broughton Knox’s book (through Matthias media) The Everlasting God. And here is a grab from Sunday’s Bible reading, how great!

1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Psalm 139:1-6

SP

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[1] John 14:8-18

As we prepare for Celebration Sunday at the end of the term, could I ask you “What makes your heart sing?”

Now you might come up with a list of five things very quickly – Vegemite, board games, sketching, sunsets and kombucha!

However our interest for celebration Sunday is what makes your heart sing as you consider life at Southern Cross Presbyterian Church!

It could be as simple as:
“Seeing kids from our church family heading down for the kids talk each Sunday.”
Or
“Getting together with my DNA to open God’s word and pray together.”

You might like to contribute just one, or you might find it to hard to decide on just one. That’s fine, write as many as you want! Inside your term booklet you will find two hearts that you can tear out to get you started and we will have more available for you across the term. 

Once you’ve written on your hearts, place them in the big heart that will be on display each Sunday at 9:30am and 6pm and our staff team will collect them across Term 3.

Then, on Celebration Sunday (September 22), we will display the small hearts as one large heart. Hence our desire for lots of little hearts to create our one BIG heart on Celebration Sunday!

Celebration Sunday is such a helpful Sunday for us – a rare moment to pause and reflect on the stories of how our God is at work through our ordinary lives, in extraordinary ways. Across our SCPC year*, there will no doubt be times of heartache, and even some times of real heartbreak. But our heartbeat continues, fuelled by the gospel, and Celebration Sunday will allow us to all consider (as we think about life at SCPC) what makes our heart sing.

You might like to reflect on this prayer of the Apostle Paul’s as you write on your paper heart for Celebration Sunday 2024…

1 Thessalonians 1:3 
We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

SP

* There is the calendar year, the financial year and the ‘SCPC year’ (which runs from Celebration Sunday to Celebration Sunday each year)!

Last Sunday we introduced Bill and Linda Colyer as our newest Global Mission Partners (here’s the clip we showed on Sunday). They are preparing to do ministry with uni students in Vanuatu, beginning next year.

Bill has been working in uni ministry for the past 17 years with AFES at Queensland University of Technology and they are currently part of Wilston Presbyterian Church in Brisbane. Here’s a short profile with some more info about them and the rest of their family. 

Bill and Linda, along with their 2 daughters Amy (14) and Gwen (8) will be visiting us on August 9-15. We’ll hopefully get to know them lots more across the week. I met them on zoom for the first time recently and was deeply encouraged by their steadfast heart for people, the gospel and for ministry in the South Pacific. 

I’m excited about the opportunity for us as a church to partner in global mission with them as we seek, under God, to make disciples of all nations. 

JR