On Saturday 4th of January 2020 the parish of St Sava located on the Northern beaches of Sydney continued its missionary activities in the form a second evening of a bible study entitled “How to find God in this world”.
The afternoon started with a evening service in the English language lead by Fr Sasha Radoicic which was immediately followed by the Bible study. There were around 40 people attending the event.
The topic was broad as each person was asked the questions:
Do you look for God?
Why do you search?
How do you search for him?
The answers to these questions are different between each individual however the correct answer on how to search is the same. Fr Sasha using examples and quotes from the Holy Church Fathers answered these questions in this manner:
- Each person must at some point ask themselves what is the purpose of my life? Is it just one long struggle full of meaningless experiences? We all search at some point in our life.
- Each man is a living icon of God; it is in our nature to search for our Creator. It is our choice to polish this icon so it glows by turning to God or to cover it in mud and run from God
- By first accepting who He is. By understanding that Jesus Christ is like no other in human history. That Jesus is in fact God who became a man to walk with us, eat with us, celebrate with us, cry with us, to die like us and in so doing defeating death for us all. We then have to worship Him, glorify His Name and His life/death/resurrection, look for him deep within our hearts and to think on Him often. This will naturally bring you to the Orthodox Church so you can have communion with Him through His Blood and Body found in the Communion Cup.
- Worship, prayer, Communion these lead you to change where you start to become merciful towards others. Being Merciful, forgiving others this is the start to becoming like Jesus Christ
- No matter who you are God waits for you to turn to Him and He will run to you.
Fr Sasha gave a heartfelt presentation that stimulated a long session of question time. The numerous and varied questions shows the need for spiritual food for all of us. Everyone attending benefitted from the questions that were asked. Fr Sasha was often answering from his own personal experiences and struggles. Both the question and answers were given in honesty and in brotherly love. It could be seen in these questions that the importance of forgiveness and mercy is entirely necessary for the salvation of one’s own soul. A community gathering with their pastor around the Alter and Bible; this is a glimpse of Heaven.
The next Bible study will be on the 15th of February at 6pm.
M. Trifunovic