How do we process this pandemic? John Piper has written a new book to deal with trusting in the sovereignty of God during this trial. There are two aims: 1) to see that God is in control through the Coronavirus; 2) to see what God is getting done through this trial.

Desiring God has graciously given us free paperback copies of this because of John Piper’s friendship with CJ Mahaney! So I have a copy to give to each of us! Check your door step in the next week for your copy!

You can also access it electronically in a few different ways:

1) Free e-book download for your e-reader of choice (or simple PDF)

2) Free audiobook via the Ask Pastor John Podcast

• Podcast

• Youtube

A combined SG Churches Australia event for all the men to jump on and think seriously and soberly about our purity. Please read this chapter on “Lust'“ by John Piper if you can before hand as it will help frame the evening. There will be a chance to ask questions for yourself or for a “friend”!

When: May 8th - 9:30pm

Where: Online via Zoom - https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81969267294

What: a session of worship followed by a Q + A panel: Riley, Brendan, Patrick.

Who: the men!

Ladies Growth Group’s are on this week! Be ready to discuss the messages from Ephesians 5:21-33. You can access them here

Mark Prater, the Executive Director of Sovereign Grace Churches (Global), recently put out a short 5 minute podcast called “Loving Our Neighbours” in which he gave a short overview of some of the work being in done through Sovereign Grace Churches, around the world, in this Pandemic.

Thanks for being involved SG Parra!! Check out the video below to hear about our family of churches in action!

On Sunday we had the joy worshipping together and singing a new song: “Glorious” by Sovereign Grace Music. This song meditates on the humble but glorious reality of the incarnation of Jesus, listen to it here.

We were visited by Eric Turbedsky, Senior Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Old Town Orange in California, he is the Western Regional Leader, Communications Director, Church Planting Director, and a member of the Leadership Team, but most importantly, he is a godly man who loves Jesus and loves people. You can check out his church here: www.sovgraceoc.org.

I preached on Ephesians the uncontroversial passage of Ephesians 5:21-24! My main idea was (and will be for this coming week) that in order to flourish we must embrace our God given roles and practice our God-given duties. True life only comes from dying to self (Mark 8:34-36). So for wives in particular, the role of a wife is to be her husbands helper and she embraces this by respectfully submitting to his leadership. John Piper and Wayne Grudem helpful define it like this:

“Submission refers to a wife’s divine calling to honor and affirm her husband’s leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts. It is not an absolute surrender of her will. Rather, we speak of her disposition to yield to her husband’s guidance and her inclination to follow his leadership.”

For many this is seen as a beautiful way to live and for many others this is seen as a very hard pill to swallow. But may I remind you, this is God’s best not his back-up plan! Growing in this takes time and a lot of study, fellowship, and accountability, as well as needed your husband to step up and lead you in this!

If you’d like to hear more about what it may look like practically to submit listen to this talk by Rebekah Merkle entitled “Dangerous Woman as a Wife”. Or perhaps, if you are brave, I highly recommend reading “Eve in Exile” by her also. In this book she deconstructs feminism as well as false Christian ideals about womanhood and rebuilds a vision for Biblical Womanhood from the bible, and it really is a glorious vision! I think this quote captures the flavour of the book:

And if God designed women for a specific purpose, if there are fixed limits on the feminine nature, then surely it would follow that when we are living in accordance with those limits and purpose we will be in our sweet spot. That’s where we’ll shine. Where we’ll excel. And where we will find the most fulfillment. If your hackles are already going up at that, then it’s probably because you’re afraid that in the end, what God designed you for is unexciting, unfulfilling, demeaning, and generally dull. You’re already picturing the sadly colored suburban house, the minivan, and the long boring afternoons with a flavorless casserole to look forward to. But just stop and think for a second. What do we know about God? Is He interested in creatures that are dull, underappreciated, and underutilized? Oh for pity’s sake. He’s the God who created the tiger. The eagle. The sun. The palm tree. Why on earth, when He got to mankind, would He suddenly decide that He wanted to top it all off with a creature that’s not allowed to live up to its full potential and has to sputter along at 10 percent output, never allowed to get out of first gear? I think we’re safe on that front. I’m pretty sure that we’ll find that what God has created us for is far more breathtaking, crazy, scary, and glorious than we have wanted to assume, and I don’t think any of us, if we throw ourselves into the roles that He sets for us, will find ourselves bored. So remove from your mind all stereotypes of mid-century housewives, of china-doll femininity, of Victorian ladies swooning, of women not allowed to think for themselves or talk to the men about anything interesting or important. Set all that aside, whether those are things that make you gag or things you think look pretty fun. Drop all that, and let’s just work through the question of what God made women for.

Let’s keep the conversation open and ongoing! If you have questions, concerns, objections, doubts, or if you are worried, or scared, or confused, please reach out to me or to others ladies. I would love to speak to you about this as your wrestle with it :)

Life Group’s are back on this week AND our newest members will all be joining for their first time! Let’s be leaning in and looking to practice the ‘one-another’s’ of Scripture, even in isolation! Life Groups are one of the best things we do as a church, as we look to know, apply, and proclaim the gospel together! This term, our groups will be bigger than we like but we are praying and hoping that soon we can split into a third Life Group once isolation has ended! Stay tuned!

Here is the schedule for the term (and the rest of 2020!)

For the past month i have been sending out the blog twice a week so that we could stay more connected and so that I could increase the opportunities I have to influence and Pastor you. As time has progressed it has become apparent that the need isn’t quite there in the same that it was at the beginning of the isolation, and that it may end up just clogging up the ol’ inbox! So we will go back to a once a week blog on Tuesday!

Read this helpful article from Desiring God, touching upon many of the themes i spoke about last Sunday but giving some more detailed and practical advice for how we can have a vision for the Christian household.

It has been a gift from God to be able to still gather in such a personal and relatable way during this isolation season. Thank you all for the way you have participated by joining in each week, camera on, ready for fellowship, worship, prayer, and a message. I know it is not ideal but it is still a gift that we ought to thank God for!

I want to encourage you as the fatigue sets in, as the Zoom gets old, as the it becomes more tempting to leave things to the last minute, to multi-task, etc. etc. to:

“…consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Heb. 10;24-25)

Let’s make the most of our allotted Zoom gatherings, come ready by preparing your heart to engage joyfully and actively in singing, to come early and stay late (where possible) for the fellowship times, be praying and asking the Lord for prophetic impressions, have your video on, be prepared technologically etc. So that we can make the most of our time.

The reality is, we need these Zoom meetings but the other reality is, they are a lot harder, more draining and more distracting, so it takes more work to prepared for Zoom than a normal Sunday or LG. (You can read an interesting article about the draining affects of Zoom here). But here is what we know for sure: God will meet us as we humbly and hungrily seek Him! So pray for a fresh filling of the Spirit and step out in faith and click that ‘Join Meeting” button, and be prepared for God to move!

Abigail has been doing a truly fantastic job of making epic SG Kids Parramatta TV episodes and so she is going to take a break to rest, catch up on Uni, and plan for future weeks.

Here are some resources you can use to help you fulfill your calling from God, Ephesians 6:4 “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” It is our privilege, and our responsibility alone to train our children the gospel and how to live in God’s world.

1) Read the bible and pray with your kids for five minutes.

Plain and simple. Pull out the kids bible or even the real deal and choose a story, read it, ask 1 or 2 questions, pray. Done. We all know that we need daily feeding of the word to live, well, so do our kids! Let’s not deprive them of the Word of God! Here is a good challenge put out by Youthworks, the 5-5-5 challenge.

If this is something you don’t yet do everyday, now is the time to start, not tomorrow, not when they are older, start now. Sow the seed and in years to come you will reap the fruit. Don’t wait until they are old enough to understand, or still enough to listen, or mature enough to engage in discussion. This is what God says in Deuteronomy 6:6-9

6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

2) Watch good stuff.

There is lots of stuff to watch. Watch good stuff.

• Rewatch old SG Kids Parramatta episodes!

• City on a Hill have their own online kids show, City Kids TV, just like ours, but not as good ;)

• Kids Talks with Colin Buchanan

3) Listen to Good Stuff

Keep listening to awesome kids music that is biblically true and engaging. Here a few recommendations

• Colin Buchanan, this is a good album to start with.

• Sovereign Grace Kids Music

• Seeds Family Worship

4) Read other good stuff

Buy or borrow good kids books that teach a christian worldview

• https://reformers.com.au/collections/children-early-years

• https://reformers.com.au/collections/children-lower-primary

• I recently bought this book on prayer and have been going through it with the kids, it is short, simple and helpful: ‘What every child should know about prayer’ - Nancy Guthrie

• Other ideas: RC Sproul has kids books, Kevin DeYoung, Chronicles of Narnia, etc.

5) Find out how other parents do stuff.

We aren’t alone in the joy and privilege of parenting. Let’s keep working together as a community of parents helping our kids to know and treasure Jesus. We don’t have to copy each other and we can’t make rules about THE way to parent…but we also need to realise we all need help and can learn from each other.

Here is an example of what we try and do as a family, again, i only share this as ONE example not THE example! It doesn’t have to look like this…but it has to look like something.

• We aim to do a 5 minute family devotion in the morning before i start work, with bible reading and prayer.

• Before starting homeschool Maddie will often do another bible time with the kids

• At dinner we sing grace (e.g. Doxology), and talk about our days, trying to bring God into it.

• Before bed we read a bible story from the kids bible.

• While putting them down we get each kids to pray TSP prayers, (Thankyou, Sorry, Please)

• We pray for them and sing them a hymn/song.

I hope all this helps you! Let’s saturate our kids in God from morning to evening and as we do that, we will find ourselves encouraged and refreshed as well! It ain’t easy, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can do it, and me must do it!

Much love,

Riley