On Sunday October 20 we explored some more big questions: What is the purpose of human life? What’s the relationship between who God is and who we are? How do we handle the tension between what’s good and beautiful about humanity, and what’s destructive and evil?
This is the third in a series on Living Faith, one of the faith statements of the Presbyterian Church. Our guiding scriptures for this week are Psalm 8, Psalm 130 and Matthew 5:13-16. This message reflects on Living Faith sections 2.2-2.5 2.2
Our Creation
2.2.1The mystery of human existence is that we belong to God and have been made in the divine image. In God we live and move and have our being. Therefore, we know ourselves only when we know God. Our lives must reflect the Creator’s love and purpose for all creation. We acknowledge God as Creator and Lord.
2.2.2 We have been made male and female for our mutual help, comfort and joy. Our creation as sexual beings is God’s loving purpose for us. We are dependent on each other and as men and women, need one another in all of life.
2.3 Our Calling
2.3.1 We are called to work out the meaning of our own lives and to find our true vocation in the love and service of God.
2.3.2 We serve and love God by the service and love of creation especially the care of the needy. Every kind of work that is honest and serves others is a vocation from the Lord.
2.3.3 Calling means the necessity to deny selfish ambition and desire in order to minister to others. In God’s service true freedom is to be found.
2.4 Our Care for the World
2.4.1 Though life is a gift from God, human life depends upon the created world. Our care for the world must reflect God’s care. We are not owners, but stewards of God’s good earth. Concerned with the well-being of all of life we welcome the truths and insights of all human skill and science about the world and the universe.
2.4.2 Our stewardship calls us to explore ways of love and justice in respecting God’s creation and in seeking its responsible use for the common good.
2.5 Sin Separates Us from God
2.5.1 We confess that we are sinners. We do not care for the world as we should. We do not fulfill our calling to serve God. Our lives do not reflect the Creator’s love. Our failure is sin, a rebellion against God, an insistence that we be god in our own lives.
2.5.2 God has given us the law to show us how to live. Yet we are unable to keep the Ten Commandments, and we do not love God without reserve nor our neighbour as ourselves. Above all, our sin is exposed by the perfect life of Christ.
2.5.3 Sin alienates us from God. It offends the holiness of God, separates us from our Lord, and leads to spiritual death. It mars the divine image in us and infects our relationship with others and with ourselves.
2.5.4 Sin is a power present in every human life, even at birth. It issues in such sins as pride asserting itself against God, indifference towards God and neighbour, untruthfulness, greed, lust, laziness, gluttony, envy, and selfish anger.
2.5.5 We cannot escape our sin, nor the sin of the world.
2.5.6 Because we are sinful the societies we live in are sinful. There are no exceptions: every system is flawed. We are part of the evil of the world, of its violence, neglect, injustice.
2.5.7 All people fall short of God’s standards and need salvation. God’s way to salvation has been revealed in Jesus Christ. Through the death and resurrection of Christ our sins are forgiven. Salvation means life, forgiveness, healing, wholeness. It comes from God’s grace received through faith in Christ alone.
2.5.8 Thanks be to God!
You can find the full text of Living Faith here: https://presbyterian.ca/wp-content/up…