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Author: glenscriv

Published on Leave a comment on Bully Boys

Emma writes a vivid account of some mundane but murderous marital bullying she overheard.

...For almost forty minutes, he ran her down. Criticised her appearance, complained about the coffee she ordered (and brought to him), repeatedly insisted that she was stupid and useless. When she went to get some groceries, he greeted her return with a volley of anger and abuse. Nervous and bowed, she fluttered like a tiny bird, trying to appease him. But to no avail...

As terrible as I find this gross assault, I recognise the bully in me.  Here's an older post of mine about how men and women use words.  Verbal intercourse is just like the other kind - and attended with all the same abuses (see here for more).   I think addressing 'words that pierce' (Prov 12:18) should be front and centre in marriage prep.  And something to revisit time and again...

 

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Published on 18 Comments on The Priesthood of Christ – a sermon on Hebrews 4:14-5:10

 

 

 

The centre of the Christian life is not your personal relationship with God.  The centre of the Christian life is Christ’s personal relationship with God.  But the good news is, you are in Christ, the Man after God's own heart.

Full Text

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Published on Leave a comment on Come as you are [repost]

From Spurgeon's book: All of Grace

Do not attempt to touch yourself up and make yourself something other than you really are, but come as you are to Him who justifies the ungodly. …The Gospel will receive you into its halls if you come as a sinner, not otherwise. Wait not for reformation, but come at once for salvation. God justifieth the ungodly, and that takes you up where you now are; it meets you in your worst estate. Come in your disorder. I mean, come to your heavenly Father in all your sin and sinfulness. Come to Jesus just as you are: filthy, naked, neither fit to live nor fit to die. Come, you that are the very sweepings of creation; come, though you hardly dare to hope for anything but death. Come, though despair is brooding over you, pressing upon your bosom like a horrible nightmare. Come and ask the Lord to justify another ungodly one.

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And here's a paper I wrote on how to preach evangelistically to sinners without demanding repentance first.

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Published on Leave a comment on Outgoing 9 – Priestly People

Audio part 1

Audio part 2

Powerpoint

Outgoing – Session 9 – 3 November 2011

Priestly People

The Priesthood of Christ 

Christ is Man in the presence of God.

We are in that Man.

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Discuss:   How do you consider your standing with God?

How do you respond when you’ve sinned?

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Priesthood in Hebrews:  4:14-16; 5:1-3; 6:19-20; 7:24-28

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We’re carried on the heart of our Perfect Priest, through death and into the throne-room of the Father.

Therefore approach God boldly!

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“Christianity is not about rules, it’s a relationship.”

Careful!  Don’t make “relationship” the new work!

We’re not saved by faith as though faith is the thing we bring to the table.

It’s not that God dislikes deeds but really likes creeds.

Our faith doesn’t save us!

We’re saved by Christ alone because we bring nothing to the table

When we rest in His work – that is fath.

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Faith is not a thing.  Faith is merely receiving the only saving thing – Christ!

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It’s not about my personal relationship with God.

It’s about Christ’s personal relationship with God.

Charles Spurgeon: “It is ever the Holy Spirit’s work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan’s work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ. He insinuates, “Your sins are too great for pardon; you have no faith; you do not repent enough; you will never be able to continue to the end; you have not the joy of His children; you have such a wavering hold of Jesus.” All these are thoughts about self, and we shall never find comfort or assurance by looking within. But the Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self: He tells us that we are nothing, but that “Christ is all in all.” Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee–it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee–it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the instrument–it is Christ’s blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to thy hand with which thou art grasping Christ, as to Christ; look not to thy hope, but to Jesus, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith. We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and have peace with God, it must be by “looking unto Jesus.” Keep thine eye simply on Him; let His death, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look to Him; when thou liest down at night look to Him. Oh! let not thy hopes or fears come between thee and Jesus; follow hard after Him, and He will never fail thee.”

“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesu’s blood and righteousness:
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesu’s name.”

The Priesthood of All Believers

John 17:20-26

What is our relationship to...

Jesus

The Father

Each other

The world?

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John 20:19-23

How has the Father sent Jesus?

Eternally – it’s part of who He is!

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The Church does not send missionaries

The Church is the missionary body!

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1 Peter 2:9-12

The Priesthood of All Believers does not mean that we are all individual priests.

My priestliness does not exist in myself.

It exists in Christ and in community.

But in Christ and together with others we bring the world to God.

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The Priesthood of Christ:

I’m not walking a holiness tightrope

The Priesthood of all believers:

We’re moving out together into the world

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What does godliness look like?

Common Objection:  I just want to live my life.  Why should I shrink my world and become a Christian?

Recommended Reading: Hebrews 6-10

What is the difference between Old and New Covenants?

How might we be tempted to live an Old Covenant Christianity?

Next Week: A Proclamation People

We have a gospel to proclaim.  This is our priestly mission to the world.  Christians will want to love their neighbours in all kinds of ways but the church is sent into the world to proclaim Christ.

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Published on Leave a comment on How to preach on hell

Every year Steve Levy's congregation ask him to preach his hell sermon.  They invite their friends and people become Christians.  It's phenomenal preaching and if you ask me it's exactly the way to speak of judgement.

Hell is already on us.  We experience it (John 3:18,36; Romans 1:18).  We see the "trailers" for the main feature and everything screams at us "You do not want to go there!"  Jesus does not come into the world to save some and damn others.  He comes into a condemned world only to save.  We are not at a cross-roads with heaven or hell in the power of our choosing.  Hell is on us.  Our only response is to turn to the Saviour.

Download here.

Also check out the rest of the Mount Pleasant sermons.  Wonderful stuff - including some recent Blackham sermons too.

Published on Leave a comment on Champion or Role-model? Freedom or Pressure?

On Friday I posted a video of Jason McElwain.  He's the autistic kid who set the last four minutes of a high-school basketball game on fire.

As his six 3-pointers sail in, the crowd go absolutely bananas.  It's exhilerating and heart-warming and all kinds of wonderful.

But then I watched this video.  Same kid, same game, but it left me with a very different feeling...

I'm probably making far too much out of this (tell me if you think so), but this video makes me worry for young Eric.

  --  'They expected Eric to love the game.  They didn't expect him to have autism...'

  --  'Terry Connolly has big dreams for Eric...'

  --  'Just maybe we can hold onto the hope that Eric can play basketball one day, it might only be for 10 minutes but... maybe one day...'

Leaving aside the point that Jason only played for four minutes... what's happening here?  Jason is being celebrated as a champion yes.  But very quickly, the hope he provides is turned into a model for emulation.  And the impression that's left (on me at any rate) is that Jason begins as a hero to rejoice in, but soon becomes a standard to meet.

There is a question for Eric's parents.  How will they 'preach Jason' to their son?  You see Jason's efforts could be used just to ramp up levels of expectation for Eric (which would do neither him nor the parents any good).  Or Jason could liberate the family through their joy in another's success.  Which is it to be: Law or Gospel?  Role model or Champion?  Pressure or Freedom?

If they leave Eric, ultimately, with Gospel who knows what he might achieve.  Literally, who knows?  That's the point of 'gospel preaching' - it liberates a person into any number of unforeseen paths.  He might even take up a proper sport, like cricket.

Published on Leave a comment on Speech and Salvation

Lionel Windsor has written some excellent short posts on the word-y nature of salvation and therefore the word-y nature of our Christian lives:

1. Are all Christians commanded to evangelise?

2. "But I'm not good enough to evangelise!"

3. "But I'm not gifted enough to evangelise!"

4. "But I'm not really a 'speaking' Christian!"

5. "But I can promote the gospel better by my works!"

6. "But I'm not the mouth in Christ's body!"

7. "But I'm more comfortable speaking the gospel to insiders rather than outsiders."

8. "But I can't do what those gifted evangelists do!"

The whole thing is very worth reading.  I particularly enjoyed Lionel's analysis of the relationship between: words / law / gospel in Romans.  In Romans 1-3 words are a disaster area because we're in the arena of law.  "Word" only convicts us or make us hypocrites.  Really it's only once we get to Romans 10 that words become a good thing.  But more than this - they become the very essence of our salvation.  Words go from condemning to life-giving through the gospel.  (Therefore, if we're feeling condemnation surround our 'gospel' speech, perhaps it's because we're thinking in law not gospel terms!)

All this follows the pattern (as the third post points out) of Sin => Salvation => Speech evident in places like Deuteronomy 32; Psalm 51 and Isaiah 51.

Read the whole thing!

Published on Leave a comment on Some reflections on visiting Occupy London

As I said yesterday, eleven adults (and one child of the revolution) spent Sunday afternoon speaking to the folks around St Paul's.  We took about 100 bible books (mainly Romans but also some Gospels) and got into dozens of conversations.  There were also some brief opportunities for open air preaching.

Before Sunday I wrote ideas of what to say (many of which I used).  Here are some other reflections:

  • Everyone I spoke to expressed deep respect for Jesus.  Of course they wanted Jesus to be their mascot for the protest, but nonetheless there was a knowledge of the Gospels and some Christian-ish background to protestor after protestor.
  • Very few could articulate exactly what they wanted to happen, but their sense that things have to change was, of course, palpable.
  • Speaking of eternity was a real eye-opener for some.  The whole 'let's try communism for a thousand years' fired the imagination.  These guys are idealists, but actually Christians have a real utopia that frees us from greed now and enables us to be generous today.  It's a bit like the slogan, think global, act local.  Christians can think of an assured future and therefore act today.
  • The most fruitful lines of conversation followed the "why" question.  I kept asking: "And then what?... And then what?... And then what?"  Imagine that everyone gets their acre of land, imagine if its free education and health-care for all, imagine there's equality of wealth... and then what?  One guy said "Well then we'll stop being so envious."  "Ah, so it's a heart problem then?" I replied.  "If it's a heart problem, legislation and force is not going to solve it, is it?  It might actually exacerbate the envy mightn't it?"
  • The most eye-opening lines of enquiry followed the "how" question.  The word "expropriate" was used on literature to describe what some want to do with the wealth of the 1%.  I was speaking to a guy who grew up in church (in fact he grew up in St Thomas's North Sydney - my old Sydney church!) - he was a Christian communist who made excellent points from the Bible about usury.  But when I pressed him on what it meant to "expropriate" wealth he said "Well they're not going to give it up freely, we'll have to take it."  "By force?" I ask.  "Well let's hope it doesn't come to war, but, if it's necessary...."  "Well then, you've abandoned the way of Jesus, haven't you?"
  • Christ's revolution is utterly unique - it is thoroughly non-violent and (partly because of this) it goes much deeper than societal structures.  Yet, perhaps counter-intuitively, it has been the one global force to actually affect societal structures in positive ways down through the centuries.
  • Josh V-B asked the excellent question to this Christian communist "Was Jesus' first coming a success?"  Not just, 'Did it plant the seed of an idea for social reform' but did His coming and dying actually accomplish something.  Because Jesus said it did!
  • This moves the conversation out of the realm of "What would Jesus do" to "What has Jesus done."
  • What He's done has been to obliterate the old structures totally and to rise up again at the head of a new world.  This is the real revolution.
  • A couple of times I had the opportunity of speaking publicly and declaring  "St Paul's manifesto for change!  Let me read to you St Paul's statement.  It's on the public record, and we have free copies if you want one.  Listen to St Paul's public announcement...  Then I'd preach on 2 Cor 8:9 or 1 Tim 6:10, speak of Jesus and then offer copies of Romans afterwards.  These proved very popular.
  • When I had the opportunity to preach I should have preached longer. I was aware of taking up the microphone, not knowing who was scheduled to be next and not being a particularly welcome voice.  But that's street preaching!  Next time!
  • This kind of evangelism is much more like speaking to people of other faiths than it is like open air work to random shoppers.  These guys have entrenched positions and have plenty to say for themselves.  I didn't feel like I got as far yesterday as I get when we evangelise the town centre on a Saturday.  (HINT: Get evangelising your town centres, it can be very fruitful indeed!)
  • Nonetheless, the name of Jesus is being used here - a lot.  And it's being used publicly, very publicly.   Therefore it's important that His people stand up and proclaim His true revolutionary message to the world.
Other thoughts from those who came?  From others looking on?
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