Sunday 22 December 2019

True Feasting


‘Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labour on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.'
Isaiah 55.1


The other day I was going around Lidl with Katy, buying food for the Christmas period - it reminded me of the times when I would go around the same shop as a boy (though in those days it was a Sainsburys I think) with my mum. I have vague recollections of trying to push two trolleys at the same time - my mum didn't do food by halves when I was growing up.


It started getting me really excited about our Christmas Dinner. Christmas Dinner is one of the high points of Christmas for me, but in the past I've often feared that in looking forward to it, I might be missing the real point of Christmas. More recently I've had a change of heart and embraced it more fully for two reasons:

It is good and proper to celebrate the birth of our Saviour with feasting. At times we have shot ourselves in the foot by decrying our celebrations at Christmas rather than turning them to praise. Christmas isn't just about presents, but presents, properly used, can be turned to praise of the one who has showered us with such grace. The same is true of feasting in celebration of God's goodness and bounty to us. Our problem in the West is not that we feast on occasion, but that we are gluttonous all the other times as well. 

But there is a second reason why feasting at Christmas is a good thing - it helps us to look forward to the future feast that awaits us and which Isaiah describes. What an invitation from the Lord to us to share in his great feast at the end of time. And what a feast - it is free! In my trip round Lidl, I have to say I felt a certain apprehension as the till rang up the costs of our shopping trip! But the feast that the Lord offers costs us nothing. More than that though - it truly satisfies. Over Christmas, the pudding will eventually run out, the last pig in blanket will be scoffed, the final bit of turkey will be turned into soup and we will be left hungy again. Not so the feast that the Lord offers - it will satisfy.

The good news is that we don't have to wait - the Lord offers an hors d'ouevre now. "Listen, listen to me...". When we hear him in his word, we get a lovely foretaste of the feast. At St Patrick's we've just finished a sermon series on Revelation 12. In preparing for it, it has felt like I have sat down to several delicious meals as the Lord opens his word to me.

So, this Christmas, enjoy the feasting!

Tuesday 26 November 2019

Thank God for the Election pt.2

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority
2 Timothy 2.1-2

In my last post, I was writing about how Paul calls us to give thanks for those in authority. If that was true for Timothy in Ephesus, we have even more reason to give thanks for our political system and authorities. But that isn't the only reason to give thanks to God at this election time. The main reason is...

We don't worship a politician

Paul goes on to write: For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

The number one reason for giving thanks this election time, as we see our politicians fighting to 'climb to the top of the greasy pole' (you've got to love that this is how a former British Prime Minister - Disraeli - described his victory), is that whoever wins isn't ultimately in power. That is reason to give thanks because:

...they will be answerable to the perfect authority - God 

Everything they do, they will have to give an account - not to a fickle electorate - but to the Living God. In other words - Justice will be done - wrongs will be righted.

...we have been reconciled to him

The truth that God is the final authority, on its own, is not good news for humanity. It will mean that all of our failures and rebellion will be finally exposed. However, the wonderful news is that God himself in Jesus Christ has stepped down to be our mediator. He has given his life as our ransom, so that we can be brought back into God's family. And this is an offer that is held out to all people, whichever group they belong to.

If we have accepted this offer, if we have been forgiven by God through Jesus, we are part of his family and so nothing can separate us from his love (Rom 8.39). What is more, he will use everything (including the disastrous decisions of politicians) for our good (Rom 8.28)

As a result, one feature which will mark out the Christian at this election time is their peace. We will fight for justice in our world and integrity in our leaders, but we will not be anxious. And that lack of fear about the future will mean that we speak carefully and generously - we will not claim to know the motives of others (even politicians!) when we do not actually know them. We will know that the most our politicians can do is manage a broken and sinful world, so we will not ask them the impossible task of being our saviour - we will know that they are merely weak sinners, like ourselves. Instead, even as we seek to help the marginalised and the oppressed - we will know and testify to the truth that the only true Saviour is Jesus.

Next week, we will think about one thing this passage encourages us to vote for...

Thursday 21 November 2019

Thank God for the Election - pt 1

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority
2 Timothy 2.1-2

How excited are you about the upcoming election?! I asked this of our Lunch Club people - the response was not enthusiastic. But their response to the question was positively rapturous compared to the response to the question, "And what do you think about our politicians?"

So I want to give two things to give thanks for at this election time and one thing to vote for (we'll just cover the first reason to give thanks today)

Give thanks for our politicians and political leaders

That's what Paul commands Timothy in this letter. His reason is clearer in Romans 13. Authorities have been placed there by God to promote justice. Now it is true that they might be more or less obedient in the discharge of this responsibility, but the fact that they do it at all is good news for us. It is good that every government says that theft and murder is wrong. There may be corruption that means that individuals get off or get wrongly accused, but the principle is maintained. The alternative is truly horrific - anarchy. If the idea of authorites was something to give thanks for in Timothy's town of Ephesus in the Roman Empire, how much more is it true of us and our political parties.

My old vicar, Gary, used to say that at election time, each of the political parties offers us a shopping basket of policies. The items (policies) in each basket have been chosen for us, we have to choose which basket we want. In each basket there are things we like and things we don't - our job is not to find a basket which only has things we like (very unlikely) but to find the one that overall we like best. 

Talking to someone about this illustration, they said, "So it's choosing the better of two evils". But thinking more about it, I realised that for us in the United Kingdom, it is more positive than that. It is really choosing, "the better of several limited options." In all of the political debates, we understandably focus on the differences between the baskets. But it turns out that in the baskets, which we will be offered over the next few weeks, there is a huge amount that is good and is common to all the main parties:
  • the rule of law
  • the NHS
  • universal free education for children
  • anti-corruption
  • a police force
  • freedom of speech
  • the freedom of the press
  • democracy
  • a welfare system
  • tolerance
  • etc.
There are people in countries around the world, who would be thankful for any of our main political parties and leaders leading them. That is a reason to be even more thankful than Timothy would have cause to be.

more to follow...

Monday 11 November 2019

Afraid of not being afraid

‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will now restore the fortunes of Jacob and will have compassion on all the people of Israel, and I will be zealous for my holy name. They will forget their shame and all the unfaithfulness they showed towards me when they lived in safety in their land with no one to make them afraid.'
Ezekiel 39.25-26

The everyday experience of fear is a horrible thing. When you are afraid of something it preoccupies your thoughts - it becomes a squatter in your mind - refusing to leave. It may be to do with a work situation, a relationship tension, a health worry, a reputational threat, a financial loss.

But these verses remind us that there is something worse than fear - not being afraid. God had blessed his people with peace, but in their foolishness they had come to think that they didn't need God anymore, because things were all right. Did they not realise that their experience of peace was a minute, by minute blessing of the Lord. And so they turned away from the one who was their peace. Did they reject him outright? No. More dangerously they simply demoted him. No longer their saviour, he was a saviour; no longer their provider, he was one of a network of service providers.

The message of Ezekiel is that we should not be afraid of things that would make us afraid. God intends that through the experience of weakness, when the future no longer seems clear, we would find the real peace of running to him. So if you are in a chaotic situation, or the future seems hopeless, be encouraged, you are on the cusp of finding true peace in the arms of the Almighty and Living God.

If though everything is good and the future seems bright...

Beware! 

Monday 4 November 2019

Recommendation

Very short blog today. I discovered, in the excellent Clayton TV, that they have playlists. Some are for particular Christian artists/ bands (e.g. the fantastic Steph Macleod www.stephmacleod.com),  but they also have some themed playlists. The one downside of Clayton TV is its navigation system, so the easiest thing is to google: Clayton tv playlists.

Monday 28 October 2019

Tracks in the heart...

"Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose hearts are the highways to Zion"
Psalm 84.5

I read this Psalm in my quiet time recently and was struck by the second part of this verse - Highways to Zion in the heart.

In its original context it describes someone who is longing to go to the Temple in Jerusalem with God's people to meet with him and stand worshipping in his presence. Wherever they were, whether out in the fields, stirring a pot, telling a story to their neice, cutting wood, there was a longing for when they would next go up to Jerusalem for the worship feast. If you met them, you would probably notice that they talked about it often and naturally - a bit like us talking about our next holiday. But even more than that, you would notice that there was a strength in them. Even when things were hard. That anticipation, that longing, was the Lord's strength in them pulling them forward, "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose hearts are the highways to Zion"

Fast forward to us. We no longer look forward to visiting the Jerusalem located in the Middle East. Instead we have a greater Zion/Jerusalem. It is described in Revelation. It is a city of stunning beauty and glory, that will come from heaven to the new creation and we will one day dwell there. God will be with us and he will wipe every tear from our eyes. 

God has placed in the heart of every believer a route to that city. Our prayer is that he would transform that route from an unused country track into a 6 lane motorway; that the Lord would grow our longing for this heavenly hope. 

As that highway in our heart grows wider and bigger, we will grow in the Lord's strength - "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" 1 Cor 4.17-18. We will find the greatest strength of all. The strength that faces all that the world, the flesh and the Devil throws at us, but stays standing steadfast.

But does this mean that we will become, "so heavenly minded that we will be no earthly use"? Will we become departure lounge Christians? 

No, for two reasons. The first is in the psalm itself - look at the impact - they bring life on the journey, "As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs." They don't bring Zion into the desert (a mistaken theology made by some today), but their focus on Zion brings life around them as they journey to it. People and places are refreshed around them as they bring news of Zion.

The second reason is that the Lord has given us a foretaste of Zion here on earth. A foretaste of the assembly of God's people, where the Lord's presence is tangible: "For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them" Matthew 18.20. Why not try this week to start orientating your week as a build up to Sunday. Make next Sunday the focus of your Monday. And in doing so, those paths in our heart will get widened and metalled, as we start looking towards the true Zion.

Thursday 24 October 2019

Straplines

Just a quick thought based on the last blog. It is striking how often companies and brands use straplines which sound profound but are nonsense. I don't just mean they are nonsense from a Christian worldview, but are nonsense within our culture's worldview.

I think that there is a reason for this and it is to do with our culture's shift in thinking around the notion of truth. In Vaughan Roberts recent series of Bible readings at Keswick (really excellent) - he talks about how in the Enlightenment (18th to 19th Century) thinkers moved from thinking that truth was found through revelation to the idea that truth was found through reason.

However, philosophy then found it impossible to find a basis for agreeing about anything. This led to our present situation of surrender. We will never find an agreed 'truth' so we will simply have to settle for deciding what is true for me. The problem is that this is subjective - we end up deciding that something is true because it seems true or feels true to me.

I think that modern nonsense slogans are the product of this. It no longer matters whether something is true - what impacts me is if it feels true or profound to me. And so advertisers are enticing us with what feels true. The problem (as we saw in the last post) is that it is often nonsense. So the truth we are constructing for ourselves is often nonsense. Isn't that a bit worrying - how can I trust my life to it? How will this truth bear the weight of my destiny? 

And that is another reason why the Bible is so wonderful. The Bible doesn't so much contain a powerful truth that I hold, but a Truth that is powerful enough to hold me.

Monday 21 October 2019

Life's Better

"Life's better when there's nothing to stop you"
Advert for Spotify Premium

"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."
Jesus - John 10.10

Sometimes you are listening to the radio, watching tv or you see some slogan on a t shirt and you think, "That sounds so good, so in tune with our culture's world view and yet it's total nonsense". 

I had that moment when one of my sons was playing music on the free Spotify app (quite a long story behind this about how Spotify is rubbish for young people under 18 whose parents are too stingy to buy a family account, but pretend that it's not because they are stingy but because they are too busy giving them lifts, washing up after them etc. to spend their time listening to music.)

The adverts came up, including one for Spotify premium with the strap line above. At the time we were in the car and my son said, "Life's better when there's nothing to stop you... like traffic laws or policemen." In a moment of insight (obviously genetically inherited) he hit the nail on the head. The Spotify strapline is nonsense. 

In fact thinking about it a bit more deeply, you realise that the truth is, "Life's Hell when there's nothing to stop you". When there are no rules, no restrictions, things become awful really quickly.

The real way of Life becoming better is found not in the Spotify advert, but in John 10.10. The problem with this verse though, is that it is often understood as if it were the Spotify advert. The logic goes something like this: 
  • My Life will be better if I am free to do 'x'; 
  • Jesus has promised me fullness of life;
  • Therefore Jesus wants me to do 'x'
  • If I then discover that the Bible says I shouldn't do 'x', it can't apply to me because that would be restrictive and so rob me of fullness of life and Jesus doesn't want that.
But this logic loses the context of what Jesus is saying in John 10.10. The context is that of the shepherd with the sheep. The choice is not between following the thief or going off on our own; the choice is between following the thief to loss and destruction or following the shepherd to fullness of life.

A sheep does not have fullness of life by doing what it wants to do with nothing to stop it. In another passage (Luke 11) we meet another sheep. It wanted to have nothing stopping it and so it stopped allowing the shepherd to show it where to go and ended up lost, facing death, and in need of rescue.

No, "Life is Better" is found in choosing well what will stop you from doing what will harm you. It is found in listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd - John 10.16. So the next time Jesus stops you doing something, by speaking to you through his word - Rejoice - because you are being led in the way of fullness of life.

 "Life's Better when the Good Shepherd stops you."



Tuesday 15 October 2019

The greatest hope for a parent - long hair!

"then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life and no razor will ever be used on his head."
1 Samuel 1.11

(This follows on from the blog below)

If I were devising a parenting course now, the first question I might ask is:

"Why do you want a child?" 

This is the biggest question - the true answer to it is probably the single most important factor in someone's parenting, but we rarely ask it. Often the true answer (not necessarily the one given) might be a mixture of things:

  • "I really want to be a mother/father"
  • "It's what everyone else is doing"
  • "I want someone to hold/love"
  • "I want someone who will hold/love me"
  • "I want to make a family"
  • "I think it will make me happy"
  • "I want to make a contribution to society"
Another question arises and pushes to the front when the child is born - What do I want for the child?

  • "That they should be successful?"
  • "That they should be healthy?"
  • "That they should be happy?"
With all these answers there is a complex interplay of altruism and self centred needs. One of the terrible burdens our children carry is the things we need our children to be and to do for us. 

This was a danger Hannah faced. The waiting for a child, the building sense of desire and longing, could have been awful for Samuel. He could never have lived up to the idol she had made him.

But God saved her from this in her journey of waiting and vowing. She now had answers to those two questions:

Why did she want a child?

So that she could worship the Lord with him, by giving him to the Lord

What did she want for her child?

Long hair! (v.11) For us this is a bizarre aspect of the vow. However for the first readers it was immediately clear. Hannah's promise not to cut Samuel's hair was a sign of someone who is set apart for the Lord's special service. There is a clear link here to a former hairy man - Samson - used by the Lord to save his people.

Hannah's prayer is that her child will be uniquely used by the Lord. She wants his life to be glorious - to bring glory to the Lord and to share the Lord's glory. 

And how her desire is fulfilled! Not so much that he ends up leading God's people (although he does), but that he is the one who starts the fulfilment of her prophecy of an anointed king at the end of the song (v.10). What begins with her little baby, ends up with another baby born miraculously to another scorned woman - Jesus.

The challenge of Hannah's vow to Christian parents is, will we answer in the same way to those two questions. If we want the very best for our children we will want to give them wholly to the Lord and we will want them to be gloriously used by the Lord.

You see such a vision of parenthood in the story of Hudson Taylor. When he decided to go to China to serve the Lord, they in effect lost their son, but in the tears they rejoiced, because he was fulfilling their greatest hope for him son and they knew that there was no better place for him than in the Lord's service.

What if Hannah hadn't done this? 

One of the striking things about the Old Testament is that it can be understood as a catalogue of bad parenting. In fact, the concluding verse of the whole Old Testament (Malachi 4.6) is about how the promised John the Baptist would turn the hearts of the fathers to their children. Reading through the Old Testament, you see why it was needed. 

It is very hard to find successful parent-child combos in the Old Testament. Generally, it is a either a story of neglect or misplaced love (indulgence, favouritism, leniency). Two notable exceptions of times where the parent/child combo is a success are Abraham & Isaac and Hannah/Elkanah & Samuel. In both cases the child was offered as a living sacrifice to the Lord.

Child sacrifice was common in those days (see Jephthah). Children were given over to death in worship of the false gods. The parallel has often been made to abortion today. There is though another parallel. Giving our children to the gods of success (academic, sporting or financial), popularity, beauty, health, materialism. All of which lead to death. 

The choice as a parent is not whether or not we offer our children as sacrifices. As parents, that is inevitable. The choice is, will we offer our children to false gods that lead to death or will we offer them as living sacrifices to the Living God who gives eternal life?


Doing Deals with God?

"And she made a vow, 'LORD Almighty, if you will only look on your servant's misery and remember me, and... give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD'"
1 Samuel 1.11

Last Sunday at St Patrick's, I spoke on 1 Samuel 1-2. It was a painful experience, because I had to leave: so much unsaid, so many treasures unmined and so many challenges glossed over. But that's why I have a blog!

First a warning - this blog post is long!!

One of the aspects of the passage I couldn't focus on for long is Hannah's vow. For a while, I've noticed that the Bible speaks a lot about vows. There are a comparatively large number of texts in the Old Testament relating to regulations surrounding vows and in the New Testament, Paul takes a vow in Acts 18:18 in which he shaves his head (no mention is made of whether he grew a goatee and started drinking Chai Tea Latte at the same time!)

But the issue of vows in the Bible is quite tricky for two reasons: the first is that while the Bible speaks a lot about them, it doesn't seem to explain clearly in any one place what they are. The second is that at first glance it can seem like the person making the vow is doing a deal with God. Hannah appears to be like this. Her prayer appears to be "If God you do this for me, then I will do this for you". Surely this isn't how it works, surely this doesn't sit with a God of grace? So what is going on? (Have a look at my blog on Baruch to think further about the pain we cause ourselves when we think God owes us)

Hannah's vow raises three questions:
  1. Is Hannah doing a deal with God?
  2. If not, what is she doing in the vow?
  3. What can we learn from the vow?

Is Hannah doing a deal with God?

Imagine you had a Mars Bar and I didn't. The thing is, I love Mars Bars. Knowing that you are generous I ask you for the Mars Bar. You don't give it to me. So, I start pleading. Every day I send you texts, voicemail, carrier pigeons etc. Begging. No response. In the end I plead: 
"Please give me the Mars Bar. If you give me the Mars Bar, I will give you the Mars Bar"

You see the point? It's a nonsense deal. You would have to conclude that it wasn't the Mars Bar I really wanted. So what could it be? Maybe what I am really looking for is a sign of your love and favour towards me. Maybe what I am looking for is the opportunity to bless someone with the gift of the Mars Bar. What I'm not really doing is a deal with you for a Mars Bar.

In a similar way, when you look at Hannah's prayer it becomes a nonsense deal. She in effect says, "Give me a son and I will give you my son". What sort of deal is that? Hannah must be doing something else.

Now we might say that what Hannah really wants is the first three years of a son's life. She's heard, wrongly, that teenagers are a nightmare and she thinks she will have the best years. Or she may only want the removal of the shame of being childless. Somehow though, the price of her child for that seems steep. But there are other reasons in the text to think that this isn't what Hannah is doing.

Hannah has joy at the handing over of her child. No doubt there were tears as Samuel was introduced to Eli for the first time and then left, but there is also joy. She sings. "My heart rejoices". This doesn't sound like the conclusion of a hard negotiated deal, where she's only just finished out on top.

The second striking thing is that in Hannah's prayer of praise, she doesn't focus on Samuel or herself very much - she is really focused on the Lord. This suggests that Hannah is a woman who really does delight to put God first


So what is Hannah doing in the vow?

Clearly in the Bible there are some examples of people treating vows as doing a deal with God - a sort of divine bribery that was typical of the false religions around Israel. One example might be Jephthah - who ends up killing his daughter. Another example might be Jacob's vow (Genesis 28). But just because a character in the Bible makes vows in a partiuclar way, does not indicate that that is a good example to follow. Indeed is it any surprise that the Del Boy of the Bible (Jacob) should try and do a 'deal' with God. 

Instead, when you look at vows in the Bible they seem to be closely linked to worship. Often part of the vow is about bringing something, an offering, to the Lord at the sanctuary. 

Looking at Hannah's example, I think that the following is the most likely motivations for Hannah's vow: 


The vow is an expression of longing

When you think about it, many of the questions we have about vows are similar to our questions about fasting and prayer. Why do we fast? Is it a deal? Do we fast because we think that God is more likely to give us what we want if we fast? Of course not. Fasting is a way of expressing the depth of our longing and our reliance on God. Fasting is itself worship, because it humbles ourselves by recognising our weakness, as it exalts God as our Abundantly Gracious Loving Father.

So the offering in a vow is an expression of our longing and dependance on God - it is worship.

The vow is an expression of trustworthiness

Imagine the scene. The 17 year old goes to his dad and asks to borrow the car. The dad is understandably nervous and so pauses. The son keeps on asking. Finally, the son says, "Dad, if you give me the car I will be so careful. I promise that I will stick to the speed limit, I will fill the car up with petrol and I will get Granny's shopping."

This could be seen in two ways. You could say that the son is doing a cynical deal with the Dad. Or it could be that the son is assuring the Dad that he can be trusted with the blessing of the car. At that moment, noone knows (possibly not even the son), the only one who could know would be someone who can look on the heart. Of course if the Dad gives him the key, what he then does with the car will give more clues.

I think that Hannah's prayer is along these lines: If you give me a son, I will be trustworthy with him - I won't misuse the gift.

Going back to the illustration above. There is a chance that the son's waiting for the Dad to agree, changed something in him. If the Dad had immediately given him the keys, he might have unthinkingly picked up his friends, done some handbrake turns, broken all the speed limits, left his Granny at the bus stop and returned home on petrol fumes.

The process of waiting and making the vow, developed his understanding of what the gift was for. His desire for the car grew and matured.

By the time of the vow, Hannah had reached a place where she truly understood why God gave the gift of children to parents and how her child would find true fulfilment.

In other words, God used the waiting and the vow to refine Hannah's desires, until she finally wanted a child for the reason which would lead to blessing: Blessing for God, blessing for her and blessing for Samuel.

What can we learn from the vow?

I'll talk about this in the next blog...

Wednesday 9 October 2019

Disillusioned with politics?

Are you feeling disillusioned with politics? Then listen to the excellent talk by Tim Farron the former leader of one of our major political parties. It is encouraging, challenging and inspiring. Praise God for those who are prepared to get their hands mucky in His service.

You can get the talk here: Tim Farron's Keswick Lecture

Monday 7 October 2019

The enabling Spirit

"He said to me, 'Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.'
As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet,
and I heard him speaking to me"
Ezekiel 2.1-2

What does God expect me to do for him? What if I can't do it?

This is a big moment at the beginning of Ezekiel's ministry as a prophet. And the Lord tells him that he is going to speak to Ezekiel. All the Lord requires is that Ezekiel should stand. Between Ezekiel and hearing from the living, covenant keeping, almighty God is the simply act of standing.

Such a small act of obedience, but so far from Ezekiel's ability. To be fair to Ezekiel he has just seen what Holy really means and he is terrified - as you and I would be. 

So hear we are. God has given a command which Ezekiel is unable to obey. 

And then. 

"As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet". Isn't that amazing. Isn't that stunningly tender and gentle and intimate.

The Lord commands, the Spirit enables.

When the Lord commands what is impossible for us (and he does daily), when he commands us to give up something that is precious to us, to go somewhere which terrifies us, to do something which overwhelms us, something so hard that we collapse before it - his Spirit comes into us and raises us to our feet.

"Again Jesus said, 'Peace be with you!
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.'
And with that he breathed on them and said,
'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"
John 20.21-22

Wednesday 2 October 2019

Lacking no good thing

"those who seek the Lord lack no good thing"
Psalm 34.10

I'm just memorising Psalm 34 (it's taking some time!) and I was really struck by this promise of God's Word - that the one who seeks/fears the Lord lacks no good thing. It is a great promise to learn, memorise and treasure. It is a great and hopeful verse promising such peace and satisfaction and contentment. 

But what happens when we struggle with the experience of feeling that our life is missing something. Some recognition, some relationship, some possession. Try thinking of that thing right now. Does this verse become some sort of pie in the sky when you die? No.

Instead it assures us that God knows our need best. He knows that that thing on which our heart is fixed, would, at this time, do us harm and not good. As one writer I read recently wrote, God is keeping from us what we would keep from ouselves if we knew everything he does and if we loved ourselves as much as he loves us.

We might reply, "But the thing I want is a good thing." That is often true, but maybe that good thing is not something we lack at the moment and to have it would actually do us harm. One time, when we were relatively short of cash, we got an unexpected bill. The Lord challenged us that day to rest on his goodness. To recognise that if he takes that money away, he does so for our good. And so, we tried to say, "The Lord knew that we would use that good money to buy something that would harm us, and so he spared us the temptation." It wasn't an easy prayer, but through it the Lord helped us to focus on his goodness and loving kindness to us in all things.

One of the prayers in the Valley of Vision says this,

"Lawful blessings are the secret idols and do most hurt, 
the greatest injury is in the having, the greatest good in the taking away
In love divest me of blessings that I may glorify thee more,
remove the fuel of my sin
and may I prize the gain of a little holiness 
as overbalancing all my losses"

Thursday 19 September 2019

Fearless

I shall not be afraid
Psalm 36.4

I came across a great chiasm today. A chiasm is a form of Hebrew structure, in which the verses are paired up from the middle outwards. So the first line is connected to the last, the second to the penultimate, the third to the antepenultimate (I just wanted to include that word!). It ends up looking a bit like a rocket on it's side.

So look at this:

"When I am afraid,
          B  I put my trust in you,
                    C  In God whose word I praise
          B' In God I trust
A' I shall not be afraid"

So the singer talks about moving from being afraid to no longer being afraid. But chiasm does more than this. As you move from the outside in, you move towards the main point the writer wants to get across (Hebrew writing often puts the main point in the middle and not the end). 

So moving to the middle, we see that the singer stops being afraid because he trusts in God. Unsurprising. But what does trusting God look like? You then move to the very heart of the phrase and you find the punchline - he is trusting in God whose word he praises. In other words, the psalmist finds freedom from fear by praising God's word. This must include trusting God's word, but moves beyond that to praising it, rejoicing in it, delighting in it (Psalm 119). 

Sometimes we will be tempted to erode the evangelical confidence in God's word - we might hope that it makes mission easier, or opposition less likely. But to do so has awful personal consequences. Undermining the centre of this chiasm is like pulling on a loose thread of wool - pretty soon the whole jumper has unravelled. 

Once I stop praising God's word as true and trustworthy, I might want to trust God, but I no longer know with confidence what he has promised. I might then either fall into despair immediately, or start thinking that God has promised things he hasn't and so fall into disillusionment. Either way I am left with my fears.

Every time we hold on to a difficult passage of scripture and don't stop at reluctantly (but with some embarrassment) hold to it, but praise God for it, Romans 8.28 and all the other wonderful promises in God's priceless word shine more brightly - dispelling the fears that crowd in as we are reminded - with God for me, "what can flesh do to me?"

Tuesday 17 September 2019

Trying to hear God

"these men have set up idols in their hearts and
put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces"
Ezekiel 14.3

I was really struck today by that idea of setting up a stumbling block for myself. It is true that I have been known to find myself tripping over the shoes I carelessly left in the middle of the room. That is a stupid thing to do - but I haven't yet got round to purposefully trying to place trip hazards so that I will trip up - I'm not that stupid.

And yet, that is what the Lord is saying to us through Ezekiel - we are in the habit of doing just that. So what is the stumbling block and in what way does it trip us up - what were we on the way to do, that this stumbling block prevented?

The thing the people of God were being prevented from doing was hearing from God. They had his words - Ezekiel was amongst them after all. What they were prevented from doing was hearing them as the Lord's words. This is striking. They seem to have recognised that Ezekiel was a prophet - they have even come to him for his advice. This suggests that they know that his words are God's word, but what they don't seem to do - is act on it - live their lives as if the Creator covenant Lord has spoken to them.

So what got in the way - what is the stumbling block - why does God appear distant to his people here? It is their idols. They want to hear from the Creator but worship his creation. 

So how can I know what my idols are? Quite simply they are the things which stop me taking God's word as his word. This could take the form of liberalism, in which someone denies that it is God's word, or skin deep evangelicalism - we have God's word, but we put off acting on it. We are like the mirror gazing fool of James 1. And the person who exemplifies this in Scripture is the Rich young man.

He knows that Jesus speaks God's word - he hears that word - but his idols (money, comfort, status, identity, safety) prevent him doing it.

So here is a good test. What do I know that God wants me to do? Once we've answered that question. The next one is this, "What is preventing me doing it?" The answers to that question are our stumbling blocks, our idols.

Thursday 5 September 2019

Seeing the Blessing

"I delight to do your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart"
Psalm 40.8

In the original Karate Kid, the hero Daniel is given a series of tedious and repetitive tasks to do by his teacher Mr Miyagi. The first task seems like a punishment (putting his coat on the peg rather than the floor). Daniel kicks against doing the tasks at first, but eventually knuckles down. However, what was tedious and repetitive did not prove pointless. The tasks Mr Miyagi has set have been subconsciously equipping Daniel's body (and indeed his mind, spirit and emotion) for the fights ahead. It turns out that obeying Mr Miyagi's instructions has worked out for Daniel's blessing.

I thought of this when I came across the verse above. The singer speaks of God's will and law as being delightful. This is an oft neglected theme of scripture (see also psalm 119). It is most strongly expressed by Moses in Deuteronomy 4.7-8, "What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?"

Too often we find ourselves apologetic about God's instructions in his word or feel the need to justify them when they sit badly with our culture. In reality though, we can rejoice when God's law runs against our culture, as this is a sign of his closeness to us. If God did not want to be with his people - he would not bother to tell them how to live in holiness, because he only intended hell for them. But since God delights in his people, he shows them how to be holy as he is holy.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to help others see why God's instructions are delightful and good, but that in doing so, we ourselves don't lose confidence and pride that we have his law. At any time our world runs counter to God's truth - at present it revolves around sex, identity, materialism and individualism. When that happens, it is uncomfortable - like cycling into the wind and not with it. Personally it can be hugely costly and initially we might rail against it (as Daniel does in the movie). However that discomfort should not provoke uncertainty or insecurity. Instead we can be encouraged that we are following God's good laws and we have this sign that he is with us.

Tuesday 13 August 2019

The surprising power of God

"who by God's power are being guarded through faith"
1 Peter 1.5

The opening verses of 1 Peter are some of the most stunning in the Bible. They set out the truth that we are a people of Living Hope. It is a hope of an inheritance that has been won for us through the resurrection of Jesus. It is a hope that is kept safe in heaven for us, where nothing can destroy, despoil, distort or degrade it. But this leaves the question, "It's great to know that my inheritance will make it, but will I make it?"

At its heart, this is the secret fear of the Christian that they will lose their faith before the end. At times we are scared by all sorts of possibilities as to how we could lose our faith: prolonged hardship causing us to doubt God's power, faithfulness or even existence; an intellectual challenge to which we fear we have no answer; dementia robbing us of our knowledge of God...

All of these possible scenarios are frightening and troubling, but our passage helps us to realise that the one thing we do not need to worry about is faith. In answer to the question, "Will I make it to the end to enjoy my inheritance?" Peter gives the assurance that for the believer - God's power is guarding them. What an amazing promise. You and I, if we have put our trust in Jesus are protected by no lesser a power than the one which spoke creation into being and raised Jesus from the dead.

But what is really striking is the form that God's power takes - it is faith. Faith is the outworking of God's power. So let's look again at this faith:
  1. It is God's. The answer to the question, "Will I lose my faith?" is, "It's not yours to lose". If we have a view of faith as something we generate to bring about salvation, there is a real fear of losing it, but if we see it as God's gift which enables us to receive his salvation it changes our perspective. We will stop looking inward when things are hard, trying to diagnose how our faith is doing and wondering what efforts we can go to to give it a kick start, instead we will look to God and lean on him.
  2. It is the gospel. Paul speaks of the power of God which brings salvation for everyone who believes. He, however, says that the power of God is the gospel. This, is no contradiction. Faith is looking to the gospel. When I am afraid about whether I will make it as a Christian - all I need do is return to the gospel.
  3. It is incredibly strong and powerful. In fact there is nothing in the universe that is stronger. Peter and Jesus illustrate this with different analogies. Peter compares it to gold - and says that just as fire is used to purify gold, so faith's response to trouble is to be shown up as imperishable. In fact, Peter says that faith is even stronger in the face of fire than gold (as Daniel's three friends literally demonstrate). Jesus uses a different imagery. He says that faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. On the basis of the fact that neither Scripture nor history records a single incident of a Christian moving a mountain, I don't think that his point is that we should go around moving mountains with our faith. Instead he is taking the biggest thing in the experience of people at the time and the smallest measurement they had - a bit like the camel (biggest animal) eye of a needles (smallest gap). His point is that even the very smallest amount of faith has more power in it than you could imagine - so much power that a mountain could be moved by it. Imagine for a moment the power it would take to move a mountain - I don't just mean to obliterate it - though that would take vast power - but move it and place it somewhere else. If you are a believer in Jesus, that is the power that resides in you guarranteeing you that at the end of your life you will see salvation.
There are loads of things which come out of this, but just one today - when you are going through a difficult time and there are myriad worries crowding in on you, there is one worry you can let go of. You will make it to your inheritance at the end. Your faith won't fail - it is far too powerful for that. 

This is vital. For as long as you are worried about your faith, you will stop using it to help you. It's a bit like my damaged elbow. Because it is weak, I avoid using it. So it is, if we think our faith is a fragile thing. We will stop using it. We stop praying boldly, we stop hoping in the Lord's goodness and favour to us - all because we are afraid that another disappointment might shatter our faith. But if we know that God's gift of our faith will not fail, we can lean on it, find reasssurance in it, use it, knowing that it is nothing less than the power of God. 

Wednesday 10 July 2019

Accelerating discipleship

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. Mark 8.34-35

These verses are the centrepoint of what it means to follow Jesus. In his demanding call, the believer can see the three things which accelerate discipleship- that speed up the rate the believer becomes more like their saviour. Those three accelerants are: Surrender, Suffering and Sacrifice.

Recently I read a book called Discipleship. It is a collection of Tozer's writing relating to the topic of discipleship. The book is excellent. What is most striking is the amount of time Tozer spends on conversion and its role in discipleship. It can be summed up in the phrase, 'easy conversion, hard discipleship'. Tozer's point is that our presentation of the gospel is too often distorted. Rather than calling rebels to repentance before a merciful Lord, we end up as sales people for a Jesus who sells them forgiveness and makes no demands. Is it any surprise when these 'converts' then baulk at the idea that their lives should change or should be radically different from those around them?

We need to be open with the unbeliever, that the faith that brings salvation is not merely an intellectual assent to what Jesus has done. Instead it is a Surrender, a complete capitulation to him, an acceptance that our lives have been lived wholly at odds with him. The heart of evangelism is a call to rebels to choose surrender rather than destruction. In this is real conversion and true discipleship.

But this does not just apply to the new convert. The whole Christian journey of discipleship is a working out of that surrender. The believer should have a strong sense of convertedness. As John Stott quotes in the Cross of Christ, 'All progress in the Christian life depends on a recapitulation of the original terms of one's acceptance with God'