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:

A  "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?"

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.

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.

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. 

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'

Leading the Family pt.3

 "They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith
with a clear conscience."
1 Timothy 3.9

When it comes to the role of the deacon, there is one verse which speaks of the partnership in the gospel between the overseer/elder and the deacon and that is v.9

The Deacon's responsibility

There is no suggestion that deacons have a teaching function, though there is nothing to say that they couldn't. What is clear, though, is that teaching is not core to being a deacon. You can see why. Distributing funds to widows, doesn't require teaching, organising the team to set up the room for worship doesn't require teaching, providing food for the meal doesn't require teaching.

However, Paul says that they should keep hold of the deep truths of the faith - that that is a key part of their responsibility. This is so that this group of leaders will provide a doctrinal centre of mass for the people of God - a ballast of truth - a gospel inertia. Inertia is normally seen as a bad thing in our society - change is always good. In certain areas of the church's life, that is true, but not when it comes to doctrine. It's why we still say the ancient creeds in our church.

Spiritual Ballast

The other day I was watching Deepwater Horizon. It's a good film, although it is clearly a sign of my age that I wish that they would enunciate their words more clearly! The film is centred around a floating oil rig. It is not fixed to the ocean bed, but keeps in position over the same spot by the use of propellers under the surface of the water. This means that when waves hit the rig, or the wind blows, the rig holds its position.

Deacons are like those propellers - they hold onto the teaching from godly overseers, so that the church as a whole keeps its position over the gospel. They will also as a result recognise false teachers/overseers and resist being moved by them (cf. 1 Tim 1.19-20).

They, "will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ." (Ephesians 4.14-15)

So if you are a deacon, make your number one priority going deeper and more securely into the gospel. And do this not only because you may need to teach it one day, but because you have a vital role as spiritual ballast for the family of God.

Leading the Family pt.2

"able to teach"1 Timothy 3.2

Yesterday I wrote about the need for the leader to reflect the nature of the church. As the church is like a family, so its leadership needs to be father-like in style. There is though a key skill which Paul highlights for the leader:

The Overseer's tool - v.2

The one skill Paul mentions, apart from caring/protecting the family of God, is teaching. The Church's nature is not just that we are a family, we are a family wholly shaped by the truth seen in Jesus. That is why teaching is so vital.

We don't primarily appoint leaders who are great strategists, administrators or visionaries (unless we mean by visionary someone whose vision is filled by Jesus). Such skills will lead to an organisation growing, but they are not the core skill of the overseer/elder. The key skill is faithful, gospel infused and focused, biblical teaching.

If this is lost we can become an incredibly successful heresy.

So, if, as a church leader, I spend so much time on strategy etc. that I neglect teaching - I have got it wrong. There are times when circumstances have squeezed my preaching preparation time, and yet God has blessed the sermons, but I must remember that that is his grace in my weakness, not licence for de-prioritising my efforts in teaching. 

It also means that as church members, we must seek to protect the teaching ministry of our leaders. Don't wish for a more visionary, strategic leader, but for a great teacher.

Part 3 tomorrow...