Mike Oliver's Messages

I have been reading Bear Grylls autobiography. Its powerful stuff about what it is to be a man able to go beyond his limitations; about a man who God helped reach where eagles dare.  Some of you don’t have a clue who I’m talking about but he has climbed Everest, he is seen on Television each week surviving some of the world’s harshest places, he’s been made the Chief Scout as role model for hundreds of thousands of children, he eats marrow from old bones, crunches live grubs and drinks from camels stomachs. Bear Grylls is SAS trained tough on Prime TV’s Man vs Wild and comes from a line of commandos; his granddad and dad.  Bear, as his much older sister called him, had to find his own individual place in the grueling world of the British SAS and at the young age of 20 years old. He’s a man who has done the impossible and he attributes his success to a simple faith in Jesus Christ and fronts the Alpha advertisements nowadays. Bear Grylls says that in the endurance section of SAS selec

Today I am looking out not on the poor but on the rich who are the ones meant to have inherited the gift of the Holy Spirit.  I am looking as God looks on servants who have been invested with heavenly wealth and the expectation is that more will be won by the endowment of God upon them. Some have been given much while others have received quite a bit and others something. It is like the parable of the sower where some bear fruit 100 fold, some 60 fold, and some 30 fold. (Matt 13) The kingdom of heaven is once again the focus of this week’s reading.  Jesus will be leaving his disciples and the gift of the Holy Spirit will be left behind to further His mission on Earth. The disciples called will become the apostles sent to further the mission of God among the called out ones; the growing ecclesia. Jesus is not only preparing them but also warning his disciples that with the investment there are expectations and consequences. The Lord is not leaving God’s investment of the death of His

As I look out on this congregation I see only lamps rather than people this morning.  I am looking at us as God might look upon us in the Gospel parable.  We are to be children of light, of which the Gospel is that light.  We are to be as attendants of Christ Jesus  professing not only to believe and look for but  to love and long for the appearing of Christ,  not only enlightened by it ourselves but must shine as lights. I am looking this morning through the eyes of Jesus’ parable of the Ten Virgins.  I am seeing two different characters, with proof and evidence of it.  I see lamps with oil for that is what God has told me He has done. B ut do I see lamps with fire; that is the question today.  Do I see extra virgin oil in reserve for the late coming Bridegroom.  There is no doubt the Bridegroom is our Lord Jesus Christ.  There is no doubt we live in a darkened world awaiting His return.  We need to figure out exactly what we are waiting for in Jesus return. When he saw the Pharis

I had the great pleasure this week of sitting beside Murray Robertson, formerly senior pastor of Spreydon Baptist of forty years and soaking in his seven observations of the Church in New Zealand today. He brought to this group of Canterbury Presbyterian ministers also many gems of wisdom about how to get the Church back to “get go.” But one comment intrigued me concerning as he said, “seeing the beginning of the end of the long night of theological liberalism.” Then a friend posted a link to the following by Tim Tennant: In his 1937 landmark book, The Kingdom of God in America, Richard Niebuhr memorably described the message of Protestant liberalism as “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgement through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”  In the ensuing years Niebuhr’s statement has become one of the more well-known summaries of the failure of Protestant liberalism to properly reflect the apostolic message.  Tragically, Niebuhr’s devast

Part I Did your mother ever ban you from the kitchen with “those dirty shoes on?”  Rightly so and similarly sin is not so much an offense we get punished for but rather a privilege of entry we lose by walking in mud.  A very interesting situation arose at my cousin’s compound in India between him and one of his girls.  The young lady is the sweetest little darling you would ever come across.  She never crossed anyone but humbly epitomised what it is to be a good Christian.  With the other girls she entered daily into heavenly visions, sometimes twice a day.  Church life for her was literally out of this world, heavenly, joyful.  This young woman was enjoying life abundantly until one day it all abruptly stopped.  My cousin told me that he said something jokingly from which the young woman took offense and that day her visions of heaven ceased. A week passed and she was beginning to get agitated and by ten days she came to him asking why all her efforts to enter in to the visions with

Last spring I climbed Mt Somers with two others.  I was the oldest and the weakest and invited them to follow me.  Once we had climbed the mountain I took them to the edge of the sheer south face.  I marched over to the most exposed rock and sat there enjoying the view.  One of them cautiously followed me but the other became paralysed about five metres behind us.  The fear of falling from that great height over the precipice overcame him.  He never did get within three metres of where we were sitting.  I must admit the first time I approached that sheer face a few months earlier I was also slightly anxious.  However, even on that first event though cautious, I sat on the edge without fear dominating my life.  I was not trying to save my life because nobody was going to take it from me; God and I have a thing going on. A similar incident happened recently while walking around Mt Maunganui. I was taking a photograph of my son and daughter-in-law with my back foot over the edge of the

In this reading Jesus has been seeking, much like us, some peace away from the ministry in the region of the coast.  In the Mark version it says that Jesus entered a house and wanted nobody to know it, but he could not be hidden.  I so know how that feels and yet there are moments of gold in it all.  Shelley and I have been on retreat in these last two weeks.  This was our break away from ministry and machine testing to take time out as it were to plug in to the source and recharge your batteries.  Christian friends graciously allowed us to use their Mt Maunganui place again; a quite luxurious three storied apartment.  From there we took walks on the beaches the of the ocean side or the Harbour side, even around the mount which we did.  Many coffee shops were less than a minute away, restaurants, picture theatre, shops and of all types.  It is a beautiful place to be and a contrast to the beauty of the Canterbury scenery.  Boats moored on a place at harbour, surfers sitting on their bo

I so wanted to sail it myself. When I was about twelve I guess my older brother had been working with my Pop building a P Class yacht. When it was finished I watched my brother sail his beautiful red and white creation all over the place. Then one day while on holiday at Mairangi Bay, north Auckland, I was given my chance. I was eager but also fearful at the same time; eager to sail into the horizon and fearful of what might happen if the yacht capsized on me away out there in the deep. I guess I prayed about it, I don’t remember. The idea came to me to get rid of my fear by purposely flipping the boat to practice righting it again in the shallows and relative safety of the bay. So I hauled in the main sheet, pulled the tiller hard over and climbed over the side as the sail dropped to the water stood on the keel and up she popped again as I climbed back in hardly even wet. Now that I had conquered the mind numbing fear that burdened me I had of faith not a doubt in the world that I cou

Now I know it’s a big word but I want to help you understand the importance of "contextualising" the Gospel message. To accomplish this I am playing for you the 2005 Coldplay hit song “Fix You.” Then will tell you a story. I will bring this to relevance with today’s readings. “Fix You” is a nice song for some and others peculiar, even odd I guess. But in 2005 our daughter Paula suffered bouts of terrible headaches, migraines; stress about up-coming examinations said one doctor. I remember well a November morning standing in the courtyard at work talking to the boss and his son when the phone call came through. Our girl had been unable to sleep with these head pains and Shelley finally took her to A&E. The doctors pumped her full of pain relief but to no avail, then relenting, took her for a CT scan. There they found a unexpected mass the size of a tennis ball in the back of her head. I remember Shelley’s words over the phone, vividly, as we enjoyed the morning sun outs

Shelley and I were invited to take the service for St James Presbyterian at Tinwald, Ashburton on Sunday and although I had a written message the Spirit had other plans and we preached directly from a prepared clip of The Lion King where the wise man Rafiki meets the maturing runaway Simba. I recount the themes brought from the clip that may well have been inspired by John's Gospel Ch 14: Youtube: Simba meets Rafiki Youtube: Simba sees his father There was a place prepared for Simba as the heir to the kingdom of his father Mufasa. Jesus said I go to prepare a place for you that where I am you shall also be. This does not necessarily mean when you pass on into heaven but in going to the cross Jesus prepared a place for his disciples, by his shed blood instead of ours, in His kingdom of the Holy Spirit who would come fifty days later if they stayed as instructed in the prepared place in Jerusalem. When the Holy Spirit came Jesus who was in the Father and the Father in Him would be