What is the gospel and what are we to do with it? part 2

Our Greatest danger

Look at this description – who do you think it’s of?

“They have a very high view of scripture, they study it, memorise it, and seek to interpret and apply it to every day life.  They want those around them to walk with God not just talk about him.  They seek to live lives in such a way that it pleases God.  Dissatisfied with the corruption and half heartedness of contemporary worship they designed a new way of worship focused around prayer, public reading and exposition of the scriptures.  They pray often, fast, value fellowship, hate sin, pursue holiness, give generously and are active evangelists.”

Maybe your thinking great, we should pop that description on our website.  But it’s actually of the Pharisees of Jesus day.  It’s why they are our greatest danger, why we must use this passage as an MOT for our hearts.

The scene is set for us (36)Jesus is eating in the home of Simon, a Pharisee.  When suddenly (37)the conversation, which Luke tells us nothing of, stops and everyone turns, open-mouthed, to look at this infamous woman who has just walked into the room.  There’s muttering and shuffling of feet as people press themselves up against the walls moving out of her way as she walks with head bowed low and jar in hand right up to where Jesus reclines at the table.

Then the shock deepens(38) as her tears begin to drop onto Jesus’ feet, she loosens her hair and begins wiping away her tears with it.  Then gasps, as she breaks the jar she was carrying so carefully and pours the perfume on his feet.

How does Simon react?  He’s horrified!  Not only at the woman but at Jesus welcome of her.  What does he expect Jesus to do?  Draw up his feet and have nothing to do with the woman, to get as far away from her as possible, or condemn her and tell her to go away.

Why?  Because that was the Pharisees approach to sin, they’re rightly concerned with pleasing God and with avoiding sin but they don’t live robustly holy lives instead they avoid any contact with those considered sinful.  They quarantine sinners, and Simon is amazed Jesus doesn’t share his approach(39).

Simon is judgemental both of the woman and of Jesus – he concludes(40) that Jesus can’t be a prophet as a prophet would know this woman is a notorious sinner and wouldn’t allow her to touch him.

Don’t think the Pharisees weren’t interested in winning converts, they were.   Matthew 23:15 Jesus says “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and then you make that convert twice as much a child of hell as you are.”  They’re phenomenally sobering words – the Pharisees are passionate missionaries but their zeal is misdirected, they call people not to relationship with the God of grace but to religious slavery, to judgementalism, to separatism, to joyless drudgery.

And Simon, presentable, good, nice, religious, hospitable Simon is our greatest danger.  Because we can be just like him if we don’t grasp the gospel fully, in fact even if we do we can drift, over time, to be like him.

Maybe you’re saying I’m nothing like Simon – let me explain why Simon is our greatest danger.  3 warnings from Simon.

Separatism – Simon avoids sinners, so can we.  We’d never say it, we know we need to reach the lost.  But our actions reveal a very different reality.  Instead of fighting sin with all the weapons God gives us, his word, his people, the Spirit we avoid sin.  We do quarantine, treating sin like an infectious disease we might catch if we touch it, and therefore avoiding sinners or places where sin might leap like a nit to infect us.  No I don’t you say.  But it’s not what you say you are you are, it’s what you are, you are.

We do separatism by living in a Christian rabbit warren.  Have you ever sat and watched rabbits in a field.  At the first sign of a stranger what do they do – they dart for the rabbit hole, all you see is the whites of their tails bobbing up and down.  There is a Christian rabbit warren.  Christian family to work to church repeat and all unbelievers see is the whites of our tails.

Or our separatism is seen in our never going where the lost are comfortable, but always inviting them to where we’re comfortable.  We hold evangelistic meetings where we’re comfortable not where unbelievers hang out.  We don’t just hang out in a pub, or wherever people are.  But Jesus doesn’t separate himself.  In Luke 5 Jesus goes to the Synagogue, in Luke 7 he eats in a Pharisees home but he also goes to the Tax booth, and Levi’s home, and Zacchaeus’ home, to eat with sinners.  Not fearful of being contaminated by sin but knowing the gospel cleanses sin.  His holiness is more contagious than sin.

We can be judgemental just like Simon – he/she is too great a sinner, or they are too into whatever.  Or it can be seen in our judgementalism of other Christians who go where unbelievers are.  A few years ago I helped organise what we called the Oasis project – a group of our teens, myself and a few others went into Doncaster on a night and gave out water to clubbers and pubbers, looking to get into conversation and share the gospel with them.  Guess where the opposition came from?  Inside the church – it’s a waste of time, it’s too dangerous, you’ll never win anyone there and so on…  But Jesus is never judgemental and yet he is the judge.  How tragic if we his people become what he never was.

We have mixed motives in our evangelism – often we engage in evangelism not because we grasp the gospel and the seriousness of sin, not because we’re passionate about people but because we’re prompted by guilt or a grudging sense of I have too, or meeting expectations.  We evangelise out of a sense of duty not delight, of guilt not grace, of law not love. 

Do you see how the Pharisees are our greatest danger?  Are we like them? The problem is that the longer we go on as Christians the fewer non-church friends we have.  There are a number of reasons for the decline in contact with non-believers. For some it’s seeing friends come to faith, for others we become too involved in church things and have no time for anyone else. For some it’s simply a lack of effort, we’re neither serving in the church nor involved in the world. For others this decline is a result of our faulty understanding of the Bible, or of holiness, which leads us to separate ourselves and isolate ourselves from the unbelieving world.  Sometimes it’s just crept up on us.

It’s not what you say you are you are, it’s what you are, you are!

So if Simon is the danger what’s the alternative?

What is the gospel and what are we to do with it? part 1

What is the gospel?  I wonder how you’d answer that question.  Just take a minute to think about it.  What is the gospel? 

How you answer that question determines what you do with it.  Whether it is good news to be shouted from the rooftops, to be invested in, to sacrifice for, to devote your life to.  Or whether it’s just a lifestyle option.

Jesus is the example of an evangelistic lifestyle lived out.  Jesus’ grasp of the gospel is seen in his passion for people, all people, people from any and every background.  His understanding of sins seriousness, and his an expansive grasp of the grace and wonder of what God in love is doing in the gospel.  It’s why he leaves the splendour and adoration of heaven.  Why he enters a sin sick, warped but still at times wonderful creation.  It’s why he gives his life, suffers, bears the shame and guilt, and experiences an eternity of hell in those three hours on the cross.

Have Luke 7 open in front of you, because here we see two different ways of living, two different approaches to people, sin and God.  Two very different ways of living, but both are evangelistic!  That’s the shock, both look to call and convert people but only one can save.

And there’s a challenge here for us, we have to ask which of these two most closely fits with how I live, and with how we live together as God’s people?  Not which would I nod along to and theologically agree with, but which do I live out?

It’s not what you say you are you are it’s what you are you are!  Sometimes we know something but fail to live it out, sometimes we know the theory but don’t put it into practice.  Here we see two approaches to living, both are evangelistic but whilst one converts people to a salvation less religion, the other wins people who live compelled to love by grace.

Praying for the King and the Kingdom

Have you decided who you’re voting for at the next general election?  It may be 18 months away but have you thought about it?  What will determine who you vote for?  Will it be historical – I’ve always voted that way?  Will be it antagonistic – I’m not voting for them so it must be them?  Or will it be issue based; are there certain issues you feel strongly about that will determine who you vote for?

But there’s a bigger question.  What are you voting for?  In an individualistic age the danger is we fall into voting for whoever will make my live better or least worse.  But what’s the purpose of government?  What’s the purpose of power?  What would life be like if those in power ruled for the good of all people not just some people?  What would such rule be like?  How would it transform our lives and the lives of those around us?

Israel was to be a counter culture to the nations around about it.  It was to stand out.  To be a beacon of light in the darkness of nepotism, abuse, politics and power plays.  Israel was a divinely designed, supernaturally structured, spirit filled model of the goodness of living under God’s good rule mediated by a godly king.

But that doesn’t happen naturally, you don’t drift into it, it’s not automatic.  And Psalm 72 is a prayer for the king of Israel in his rule.  It’s either a prayer by David of Solomon, or a prayer of Solomon for the kings who come after him.  And it’s a blend of prayer and prophecy.  This is both a prayer for the king by a king and a prayer for the people about their king and a prophecy about what life would be like under a god fearing King.

It’s a waterfall prayer.  Showing the blessings that cascade down from having a godly king who rules with God’s justice and righteousness and the blessings that cascade down from that to his people and then to all people and lead everyone to praise not the king but God.

As we walk our way through this Psalm it ought to make us long for rule like this.  It ought to challenge our shrivelled cynical expectations of government now.  And it ought to cause us to long for the day when this kingdom comes.

A King who brings justice and peace

(1-2)Begin and end with justice.  It opens with prayer for God to give the king, clothe him, with justice.  Not a flawed, compromised justice, but the perfect, pure justice of God.  Justice marked by righteousness – a rule like God’s without partiality or bias.  Israel’s king ruled on God’s behalf, in his place, mediating his rule, his sons, and so Israel are to pray he’s endowed with justice and righteousness and rules with them.

Secondly (3-7)they’re to pray that his reign is marked by peace.  The Hebrew word translated “prosperity” in v3, 7 is the word ‘shalom’.  It’s one of those Bible words that conveys multiple meanings in a few short letters.  Shalom means completeness, peace, welfare, safety, sound relationship, health and prosperity.

Have you ever had those moments when everything just seems to be right with the world; stress, anxiety, fears and conflict aren’t forgotten but resolved and everything feels good?  That’s ‘shalom’.  That’s the prayer, that’s the prophecy of what life will be like under God’s king who rules as he should. 

There will be plenty of crops, society will be marked by right actions and right relationships(3), the afflicted and vulnerable will be protected and cared for(4) and the oppressor crushed.  (5)As his people fear him – rightly respecting his justice and righteousness – the king will bring blessing and refreshment and flourishing(6-8).  That’s the picture(6), just as the rain soothes the cut grass and stimulates growth and provides nourishment so does God’s King for all his people.

Don’t you long to live under a rule like that?  Just, righteous, fair, caring, creating harmony and security and peace.

A King whose rule spreads blessing

Can you imagine living in a society like that with a king like that?  Can you imagine the transformation?  The blessings?  The joy?  The newspaper headlines?  Can you imagine the clamour of other nations to see what makes Israel so unique?

That’s the next step in this prayer to pray and prophecy to live for.  That the king’s rule spreads from(8) sea to sea and to the ends of the earth.  He will defeat those who attack his people(9) and they will bow before him.  But other kings will come bringing tribute to him(9-10) they will bow to him and serve him.  Why?

Not because he has his boot on their necks, not because of his military power and victories.  But because of the justice they see in his rule, the blessings he brings to his people(12-14).  How he delivers the needy and afflicted, how he’s moved with compassion for the weak and needy and saves them, how he sees them as precious when other societies are tempted to write them off.

This is a rule that the world cannot fathom but to which it is inexorably attracted.  A rule which causes all to thrive and so his people pray for his blessing(15-17) and his long reign. 

And through this king God keeps his promise of blessing.  (17)The promise to bless all nations through Abraham’s offspring.

And (18-19)who is to be praised for this?  Not the king but God.  This king rules for the good of his people and the glory of God.

How do you feel when you read such a Psalm?  When you see such a king?  A king who brings justice and peace for his people and spreads God’s blessing to all nations?  Don’t we long to live somewhere like that?  Under the rule of someone like that?

That’s always been God’s plan, it’s what he made us for.  That was Eden with King Adam and Queen Eve mediating God’s good rule and bringing his blessing to the world as they lived shalom right with God, right with one another, right with the world. 

That was God’s intention for Israel, and whilst for a brief while under David and Solomon that light shone brightly and the nations came to see and bring their tribute just as this Psalm says.  Too often the sin of the kings, their failure to seek God and listen to him, meant the light was like a candle guttering in a breeze, extinguishment threatened, promises delayed, justice and peace lost, and the glory of God hidden.  Israel failed to be all it was made to be, all it was made to display.

We long for this.  But sin means it is not achievable by humanity.  No matter who stands for election or as king.

So what do we do with this prayer?  Do we pray it or archive it?

This prayer and prophecy for Israel’s king feels a bit too big for their boots doesn’t it.  It’s like one of those parcels you collect at the door which are massive.  And you open it excitedly, only to find it’s 95% foam packing beads and the gift inside is nothing like the glory the box promised.

That was every king of Israel that they prayed this prayer for.  Some fulfilled parts of it; none filled it fully.  Isaiah 9 picks up some of these key prayers and prophecies about the King of Israel in the promise of a Son born, a child given, who would rule forever and establish justice and righteousness.  Matthew picks it up too in his gospel where he shows that Jesus is the true fulfilment of this Psalm, that he is the King of the Jews.  And Luke shows us, in Acts, the good news of the continuing Kingly rule of the risen and ascended Jesus and his compassion for the weak and poor and a kingdom marked by grace and care and justice begins to spread to all nations, first at Pentecost and then in the Kings church on mission.

We can pray this psalm because we are the people of this King.  And as we pray it we pray that in the church Jesus justice and righteousness would be seen.  That we might be a people marked with peace with God and with one another and who bring the blessing of peace to the world.  That we might be moved with compassion as he was for those in need.  That we might bring his blessing as we hold of the gospel but also as we live as a counter culture with Jesus as our King, under his rule, praising God together in the church.

This is a prayer for us to pray.

Lord, help us bow the knee and fully live under Jesus reign.  To know his will through your word, to be moved by your Spirit, and to revel in the peace and salvation that are ours in Jesus and are how he always treats us.  Lord, so move us and change us that we see the world as you do, and trust in your promises of your kingdom come and coming that we may be a light to the nations and live and declare your glory together.  Amen. 

Medhurst Ministry Weekender

Back at the end of June a ragtag bunch of pastors, leaders. and congregations gathered in a church in Middlesborough for 24 hours of teaching, praise, prayer and fellowship. It was the second Medhurst Ministries Weekender.

It is a busy 24 hours with lots squeezed in, from the first session on the Friday night to the final of 6 sessions on the Saturday afternoon. There was no key speaker, rather 5 local, ordinary, pastors each preached a sermon and there was an interview about the Medhurst women’s training course which has just finished it’s first year.

It’s also a bit different. There were no checked shirts, no gilets, no red chino’s. Instead there were lots of hoodies, jeans, beanies and caps. Some of the most valuable time was spent just hanging out together in between sessions or at the pub until last orders.

Medhurst exists to take the gospel to the forgotten places of the UK by supporting, training and resourcing church revitalisations and church planting in those places. Ministry in such places is often a hard, slow, slog. Ministry teams in those places tend to be small and breaking the soil up, planting seeds, watering them and seeing a harvest needs long term commitment. It can be very draining and a weekend together encouraging one another from across multiple churches is so helpful. It reminds us we are part of something bigger and that there are others like us labouring in similar contexts.

Prayer in a crisis

Psalm 71 is a fascinating prayer. I had never noticed before the focus on ageing which marks it out from so many of the Psalms around it. David prays that God wouldn’t forsake him when his hair is grey even as he looks back on his youthfulness and God’s faithfulness. It’s fascinating Psalm as it interweaves lament about enemies and threats and fears about loss of strength and what that might mean in terms of those enemies with a looking back and reminding himself of God’s faithfulness and rocklike reliability.

In age when we’ve added to the mid-life crisis the quarter life crisis. In an age when we dye our hair to keep the grey away, exercise ever harder to fit into the clothes we wore in our younger days, and when every wrinkle and laughter line seems to be botoxed away. It is Psalm that confront us with enemies, but reminds us that ageing is not one of them. Rather age is an opportunity to learn to retell our story as God’s story. It is not the story of victimhood – even though often we may be been victimised – rather it is the story of God’s marvellous rescues.

I will always remember visiting an elderly saint and asking him what i could pray for him. His answer was that i could praise God for keeping and sustaining him and for all God’s blessings and i could pray that God kept him from becoming a grumpy old man. I was always struck by that prayer because he was the least grumpy old man I had ever met who even in his struggles with infirmity saw God’s blessings and faithfulness. Like David he viewed his life with God as the hero. He told often of God’s marvellous deeds and rocky reliability.

In v18 David prays this:

“Even when I am old and grey,

do not forsake me, my God,

till I declare your mighty acts to all who are to come.”

It’s a mission statement for the ageing believer. It’s a brilliant prayer that I find myself praying for myself and for others in our church family since reading that Psalm. It’s an encouragement to remember and rehearse the rescues of God, to tell the story of his love and faithfulness and fortresslike covenant loyalty. And its an encouragement not to grumpiness but to gratefulness even as strength ebbs and age creeps on. And a spur to pass it on not keep it to myself so the next generation learns to run to God for refuge not rely on self.

Preaching and prayer

I try to use the summer time to stop and take stock of where I am and where we are. As I do it’s always helpful to return to first things. Specifically what need to be the first things in my diary on a week to week basis, what are the priorities that we determine the reality of day to day ministry.

There is always lots to do and the good is often the enemy of the best. And so it’s been helpful to sit and try to weigh up this week does my diary reflect what ought to be my priorities in ministry. Acts 6 gives us a bit of a template when we look at the Apostles priorities when faced with the danger of distraction with good ministry but not the most necessary ministry.

There twin priorities were prayer and the teaching of the word. And they acted wisely in engaging others to take on the serving of tables – a good and necessary outworking of the gospel – which freed them up to devote themselves to preaching and prayer. It’s been helpful in light of that to ask some questions of myself and my patterns:

Are those two things a significant part of my week or are they being crowded out by other things? Are those two things a significant part of our church life together? Are they in balance or does one heavily outweigh the other in my ministry life and our churches life? And how do I bring that back into biblical alignment?

Don’t mishear me. Making preaching and teaching a priority doesn’t mean devoting hours and hours to the study, it will mean some of that, but it also means meeting with the people, knowing them, knowing the pressures that they face, the temptations and pressures they feel and their spiritual temperature, so that preaching can be done well and relevantly and applicably to those God has called me to preach to, It’s not being an academic, it’s not being hidden behind a towering pile of commentaries. It is working hard to exegete both the word of God and the people of God.

And prayer, well what does prayer look like in the church, in my week? Is it the very lifeblood of the church and it’s ministries, of me and my ministry? Or is it perfunctory and got out of the way so we can get to the real stuff? Is it a priority? What would it look like to make it a bigger priority to both pray for the church, with the church, and catalyse prayer among the church?

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Oneness not just faithfulness

What’s the goal of marriage?  I wonder how you answer that? 

Is it procreation?  Well in Genesis 1 Adam and Eve are told to fill the earth and subdue it.  But in the New Testament the focus seems to be more on making disciples, having spiritual offspring than physical offspring.

Is it happiness?  God is a giver of good gifts and so we ought to expect marriage to bring happiness.   But it’s not the goal of marriage, no matter what society tells us. Though marriage ought to be a relationship from which community is created and other are blessed.

I wonder if we often miss a key phrase in the Genesis 2 account about marriage.  A verse that is picked up repeatedly in the New Testament and seems to be the foundation text on which Jesus and the early churches view of marriage is based.

“Therefore a man shall lead his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”  Genesis 2v24

It’s a text that is cited in Matthew 19v5, Mark 10v7, 1 Corinthians 6v16 and Ephesians 5v31.  It’s vital.

The goal of marriage isn’t faithfulness – that’s to reduce it down to the bare minimum – the goal of marriage in oneness.  It’s two people becoming knit together, not just physically, though giving of each other bodily in sexual intercourse is part of it.  But it’s a oneness in everything, it is a being united together.

That word hold fast emphasises the oneness, in Isaiah 41v7 it’s used of soldering 2 bits of metal together into one.   What was two becomes on at every level.

Marriage is about oneness.  And that matters because marriage points of the mystery of the gospel, that in Christ we are united to him, made one with him, and that everything that happens to him happens to us.  It points us to the marriage feast of the lamb when the Lamb and his bride, the church, are one.

That has huge implications for the way we approach marriage.

If marriage is about oneness we need to cultivate honesty and openness and vulnerability with one another in our marriage that is counter the worlds mantra of independence.  It means investing the time it takes to do that.  It means working hard to be vulnerable and treating with care and compassion those moments when the other shares their vulnerability with us.  It means having a united sense of purpose and working hard to maintain that in light of the gospel and seeking God’s kingdom.

It is about far more than a date night.  Far more than celebrating anniversaries, ticking off the years.  It goes far deeper but is also far richer than faithfulness, though faithfulness and covenant love are the bedrocks on which oneness rests.

Photo by Zoriana Stakhniv on Unsplash

Why so quiet?

So it’s nearly two months since I posted anything here. It’s not that there’s anything wrong. There’s no crisis, but sometimes in the busyness of pastoring a small church, taking regular assemblies, serving as a governor at a school and as a charity trustee there just isn’t time for anything else.

Also I don’t just want to blog for the sake of blogging. There are myriad voices out there sharing their hot takes on the latest whatever. Sometimes I just don’t have a lot to say.

But there is also another reason. This is not my primary calling, it’s not even my secondary and tertiary calling. I blog to help write myself clear on something, I post it because it may be of help to others. I blog to try to help me think things through biblically not because I have answers. Another pastor said some time ago that blogging was a great way to build a platform and get people to know about what we are doing. I’m not convinced.

There are however a few blog posts coming. One on marriage. One on the Medhurst weekender, and potentially one on Keswick.