Some Short Thoughts On Daniel Chp 1 – Vacation post 6

I am on vacation until August 5th. While away I will post some of my notes from a series I did on Daniel…..

There was a survey done in England about teenagers and cell phones. They took ten teenagers and took away their cell phones for one week.

What do you happened? Their lives degenerated into chaos. They were unable to communicate with each other – they did not know where to meet each other – their lives literally fell apart.

They would arrange meeting places and meeting times only minutes before they got together – sometimes changing the meeting place or time by text. Their life was so flexible that without a cell phone you would be unable to know where your friends were going to meet.

They had come to rely completely upon their cell phones – much more than they thought.

This got me thinking – What would happen if we had no computers, or if televisions stopped working – what would we do.

Think about the times when the power goes out, maybe in the middle of your favorite show. How do you feel when there is no power in your house. Helpless – frustrated – nothing works, no tv, no internet, no air, no lights. We basically grind to a halt and wait for the power to come back.

We have become reliant upon things haven’t we.

But what about our faith in Jesus.

What do we rely on for your faith? What keeps our faith going?

For some of us its youth group – for others it’s the Bible – for others it’s social events – friends – family – church – trips – music – diocesan events.

What would happen to your faith in Jesus Christ – to your Christianity – if you were not allowed to read your Bible, or to go to Church or to go to youth group or to any diocesan events?

Would you be able to sustain your faith for the next 25 years?

Would you be able to still know God, worship God, pray to God and recite scripture and grow in your faith without church, youth group, a bible, devotionals, worship music, Christian videos? What would happen if all the props of Christianity were removed from your life?

What would happen if everything was stripped away and all that was left was YOU and your RELATIONSHIP with God.

Would we discover that actually our faith in God is tied up with going to youth group, to going to church or going to Camp or having devotionals, or listening to music. Might we discover that these extra props of our life as a Christian have become the source of our faith rather than tools of our faith.

This is exactly the question that Daniel discovered when his country was attacked and taken over by Babylon.

Daniel was suddenly faced with a life where everything he had relied upon religiously was gone – his temple was gone – his ritual was gone – his sacrifices was gone – his way of life and daily devotions were gone – as was his freedom!!

Not only that, but Daniel’s whole world had been shaken because when Babylon defeated Israel – it appeared to have defeated God – Yahweh. A smashed Israel equated with a smashed Yahweh.

In Daniel’s day when a country beat another country the underlying message was – “My God has beaten your God – nanananana”. If your country prospered then your god was strong – if your country did not propser and was weak then o was your god.

He had to wear new cloths – he was given a new name and he was in a place where all trace of his belief and faith were GONE!!

He was an insignificant minority in a culture that saw his belief system as a waste of time.

How would your faith hold up to that?

That’s what Daniel and his friends faced as they were force out of their country into a new life.

But Daniel discovered something about God as he began to live away from everything he had known – he came to realize that God was a God 2 Go God. That God was able to exist outside the temple, outside the ritual, outside the daily devotions.

Daniel realized that God was a portable God – he came to Babylon with the Israelites.

Not only that but Daniel was re-trained, re-educated and re-named – everything about them changed as they – externally – but the one thing the Babylonians could not do was change someone internally.

And what you are like Internally depends upon what you have feed yourself with in the past – it rings to the surface what you truly believe to be true.

Daniel had been a good jew – he had been diligent in studying the torah – he knew the words of God – he knew the words of God SO well that they were a part of his DNA.

And so when EVERYTHING else about his faith was taken away he still was able to fall back on what knew to be true – and that the Babylonians could not change.

This meant that Daniel could LEARN all the Babylonian philosophy, all the Babylonian religion, all the Babylonian law – he learns them with excellence, but they mean nothing to him. He was not assimilated by it nor changed by it – it was knowledge, not life.

So, I ask again, what would happen if all the externals stuff of your Christianity was taken away from you – could you survive as a Christian. Would, or is the culture engulfing you, assimilating you.

To some extent you and I are like Daniel. We live in an alien culture – its alien compared to the words and commands of God. It is alien because it does not recognize the supremacy of Jesus. And not to recognize the supremacy of Christ is not to be fully human. Life cannot be lived to its fullest without Christ at the center.

And we have a choice in how we live as believers in this culture – we can either be assimilated by it or we can understand it but do not let it become apart of who we are.

In the one area that Daniel was able to show loyalty to God he does – food – he does not defile himself but eats vegetables.

In this culture, in the culture of iphones and Macs and Wii’s and playstation 3, of what clothes you must wear to be cool, or what shoes to have, or msic to play, were are you taking the stand against culture – where are you showing yourself to be loyal to Yahweh?

Where?

Or are we so assimilated into the culture that we have become unrecognizable? Because if that is true then we have lost.

If you claim to be a believer in Jesus Christ then you must be 100% committed.

Now when I say 100% committed I do not mean that you are perfect. When people say are you 100% committed to God it sounds an impossible task for there are days when I do not feel 100% committed.

But I heard a story which helped me get a better understanding. There was a teenager who at school was a good student: A’s and B’s. Then all of a sudden they started to slip and they started to get 70% in tests and the teach took the student aside and said “hey, whats the problem, you’re a great student, you can do better than this – give me a 100%.”

Well, the student did not get better, and sadly the teacher watched a great student get mediocre to bad grades.

About 10 years later that Student, who was now a writer for Time Magazine, saw his teacher as a reunion and went over and said to her, “Thank you for all your encouragement. But you know, when I was in your class, my home life was a bad place. My dad had left home and my mom was an alcoholic and I had to look after my little brother at night time and couldn’t study. I tried my hardest. the 70% was, at that time, my 100%.”

Is you 70%, or 80% or even 65% the 100% of what you have NOW!

Daniel had no middle ground to walk it was either total assimilation or total commitment to God. I am sure he had doubts, and was angry and sometimes confused and may have wanted to give up. But he gave God what he had.

Give God what you have!

We must stop having one foot in the Kingdom of God and one foot in the world. We need to stop putting our relationship with God third on our list of things to do – we need to stop spending our money on what we want and instead on what God wants – we need to stop thinking we can get way with the private things we do that we know God is not pleased about and start to REALLY live a life open and honest before god and before our culture – and that means at school as well!

Overview of the Old Testament – Vacation post 5

I am on vacation until August 5th. While away I will post some of my notes from a series I have started at the Church on the Overview of the Old Testament…..

The title of this book in the Hebrew Bible is Elleh Ladderbarim; these are the words (1:1).

Ancient Near Eastern territorial treaties usually began with These are the words. Hence the jewish title gives a strong clue to the literary character of Deuteronomy.

The English Title, which comes from the Septuagint was actually an error due to a bad translation of Deut. 17:18 When he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.

The translators of the Septuagint mistakenly renders copy of this instruction as this second law – which is what Deuteronomy means.

Deuteronomy is to some extent a repetition of the law. Moses presents the law which was given at Mt Sinai to this new generation as they prepare to enter Canaan. It is a wonderful example of the elder teaching and preparing the younger.

In the Jewish nation Deuteronomy is an important book. It is to be read publicly during the feast of Tabernacles at the close of each Sabbatical Year:

Deut. 31:10 Then Moses commanded them: “At the end of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts, during the Festival of Tabernacles, 11 when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before them in their hearing. 12 Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law. 13 Their children, who do not know this law, must hear it and learn to fear the LORD your God as long as you live in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

Deuteronomy is largely a sermon – or a series of sermons preached by Moses. It is a motivational sermon urging Israel’s faithfulness to the covenant laws of Sinai given 40 years previously.

The first sermon is Deut 1:1-4:43. It recounts God’s mighty acts on Israel’s behalf from the time of the covenant at Sinai to this renewal ceremony.

The second sermon is 4:44-26:19. This restates the covenant laws originally given in Ex 20-23.

The third sermon is 37:1-31:30. This is Moses final address to the nation – the blessings and the curses are read out.

The book ends with three appendixes: the Song of Moses (32), the blessing of Moses (33) and the death and burial of Moses (34)

If Exodus was about redemption – Leviticus about sanctification and Numbers about Obedience then Deuteronomy is about faithfulness.

Moses constantly reassures the people of God’s faithfulness and his power to keep his promises and he urges the people to remain faithful to God and the covenant. It may well be the longest farewell speech in recorded history!

The concept of the covenant is at the heart of Deuteronomy.

We know that a covenant has is an agreement between two parties who wish to enter into a relationship. They agree to certain actions, which have certain consequences and even certain punishments if the agreement is broken.

The theological values of Deuteronomy can hardly be exaggerated. It stands as the wellspring of biblical historical revelation. It is a prime source for both the OT and NT theology. Whether the covenant, the holiness of God or the concept of the people of God is the unifying factor of Old Testament theology, each finds emphasis and remarkable definition in Deuteronomy.

Deut is quoted some 95 times in the NT. Jesus quotes from Deut more than any other OT book. Most famously, Jesus quotes Deut 6:4-5 as the first and greatest commandment. And this shows us the big idea of Deuteronomy – if loving God is the greatest commandment, then obedience and faithfulness to God’s commands is the greatest expression of love for God and for their neighbor.

OK, lets summarize Deuteronomy:

CONTENT: rehearsal of the covenant for a new generation of Israelites just before the conquest.

EMPHASIS: the oneness and uniqueness of yahweh; yahweh’s covenant love for Israel in making them his people; yahweh’s universal sovereignty over all peoples; Israel as yahweh’s model for the nations; the significance of the central sanctuary where Yahweh is to be worshipped; Yahweh’s concern for justice; that his people reflect his character; the blessings of obedience and the dangers of disobedience.

What drives Deuteronomy from beginning to end is an uncompromising monotheism – one God – coupled with an equally deep concern for Israel’s uncompromising loyalty to Yahweh.

As you read Deuteronomy watch for three things:

The constant reminder that Israel is about to possess the land (a phrase which occurs 100 x in Deut). God is about to fulfill his oath to Abraham

The relentless demand that, when entering the land, Israel not only avoid idolatry but they completely destroy the high places of worship in Canaan. If they do not do this then Canaan idolatry will destroy the Israelites reason for being: Deut. 7:1   “When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, and He drives out many nations before you—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you— 2 and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you and you defeat them, you must •completely destroy them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 because they will turn your sons away from Me to worship other gods. Then the LORD’S anger will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you. 5 Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their standing pillars, cut down their •Asherah poles,a and burn up their carved images. 6 For you are a holy people belonging to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be His own possessiona out of all the peoples on the face of the earth. Deut. 7:23 The LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 He will hand their kings over to you, and you will wipe out their names under heaven. No one will be able to stand against you; you will annihilate them. 25 You must burn up the carved images of their gods. Don’t covet the silver and gold on the images and take it for yourself, or else you will be ensnared by it, for it is abhorrent to the LORD your God. 26 You must not bring any abhorrent thing into your house, or you will be •set apart for destruction like it. You are to utterly detest and abhor it, because it is set apart for destruction. Also – 12:1-3; 13:6-18; 16:21-17:7; 20:16-18. The only way for Israel to bless the nations (4:6) is for them to obliterate all forms of idolatry and to walk in the ways of the God who redeemed them to be his people (5:32-33).

The requirement that they regularly worship at one central sanctuary – Deut. 12:10 When you cross the Jordan and live in the land the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all the enemies around you and you live in security, 11 then the LORD your God will choose the place to have His name dwell. Bring there everything I command you: your burnt offerings, sacrifices, offerings of the tenth, personal contributions,a and all your choice offerings you vow to the LORD. This is repeated in 12:14; 18, 26; 14:23-25; 15:20; 16:2-16; 17:8-10; 26:2. Yahweh will dwell among his one people in one place unlike the pagans who worshipped many gods on many high places.

Why are these issues so important? God, through Moses is driving home the total distinction between yahweh and Baal. There can NEVER be any compatibility between Yahweh and Baal – no similarity in function or practice.

There are two final things to point out regarding Deuteronomy.

The first is that within this book about the law of God to Israel we have a strong emphasis upon God’s love for others: Deut. 10:19 You also must love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt Deut. 15:11 For there will never cease to be poor people in the land;a that is why I am commanding you, ‘You must willingly open your hand to your afflicted and poor brother in your land.’
Deut. 24:14   “Do not oppress a hired hand who is poor and needy, whether one of your brothers or one of the foreigners residing within a towna in your land. Deut. 31:12 Gather the people—men, women, children, and foreigners living within your gates—so that they may listen and learn to •fear the LORD your God and be careful to follow all the words of this law.

The second is the prophetic element of Deuteronomy. The covenant required the people to uphold their side of the covenant – obedience and faithfulness. Moses is making sure that this second generation knows the deal. And Moses does not just say what might happen – he tells them what WILL happen!!!

Deut. 4:25   “When you have children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, and if you act corruptly, make an idol in the form of anything, and do what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, provoking Him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that you will quickly perish from the land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not live long there, but you will certainly be destroyed. 27 The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be reduced to a few survivorsa among the nations where the LORD your God will drive you. 28 There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see, hear, eat, or smell. 29 But from there, you will search for the LORD your God, and you will find |Him| when you seek Him with all your heart and all your soul.a 30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, you will return to the LORD your God in later days and obey Him. 31 He will not leave you, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your fathers that He swore to them by oath, because the LORD your God is a compassionate God.a

Deut. 30:2 and you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey Him with all your heart and all your soul by doinga everything I am giving you today, 3 then He will restore your fortunes,a have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you.b 4 Even if your exiles are at the ends of the earth,a He will gather you and bring you back from there. 5 The LORD your God will bring you into the land your fathers possessed, and you will take possession of it. He will cause you to prosper and multiply you more than |He did| your fathers. 6 The LORD your God will circumcise your hearta and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and all your soul, so that you will live. 7 The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. 8 Then you will again obey Him and follow all His commands I am giving you today. 9 The LORD your God will make you prosper abundantly in all the work of your hands with children,a the offspring of your livestock, and your soil’s produce. Indeed, the LORD will again delight in your prosperity, as He delighted in that of your fathers, 10 when you obey the LORD your God by keeping His commands and statutes that are written in this book of the law and return to Him with all your heart and all your soul.

Deut. 32:26    I would have said: I will cut them to piecesa
and blot out the memory of them from mankind,
27 if I had not feared insult from the enemy,
|or feared| that these foes might misunderstand
and say: Our own hand has prevailed;
it wasn’t the LORD who did all this.”

You can hear the plea of Moses to this generation in Deut 30:19-20: I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 love the LORD your God, obey Him, and remain faithfula to Him. For He is your life, and He will prolong your life in the land the LORD swore to give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

This is the plea to us from Deut – remain faithful, loyal, love and devotion to God!

Let me end with a quote from a theologian:

The Church today needs to return to the principles of godly living explained in Deuteronomy. Only then can we move forward in victory, by faith in Christ, and claim the inheritance He has appointed for us. To love God supremely and our neighbors as ourselves, and to seek to glorify God in all that we do, is the essence of Deuteronomy; and its a message we need to return to as we face the challenges of the future.

Overview of the Old Testament – Vacation post 4

I am on vacation until August 5th. While away I will post some of my notes from a series I have started at the Church on the Overview of the Old Testament…..

Numbers is probably one of the most difficult books in the OT in terms of “what on earth is going on”.

Numbers is filled with a mixture of things – narrative, additional laws, census lists, oracles from a pagan prophet (Balaam) and it is not easy to see how it all fits together.

To understand Numbers you need to remember the driving force of the Pentateuch as a whole – God’s promise / covenant with Abraham that his seed would inherit the land of Canaan. This is what underlines everything in the book of Numbers. God WILL bring about the fulfillment of this promise, even in the face of Israel’s reluctance and disobedience.

A summary of the content of Numbers: The Israelites long stay in the desert as they journey from Mount Sinai to the Plains of Moab – a journey which takes them 38 years. During the journey they are given supplemental covenant laws.

A summary of the Emphasis of Numbers: Preparation for military conquest of the promised land – God’s covenant loyalty towards Israel – Israel’s repeated failure to keep covenant with God – God’s leadership of his people and His affirmation of Moses’ leadership; preparation for entering and worshipping in the promised.

The book itself opens with a Census – The Lord spoke to Moses…. a pattern seen in Exodus.

So Moses, in Chps 1 & 2 takes a census of the people and then tells them to camp around the Tabernacle – Num. 2:1-2   1 The LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron: 2 “Every one2 of the Israelites must camp3 under his standard with the emblems of his family;4 they must camp at some distance5 around the tent of meeting

The purpose of the census is to list all those who were to be fighting men for the coming conquest of the land of Canaan. According to Num 1:1 this takes places on the first day of the second month the second year after God brought them out of Egypt.

Israel is being prepared, as we saw last week, to be God’s people, and to take the claim of Canaan in order to do the work of the Lord.

One of the characteristics of Numbers is that the people of Israel are not shown in a good light at all.

Chp 11:1 When the people complained; 11:4-5 If only we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we used to eat freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic. But now we are all fried up and there is nothing at all before us except this manna! 16:1ff Now Korah son of Izhar the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the son of Eliab and On son of Peleth who were Reubenites took men and rebelled against Moses. 20:3ff The people contended with Moses saying, ‘If only we had died when our brothers died before the Lord. Chp 21:4-9

Each time Israel complains God punished them. They should have known better. They had witnessed untold miracles and still they refused to trust in God’s provision for them, even wishing they were back in slavery.

But in the middle of this complaining and grumbling something goes horribly for the wrong for the Israelites.

Chp 13 – Spies are sent out to look at the land and coming back they all, apart from joshua and Caleb, say that Israel cannot win. They show their distrust of God’s power, despite knowing how he defeated Egypt.

God punishes them by promising they will not dwell in the land:

Num. 14:20   Then the LORD said, “I have forgiven them as you asked.36 21 But truly, as I live,37 all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD. 22 For all the people have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted38 me now these ten times,39 and have not obeyed me,40 23 they will by no means41 see the land that I swore to their fathers, nor will any of them who despised me see it. 24 Only my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit and has followed me fully–I will bring him into the land where he had gone, and his descendants42 will possess it. 25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.)43 Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”

Now begins their long desert journey. Numbers overs the 38 years they are in the desert as the original generation, except Joshua and Caleb die.

In this period of ‘wandering’ in the desert the Israelites are prepared for warfare.They encounter hostile Canaan and Amorites Kings who come to fight and God tells the Israelites to attack the Midianites. Scholars talk about this being the second stage of the Holy War. The first stage – against Pharaoh in exodus was carried out by God himself, extracting his people fro Egypt and killing the Egyptian army. This second stage is the conquest of the land and this stage requires the people’s co-operation and participation.

Hence, after the 38 years, a second census is called by God, so that the second generation will be recorded and ready to take the land God had promised them. The Israelites were now by the Jordan opposite Jericho and ready to go!

Num 26:2-3 “Take a census of the whole community of Israelites, from twenty years old and upward, by their clans,3 everyone who can serve in the army of Israel.”4 3 So Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan River5 across from Jericho

God’s promises will come true – He is patient – he is true and even in the midst of our failings, our sins, our mistakes, God’s promises will happen.

Two things stand out very importantly in Numbers – firstly, is the constant challenge to Moses and Aaron’s leadership.

Chp 16 we see korah challenging Moses. Some of this is jealousy – v3 Why then do you exalt yourself above the community of the Lord – most of it is about the fact that things are not going the way they thought it would go.

The issue here is not that Korah thinks God has NOT spoken to Moses – or that Moses is doing something that God has said NOT to do. The issue is korah does not LIKE what is happening

Following the Lord’s calling, both individually and together as a community is not about a free ride – that everything goes smoothly, without any hitch or challenges. It can be HARD, the challenges can be huge and the outlook can sometimes look bleak EVEN when you follow the way of the Lord.

Korah wanted things his way in his own time. That’s not how things are done – and when we push our own agendas and our own ways and our own timings we rebel against God. This is why Korah’s punishment is so dramatic.

The second thing is the narrative about the pagan prophet Balaam.

Here we have a wonderful image that when you walk in the paths of the Lord, you shall be protected. Notice something here. This is going on behind the back of Israel. Apart from the fact that God obviously tells Moses what happened so to put it in the book, this whole episode is happening without the Israelites knowledge.

If you were aware of every spiritual battle that took place over your life you would be terrified.

The King of Moabites goes to Balaam in order to curse the Israelites. The fact that God intervenes to speak to and direct Balaam shows that this was a real issue – the curing of the Israelites would have had consequences.

Yet God intervenes. Balaam is unable to prophecy a curse against the Israelites to the chagrin of the king.

The big theme then of Numbers is that despite ISrael’s sins, wafflings and complaints, this is above all God’s story and God will keep and fulfill his part of the covenant with Abraham.

The issue is whether Israel will keep the covenant with God – and Numbers reminds you over and over again that the divine provision for them to do is always ready at hand.

There are some major events in Numbers which are mentioned elsewhere in Scripture – Joshua and Caleb alone think Israel can take the promised land (Num 13-14 / Jos 14:7); Moses striking the rock and water coming out (Num 20:11 / Ps 106:32); Moses lifting up a bronze serpent on a pole so that believing Israelites may be healed (Num 21:6-9 / John 3:14) & Balaam was rebuked by his donkey (num 22:21 / rev 2:14).

OK, to sum up – in this book the people of God tested God’s patience and he in turn tested their endurance and faithfulness. Though the people failed many times God showed his own faithfulness by his constant presence leading the way.

What can Numbers teach us? Well, the apostle Paul helps here: 1 Cor 10:1-6 says:   For I do not want you to be unaware,1 brothers and sisters,2 that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized3 into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they were all drinking from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. 5 But God was not pleased with most of them, for they were cut down in the wilderness. 6 These things happened as examples for us, so that we will not crave evil things as they did.

Let’s not doubt the goodness of God – even when we feel we are in the wilderness – let’s rejoice in his provision for us, even when it may appear mundane and let us not crave other things beyond what God has for us. A re we grumbling? Are we rebellious? Can we be like the Israelites?

Overview of the Old Testament – Vacation post 3

I am on vacation until August 5th. While away I will post some of my notes from a series I have started at the Church on the Overview of the Old Testament…..

This morning we will be looking at the book of Leviticus.
This is another one of the Old Testament books which Christians tend not to rush to study. lronically, it was one of the first books studied by a jewish child.
ln summary the content of Leviticus is: Various laws having to do with holiness before God and love of neighbor, including sacrifices, ritual, cleanness and social obligations, as well as laws for the levites regarding their priestly duties.
The books AIM is all about getting it right with regard to worship, for both the priests and the people.

Leviticus picks up exactly where Exodus left off… the Lord speaking to Moses from the tent of meeting and saying “speak to the lsraelites and say…”. Each new section of Leviticus is signaled by the phrase “The Lord said to Moses….”
Lev. 4:1 Lev. 5.14 Lev. 6:1
The LORD said to Moses, The LORD said to Moses: *The LORD said to Moses:
To get the most out of reading and understanding Leviticus you must remember two things: (1) these laws are part of God’s covenant with lsrael and therefore they are not just religious rites but are all about relationships; (2) Leviticus

is part of the wider narrative of the pentateuch and must be understood in the light of what has happened and what will happen.
Let’s look at the seconded point first. The context of Leviticus is lsrael camped at the foot of Sinai. They will spend a year here being molded into the people of God and being prepared for the journey into the promised land.
They will need protection – from various diseases and from one another! ln order for this group of people who grew up in slavery to be formed into God’s people they need to get right with God and they need to get right with each other.
This is always the order.

Exodus 19:5-6 says ‘Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
God promises to make lsrael his own treasured possession. And their role is to serve God as priests for the world!
And to do this they must bear his likeness.

God promises to bless lsrael. And in return God asks that israel maintains a holy awe and obedience towards him – this is what it means to be covenantal.
Leviticus can be split into two parts – Chps 1-16 = the Levitical Code – regulations for the people and the priests related directly to the tabernacle. Chp 17 onwards deals with the holiness code – how the people are to be holy as I am holy.
The people of God are to be LIKE God and therefore they are to be holy – not just outwardly in their rituals, but also inwardly in their heart – and the result of this would be evident in their relationship with everything else!

Where Exodus is all about redemption, Leviticus is about Sanctification – receiving God’s mercies and acceptance should be followed by Holy living and spiritual growth.
The central act in Leviticus is the Sacrificial offerings.
For the most part Leviticus tells you WHAT to do, but necessarily the theology behind WHY you should do it. That appears to be already known. The only WHY verse is Lev 17:11:
For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.

So why did God ask for sacrifices? To answer this we need to go back again to the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve are the only human beings who lived in a world which did not require any sacrifices. But when they disobeyed God in Gen 3, what was the first thing God did for Adam and Eve after he gives the judgment? (v21)
He clothes them with skins of an animal. He covers their shame, their nakedness with the skins of a dead animal.
Now this means that an animal in eden was killed. My own theory is that this was the pre-incarnate Jesus – the second person of the Trinity, who having given the judgment to Adam and Eve and to Satan for their rebellion,

as well as having given them a glimpse of the solution he (the coming seed of the woman) will crush your head, and
you (the serpent) will strike his heel, proceeds to kill an anmial in the Garden of Eden to clothe Adam and Eve. death had not just entered into Adam and Eve’s life but into the whole creation.
So God’s response in eden was to sacrifice an animal in order to cover the shame of Adam and Eve. This is the beginning of the sacrificial system. Notice that Cain and Abel offer sacrifices to God although we are not given any indication that they were commanded to. They just knew, from their parents, that that is what they must do. Again, long before Moses and the law, Noah leaves the Ark and does what – offer a sacrifice to God – Gen 8:20.

Job – probably the oldest book in the Bible has Job offering sacrifices for his children (1 :5).
So, by the time Moses is told to give the contents of Leviticus to the lsraelites, sacrifice is not a new issue – it is here, however, codified into a system which incorporates the cultic practices of the nation.
The sacrificial worship of lsrael is detailed in the first seven chapters of Leviticus. Every step was minutely revealed to Moses concerning the five offerings, from the animals to be offered to the duties of the priests who functioned as mediators between God and lsrael. From sunup to sundown, every day of the year, thousands of

animals were paraded before the priests, killed, and their blood sprinkled on the altar. There is no significance to the order in which the offerings appear in Leviticus. The first offering listed, the burnt offering, should follow the sin offering, but a number of reasons have been presented for the burnt offering being given first. lt was the first offering mentioned in Scripture (Gen. 8:20) and was-the offering most frequently presented by the patriarchs long before the
Mosaic law stipulated the specific sacrifices to be offered. Most likely the burnt offering encompassed the sin offering in the patriarchal period. The Lord instructed Abraham to offer lsaac as a burnt offering (Gen. 22:2); it was the
offering Moses performed in the desert after leaving Egypt 10

(Ex. 5:3); both Jethro (Ex. 1B:12) and job (Job 1:5) offered it long before the giving of the law at Sinai. lt was continually offered as a perpetual sacrifice, night and day, on major feast days and at new moons in lsrael. The term burnt sacrifice (v. 3) comes from the Hebrew word olah, meaning to ascend upwards, and refers to the whole offering that was consumed on the altar and ascended to God. Finally, since the whole sacrifice was consumed on the altar, it represented the fullest form of lsrael’s consecration and worship.
The different offerings were:
The burnt offering most costly offering there is, since it is completely burned up with nothing left (except for the skin,
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which the priest kept). The motive for offering the burnt offering are thanksgiving, penitence, vows, and self- dedication. The mention of “a pleasing aroma” (1 :9″ 13.
17) implies that the sacrifice results in the Lord’s favor toward the offerer. Three options are provided regarding the material of the sacrifice-a bull, small livestock (such as a sheep or a goat), and a bird-but all were to be from the offerer’s own prior possession (y2).
Grain offering typically consisted of four elements: (1) fine flour; (2) oil; (3) frankincense; and (4) salt (see 2:11-
13). They could be brought either uncooked (vv. 1-O) or cooked (vv. 4-10). The priest would not burn the entire offering but only a handful as a “memorial portion” (see note on vv. 1-3). The grain offering would ordinarily be
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offered with a burnt or peace offering and probably served the same purpose as the offering it accompanied, whether for petition or for praise.
The Peace Offering. This offering achieves and expresses peace or fellowship between an offerer and the Lord. The ritual as a whole symbolizes a communion meal that is held between the offerer, the officiating priest, and the Lord. ln OT times such meals were a means of affirming a covenant relationship (Gen. 26:28-30). Generally speaking, then, this offering was a time to remember and reaffirm the covenant relationship between the Lord and lsrael (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16-1 8; 11:23-26).As with the burnt offering, there are various specific motives for offering a peace offering, ranging from petition to
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praise. ln this chapter, though, the entire emphasis is on the procedure for the offering, with a special focus on the burning of the fat.
The Sin Offering. Cf. 6:24-30. ln this section the focus of the sin offering (Hb. khatta’t) is on making amends for one’s broken relationship with the Lord, caused either by unintentionally violating one of the Lord’s prohibitive commandments (4:1-35) or by failing to do something that one was required to do (5:1-13). (ln other places the focus will be on addressing severe cases of uncleanness; e.9.,
12:6; 14:19: 15:15, 30.) The sin offering is distinguished from other offerings in that the ritual can vary according to the sinner’s position before the Lord (e.g., the type of animal required or what the priest does with the blood). In
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ch. 4 the ritual for the sin of the anointed priest and that of the whole congregation is basically the same, while the ritual for a leader and a common individual is the same. A core part of the ritual is the sprinkling of blood (4:6. 17). Since this is a purifying act (cf. 16:19), it implies that the holy objects are considered to be defiled by the sins of the people. Because of this-and the fact that this offering occurs to address uncleanness as well-some have preferred to call the offering a “purification offering” instead of a “sin offering.” ln either case, the offering deals with the sin or impurity of the offerer, culminating in the Day of Atonement ritual in ch. 16. ln this regard it foreshadows the essence of the Messiah’s atoning work on the cross.
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The Guilt Offering. Cf. 7:1-10. The distinction between the offenses covered by the guilt offering and the offenses
related to the sin offering is puzzling. ln general, however, the offenses here appear to be more serious, as shown by the fact that the sacrificial animal is more costly (a male
instead of a female) and that the sins are described as a “breach of faith” (5:15). The word translated.”guilt
offering” (Hb. ‘asham) is used elsewhere with the sense of “compensation lreparation for guilt” (5:6), and the offering as a whole serves to repair the relationship between sinners and the Lord. This has led some to call this a “reparation offering.
Why such an elaborate system of sacrifices?
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1.that the people would know that atonement must be made to God for sins
2.that they recognized that another must make substitutionary atonement FOR them – they could not atone for their own sins
3.the blood atonement covered their sins before God making it possible for Him to withhold judgement (because of Jesus’ promise)
4.it made possible the communion of sinful people with a holy God
S.their sacrifices pointed to a day when Christ would once and for all atone for sin.
How can we apply Leviticus?
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The theme of holiness in Leviticus extends to the Church. 1 Peter 1 :15-16 as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy,”
This verse references Lev 19.2. Just as God did with the Israelites, He has redeemed and consecrated Christians. lf you are his child then he wants you to reflect His
character. He is sanctifying you much like He did the nation of israel.
So, does our life echo God’s?

Overview of the Old Testament – Vacation post 2

I am on vacation until August 5th. While away, I have posted some notes on a series I did on the overview of the Old Testament….

We have Genesis ending with Joseph and Israel in Egypt. Exodus continues the story.

Exodus is a more difficult book to both read and understand. Chps 1-20 are easy enough as they continue the story of this family, nation of God. But chps 21-24, 25-31 and 35-40 are filled with the detailed instructions about the Tabernacle and it’s furnishings and then it’s construction.

All this can appear irrelevant and somewhat repetitive unless you keep them in the context of the big picture of the Pentateuch.

Exodus gives us three defining moments of Israel’s existence as a people in relationship to God: (1) and most obviously, the miraculous deliverance by God of his people from Slavery, (2) the return of the presence of God as distinguishing his people from all other people on the earth and (3) the gift of the law as the means of establishing his covenant with them. Let’s look at each of these.

1. The exodus itself. Notice that Moses and the event we call the exodus from Egypt are inseparable. The story of the exodus is Moses story and vice versa. Israel’s desperately hopeless situation is overcome by God’s intervention on their behalf. At this point Yahweh was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – now he becomes the God of Israel. He is no tribal, local diety – he shows himself to the LORD – defeating each of the Egyptian gods through the plagues and ultimately over Pharoah himself. Exodus 4:22-23 is key: You must say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Israel is my son, my firstborn,7 and I said to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me,’ but since you have refused to let him go, I will surely kill your son, your firstborn! God here formally adopts Israel as his firs born son!
2. The return of the divine presence. The divine presence of God was lost as the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. God has appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but he did not ‘dwell’ with them as he had dwelt with Adam and Eve in the Garden. The restoration of God’s divine presence is a central feature of Exodus. It begins with the call of Moses and is seen most clearly in the building of the tabernacle – a tabernacle which was constructed under God’s specific guidance. Now God would once again dwell with his people. The final act of Exodus is the covering of the tabernacle with God’s glory – his shekinah glory: Listen to the last 4 verses of Exodus: Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. But when the cloud was lifted up from the tabernacle, the Israelites would set out on all their journeys; but if the cloud was not lifted up, then they would not journey further until the day it was lifted up. For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, but fire would be on it at night, in plain view of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys. Why does Exodus end like this? This new nation – Israel – God’s adopted first born is now ready for their journey towards the promised land!
3. The giving of the law, with the ten commandments as it’s centerpiece in chp 20 is the third defining moment. The laws focus on two things – Israel’s relationship with God and Israel’s relationship with each other. This sets the stage for the further elaboration of the law in the rest of the Pentateuch.

With these three defining moments we begin to see God fulfilling his promises to Abraham.

Regarding the tabernacle, we must have a basic understanding of what is going on.

The details of the tabernacle are considered SO important that they are spelled out twice. This is always a pattern in scripture – if something is said twice, take very close notice of it!

The tabernacle was divided into two sections – the holy place and the most holy place (holy of holies).

The holy place symbolized the earth – the physical universe. The most holy place symbolizes heaven. A curtain hung between the two sections as a dividing barrier, and this is one of the most eloquent expressions of the severity of sin in the whole Bible. The curtain physically separated the Most Holy place representing heaven from the rest of the tabernacle, representing the earth.

Woven into the curtain were cheribum , the very angels whom God placed outside of the Garden of Eden with flashing swords to keep sinners out (Gen 3:23). There can be no entry into the holy of holies without meeting the fiery swords of the cheribum – fire representing the boundary between heaven and earth. The curtain declared that the cost of entry into the Most Holy place was death.

Also notice that the holy of holies is a perfect cube. Look at Rev 21:16 And the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal.

These are the only two cubes in the whole Bible.

The furniture is also very significant – briefly we have the ark – the throne which represents God’s throne and it resides in the Holy of Holies – heaven. On top of the ark sat the atonement cover (Ex 25:17) – the mercy seat. In Ex 25:22 God says that it is there – on the mercy seat between the two cheribum that he will meet humanity. This all represents the impossible possibility: the acceptance of sinners into the throne room of God. The mercy seat absorbs the judgment of God – c/f Romans 3:25.

The table of presence – Ex 25:30 – displayed the ‘bread of the presence’ all the time. 12 loaves of bread were constantly kept on this table. Jesus talks of himself as the bread of life – the bread from heaven – this represents the second person of the trinity – Ex 33:14-15 – the one who is present in the earth.

The lampstand was inside the holy place – it was the only light and so it represented the light that shines in the darkness. The lampstand also represents the Holy Spirit. Zech 4;1-6: The angel who was speaking with me then returned and roused me as one awakened out of sleep. 2 He asked me, “What do you see?”
I replied, “I see a solid gold lampstand there with a bowl on its top. It has seven lamps on it and seven channels for each ofa the lamps on its top. 3 There are also two olive trees beside it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.”
Zech. 4:4 Then I asked the angel who was speaking with me, “What are these, my lord?”
Zech. 4:5 “Don’t you know what they are?” replied the angel who was speaking with me.
I said, “No, my lord.”
Zech. 4:6 So he answered me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength or by might, but by My Spirit,’a says the LORD of •Hosts.

So far, with these three pieces of furniture we have, symbolically, the life and work of the Trinitarian God. The tabernacle is founded on God desire for sinful humanity to be in fellowship with all three divine persons.

The golden altar of incense stood just before the cheribum / curtain to the holy of holies. Morning and evening the priest would burn incense on it. Rev 5:8 tells us what the incense represents – the prayers of the people of God – Ps 141:2 has David saying that his prayers might be as incense to the Lord. The freshly burning incense represented God’s people coming before the Lord.

The overall theme of Exodus is redemption – how God delivered the Israelites and made them his special people. And as we will see later, through the law God is showing his people that all of life relates to God. Nothing is outside his jurisdiction!

God then provides his people with the understanding of how to be in a relationship with Him and with each other – the law. He told then the why and the how of worship. And in the midst of this, through the tabernacle, he dwells with people on the earth.

Like the Israelites who left Egypt, all of us, all Christians are redeemed and consecrated to God, through Christ. The sacrifices which the Israelites are told to offer were, as we saw in this mornings sermon, not meant to be just outward acts of obedience, but a reflection of the inward love they had for God because they knew God was devoted and committed to them. We no longer offer animals as sacrifices – every animal sacrificed by the people of Israel was an illustration of what would happen to Jesus. But there is a sacrifice we as Christians must offer – Romans 12:1-2 – Offer your BODIES as a living sacrifice to the Lord. For us the curtain is removed – we have access to the heavenly throne room of God – Heb. 4:16 Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.

Peter Enns Takes Issue With John Piper’s Comment “It’s Right for God to Slaughter Women and Children Anytime He Pleases”

Author and pastor John Piper, in a relatively recent interview on his website Desiring God: God-Centered Resources from the Ministry of John Piper, discusses the vexing problem of God ordering the mass killing of every Canaanite man, woman, and child.

Here is the opening quote.

“It’s right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.”

Words fail me.

Read Peter Ennis’ interesting response HERE

The Meanness of Some Conservative Anglicans

I am a conservative Anglican. Ordained in the Episcopal Church but now in ACNA. However, it grieves me to see how conservative anglicans can be utterly mean spirited in their response to liberals. Now, I understand that liberals are often (usually?) very mean spirited to conservatives. I have been angry reading some things liberals have said against those who disagree with them. But that is no excuse for responding in kind, not least because we are commanded to love our enemy by our Lord. Kendall harmon’s excellent blog had a post reporting that the head of Integrity had responded to Kendall’s view on the passing of AO49. Yet some of the comments in that post were simply sarcastic and mean. Not a good witness. Not a good witness at all.

Stephen Mansfield Writes On The Mormons

Interesting interview with Stephen Mansfield. Mansfield is a well known christian author. He has wriiten on many people including George W Bush. In fact the ministry I worked for a while back hired Mansfield for a project. His latest book is on the Mormonizing of America. Here is a taste.

Q: Are you now more or less likely to defend Mormonism when evangelicals call it a cult?

A:My basic approach is to get people to work with Mormons for social good today and to be informed about their history, which in my case leads me not to accept the supernatural side of their history that they claim but still embrace them and have friends among them. That’s what I urge evangelicals to do.

Really? I find this both a strange and worrying answer.

Read the interview here.

Why No Denomination Will Survive the Homosexuality Crisis

There is no way, short of a miraculous and full-scale changing of hearts and minds, for North American denominations to survive the homosexuality crisis. Denominations like the PCUSA, ELCA, RCA, UMC, and Episcopal Church will continue. They won’t fold their tents and join the Southern Baptists (though wouldn’t that be interesting!). I’m not suggesting most of our old, mainline denominations will disappear. But I do not see how any of these once flourishing denominations will make it through the present crisis intact.

And the sooner denominations admit this sobering reality the better.

Kevin DeYoung

Read the whole piece HERE

Bishop Mark Lawrence Letter To The Parishes

Bp Mark lawrence, South Carolina, has sent a pastoral letter to the Parishes this morning.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Some of you have actively followed the decisions of the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. Others have been blissfully unaware that our denomination even had a General Convention. We have. And the actions taken mark a significant and distressing departure from the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this Church has received them.

In conversations with clergy, and from the emails I have received, I know there is much uneasiness about the future. Some of us are experiencing the well-known stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. And, of course, I must acknowledge there are those for whom the recent decisions are a cause for celebration. For me there are certainly things about which I was thankful at the convention in Indianapolis. I might even have taken encouragement from the resolutions that were passed regarding needed structural reform, and for the intentional work in the House of Bishops on matters of collegiality and honesty. Unfortunately, these strike me now as akin to a long overdue rearranging of the furniture when the house is on fire. Why do I say this?

There are four resolutions which were adopted that bring distressing changes to the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church that every ordained person in this church has vowed “to engage to conform,” and which stand in direct conflict with the doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this church has received them.

First, let me mention resolution C029. While this was amended during the debates in a more temperate direction, it still moves the Church further down the road toward encouraging the communion of the unbaptized which departs from two thousand years of Christian practice. It also puts the undiscerning person in spiritual jeopardy. (I Corinthians 11:27–32)

Plainly, the resolution that has received the most publicity is A049 which authorizes rites for Same-Sex Blessings. This resolution goes into effect in Advent 2012, but only upon the authority of the bishop of each diocese. It hardly needs to be said, but for the record let me say clearly, I will not authorize the use of such rites in the Diocese of South Carolina. Such rites are not only contrary to the canons of this diocese and to the judgment of your bishop, but more importantly I believe they are contrary to the teaching of Holy Scripture; to two thousand years of Christian practice; as well as to our created nature. Many theologians down through the centuries speak of what we are as human beings by Creation; what we are by the Fall; what we are through Redemption (that is in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ); and what we shall be in our Glorification. Our marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer is rooted in this understanding. Because of this, it is biblical, it is Christian, and it is Anglican. I would also add, it is beautiful and it is true. Therefore the Episcopal Church has no authority to put asunder this sacramental understanding of marriage as established by God in creation and blessed through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. It has no authority to do this either by revising the marriage rite to include same sex partners or by devising some parallel quasi-marital sacramental service. I remind you of the elegant words of our Prayer Book which echo the teaching of our Scriptures: “The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people.” This speaks of a “given-ness” in this age that is good, and is emblematic of our Christian Hope. It prepares us for the age to come; when God the Father summons his Church to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

There is however an even more incoherent departure from the teaching of Holy Scripture and from our Episcopalian and Anglican Heritage to be found in the General Convention’s passage of resolutions D002 and D019. These changes to our Church’s canons mark an even further step into incoherency. They open the door to innumerable self-understandings of gender identity and gender expression within the Church; normalizing “transgender,” “bi-sexual,” “questioning,” and still yet to be named – self-understandings of individualized eros. I fail to see how a rector or parish leader who embraces such a canonical change has any authority to discipline a youth minister, Sunday school teacher, or chalice bearer who chooses to dress as a man one Sunday and as a woman another. And this is but one among many possibilities. Let me state my concern clearly. To embrace an understanding of our human condition in which gender may be entirely self-defined, self-chosen is to abandon all such norms, condemning ourselves, our children and grandchildren, as well as future generations to sheer sexual anarchy. So long as I am bishop of this diocese I will not abandon its people to such darkness.

Some have said to me, “But bishop the culture is accepting this. To continue to resist these innovations is to put ourselves on the wrong side of history.” I say to such thinking, you cannot be on the wrong side of History if you are on the right side of Reality. Archbishop William Temple was correct when he wrote over 70 years ago: the Church needs to be very clear in its public teaching so it can be very pastoral in its application.

This Monday afternoon I will be meeting with my Council of Advice. On Tuesday I will be meeting with our Diocesan Standing Committee. Then during the remainder of July I will be meeting with the deans and with clergy in various deaneries. Given these changes in the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Episcopal Church the question that is before us is: “What does being faithful to Jesus Christ look like for this diocese at this time? How are we called to live and be and act? In this present context, how do we make Biblical Anglicans for a Global Age?”

On the penultimate day of General Convention, in a Private Session in the House of Bishops, I asked for a point of personal privilege and expressed my heartfelt concerns about these changes. I listened to the words of others and then departed with prayer and charity. I left at that time because at least for me to pretend that nothing had changed was no longer an option. Now that I have returned to South Carolina it is still not an option. I ask that you keep me and the councils of our diocese in your prayers as you shall be in mine. We have many God-size challenges and, I trust, many God-given opportunities ahead.

Faithfully yours in Christ,

Is Liberal Christianity On The Ropes?

From, of all places, the New York Times:

The defining idea of liberal Christianity — that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion — has been an immensely positive force in our national life. No one should wish for its extinction, or for a world where Christianity becomes the exclusive property of the political right.What should be wished for, instead, is that liberal Christianity recovers a religious reason for its own existence. As the liberal Protestant scholar Gary Dorrien has pointed out, the Christianity that animated causes such as the Social Gospel and the civil rights movement was much more dogmatic than present-day liberal faith. Its leaders had a “deep grounding in Bible study, family devotions, personal prayer and worship.” They argued for progressive reform in the context of “a personal transcendent God … the divinity of Christ, the need of personal redemption and the importance of Christian missions.”

Today, by contrast, the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism. Which suggests that perhaps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world.

 

Read the whole article HERE

Episcopal Church Is Apostate

It is a sad day when an entire denomination becomes apostate in it’s leadership. That is what has happened with the Episcopal Church and the passing of the resolution for allowing the blessing of Same Sex Unions.

While the historic foundation of the Anglican / Episcopal Church, in writing, remains the Scriptures, 39 Articles and the Prayer Book, in reality the Episcopal Church has discarded everyone of these in order to embrace an unbiblical and unethical inclusivity.

I was reading Francis Schaeffer today and he nails the issue of the Episcopal Church:

“If our own young people within the churches and those of the world outside see us playing with the methodology of synthesis, in our teaching and evangelism, in our policies and institutions, we can never expect to take advantage of this unique moment of opportunity presented by the death of romanticism. If we let go of our sense of antithesis, we will have nothing left to say. Moreover, not only will we have nothing to say, we become nothing.”

The Episcopal Church has become nothing.

Sunday’s Sermon

What are we here for? What are we here to do?

We are here this morning to worship the Lord. We are here to glorify him. We are here to exalt him. We are also here to hear his word – to listen to his voice and then to obey what he commands. How can we do all this? We do this by and through the Holy Spirit – we can worship BECAUSE we are filled with His Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit we can not have fellowship with God. Without the Holy Spirit the Church Service ceases to be a time of worship where we engage with God – instead it becomes a dry religious service.

As I have said before, without the Holy Spirit in us we are unable to do anything that is spiritual.

When God appears to Ezekiel, Ezekiel falls to the ground. The last verse of chp 1 says:  As the appearance of the rainbow[aa]in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking. He has no strength. The glory of God forces Ezekiel to his face. Then God speaks with Ezekiel. And how does Ezekiel speak with God – by being filled with the Spirit. The Spirit comes and sets Ezekiel on his feet and by the Spirit Ezekiel can speak with God. Ezekiel is called the Son of Man – a phrase mentioned 93 times in Ezekiel. It is also mentioned once in Daniel.

But also notice that in the NT Jesus takes the title Son of Man and applies it to himself. In fact Jesus’ favorite title was the Son of Man.

Why? Because it stresses Jesus’ true humanity as well as His dependence upon the Spirit of God. Jesus does not begin his ministry until the Spirit falls upon him at his baptism. Jesus is fully God AND fully man – and the title Son of MAn emphasizes Jesus’ humanity.

Hence when Ezekiel is called Son of Man it is to remind him that he was dependent on the spirits power which enabled him to receive the message of God and also the power to deliver it in the authority of the Lord. When we are filled with the Spirit the Lord speaks with us – he strengthens us and speaks with us. We come to worship tired and burdened by the world, but the aim of worship – of being together to worship God – is to be filled again with the spirit – strengthened – set on our feet again so that we might hear the Lord and be ready to go into the week and into the world to love and serve our God.

And what he asks of Ezekiel he asks of us – to go and speak to a rebellious people. Anyone who is not living under God’s lordship is in rebellion. Anyone who has ignored God is stubborn and imprudent. But God never leaves them to stew on their own – he sends his people to minister and proclaim the word of God. And Ezekiel was only able to go because he had the Spirit – and we are only able to go because we have the Holy Spirit.

God sends Ezekiel with the warning that it will not be easy. Proclaiming the truth of God to a world who is blinded to the things of God will be hard.

Jesus knew how that felt. Twice he is rejected from his home town. The first time in mentioned in luke 4:16-30 when Jesus announces the beginning of his ministry by reading Isaiah in the synagogue – the day of the Lord has arrived jesus says. But the people are angry and they run him out of town. Now he returns, probably a year later.

This time they do not run him out town – they simply do not take him seriously – they show him contempt.

Why?

Familiarity. They say Familiarity breeds contempt. Here was a person they saw growing up suddenly being hailed as a possible messiah. It’s hard for someone to see a peer, or a neighbor, or a colleague increase in authority and status. Remember that many of those in the town were related to Jesus. These were his people, his family – and they did not expect a ‘tekton’ – a workman to become an important rabbi, never mind a possible messiah. Jesus just seemed too ordinary for that. They took offense at him. They insult him by calling him the son of Mary instead the son of Joseph – maybe a reference to the question of his birth. They could not explain him so they rejected him.

And Mark tells us that Jesus did not do many miracles there. However we have a hint in Matthew’s account that he did some, but not many. It’s not that he couldn’t do any miracles – the issue was that if people did not believe he could miracles, they wouldn’t ask him to do any miracles! Miracles were like parables – they pointed to the truth of who Jesus was and what his mission on earth was and thus required faith for them to be effective – if they had already rejected him, then his miracles would not convince them, and Jesus did not do miracles like a magician.

Ministry is not easy to a world that does not believe.

Like Ezekiel, and in the footsteps of Jesus, we too are called to declare who Jesus is to the world – to a skeptical, unbelieving, hostile, ridiculing, angry, violent, secularist world.

And just as Jesus experienced and as God told Ezekiel, we will be rejected. We will not be taken seriously. We will be mocked.

But there is a remarkable verse in Ezekiel that we must hold onto and remember. In sending Ezekiel God says in v5 these words, And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that there has been a prophet among them.

This is a huge verse for us. God is saying that the issue is not so much the result of our witness – that is not in our hands – but what IS in our hands is whether people see us AS authentic representatives of God – that when we witness – when we are with people – when we are around our work colleagues – or friends, or college or school – they will realize we are God’s people – that we are the real deal. God tells ezekiel that when he was done giving the message – whether they accepted it or not – they were to say to each other – Wow – whatever we think about Ezekiel’s message, one thing is for sure, he is a prophet – he is a man of God – he is the real deal.

The issue for some christians is that as long as we get the message out there, that’s all that matters – regardless of how we do it or what our own personal conduct is. So often I have experienced and heard that Christians were the most disliked people in the office or at school – not because of their message – but because of their attitude – they were unkind, arrogant, prideful, boastful, holier than thou – they cut corners – they were not diligent in their work and they lacked integrity. They did not live up to the title of Son of Man.

How we live – how we work – how we are with each other is the biggest witness we can give.

If there was anyone who might have been arrogant, or prideful, it was Paul. He says in 2Cor 12 that he knew someone – him – who went to the third heaven.

Now the third heaven is where the presence of God is. He went to a place which only Jesus and those who died in faith have gone. And Paul HEARD – notice it is HEARD, many things. What he heard we do not know but I think it was meant to strengthen him in the trials and sufferings to come.

But such was this experience – and it is so real and yet so spiritual, paul was unable to know whether it was a vision or whether he was physically taken – it doesn’t matter which – that there was danger that he might become prideful and he might go in his own strength and his own pride and so God allows a thorn in the flesh – a messenger from Satan to stop his pride. Paul asks God three times to remove it – but God’s words were that My grace Is Sufficent for you. What does this mean? It means that God’s provision for your every need, when you need it is ALL you need.

Paul was a man of immense natural ability – and yet God sends him in weakness so that through Paul’s weakness God is manifested.

Human weakness can be a profound blessing if it results in our depending more upon God and less on self!

We are called into this hostile world, to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. We will face hardship, ridicule, attack, anger – but God calls us to go without fear.

Notice what god tells Ezekiel: And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you sit upon scorpions; be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.

Fear is the anesthetic of the church – fear puts the church to sleep. We become concerned about how our friends, colleagues, family might see us when we tell them about Jesus – or even just by admitting we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is rejected and ridiculed by his own people – They do not take him seriously. Yet Jesus does not back down. He does not water down his message.
To go without fear does not mean we go in pride or arrogance. What It does mean is that we go in the power of the Spirit, not obsessed with results or numbers, but because we love God – we worship him and we long to see his kingdom come.

Rare is the person who can set out on a task knowing that people will hate them for doing it. But this is exactly what Ezekiel, and us, are called to do. Ezekiels faithfulness stands as a challenge to us!

Republicans Show Disdain and Disrespect for American Democracy

I have watched the Health Care battle here in Washington with interest. It had really been assumed that Obama’s health care bill was going to either be radically reshaped or rejected by the Supreme Court. Nobody really thought that the Supreme Court would let the Health Care bill stand with relatively little adjustment. Of course the ‘reason’ for the bill to stand may be problematic for Obama – Chief Justice Roberts decision that the Bill is in fact a tax, and thus constitutional may prove to be a bitter pill for the Obama re-election campaign to deal with.

However, what I found remarkable is the disdain that many Republicans have shown towards their own democratic system. Their attack upon Roberts and the decision is disgraceful. Now, I am not necessarily a defender of ‘Obamacare’ – and of course the Republicans can try and get rid of this legislation through the appropriate political avenues (although Romney’s cry that he would repeal this law is somewhat hollow – as he would need a clear majority in the Senate and that is not a guarantee), but to rail into Roberts and attack the process is not on. Just because they lost! Just because they expected Roberts to be on their side. And yet Roberts has shown neutrality, which he must as a Chief Justice.

So – Republicans – accept the the Supreme Court verdict and start the battle politically, and stop crying like spoilt little boys!!

This Is A Sad Situation – The Body of Christ Attacking One Another

The following clip is part of a sermon from Ed Young Jr who takes a huge swipe at reformed theology. It is somewhat sad, not least in the errors in his presentation. What is worse is that the body of Christ is attacking each other like this.

Sunday’s Sermon

Power. Obtaining it, having it, exercising it and keeping hold of it. It is an obsession for many.

Napoleon Bonaparte said, “Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.”

Winston Churchill perceptively said, “The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.”

But how can you quantify what power is? One definition of power is position of control. Sir Francis Bacon said that Knowledge is power. Oskar Shindler, the man that saved many Jews from German concentration camps in World War II said, “Power is when you have every justification to kill someone, and then you don’t”. A modern day writer, Amy Tan, has said that power is holding someone else’s fear in your hand and showing it to them.

In each of these definitions, power is portrayed as something to use, possess or harness.

The Bible speaks of power in a different way. It speaks of power as a person.

Psalm 115:3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.

Daniel 4:35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”

Matthew 28:18 – Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” All authority – power has been given to JESUS!

We would all agree with the statement that God / Jesus is “All powerful”.

But there is another question that we must face, especially in light of our passages this morning.

That question is: How much of this all-powerful God have YOU and I and the church experienced in our life and how has that changed us.

It is the question that flows through our readings this morning. To acknowledge that Jesus Christ, God, is ALL POWERFUL is good, but it is imperative that this knowledge becomes a reality in our lives.

It is the question which God confronts Job with. Chapter 38 of Job is amazing. Imagine the scene! God comes to Job and tells him that he is about to question Job. I don’t care how big your GPA is – or what fine school you may have graduated from – being questioned by God means we are not going to do well with the answers. Job was never going to be able to answer these questions. So why does God ask them?

God educates Job. Like a good teacher who may question a student in order to elicit understanding, God questions Job in order to teach him something. And God shows Job a tiny glimpse of the immensity of his power – just listen to what he says where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth – who determined its measurements – who shut in the sea with doors.

You can’t get more powerful than that!!

Job was now understanding what power was – not having wealth and influence – but in understanding that God is himself POWER.

And it is this ALL POWERFUL God, the one who laid the foundations of the earth and who determined it’s measurements who, in our gospel reading, slept on a cushion during a violent storm.

Have you ever been in a storm at sea in an open boat? Water would be rushing into the boat – the wind howling, the boat tipping and lurching and here is Jesus, getting wet, maybe even sliding back and forth – and yet he remained a sleep. There are only two ways to sleep through such a storm – narcotics – and lots of them – or utter and complete peace, a peace that has no fear – a peace that is rooted in the truth that there is no power greater than God and his purposes.

If we were able to have asked the disciples the question, “How powerful do you think Jesus is” before they had left the shore I wonder what they would have said – moderately powerful, fairly powerful, potentially powerful? What is clear is that the disciple’s answer would change in the course of this journey.

The storm was violent. When professional and seasoned fishermen are afraid then the storm is bad. Which is shown when the panicked disciples wake him up screaming – “Don’t you care that we are going to die.”

What he does next is a massive learning curve for the disciples – it is like Job hearing that God was now going to question him and educate him – here the disciples are about to get educated because Jesus tells the wind and the storm to be silent – and they were!

Does that not send a shiver up your spine? Jesus Christ proved beyond doubt on this occasion exactly who he is – he is the one who has POWER over nature – over the storms, over tornados and hurricanes.

If that’s not enough for the disciples they then get educated on the fact that Jesus’ power is not limited to just nature. His power is over the spiritual world. They arrive in a gentile territory and a demon-possessed man runs to him and kneels before Jesus. The demon has no choice but to bow the knee before the creator of all things – and he knows his destination – torment. And there is absolutely nothing the demon can do about it – no one to call on to help him. At Jesus’ word he must obey.

The demons MUST do what Jesus commands and simply by Jesus’ word he shows he has POWER over the spiritual realm. And, most importantly for us, he shows he has POWER that stops the demons from destroying this man.

Is this the Jesus you and I know? Is this the Jesus whom we have invited into our lives? Is this the Jesus that walks with us everyday – the one who has the power to command nature – the one who has the power to command the spiritual realm – the one who stops the enemy from destroying us – the one who protects through the storm.

Is this the Jesus you and I know?

This is the Jesus the apostle knew. Paul embodies for us what happens when the knowledge that Jesus is all-powerful becomes a reality in our life.

Paul has been talking to the Corinthians in the previous verses about the fact that we have a heavenly body to come and that we groan for that perfect heavenly place. But before that, all people will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. All people will face what Job faced – being questioned by the God and creator of all things. It is THIS FACT, that ALLL people will face judgment, and that Paul KNOWS the power of Jesus Christ and FEARS the Lord, that drives him to persuade people to believe in Jesus Christ.

For Paul – the driving force of his life is Christ’s love. The Love of Christ controls him, he says, BECAUSE he knows that Jesus Christ DIED for all.

Paul’s message is rooted in the truth that the ALL POWERFUL GOD OF THE UNIVERSE is SO POWERFUL that by becoming a human being he has defeated death through his own death, and demonstrated his power to EVERYONE by rising from the dead in order TO GIVE LIFE AND BE RECONCILED TO ALL WHO BELIEVE IN HIM.

This is how powerful Jesus is for Paul – the one who transforms us into a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.

We must come to know Jesus ourselves in this powerful way.

We must come to know and understand, accept and embrace that Jesus Christ, through his Holy Spirit, who dwells in all believers has power and authority over all creation; over all the spiritual realm; over all disease, over all situations; over all circumstances; over all time and over all space.

As his followers we are ambassadors of this God and of this message -– pleading to the world the power of the gospel.

And here’s the point – we have no power in ourselves. Jesus tells Pilate, the governor of that area in John 19:11 – you would have no power over me unless it had been to you from above. Pilates position and power came from God – God ALLOWED him to have that position.

We must therefore learn to enter the model of POWER that Jesus sets – the model of LETTING GO. The paradox is that Jesus willingly gave up his authority in heaven to become a human being – he went from power to powerlessness, entrusting himself completely to the Father for ALL things, SO THAT, as Paul writes in Romans 1:4, by the resurrection, Jesus was declared to the Son of God in power.

When Jesus walked the earth, he never boasted to people “just wait – you have NO idea just HOW powerful I am”. He gave everything to the Father and did not grasp onto anything himself. The model of Christ is that he did not consider equality with God something to be used for his own advantage. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men.

The great wisdom of knowing Christ – of being his ambassador, of exercising authority in the positions he places us in is to know that it is not our power but his. That we must relinquish back to him whatever power or position, or place of authority we might be given in this world, so that when he calls us to let go of it – we can – obeying him and not our own desires – just as Jesus obeyed the Father.

We must not delude ourselves that we have power – there is only ONE WHO IS TRULY AND COMPLETELY ALL POWERFUL. All authority comes from him – any position we may have comes FROM him and we have it because of HIM. And in whatever position God has given us we are his ambassadors – a representive of Christ. We must obey HIS will – we must do HIS bidding – in church, in our work, in our homes. When we realize this – and know God to be all-powerful – we can stop grasping onto things – we can have peace; we can stop worrying or fretting over power struggles, or who has the authority, or whether we have any authority or not. God does. God gives it and he takes it away. Let’s rest in the powerful God we worship and allow him to be powerful in our lives, so that in the storms of our life, when things are tough, we can allow Jesus and his power to calm the storm. As our Psalmist says this morning – Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
29 He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
30 Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.

Imagine the impact to the Kingdom of God here in Mount Vernon, Ft Belvoir, Alexandria, America, around the world if we truly lived this way.

Of Course, Nature Declares Homosexuality as Unnatural!

The Episcopal Church will be debating and voting on including a liturgy for same sex partnership / marriage services. There is a lot of traffic on this issue on the blogs – not least since the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, rightly, published a letter by the Standing Committee declaring it’s opposition to this move and that they cannot follow the General Convention and the Episcopal Church down this road.

In a discussion I was having on this topic with a journalist friend of mine recently, my friend said something which is very obvious and yet I had not heard – or at least consciously heard. He said that the whole argument about whether homosexuality is ‘natural’ was ridiculous. Nature itself declares homosexuality as unnatural because every single gay person is born through a heterosexual act or process (egg = sperm = embryo – whether sex, or a test tube) – hence homosexuality is declared unnatural by nature itself. Yes, a simple argument – very unoriginal, but quite effective I feel.

Sunday’s Sermon

The drive for Success is a an underlying theme in almost every area of todays life. Even as young as pre-kindergarten, children are being geared towards being ’successful’! Our children are now the youngest and the most tested generation in history. The fact that you can fail kindergarten is a testimony to this.

Of course success is not a bad thing. We are to use the gifts and talents given to us to the very fullest. Christians should never be afraid or ashamed of success personally or professionally.

The issue I would like us to consider, meditate and seek God on this morning is how do you define what success is. What are the parameters by which we can determine that something is successful. It is vital that we define the meaning of success, because if we do not then success almost certainly becomes a problem.

How can success become a problem? In a number of ways. Firstly, without defining what success is you will never be able to determine when you have become successful. Also, success is not limitless, nor endless. There is a time when you have to say – “This is as successful as it can be – and we are happy with that.” Without understanding a definition of success people are pushing for more, and more, and more success. What I find really interesting is that you hear a lot about being successful but you rarely hear of people having succeeded. But as Christians we should be able to know when we have succeeded – and be content int that.

Also, the more successful you are, the bigger you become, the more likely it is that you will face temptations. What type of temptations? Well, temptations such as pride, arrogance and the belief that you and you alone are responsible for the success. Pride, arrogance and the belief you did it all leads people and organizations to make bad decisions – decisions which can not just harm you but harm others as well. As I heard someone say once – the danger is you become a legend in your own mind!

Humility, self awareness, concern for others, and very often justice and truth can be the casualties of success.

That is the point Ezekiel is making this morning in his prophecy to Egypt. They had become hugely successful – a powerful and great nation – in conquest, in ability and technology. The Egyptian empire was utterly impressive. But that did not mean they were truly successful.

Ezekiel tells the Egyptians that as with all mighty empires there is a lesson to be learned. The one vital ingredient for true and lasting success is God at the center. Without that – regardless of how big you become – how great you may think you are or how successful everyone acclaims you to be, you they will fall. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Rome – all great empires – at times untouchable and invincible were all eventually brought down.

So, we must learn to define what success is – and then we will be able to recognize it. What does success look like when it has God at the center.

There are two issues I want us to consider from this mornings readings:

Firstly, unless we partner with God we cannot experience or reach true or lasting success; secondly, and this follows on from last weeks sermon, success is not gauged just by what we see physically.

So, first, Unless we partner with God we cannot be successful.

We must understand and recognize that God is the source and sustainer of all our success. The gifts we have received – the abilities we have – the entrepreneurial attitude – all comes from God. It’s is more than just saying God has blessed me. It is a real, deep recognition that ALL we have and ALL we have achieved is by and through the grace of God. When we recognize God’s role in the success of our life it stops us from becoming prideful and it makes us grateful to God. When we acknowledge God’s role in what we achieve we are partnering WITH God in HIS purposes.

We see this in Jesus. What was Jesus’ mission? How did Jesus define success?

John 5:20 says  “I can do nothing on My own. I judge only as I hear, and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”

John 8:28 “I do nothing on My own. But just as the Father taught Me, I say these things”

Jesus was never, ever an individualist. Jesus never seeks to take the credit for himself. He does only what the Father tells him to do. His success comes because he partners WITH God. Jesus knew who he was, where he came from, where he was going. It was all in and through the Father.

The gospel reading this morning reminds us that spiritual growth is like growing crops. The farmer sows the seed into the ground but he cannot MAKE anything grow – that is out of his hands. He does his part and then he waits. He has to trust the natural process. And the seed grows WITHOUT the continuing work of the farmer! The framer partners with God in the growing of his crops. The farmer does his job – and then the Lord works and the harvest comes. This is why God asks for the firstfruits of the harvest every year in the Old Testament. It is a reminder that the crops grow only through and by the grace of God. The farmer does not take all the credit for the harvest – he must give God his due.

This is so vital for us as a church. We must recognize that the success we have or the ‘growth‘ we have is not just about us. We can and we must do our part – use our gifts – but then we wait just as the farmer waits. We do what we must do and then we await for God to do his work. When we partner WITH God, and do what we must do then we can trust in and rely on the Father to grow the seed.

The growth is never our responsibility nor our success. We are to sow. God will grow it.

The second issue for us to remember is that success is not gauged just by what we see physically .

Jesus goes on to emphases that what appears to be very small, is not necessarily insignificant.

When Jesus began his ministry he announced that the Kingdom of God was at hand. Now, how did it LOOK when Jesus said this? The Romans were still there. The Israelites were still occupied. Where was this kingdom? To what could you point to to say “yes Jesus, I can see that the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

The beginning of the kingdom was small and discouraging. So insignificant was Jesus in terms of the wider culture there are only 3 (and these are disputed) possible brief references to Jesus by 1st century writers outside the Bible. Jesus experienced rejection and left this world as an apparent failure. Last week we saw that we need to look spiritually at situations. Jesus says that the very small can become very large when God makes something grow – when we leave it to the Lord. The mustard seed was a very small seed and yet it’s growth, it’s end result belies it’s small beginnings. A mustard seed could grow into a small tree some 10 to even 15 feet tall! This is why bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to God.

We all know that when Jesus died he had 120 or so followers. Compared to the Sanhedrin; or the local zealots; or probably countless other organizations it is probably quite pathetic. Only 120. Was Jesus not capable of attracting more people?

Do not judge a book by its cover. What may appear small and unimpressive may, in partnership with God, become large, fruitful and useful.

Paul says in our epistle reading that we have been given the Spirit as a down payment. The Holy Spirit – the presence of the living God in each of us, the Spirit that hoovered over the creation, that raised Jesus from the dead is right now in you and I.

And yet we look around and maybe we think that the spirit does not seem very impressive or even a very convincing guarantee or downpayment.
Again we must stop in our judgment of success.

We must not judge the significance of results by the size of the beginnings.

We saw last week that the same spirit which raised Jesus from the dead is in each of us. He is in the church. We may not LOOK like a group of crack spiritual warriors – but in the spirit we are! We may not appear to be massively successful from the world’s standpoint – but if we are partnering with God to fulfill his purposes – and to do the things he is telling us to do then by definition we are successful – and therefore we know that God will grow us and bless us and provide for us.

When we realize that our success is from God, we are able to hold the success in perspective – perspective which allows us to 1. not grow in pride, or arrogance or boastfulness, thinking we are the ones who did it and 2. we are able to recognize the true success behind success .

For all of us our earthly success will diminish. In every area of life, whether you are the head of your field, or company, or division, or church eventually someone else will take over. We may get a portrait in a gallery or a plaque in a wall or even maybe a building named after us but our earthly success is temporary and temporal. When we know our success is from God, then we know that our success is eternal – for when we desire His purposes we know that we desire eternal purposes.

Let me end with the Psalmist.

Those who are planted in the house of the LORD * shall flourish in the courts of our God;

They shall still bear fruit in old age; * they shall be green and succulent;

That they may show how upright the LORD is, * my Rock, in whom there is no fault.

The Sad Situation of Some Biblical Scholars….. .

I was sad to read this by Peter Enns:

I’ve had far too many conversations over the last few years with trained, experienced, and practicing biblical scholars, young, middle aged, and near retirement, working in Evangelical institutions, trying to follow Jesus and use their brains and training to help students navigate the challenging world of biblical interpretation.

And they are dying inside.

Just two weeks ago I had the latest in my list of long conversations with a well-known, published, respected biblical scholar, who is under inhuman stress trying to negotiate the line between institutional expectations and academic integrity. His gifts are being squandered. He is questioning his vocation. His family is suffering. He does not know where to turn.
I wish this were an isolated incident, but it’s not.

Read the rest HERE

This Is Indicative of Many Clergy’s Rejection of God’s Ways and Truth

Giles Fraser is an ordained member of the Church of England and a former dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. He is also an influential writer. His recent article in the Guardian Newspaper shows exactly how distant clergy like Giles Fraser are from God and his ways. The Church of England says it is against gay marriage. Not in my name is Fraser’s rant against the fact that the Church of England has come out against gay marriage. He is ‘spitting blood’ over this – furious that the Church of England has claimed not to be homophobic. Fraser’s anger and disgust shows the intolerance he has towards others who hold a traditional viewpoint and wish to continue in the the traditional teachings of the Church and the problem the Anglican Church is facing. People like Fraser are screaming CIVIL RIGHTS violations against that which is clearly not allowed in the Bible – and then demanding that everyone MUST agree with his position or be seen as bigots and homophobes.

Of course Fraser will discount all the arguments of the Old Testament and New Testament against gay relationships – and many liberals discount the Old Testament as irrelevant citing the ‘unreasonable’ violence and antiquated laws which should not apply today. This is one of the biggest indicators of their incredible lack of understanding or scholarship of the Bible and Old Testament. Moses speaks of Christ – the sacrificial system speaks of CHrist and the Law speaks and point to Christ. ALL the law in the Old Testament comes from the mouth of our loving, righteous, holy heavenly Father. To discount the Law of the OT is to discount everything about God – and so to dismiss the passages of Holy Scripture which speak out against gay relationships is a dangerous thing to do.

William Webb has written a fabulous book called Slaves, Women and Homosexuals. He shows that the Bible clearly has a redemptive movement towards Slaves and women (i.e. slaves and women are to be treated better under the law than any other ancient nation would allow) – but that NEVER happens with homosexuality – it is always condemned and there is no redemptive movement in scripture towards its acceptance.

This does not mean God hates homosexuals. Of course not. He loves them and desires that they be in full relationship with Him. But the fact is God does not allow homosexuality to be a good or righteous lifestyle choice, just as as God does not allow promiscuity among heterosexuals to be a good or righteous lifestyle choice.

But to say that gay people can be married in the way that God ordained marriage is not just wrong – but impossible. Marriage CAN ONLY be between a man and a woman. And to advocate not just a civil move towards same sex marriage but to demand that christian churches HAVE to marry gay people and thus violate God’s words is something that for many christian leaders and clergy just won’t happen. And when even Anglican clerics move away from this fundamental biblical truth and yet claim to be leaders in the church we have a massive problem. Although it is a problem that even Jesus encountered when he faced the Pharisees and the Scribes and their perversion of the law of God to suit their own beliefs and desires.

Sunday’s Sermon

036 Proper 5 Year B
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We have all experienced moments of doubt, haven’t we. Self-doubt can come from within or without. It could be from an event, or a even a comment from someone challenging your competency.

Self-doubt is incredibly destructive. And it is one of the weapons used against the Church and Christians by the enemy.

Genesis 3 tells us that the serpent was cunning, more cunning than any beast of the field. He does not come against God and what God had said directly. No – he is subtle. What he does is to begin to sow seeds of doubt into Adam and Eve’s mind. I say Adam and Eve because Adam is almost certainly standing next to eve as this conversation takes place as v6 shows, and he does not intervene.

The doubt that the serpent sows is very, very powerful. First he slightly twists God’s words to Adam. “”Did God say, `You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” Now the serpent knows full well what God actually said. What he is doing is setting Eve up. The issue is not WHAT he said, but WHY he said it. Eve corrects the serpent, although her correction is not right – she too misquotes God. And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;
[3] but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

Of course, God did not say that to touch it would result in death. Eve shows she is not certain what God has said. And so the serpent lowers the boom:

“You will not die.
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Satan effectively questions God’s motive in forbidding Adam and Eve from eating the fruit.

The serpent has now placed into Eve’s mind doubt. And what is that doubt? That God is holding back on them. She is doubting the fullness of God’s word to her. Satan has weaved a suggestion into her mind that the reason why God forbids them to eat from this tree is because it would benefit them to do so in a way God does want to them to experience.

And when that thought hit home for Eve and then Adam the horrific damage was done – they doubted God’s word to them and they doubted God’s goodness to them.

If the enemy can force us off the path of complete trust in God; if satan can get believers to begin to doubt God – to get them to think that God is holding back something – whether it’s a blessing, or a healing, a job, or a baby, or a spouse, or finance – if we get tot he point of thinking “why is God holding back this blessing from me” then the enemy has done his job.

I have said this before – satan is not looking so much to have Christians lose their faith – or to turn them so that they would become unbelievers. For the most part that can’t happen. What satan wants to do is for us to live our life without deep, trusting faith; without the peace of God ruling in our lives; without joy; without happiness; without experiencing the destiny and fullness God has for us in this life.

If we can become ineffective, fearful, oppressed, joyless, pessimistic and doubting then we have become useless for the kingdom of God. We ourselves will go to be with the Lord when we die, but we would have wasted the life God had given us on earth and satan would be delighted with that.

This is the tactic that satan used against Jesus and his ministry. Our gospel reading shows us two ways that satan went after Jesus. The first was to try and sow seeds of doubt into the hearts and minds of those who SAW Jesus’ ministry. Throughout the gospels, the opposition of the pharisees and the sadducees was extremely significant. Because they were the established religious rulers – the historic episcopacy if you like – their opposition to Jesus caused people to doubt Jesus’ claims and even his signs. In this account satan is using the scribes. The accusation was that Jesus’ ability to drive OUT demons was in fact a demonic gift. In the light of how Jesus’ responds to this issue; if a kingdom is divided against itself how can it stand; we may think this is a somewhat lame and pathetic attempt. Yet consider who the scribes were. These were the teachers of the law – the experts in the law. ALL they did was study the hebrew scriptures and they were entrusted as judges in the sanhedrin. If 95% of the senate and 95% of the house of representatives and the president all said that a particular personw as wrong – would you defy them?

The fact that Jesus’ response blew the Scribes argument out of the water is somewhat irrelevant. Doubt has been sown into peoples hearts, simply because the scribes rejected Jesus.

You see this in the fourth gospel, chapter 7 – the people are looking for Jesus at a feast: The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?”
[12] And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.”
[13] Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.

The fear of the Jews – the fear of being thrown out of the synagogue; the fear of being ostracized.

The second way that satan attempts to derail Jesus’ ministry is through his own family. Having sown deeds of doubt amongst the people, Jesus now is confronted with the doubts of his own family. V21 says that the family had come to ‘seize’ him because he was beside himself. Well, the RSV is being polite – the more literal rendering is “he is out of his mind.”

Again, imagine the situation. Your son, your brother is causing ripples amongst the highest levels of your nations hierarchy and saying things which sound as if he is the Messianic hope which had been promised by the prophets!

They had begun to doubt Jesus, they had begun to doubt his state of mind, and their doubt was an attempt to make Jesus doubt his own ministry and calling – something which never happened.

From the moment Jesus left the peaceful refuge of the workshop where he had learned his trade as young boy and the quite village of Nazareth to begin his public ministry, Jesus was bombarded with doubt and accusations and attempts to discredit him, to derail his ministry and, through the temptations by the devil, to deny his destiny.

And yet Jesus never once had doubted his ministry, nor his Father’s goodness to him, nor his destiny.

My friends, the enemy will do all he can to bring your faith down to a point of being ineffective. And he will use many things, including disillusionment, troubles, disappointments and, of course, doubt.

We are all going to experience the waves of doubt. But we must be both prepared and equipped to fight those waves off.

We begin by keeping our focus on Jesus and his ways in every area of our life. In our epistle reading look what Paul says – if you have your bulletin at hand follow me as I read it: knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
[15] For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
[16]
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day.

[17] For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
[18] because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Now the context to what he says here is found at the beginning of the chapter. He is telling the Corinthians not to lose heart or to doubt. Yes, the Christian life is hard. Yes, the ministry is hard. The gospel can seemed veiled because people do not see it. But Paul encourages them to keep preaching the gospel of Christ. And Paul contrasts the fact that our bodies while fragile, earthen vessels, have the excellence of the power of God in them.

So, even though We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;

[9] persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
[10] always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies, we must not give up – nor are we to not lose heart.

The key for Paul is to focus on what is NOT seen. We have become so conditioned to simply look to the natural, even as Christians. We let the natural have supremacy in our thinking and we too often ignore the spiritual realities. This means that when we focus on what we can see, we can doubt the promises of God because we start to try and work out HOW something can change. But our own working out usually does not work. How can anything good come from this mess? How can this situation EVER be turned around? From our own perspective, it can’t – we see no way out and this leads to despair and a lose of peace and even panic.

But that is when we must look into the eternal, spiritual realm. We look into the promises of God and then we see that our God can do all things – no economic situation, or national crisis limits our God or reduces his power. Therefore we can trust in him – have faith and trust in him to do what he has promised to do, and to lead us, take care of us and uphold us.

Paul says that even our suffering – our affliction is but for a moment compared to eternity. We have eternity inside of us by the Holy Spirit. We are being renewed spiritually every day. What most of us SEES every day is our bodies growing old and failing with aches and pains and grey hairs. But the REALITY is that we are being prepared for life in the presence of Jesus and we will live for eternity. DO you feel this morning that you will live forever?

When we hold that vision front and center – when we see the glorious wonders that our trust in god has given us – then we can face the waves of doubt head on and then say – “No – I do not doubt because what I know is true: He who raised Jesus from the dead WILL, WILL raise you and I up WITH Jesus and present us into the presence of our lord and Saviour!!

So when doubt comes, when the enemy seeks to rob you of your peace, joy and hope, look to the Lord – look to the eternal – As our Psalm proclaims:

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
[6] my soul waits for the LORD
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
[7] O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
and with him is plenteous redemption.

Overview of Numbers

Numbers is probably one of the most difficult books in the OT in terms of “what on earth is going on”.

Numbers is filled with a mixture of things – narrative, additional laws, census lists, oracles from a pagan prophet (Balaam) and it is not easy to see how it all fits together.

To understand Numbers you need to remember the driving force of the Pentateuch as a whole – God’s promise / covenant with Abraham that his seed would inherit the land of Canaan. This is what underlines everything in the book of Numbers. God WILL bring about the fulfillment of this promise, even in the face of Israel’s reluctance and disobedience.

A summary of the content of Numbers: The Israelites long stay in the desert as they journey from Mount Sinai to the Plains of Moab – a journey which takes them 38 years. During the journey they are given supplemental covenant laws.

A summary of the Emphasis of Numbers: Preparation for military conquest of the promised land – God’s covenant loyalty towards Israel – Israel’s repeated failure to keep covenant with God – God’s leadership of his people and His affirmation of Moses’ leadership; preparation for entering and worshipping in the promised.

The book itself opens with a Census – The Lord spoke to Moses…. a pattern seen in Exodus.

So Moses, in Chps 1 & 2 takes a census of the people and then tells them to camp around the Tabernacle – Num. 2:1-2   1 The LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron: 2 “Every one2 of the Israelites must camp3 under his standard with the emblems of his family;4 they must camp at some distance5 around the tent of meeting

The purpose of the census is to list all those who were to be fighting men for the coming conquest of the land of Canaan. According to Num 1:1 this takes places on the first day of the second month the second year after God brought them out of Egypt.

Israel is being prepared, as we saw last week, to be God’s people, and to take the claim of Canaan in order to do the work of the Lord.

One of the characteristics of Numbers is that the people of Israel are not shown in a good light at all.

Chp 11:1 When the people complained; 11:4-5 If only we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we used to eat freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic. But now we are all fried up and there is nothing at all before us except this manna! 16:1ff Now Korah son of Izhar the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the son of Eliab and On son of Peleth who were Reubenites took men and rebelled against Moses. 20:3ff The people contended with Moses saying, ‘If only we had died when our brothers died before the Lord. Chp 21:4-9

Each time Israel complains God punished them. They should have known better. They had witnessed untold miracles and still they refused to trust in God’s provision for them, even wishing they were back in slavery.

But in the middle of this complaining and grumbling something goes horribly for the wrong for the Israelites.

Chp 13 – Spies are sent out to look at the land and coming back they all, apart from joshua and Caleb, say that Israel cannot win. They show their distrust of God’s power, despite knowing how he defeated Egypt.

God punishes them by promising they will not dwell in the land:

Num. 14:20   Then the LORD said, “I have forgiven them as you asked.36 21 But truly, as I live,37 all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD. 22 For all the people have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tempted38 me now these ten times,39 and have not obeyed me,40 23 they will by no means41 see the land that I swore to their fathers, nor will any of them who despised me see it. 24 Only my servant Caleb, because he had a different spirit and has followed me fully–I will bring him into the land where he had gone, and his descendants42 will possess it. 25 (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites were living in the valleys.)43 Tomorrow, turn and journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”

Now begins their long desert journey. Numbers overs the 38 years they are in the desert as the original generation, except Joshua and Caleb die.

In this period of ‘wandering’ in the desert the Israelites are prepared for warfare.They encounter hostile Canaan and Amorites Kings who come to fight and God tells the Israelites to attack the Midianites. Scholars talk about this being the second stage of the Holy War. The first stage – against Pharaoh in exodus was carried out by God himself, extracting his people fro Egypt and killing the Egyptian army. This second stage is the conquest of the land and this stage requires the people’s co-operation and participation.

Hence, after the 38 years, a second census is called by God, so that the second generation will be recorded and ready to take the land God had promised them. The Israelites were now by the Jordan opposite Jericho and ready to go!

Num 26:2-3 “Take a census of the whole community of Israelites, from twenty years old and upward, by their clans,3 everyone who can serve in the army of Israel.”4 3 So Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan River5 across from Jericho

God’s promises will come true – He is patient – he is true and even in the midst of our failings, our sins, our mistakes, God’s promises will happen.

Two things stand out very importantly in Numbers – firstly, is the constant challenge to Moses and Aaron’s leadership.

Chp 16 we see korah challenging Moses. Some of this is jealousy – v3 Why then do you exalt yourself above the community of the Lord – most of it is about the fact that things are not going the way they thought it would go.

The issue here is not that Korah thinks God has NOT spoken to Moses – or that Moses is doing something that God has said NOT to do. The issue is korah does not LIKE what is happening

Following the Lord’s calling, both individually and together as a community is not about a free ride – that everything goes smoothly, without any hitch or challenges. It can be HARD, the challenges can be huge and the outlook can sometimes look bleak EVEN when you follow the way of the Lord.

Korah wanted things his way in his own time. That’s not how things are done – and when we push our own agendas and our own ways and our own timings we rebel against God. This is why Korah’s punishment is so dramatic.

The second thing is the narrative about the pagan prophet Balaam.

Here we have a wonderful image that when you walk in the paths of the Lord, you shall be protected. Notice something here. This is going on behind the back of Israel. Apart from the fact that God obviously tells Moses what happened so to put it in the book, this whole episode is happening without the Israelites knowledge.

If you were aware of every spiritual battle that took place over your life you would be terrified.

The King of Moabites goes to Balaam in order to curse the Israelites. The fact that God intervenes to speak to and direct Balaam shows that this was a real issue – the curing of the Israelites would have had consequences.

Yet God intervenes. Balaam is unable to prophecy a curse against the Israelites to the chagrin of the king.

The big theme then of Numbers is that despite ISrael’s sins, wafflings and complaints, this is above all God’s story and God will keep and fulfill his part of the covenant with Abraham.

The issue is whether Israel will keep the covenant with God – and Numbers reminds you over and over again that the divine provision for them to do is always ready at hand.

There are some major events in Numbers which are mentioned elsewhere in Scripture – Joshua and Caleb alone think Israel can take the promised land (Num 13-14 / Jos 14:7); Moses striking the rock and water coming out (Num 20:11 / Ps 106:32); Moses lifting up a bronze serpent on a pole so that believing Israelites may be healed (Num 21:6-9 / John 3:14) & Balaam was rebuked by his donkey (num 22:21 / rev 2:14).

OK, to sum up – in this book the people of God tested God’s patience and he in turn tested their endurance and faithfulness. Though the people failed many times God showed his own faithfulness by his constant presence leading the way.

What can Numbers teach us? Well, the apostle Paul helps here: 1 Cor 10:1-6 says:   For I do not want you to be unaware,1 brothers and sisters,2 that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized3 into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they were all drinking from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. 5 But God was not pleased with most of them, for they were cut down in the wilderness. 6 These things happened as examples for us, so that we will not crave evil things as they did.

Let’s not doubt the goodness of God – even when we feel we are in the wilderness – let’s rejoice in his provision for us, even when it may appear mundane and let us not crave other things beyond what God has for us. A re we grumbling? Are we rebellious? Can we be like the Israelites?

Trinity Sunday

Our Psalm this morning gives us a wonderful and glorious image of our God. It speaks of Him as one who reigns – robed in majesty and armed with strength – mighty, holy and eternal. Paul writes in his first epistle to timothy that God is: the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

So, how is it that if God is so majestic, if God lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see, how is it that we can have a relationship with Him this morning.

Well today is Trinity Sunday and we are going to look together at how it is we can not just know about, but have an intimate relationship with this majestic, holy and eternal God?.

The first thing we need to understand stand is that we are unable to know ANYTHING about God expect for that which God has revealed to us.

Without God directly revealing himself to us, we would know NOTHING about God. We may have known something OF God – through the magnificence of creation and the power of nature, but we are unable to discover anything ABOUT God without His direct intervention.

That was one of the major distinctions between Yahweh and the other ‘gods’ such as Baal. Ancient pagan worshippers had no idea what their ‘god’ wanted from them. They would pray for rain for crops but if their crops failed they would pray harder. And if that did not work they may have cut themselves. And if that did not work, they would have sacrificed something and if that would not work, then they may have killed a child. Their whole system was about trying to get their god to act, with no knowledge of how to appease their god.

Yahweh reveals himself to humanity and through the words he speaks shows the people EXACTLY what he wants and how to do it. We are left in no doubt about what God wants and how we are to approach him BECAUSE he has revealed himself to us.

Our God is a God who reveals himself. He is a God of revelation. Theologians speak of two types of revelation – General revelation – that which we discern from nature – from which we may conclude that their IS a God. But their is also special revelation – revelation which is given BY God so that we can know WHO he is.

Moses experiences Special Revelation in our Old Testament reading this morning. Moses, while going about his normal day, sees a sight which catches his curiosity. A bush on fire and yet not being consumed. As he approaches the bush God speaks to him: This is holy ground, he tells Moses. He then reveals himself to Moses: I am the God of abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Without this, Moses would never have found Yahweh – he would never have discovered his destiny – God HAD to reveal himself to Moses in order for Moses to know what to do.

Our God is a God who reveals himself to us – not just to show us who he is – but to also reveal to us our destinies and to show us why we are on earth. God’s revelation to us gives us purpose.

So why does God reveal himself to Moses in a burning bush? Well, Fire is a common theme in both exodus and the scriptures to describe God.

Ex. 13:21 By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.
Ex. 14:24 During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion.
Ex. 19:18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountainb trembled violently.
Ex. 24:17 To the Israelites the glory of the LORD looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.

Lev. 10:2 So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.

Deut. 4:24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Also this fire is a cleansing fire – a purifying fire – Malachi says: Mal. 3:2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.

If God revealed himself in his full majesty we would be unable to take it – in fact we would probably be consumed. If God had revealed his full fire that day in the desert Moses would probably have been incinerated. God reveals himself in a way we can both understand AND endure.

God revealed some of His power and holiness to Moses to show Him who He was and that what He said was true.

Another way God reveals himself is in such a way as to invite us into a relationship with Him. God walked with Adam in the Garden of Eden – he was not a distant God, but one who showed Himself and wanted to be in relationship with us. After the fall that we were separated from God but God promised to restore that relationship and in the Old Testament he restores that divine presence with his people through the building of the Tabernacle. The tabernacle was the sign of God’s presence upon the earth with his people – he dwelt with his people and his glory rested on the Tabernacle (Ex 40).

Jesus is the ultimate expression of this. He came to earth and dwelt with his people. God reveals himself to his people this time by becoming a Human being and dwelling amongst his people in order to teach, bless and heal.

Paul describes this majestically in his epistle to the Colossians:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

For us today, God has continued to reveal himself, in and through the Holy Spirit. Last week we celebrated Pentecost which marked the beginning of the New Covenant – the fire falls on the disciples, who have seen the revealed son of God and now they are equipped to proclaim the message of the God who reveals himself to all people – a message which promises that everyone who believes will also receive the spirit and know the revelation of God intimately in their lives.

Paul says in our Epistle reading this morning that The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. The Spirit in us reveals to us that we are God’s children – children will all the rights and inheritances of a child. The Holy Spirit in us does many things – among them is the testimony to us of who we are in Christ. The HS in us is meant to witness to our Spirits that we are indeed God’s children – that we are His and His alone.

This is what Jesus was trying to get Nicodemus to see. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born of water and the spirit (or wind) to be saved – in other words Nicodemus must KNOW this inward testimony of God’s revelation through the Holy Spirit and for Nicodemus to experience this he must be born of water and the spirit.

This basically means he must be cleansed and filled with the Spirit. As soon as Jesus mentioned water and the spirit Nicodemus woudl have almost certainly thought of two Old Testament passages:

Is. 44:3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams. Some will say, ‘I belong to the LORD’; others will call themselves by the name of Jacob; still others will write on their hand, ‘The LORD’s,’ and will take the name Israel.

Ezek. 36:25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

The fact that God reveals himself, the fact that God shows people who he is, is in order that they may accept him and be cleansed and receive the Holy Spirit.

Why is it important to believe God is Trinitarian? Because ONLY THE Trinitarian God is able to reveal himself to humanity. Only a trinitarian God can reveal himself to humanity and remain Holy and unapproachable. Only a trinitarian God can come and live on earth as a full human being and die for the sins of the world and remain untainted by sin. Only a trinitarian God can promise to dwell inside every single believer by the Holy Spirit.

Unless you have a Trinitarian God, there can be no salvation; without a Trinitarian God there is no atonement for sins. How could God have been born as a human being, emptying himself of his divinity, and still remain sovereign over the universe? How could God know what love is and how to love if he has spent eternity alone before creating the world? Only a God who has been in a perfect eternal relationship in the trinity can know and then create in his image beings who can love.

God has to be Trinitarian to be the God who loves us and who has rescued us from sin. No other God is able to save.

You Have Been Gifted!

As a Church plant of only 5 years old we meet in an Elementary School. Our people do a fabulous job in turning our meeting space into a worship space!

Most Sundays I leave my briefcase at the back of the room, often opened so people can drop notes or things I need to action into it.

After the service Sunday I was gathering my notes for the Adult Education Class when I noticed a box. Here is a picture of it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The writing says “Andy,you have been gifted. Enjoy!”

And what was inside?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An IPAD!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Someone gifted me an iPad! It really was a massive surprise and one for which I am very, very grateful.

THANK YOU!!

Theology of Adoption

I reads this week in the newspaper that a woman has been fined $150,000 and ordered to pay $1000 per month to a child she adopted from Russia and then returned.

Apparently, she put the boy on a flight back home to russia with a note claiming that the boy had become disturbed and violent.

I am glad she has been told to provide for the child until he is 18 years old. She argued that the adoption had been nullified by a Russian court – but of course adoption cannot be nullified. If you adopt a child they become yours – as if they are your blood child – and you have to deal with what a child becomes just as every parent has to. Just because you ‘adopted’ a child, you cannot return them if they are not the perfect person you wanted.

The theology of adoption is probably one of the most under-utilized theologies of the christian faith. Many, many years ago i read Rev. Dr Mark Stibbe’s book, From Orphans to Heirs and it opened by mind (and heart) to the reality of the fact that God has adopted us as sons and daughters.

Just as when a Roman adopted a child, and that child took on the name and authority of the father and could then transact business in the name of the father, so we have become children of God through his adoption of us. Imagine God deciding to send us back because we have bad days, or are often unreasonable, or even disobedient. No, god doe snot do that. Adoption is a a powerful, powerful message for us. He will not discard us because of our failures and faults. Indeed he will be patient with us, love us, mold us and draw us closer to himself – because when he adopted us we became his children.

May’s Pastoral Letter – Do Not Despise The Day of Small Things

Dear Parish Family

Twenty years after the return of the Jews into Judah after the Babylonian Exile, discouragement had set in. The great rejoicing at their homecoming – the hopes of establishing the temple and worship and reclaiming the promised land had all stalled. Instead only the foundation had been laid and the Jews faced strong opposition.

The book of Zechariah is a prophecy from God aimed at encouraging the Jews. Don’t worry, God tells Zechariah. My purposes will be accomplished. In chapter 4:10 the Lord warns Zechariah, “Who dares despise the day of small things…”

This is a warning for us today.

We all want the big things now, don’t we?

As a church we want to grow NOW. We want our own building NOW.

Yes, we understand that we have to start small, but we can’t wait for the day when we are bigger, better and in our own space.

But I believe the Lord is saying to us – Do not despise the day of small things.

We must learn to be faithful in what God has given us. We must be faithful and true in our smallness. For this is where the Lord has placed us at this time and here, we are to rejoice and give thanks.

Patience in the small things is vital for godly leadership and for a godly church. Moses was a shepherd for 40 years. For 40 years he wondered around the desert of Midian taking care of sheep and goats. Jesus was a carpenter for 20 years, quietly working in a small town in Judah. And yet for both, they were being prepared for the calling God had for them.
God is preparing us, both individually and as a church, and if we neglect this period of preparation it will mar our future ministry and effectiveness.

God is teaching us and preparing us. We may be impatient, but we must remember that God’s timetable is perfect and we must not rush ahead of God. It is OK to have visions, goals and dreams. It is in fact vital to have such things. But we must never have these to the extent of despising where we are now.

It is in the small things that God builds character. Paul reminds us in Romans 5:3-5 that we never get the crown without first bearing the cross.

That was Jesus’ point in Luke 16:10. He says, Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

The Lord is teaching us to be trustworthy in the small things, for when we are trustworthy in the small things He WILL give us much. When we rejoice in being humble, he will lift us up.

• Luke 14:11 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
 
• Luke 18:14 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
 
• James 4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

 
• 1Pet. 5:6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

So, my friends, let us not despise the day of small things, but rejoice in where we are now. Let us give thanks to our God. Let us gather each week to praise his name – to worship, to commit ourselves to serving Him in the place He has put us. Let us prepare ourselves to be faithful each day, each week in what God has given us. And then we will be ready to be faithful in what God WILL give us in the future.

Bless you all

Andy

A Recent Sermon: 1 Kings 19; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Mark 9:2-9

We have all encountered discouragement in one form or another. It can come to us in many ways and forms; through a piece of bad news, doubt about ourselves, a fear of the future, a project not going as well as expected.

For a Christian discouragement is one of the easiest and most dangerous things to fall into and therefore it is something we must actively guard against.

There’s an old fable that says the Devil once held a sale and offered all the tools of his trade to anyone who would pay their price. They were spread out on the table and each one labeled. Hatred, malice, envy, despair, sickness, sensuality – all the weapons that everyone knows so well. But off to one side lay a harmless looking wood-shaped instrument marked “discouragement.” It was old and worn looking but it was priced far about the rest. When asked the reason why, the Devil replied, “Because I can use this one so much more easily than the others. No one knows that it belongs to me, so with it I can open doors that are tightly bolted against the others. Once I get inside I can use any tool that suits me best.”

J. O. Fraser said, “Discouragement is a ploy of the devil to get a foot hole in our lives in order to destroy our effectiveness as Christians.”

This is very true. Discouragement is the gateway into which despair, anger, envy, depression and much more can enter our lives.

Discouragement can creep up on us suddenly – just one event; just one phone call can begin the slide.

William Ward has one of the best definitions of discouragement: Discouragement is dissatisfaction with the past, distaste for the present, and distrust of the future. It is ingratitude for the blessings of yesterday, indifference to the opportunities of today, and insecurity regarding strength for tomorrow. It is unawareness of the presence of beauty, unconcern for the needs of our fellowman, and unbelief in the promises of old. It is impatience with time, immaturity of thought, and impoliteness to God.

Discouragement happens when we make a negative judgment about what the future holds based on what we see or have encountered in the present or the past. The negative judgment may not be accurate or even true, but once we make that judgment our lives begin to revolve around it. Our whole outlook and focus become based on the judgment we have made regardless of whether its true or not.

Let me give you a trival example of this. Friday night at 4:30pm your boss says that he wants to see you at 9:00am on Monday morning in his office. You spend the whole weekend convinced that you are going to be fired. You are grumpy, irritated with your family and frantic with worry. You start to convince yourself life is about to become tough and maybe unbearable. You doubt yourself and think that you are useless – you can’t even hold a job down. Monday morning comes and you find that your boss wanted to congratulate you on a fine job done and to talk about future projects for you to be involved with.

Mark Twain perceptively said, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

The issue is that discouragement takes our eyes of God, makes us doubt God’s goodness to us, His care for us; it makes us doubt ourselves and it allows the enemy to shake us.

Charles H. Spurgeon wrote: “Discouragement creeps over my heart and makes me go with heaviness to my work. It is dreadfully weakening.”

We must learn to fight against discouragement as Christians and as a Church. I know you have faced discouragement in the past and there will be many times as a Church we will be tempted to be discouraged in the future. It will come. But may I be so bold as to suggest that a Christian, who keeps both their spiritual as well as their physical eyes open really should never fall into discouragement. With our eyes fixed on God we will be able to see beyond the physical situation and see the spiritual truths and reality which gives us what we need to combat what we face.

I say that knowing that we all will feel the beginnings of discouragement. Some of the very greatest men of scripture experienced discouragement. We see depression and discouragement from Moses, Joshua, Hezekiah, Job, and Jeremiah. Discouragement will try to drag us down, but we must be able to repel it when it does come.

Our passage from the Old Testament is about Elijah and his battle with discouragement.

We all know the background to this passage – Elijah has just had a stunning victory over the priests of Baal in chp 18. Elijah challenged them to a test of their respective gods. Each prepared an altar and a sacrifice and then the Baal priests called on Baal to come and receive the sacrifice. They shouted and cried and even cut themselves but nothing happened. Elijah then calls on God and the sacrifice on the stone altar, which has been drench with water, was consumed with fire from heaven. A stunning and awesome sign of God’s power. Elijah has the priests of Baal killed. And then Elijah receives a letter from Jezebel, who is somewhat miffed at Elijah’s victory and she says to him So let the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. And then Elijah flees for his life.

The threat of the future – that Jezebel will try and kill him, overrides everything else and Elijah becomes scared and runs.

Discouragement makes us act in unreasonable ways and there is no more of an unreasonable reaction than Elijah, who having proved that there is no other god that his God – a God who can cause fire to fall from heaven – than running from a threat of Jezebel.

All of a sudden Elijah’s ministry is stalled and he has hidden in a cave.

Notice two things: Firstly, God comes to Elijah. What are you doing here Elijah? What a wonderful word! God seeks out Elijah and asks him why he is in the cave. We cannot go anywhere to be out of the reach of God’s eye, his arm or his word. God knew where Elijah was and he always knows where we are – physically and spiritually.

There is no reason why Elijah should be in the cave but the Lord wants to listen to his child and gives Elijah the opportunity to pour out his heart. His description is dramatic and has inaccuracies in it. We all tend to over exaggerate when we are discouraged: “Everything has fallen apart” “My life has come to an end” “I’ll never recover” “Everyone hates me”. God bids him to come and stand before him – as a child of God and as a prophet should do. We are given the authority to stand before God in our prayers and Elijah should have gone to God first instead of hiding – just as we should always go to God instead of hding. God then reveals himself in wind, earthquake and fire, all of which are associated with God’s advent:

2Sam. 22:11 “And He rode on a cherub and flew;
And He 1appeared on the wings of the wind.
Psa. 11:6 Upon the wicked He will rain 1snares;
Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.
Is. 29:6 From the LORD of hosts you will be punished with thunder and earthquake and loud noise,
With whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a consuming fire.

But the most powerful manifestation is found in the small voice – in the WORD of God. It is through His Word that we know God and know of his promises and truths to us.

Notice secondly that it is through his Word that God tackles Elijah’s discouragement, refocuses Elijah onto his calling and ministry and corrects Elijah’s erroneous thinking – go and do what I have called you to do and you are not the only prophet left.

The word of God is the source of helping us from discouragement. God comes to us through the Word of God and by the Holy Spirit and gives us the truths we need to refocus back on the Lord.

I wonder if God might be saying to some of us this morning What are you doing here? Maybe you have become discouraged and have hidden in a cave of self pity. Maybe it seems everything is against you and you can’t see the wood for the trees.

God is calling you to look back at him. How? Listen to his word. Hear his promises. Hear his truths. Set aside your false judgment of the future with the true truth of Christ.

Peter says that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. When we read scripture we know it comes from God to us, not by man to us. We must grasp this fact – that the Bible is God’s truth TO US.

There is no future, no matter how bad we can imagine it to be that can overcome the future God has for us as his Children.

We all need to guard ourselves from falling into discouragement. And even Jesus recognized this fact.

For many the transfiguration is a mystery. Why does this happen? Jesus knew that the disciples where going to be shaken when he died and even after his resurrection there will temptation to doubt everything that had happened to question what they experienced. Here Jesus gives them a glimpse of his glory to show that his sufferings were voluntary. Jesus could at any point have returned to the glory of heaven. He choose not to. We have the representation of the law, Moses and the prophets, Elijah talking to Jesus. Why? Jesus fulfills the law and the prophets and Elijah and Moses represent the law and the prophets. Why are there three disciples? Three was the number of witnesses needed to verify an event – these three were to be the witnesses to the rest of the disciples to stop them being discouraged in the time after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Hence Jesus’ command not to speak of this until after his resurrection.

Jesus provided the disciples all they needed to keep them from being consumed by discouragement. Peter, John and James could attest to the glorious manifestation of Jesus.

And all we need to keep us from discouragement is found in our living active relationship with God – in his word to us and the testimony of the spirit which dwells in us.

When you feel discouragement beginning to rear it’s ugly head we must tell ourselves over and over again of God’s word, his promises and the Lord’s history in being faithful to us. As the Psalmist did in his depression and discouragement, we say to ourselves:

Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance Psalms 42:5

Sad News

Unfortunately, Monday morning, my brother in law (my wife’s brother) passed away at the age of 47 from bowel cancer. Although Richard had been ill since August 2011, his diagnosis and then death was very quick – shockingly so. Being 3700 miles away is somewhat tough for my wife right now. But she will travel back to the UK as soon as funeral arrangements are finalized. Fortunately she saw her brother for two weeks in February, although she had no inclination that that would be the last time she would see him.

May the Lord have mercy upon his soul!

Sermon – 4th Sunday In Lent – 2 Chron 36:14-23; Eph 2:4-10 & John 6:4-15

What does Mercy look like to you. Do you have an image of what mercy entails? What do we mean and expect from God when we say in our Liturgy “Lord Have Mercy Upon Us?” The dictionary defines mercy as having compassion or forgiveness toward someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.

The misconception that I think we have is that we can regard mercy as a passive action only. We tend to think of mercy as a THOUGHT – a mental ascent – I will forgive you, or I will not exercise the punishment you deserve. This tends to be because, for us, mercy is usually reactive – someone does something TO us and we respond.

The biblical understanding of mercy is far more than this.. Mercy is not passive. In fact, with God, it’s just the opposite – God’s mercy is very active. God’s mercy is about ACTION – sometimes very intense action – and it is also proactive. In other words god acts in order to BRING ABOUT a situation where he can show mercy!

Our reading from 2 Chronicles is an example of this. God’s chosen people have walked away from the ways of God. Being God’s people is more than a status – it is more than just being THE PEOPLE – it requires interaction with God. God had laid out very explicitly how it was that His people can have and stay in relationship with Him.

The people had chosen to ignore this. They ignored God and they ignored God’s ways.

So what does God do. Does he wait for his people to return to Him with their tails between their legs. Is he waiting for them to come to their senses and say sorry?

No. God sends messenger after messenger to his people – prophet after prophet – to tell the people to change – to turn back to him. Why? Because, he had compassion on His people. God is active and proactive in getting His people to recognize his compassion and mercy. It is over hundreds of years that God sends his prophets to tell HIS people to stop walking away from Him.

God’s mercy is patient.

How patient is he with us? How patient is he with his church? Outrageously patient. The religious leaders of Israel, the priests and the officers were unfaithful to God and this has meant that the people are also unfaithful. The nation from the top down had not just turned away from God, they had begun to follow other God’s. This is not about the breaking of some religious rituals. God desired an intimate relationship with His people – they were in a covenant. So, for God’s people to be worshipping other God’s was literally them committing adultery. That is what the whole book of Hosea illustrates.

How patient has God been with you and I – when we get it wrong when we ignore him, when we fail to do the things he has asked of us? When we are unfaithful to Him because we put our love into other things than God? God is Infinitely patient with us. He has not given us what we deserve, but time and time again he has given us what we do not deserve.

And notice, that the messengers that God sends – these prophets – are in a minority. Their message is one that goes against the entire direction of the culture of their day.

One of the prophets sent to tell the Israelites to return to God is Jeremiah. He becomes a lone voice – a minority against the huge majority who are defying God.

We must remember an important principle, one that we can only touch on this morning. It is this. To be in the majority does not mean you are necessarily right your thinking or position – the majority can be wrong – just as being in a minority does not mean you are wrong or mis-guided. A minority in scripture often has another name – a remnant; God’s people who stood against the tide of unfaithfulness to him.

God is patient in his Mercy, sending prophets to warn his people.

But the people refuse to listen. What a dangerous place to put oneself – ignoring the words, the commands, the pleading and the petition of the living God.

The consequence is that God sends Babylon against Israel. Jerusalem is destroyed and the people of God sent into exile for a generation – 70 years.

Has God’s mercy ended?

No. But how can sending an army to destroy the nation of Israel and send them into exile be merciful?

When we persistently ignore God he will get our attention – and that may sometimes require what we would consider extreme action. God’s judges Israel for it’s rebellion but his judgment is NEVER, NEVER devoid of mercy in scripture. Even in God’s judgment there is mercy and that is shown by the fact that Israel survives. And why does God judge Israel? Because he has lost his patience? No. His purpose is two fold. 1. The covenant God made with Israel had blessings and curses. Blessings if the people followed the ways of God and curses if they did not. God is a God of His word – and so if Israel disobeyed Him God, to keep his covenant HAD to judge them. 2. This means that the point of God’s judgment is to make Israel turn BACK to God.

God’s mercy is active & proactive. God acts now in order that Israel may be shown mercy in the future.

God’s active mercy is both physical and spiritual. We see in our Gospel reading physical mercy – the crowd is hungry and from the other gospels we know Jesus had compassion on them and he tells his disciples to feed them. The disciples see no way that they could feed a crowd this size, but Jesus takes what is available and miraculously feeds them all.

Jesus’ healing are also physical acts of mercy.

And in our Epistle reading we see God’s active mercy spiritually. Paul says that God is rich in his mercy – and that is shown in the incredible verse that says even when we were dead in our trespasses HE made us alive together with Christ.

Again, see how God’s mercy takes the initiative. He makes it possible for us to be reconciled with him. And He does that through judgment – judging his son, Jesus Christ, in our place on the cross. The cross itself is a sign of God’s active and proactive mercy – dying even when we were still his enemy, so that his mercy may be made available to us – and through the resurrection of Jesus Christ making us alive spiritually and physically.

So, we have seen that God’s mercy is firstly patient and secondly it is active, both physically and spiritually.

God’s mercy is also available – to absolutely anyone. Paul says that the life given through Christ happened while we were still dead in our sins.

This mercy has nothing to do with us – whether we are nice people, or whether we are from good homes or not, or whether we have tried to be moral or not – it has absolutely nothing to do with these things – it comes down to one thing – do you believe what God has said and done in and through Jesus Christ is absolutely true? If yes then the mercy of God is poured out upon you.

All that is required to receive God’s mercy is to ask him for it.

Just hear the words of Isaiah, 30:18 Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

What a fantastic image – the Lord God – the creator of the universe waits to be gracious to US. He is waiting to show us the mercy he has prepared for us to walk in. He says this morning to each of us “I HAVE BEEN gracious to you – I have done everything in order to be able to be merciful; to you; I am available – come on Christ the Saviour, I am waiting.”

And his showing mercy to us glorifies his name. We should want him to show us mercy because it glorifies him – his name is made great when we come to him asking for his mercy.

God’s mercy is patient; God’s mercy is active and proactive; God’s mercy is available now.

And finally God’s mercy is eternal.

Paul tells us a wonderful truth in our epistle reading – that when we come to know the living God – being saved by grace alone God raises us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places.

When we believe and accept Jesus as Lord and savior we enter into his death, resurrection AND ascension. Our place is with Jesus for eternity – that is assured – it is guaranteed to all who follow Christ. Of course we are not perfect yet – we struggle, we still do the things we do not want to do – we are not yet without our bad tempers, or bad thoughts, or bad words, or bad actions – but the right to receive it fully has been secured and the new life has already begun here on earth. We are being governed by heavenly standards and motivated by heavenly impulses. Its power, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, enables us to be more than conquerors.

In view of God’s mercy, his patient, active, available and eternal mercy, where are we with God this morning? Is God being patient with us right now? Are we separated from him, doing our own thing, ignoring the ‘prophets’ who are sent to us to say ‘come to God – give your life to him – he loves you and he wants you to be in his kingdom.’

Or maybe is he actively showing his mercy to some of us right now. Maybe things are tough in life – is God trying to get our attention? Is he beckoning us to come to him and allow him into our life? Maybe we are already walking in God’s mercy right now – is God’s name being glorified in our lives? Or maybe we need to hear this morning that God’s mercy is available – its available regardless of what we have done, or where we have been in life – he is waiting to be gracious, he is waiting to pour his mercy on us and we have nothing to bring to God for this – just our yes Lord – we believe and we are yours forever. Or maybe some of us are praising God because we know this morning that the Mercy of God in our life is eternal – and we are rejoicing and glorifying his name – and so Sunday morning’s is about the joy of praising his name.

Wherever we are let us cry out to him this morning asking for his holy spirit to fill us. As we come forward to share communion together let us ask God to meet with us in a powerful way. If necessary ask someone to pray with you after the service – speak to someone if you need to speak with someone. But please do not delay – God’s mercy is available this morning – he is patient, he is active and it is eternal. Receive it – and receive it fully.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.

Leadership – A Talk Given At Adult Ed Class

There are a plethora of books on Christian Leadership. It is one of the most popular topics of writing – how to be a leader – what is leadership.

Now, let me define what I mean by leadership. Leadership is more than just a senior pastor or a priest. It relates to anyone who has taken any form of leadership in the church from vestry / eldership / altar guild / youth ministry. It refers to anyone who within God’s church has taken any responsibility at all. And even if there are people within the church of God who have never taken any form of responsibility in the church, they are not off the hook! Much of the exaltations to leaders apply to ALL Christians – not just to leaders! So what we will talk about today relates to everyone in the body.

The issue of leadership is the very topic which consumed the Corinthians. The Corinthian immaturity is reflected in their arguing and their jealousy over positions of authority.

For the Corinthians – and this has not changed over 2000 years for many in the church – leadership makes certain people more important than others. Whenever ANYBODY thinks that a position of leadership makes YOU more important than ANYBODY else then you have lost the ability to be a good leader!

Such an attitude, as we see with the Corinthians, reveals the persons worldliness which will be manifestly shown in their pursuit of leadership; for such a person leadership means power and influence.

Too often have I heard the phrase – when I am in charge I will do such and such. Such a phrase shows the misconception of what leadership is in the church. It assumes that the major aspect of leadership is that the leader takes charge and makes decisions. Now of course leaders do need to make decisions. But the important issue is not that leaders MAKE decisions, but from WHERE do leaders make decisions. From what basis.
What do I mean? Does a leader make a decision from a powerbase or from somewhere else?

V5 of 1 Corinthians 3 shows us where a leader of the church should make his decisions – What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. The word servant is the word diakonos – where we get the word deacon. The same word that is used in Acts when the apostles appoint those who will care for the distribution of the food and to wait on tables – deacons.

Leadership in the church is about making decisions as a servant. A servant of whom? Jesus Christ. It is out of this place that all other decisions and the care of the congregation flow from.

This is nothing new. But what I find remarkable is that so many Christian leaders do not ACT as a servant. Now, I am going to sound judgmental here – and I am aware that I am throwing rocks in a glass house – However, in my experience of Church leaders in the 18 years I am been in the ministry, many, while knowing the theology that a leader is a servant, in practice lead in an autocratic, suppressive and even obsessive manner. They guard their authority jealously – even fearfully, worrying that people may undermine them.

One way you can test this is by observing how ministers are with the preaching plan. For many, they will not let anyone else, with any degree of frequency, teach in what they usually call “my church.” As we have seen on the first week – it’s not, nor will it ever be their church – it’s God’s church. Also, Preaching is a privilege not a right. When a preacher is more concerned about the fact that a congregation gets HIS preaching instead of Jesus’ Word, then such a leader has stopped being a servant. But this is just one example.

The point is that too many leaders act like premadonnas, not servants.

The desire to protect and maintain authority, by leaders, over a congregation, causes people to be neglected or used; It results in dealing suspiciously with anyone who might challenge the leadership, especially other leaders from other churches. Hence, a protective cocoon develops around the leader and the church, and anyone who tries or is perceived as trying to break into or through the cocoon is a threat and needs to be dealt with. This is exactly what was going on in Corinth.

Moving from a power and authority based leadership model to one which embraces powerlessness and a servant outlook will not be easy. As Christian’s we have lived within a worldview of adversarial and combative thinking. It has been so ingrained within us that to move away from it will take time, education and example.

Henri Nouwen captures the essence of this when he says;

I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. This is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God’s word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.

If Jesus, as the Philippians says, emptied himself of his divinity, humbled himself and took the role of a servant, why should a follower and a leader of the people of Jesus be any different? Maybe it is because too many leaders do not how to exercise healthy, intimate relationships. They have become empire builders who are unable to give and receive love.

As Paul says in our reading – Jesus Christ is the foundation. All that is done – all that is built, every ministry, every Church, must start on this foundation.

If the motive of a leader is not Christ and His glory there will be problems. And you tell when a leaders foundation has shifted from Christ to something else. When a leader or leaders focus becomes how many are coming to the church, or how much money do we have, or, or or, then a shift of focus has taken place.

It may well be a cliché, but it is a true cliché – We are not called to be successful but faithful. I have heard many people add to this (and if we are faithful we will be successful). But how does one judge success? By what standards? Man’s of God’s?

Paul says if God has called you to plant – plant. If he has called you to water – water. That is what you are to do. God himself will be the source of growth – nobody else. When a church puts their hope of growth in a person, or a leader – there will always be disappointment – but when it is in God – we will persevere for it.

The question at the end of time for a leader, and for that matter for everyone of us, is not how successful where you – or how many numbers did you have, or how many conversations did you have – the question is did we build with Christ at the center. Was everything done because of Jesus? Was our motive, our desire, our goal that people got to know, grow in and released to follow Jesus Christ. Paul says very carefully let each man be careful how he builds.

The image Paul gives in 1 Cor 3:12 is very powerful. What a leader builds may look very impressive to the world, or even to the church. We can look at say what a great ministry – but everyones work – every ministry will go through the fire. It will be tested.

The point is a sobering one – at the end of time a leaders life work, a Christians lifes work will be put through the fire – and regardless of how impressive it looks to us if the foundation – if the motive – if the goal was not Christ it will be burned. The end of time will reveal the motives of all ministries and all churches.

Now, this is not about salvation. The people’s salvation is not in danger. But here is the sobering thought – there will be people in heaven who will suddenly see that their entire life’s work on earth was a waste of time because it had no heavenly value – it did not survive the fire. They will realize that all the sweat, blood and tears, the long hours and neglect of the family, the planning, the building projects, the capital campaigns and the intense negotiations to get a $500,000 mortgage at 5.1% were all a colossal waste of time.

This another reason why we must realize this is God’s Church; that we must be people of the Cross – that the power of the Church is in the Cross of Christ and that our wisdom must be in God and thus we must be spirit filled people.

Alan Krieder gives four attitudes and four skills of a peacemaker. The attitudes are; humility, commitment to the safety of others, acceptance of conflict and hope. The four skills are; truthful speech, expectant listening, alertness to community and good process (making decisions which are truthful, just and corporate.) While these skills and attitudes can be taught they need to be lived. They must become apart of the DNA of the Church Leader. Powerlessness, brokenness and servanthood are resident within these skills and attitudes.

Leaders are not to build their own edifices – their imprint must be minimal if not nonexistent. John the Baptist said “He must increase and I must decrease.”

Leadership is about encouraging people to build with gold, silver and precious stones – in other words to build their lives and to invest in the lives of others the things of Jesus Christ.