It's your parents' 40th wedding anniversary. Your father's holding a big dinner as a surprise for Mum. He wants the whole family there. Everyone. Including your wretched brother - a heroin addict who's been nothing but trouble. Your father has been through hell trying to keep him alive and out of prison. He's even had to pay off mobsters with extortionate sums to stop them killing him.
At every stage your brother has shamed the family. And at every stage your parents have pursued the boy and bailed him out. They've paid any price to bring him back.
You, on the other hand, have never been any trouble. You've kept out of your parents' way, put your head down and worked hard. You spent your teenage years hitting the books and keeping yourself to yourself. The first chance you got, you left home and made your way in the world. You didn't need any help and you never asked Dad for a penny.
Now your father wants the whole family to sit around the same table. And, wouldn't you know it, your brother is actually keen on the whole idea! It's unthinkable. You can't go. You won't go.
First you avoid your brother's calls. Then your father rings: "Please son I want you all there."
Unbelievable. You're being cast as the bad guy? You're the sticking point? How ridiculous! Can't everyone see, it's your brother.
But Dad continues to press you. "Son, I haven't seen you in so long, can we meet face to face?" No we cannot, you think. There was something deeply disturbing about your father's gaze. He seemed to search your face for something that just wasn't there. And you both knew it. You'd been avoiding that gaze for as long as you could remember.
"Well then," he asks "would you do it for your mother?" Oh, now he's playing that card is he? Fury grips you. This is precisely the problem. Some households have a little thing called family manners. With yours it's all family and no manners. It's all caring and no consequences. Well no longer.
If it's a choice between brotherhood and behaviour, you pick behaviour. And you hope they choke on their mercy meal.
Last week I spoke of Jesus as infuriating. In Luke 8 His mother, His disciples, Legion, the haemorrhaging woman and Jairus come to Him with perfectly reasonable requests. If such appeals were put to the public vote, we'd all recommend that Jesus grant them. Yet He grants none of them - certainly not in the way that they are asked for.
And if you were any of these poor unfortunates, you would be - at the very least - bewildered. Probably you'd be angry, despairing and very tempted to leave the whole Jesus-caper behind.
But then, what should be said to these followers who have had their dearest hopes dashed? How can Christians be comforted when their deepest desires have been denied?
Some people's first instinct will be to put the blame on these followers. Perhaps they didn't ask right. They didn't have enough faith. Or there's a moral or spiritual failure that's 'blocking the channels of God's grace' or something.
But that's not it. The requests were fine in their own way. And Jesus' refusal is not because they didn't ask right.
So if we're not going to blame the followers, what do we tell them?
- You might invoke the raw power of the Lord. Now is the time to learn that God is God and you are not. Will you submit to His divine right to rule?
- You might notch it up to the inscrutable wisdom of God. Now is the time to learn that God's ways are not for Him to justify, they're just for you to accept.
- You might teach the Christian that, yes, God wants nice things for you but, on the other hand, He also wants your godliness. So here is some suffering to balance out the good times. Submit to the regime and you'll grow in character.
There's actually some truth to these three inter-related approaches. But that's what makes them so dangerous. Power, wisdom and suffering are essential issues to grasp in the Christian life. It's just that a theology of glory teaches one kind of power, wisdom and suffering, and a theology of the cross teaches a very different kind.
A theology of glory will teach that God's power and wisdom estrange Him from us in one direction and our suffering estranges us from God in the other. Hard times actually reinforce the distance between you and God and "godliness" means accommodating yourself to that distance. It means not getting above your station, or pulling Him down.
But a theology of the cross teaches a very different power and wisdom. Christ's power and wisdom are demonstrated as He descends into the darkness. And suffering is precisely where we find our deepest communion with Jesus. Hard times are times of presence.
That might sound ok in theory. But does that mean, once I've embraced a theology of the cross, my problems will be easier to handle? No. In many ways it makes them far harder. With a theology of the cross, it's as though we're sinking in quick-sand and we cry out to our rescuer to offer a steady hand. In response He dives into the pit and sinks without a trace. Now what??
Here's what. He grabs our foot and pulls us under with Him. His rescue does not evade, it enters the depths. Only through suffering does the rescue come. Somehow the way out is the way down.
But none of this happens at a distance. Jesus does not zap us with trials from on high and wish us well. He plunges down, drawing us to Himself.
Think of John 11. We are told explicitly that He loves Lazarus and He loves Lazarus's family (v5). AND He declines to heal him (v6). He comes into the heart of the mourning and weeps at the tomb even though it's a funeral He could have prevented. Jesus' power and love are there for all to see, yet it makes His refusal to heal all the more galling (this is exactly what the crowd murmur about, v37). He loves and He refuses to heal.
What's He up to? Well He tells Martha. He is the Resurrection and the life (v25). And this is God's glory (v4,40). Because He's the Resurrection, therefore death is the path.
It's not just that in spite of His love, He let's Lazarus die. It's because of His love, He let's it happen. Suffering is not a disproof of His love, but a sign that He is utterly and completely for us. He is relentlessly for resurrection.
But notice, He's not the Repairer, He's the Resurrection. We constantly call on Him to patch up the old world, our old life, our old bodies. But Jesus is not committed to that. He's not the Repairer, He's the Resurrection. He's not committed to clawing this old world back from the brink. He's committed to taking it down into the death it deserves and rising anew on the other side. It's a theology of glory that has Jesus at a distance, dispensing carrots and sticks to improve the "old man". In a true theology of the cross, Jesus comes very near to put the old man to death and rise up into something new.
That's what He's doing in the world, and it's what He's doing in your life. He's not partly concerned for patching up your life and partly concerned for giving you enough trials to form your character. He's not balancing your good against 'holiness' or 'godliness' etc etc. He's not inscrutably zapping you with trials that only omniscience could fathom. In a sense, what He's doing is very simple. He is single-mindedly bringing you through the death you're desperate to avoid and giving you the life which is really life.
You want a healing. He is the resurrection. Which means you'll get a death you never bargained for. But a life you never dreamed of.
From the very first verse, Job is presented as a blameless and upright man.
The LORD is proud of Job's matchless virtue (1:8; 2:3). Job fears God and shuns evil. And even when calamity falls he does not sin by cursing God (1:22; 2:10). Instead, through all his laments and complaints, the LORD is still able to conclude in chapter 42 and verse 7 that His servant Job has spoken what is right.
And yet, in the verse immediately preceeding this Job has just said:
I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. (Job 42:6)
Uh-oh, we think. Someone's got self-esteem issues!
But no. In fact Job hasn't been esteeming himself at all. He hasn't been contemplating himself. This is not the fruit of meditating on his sins or even on his sufferings. He hasn't been berating himself because he's a stupid, fat, ugly, unpopular, awkward, friendless failure. He hasn't had a thought about himself for four solid chapters.
Because for four solid chapters he has borne the brunt of the LORD speaking out of the tornado. Job's eyes have been dramatically lifted from himself and fixed on this Warrior Creator Commander called Yahweh. He has experienced the LORD's unanswerable wisdom in surround sound. And so in verse 5 Job summarizes exactly where his self-appraisal has come from:
5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:5)
“I despise myself” says Job. By comparison with the LORD – upright Job falls flat on his face, confesses himself to be a sinner and says “I despise myself”. And that's a good and right and true and psychologically healthy thing to do. Not that Job wondered to himself "What would be the correct response to meeting my Maker?" It just came out. But as it came out it was extremely healthy.
Now there is a wrong despising of self. There is someone who is not looking at the LORD at all. Instead they look at themselves. They are self-absorbed and with their gaze fixed firmly on their belly-button they are despising themselves. We’ve all been there to some degree or another. And it’s wrong. But mainly it’s wrong for where the self-hater is looking. The object of gaze is the issue - we must get our eyes off ourselves. Then, when looking to Christ, a true appraisal of self will follow - we are (in Tim Keller's words) more wicked than we had ever realised but more loved than we had ever dreamed.
So there is a wrong despising of self - it's when you’re focussed on yourself.
But... there is a right despising of self – when you’re focussed on the LORD.
Isaiah has a similar experience. In Isaiah 6, he sees Jesus in the temple seated on the throne (cf John 12:30f), high and lifted up, the angels are calling out ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’, the temple is shaking, smoke is everywhere and Isaiah cries out:
5 "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
Isaiah wasn’t feeling particularly sinful that morning. He wasn't running through a list of his prior misdemeanors. No-one was reminding him of past sins. Isaiah felt no guilt at all that morning... until he saw the King. Then he said “Woe to me, I’m ruined!”
Or think of Peter fishing with Jesus in Luke chapter 5. He’s in the boat with the LORD of Isaiah chapter 6. And they have a miraculous catch of fish. And Luke 5 verse 5 says:
When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"
Peter confesses to being a sinner when he sees the glory of Jesus. Peter hasn’t just remembered some sins from his murky past. He’s not even thinking about his sins, he is simply looking at Jesus and saying “I do not match up.”
Of course the ultimate place to look to find a true estimation of yourself is to Christ crucified. That's the sinner's fate. And that was your death - you died with Christ, the old man crucified. You will never be able to feel your way towards this verdict. Preachers, no matter how keenly they focus on individual sins you've committed, can't whip up this sentiment. And turning to yourself in order to work it up is itself sinful. Instead I look to the LORD high and lifted up (Isaiah 6:1 <=> 52:13). I allow the cross to be God's verdict on me. I am co-crucified with Christ and therefore reject the old self completely. And yet
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)
The true and right self-hatred is fundamentally to allow the cross to be God's verdict on the old you. And your true and right self-appreciation is not gained by trusting in the new you. No, the life you live in the flesh you live by faith in the Son of God. Trust His love for you shown decisively right when you were most hateful.
The New Testament has many warnings regarding our natural perversion of the gospel. We need to take them seriously. But I wonder if, often, we misdiagnose the problems.
Here are five little warning passages from the Bible. How do you instinctively characterize the bad guys in the following:
Those who walk away from Christ's 'hard words' in John 6
They're headed for lawlessness right? We imagine they can't handle Christ's heavy discipleship programme, that's the problem, right?
.
The wolves of Matthew 7:15-19.
They're liberal bishops right? (This is probably the association that Anglican evangelicals make most readily!)
.
The wolves Paul warns of in Acts 20:29-32
They'll 'devour the flock' by preaching licentious living, right?
.
'The doctrine of demons' as outlined in 1 Timothy 4
Orgies and heathen idolatry, surely!?
.
The dangerous "drift" of Hebrews 2:1-3
This must be a drift away from the law. Mustn't it?
.
Come on, admit it. Your gut reactions cast the bad guys as lawless liberals right?
But no. The hardness of Christ's teaching in John 6 is his relentless call away from the "works that God requires". What they find so hard is Christ's insistence on faith alone in His (flesh and) blood alone. The false prophets of Matthew 7 and Acts 20 are, in the context, the legalists. The doctrine of demons is asceticism. The dangerous drift of Hebrews is towards the law.
So, by all means, be warned. But be warned in the right way. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Teach sound doctrine. Correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. Do it because the freedom of the gospel is at stake. And we dare not enslave ourselves again.
A little while ago I lamented a certain kind of evangelism that is all too common. It's basically the call to younger brother types to come to their senses, to wrench themselves away from the far country and to return to the father with a pre-prepared sorry speech. The evangelist will even feed them a ready made, line-by-line repentance spiel - one with magic words guaranteed to effect a reconciliation. The whole encounter goes something like this:
"We all know who God is don't we? He's the Big Guy and you've been avoiding Him haven't you? Allow me to latch onto some guilt feelings you've experienced. Let me call that 'conviction of sin'. And now let me promise relief from those feelings if you'll only return to the Big Guy and bring this speech with you. I guarantee it'll work (becausetherewasthisthingcalledthecrosswhichyoudon'tneedtoknowaboutnow butIneedtocrowbaritinbecausethesewordsaremagic). Anyway, the ball is now in your court. It's all down to you. If you're up to the challenge, carefully repeat this prayer after me..."
The whole paradigm is one in which "God" is taken for granted, Jesus is a helpful mechanism to fix the guilt problem but the real Name above all names is Decision before Whom all must bow in self-willed surrender. Almighty Decision towers above you, are you equal to His call?
Let me suggest that the answer to all of this is (unsurprisingly) focussing on Christ. Evangelism is speaking of Jesus. It's lifting Him up by the Spirit (which means Scripturally) so as to present Him to the world as good news. So we say 'Taste and see that the Lord is good.' We basically hold out the Bread of life saying "Tasty isn't He??"
Now if we approach evangelism with Christ at the centre, there are many advantages:
1) Jesus simply is the most interesting and attractive Subject. You might have some cracking gags, moving anecdotes, contemporary illustrations and memorable catch-phrases, but they've got nothing on the power and beauty of Christ.
2) Faith is immediately seen for what it is - receiving Christ as He's offered in the gospel. Faith is not "banking the cheque" of forgiveness. What does that even mean? What do any of our illustrations of faith actually mean? Far better simply to hold out Christ and say "Look and live!"
3) Decision is dethroned. We don't so much tell the world to believe in Jesus. Far more than this, we tell the world about Jesus such that they do believe (Steve Holmes). Because faith is a response to contemplating Christ. The spotlight does not fall on the listener and their willingness to summon up the necessary response. The spotlight falls on Christ Himself.
4) You don't have to worry about offering cheap grace. You're not offering 'a blank cheque' for free, you're offering the Lord for free. To receive the it of grace/forgiveness/a ticket to heaven is entirely different from receiving Him - the LORD our Righteousness. In this way conversion and discipleship are held together. The one who simply receives Christ has unmistakably received a new Master.
5) You don't sell Christianity on the back of some abstract fringe benefits. Instead the preacher says "The one thing you get for receiving Jesus, is Jesus. But if you're seeing things clearly, the one thing you want is Jesus."
6) Because of this, you don't have to fence all your promises of forgiveness and freedom and new life with '...if you really, truly, ruly believe'. Since faith is receiving the Christ who is offered there's no chance of the listener trusting an abstract promise in vain. Those who receive Jesus receive Jesus.
7) The decision time at the end of the talk is de-emphasized. It is not the business end of proceedings. The real business is holding out Christ by the Spirit (and therefore in the word). The listener receives Christ as they are won by the gospel preaching. They can trust and receive Christ in their seats during the preaching. It's not about a form of words that they must parrot at the end. If you want to pray at the end that's fine. But it's only confirming a receiving of Christ that's occurred during the preaching. Faith comes by hearing.
...This was how the Galatian believer saw the history of God’s people from Adam onwards.
Now for them, Christ’s coming and dying was very important: We must realize that these Galatians were not denying the centrality of Christ or His cross. But, they thought, surely the law comes first – the law is foundational.
The default way in which God relates to His people has surely been law. From the garden of Eden, surely – He commands and we are to obey. And when Moses went up Mount Sinai surely he was given the law of laws – He was given the very commands of God, written by His finger on stone. Surely these words, being God’s words, express His eternal will for the people of God. Bottom line – there is a law, law is to be obeyed.
Now, in this timeline, the cross is important, and Jesus’ dying is central because we need His sacrificial death for all our failures at law-keeping. So there is an understanding of Gospel here.
The Gospel comes and helps us out when we fail to live up to the law. But, basically, what God wants is legal obedience. That is the bottom line for being a Christian.
Now this view of history was a big problem for the Galatian church. Because they thought like this, when preachers came and told them that they needed to obey the OT Law of circumcision to be a proper Christian, they fell for it. Why? Because, they have gospel and law running along together, side-by-side, in their minds and hearts. They have faith in Jesus AND legal obedience in their thinking about what makes someone a Christian.
If you have this understanding in your head about Law and Gospel then you will fall for false teaching time and again. You will seek your Christian identity in duties and observances and not in Christ.
So we need to over-turn this telling of history. And thankfully Paul does that for us in chapter 3, beginning at v6.
First thing he does is he under-cuts Moses. Paul goes back in Israel’s history and leap-frogs over Moses and says ‘think about Abraham. Think about when there was no Mosaic law to be obeyed, not even the covenant of circumcision, think about the life of the people of God before there were any commandments at all. What made Abraham a fully-fledged believer?' Answer (v6):
"He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.
In verse 8 Paul describes this faith as faith in the Gospel. We are children of Abraham when we trust the Gospel, because that’s what Abraham trusted.
So the history of the people of God does not begin with law at all it begins with Gospel
Now the Gospel promises spoken to Abraham were about the Seed (v16) and that Seed, that promised offspring, was Christ. That’s why I’ve got the Gospel stretching right back to the time of Adam because the Seed who was promised to Abraham was first promised to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15. Right from the garden of Eden, Jesus was promised as the Seed of the woman. He would crush Satan’s head but at great cost to Himself. Right from the beginning, Christ’s incarnation and death and resurrection, His victory over Satan was preached. And people trusted this gospel – people like Abraham – and they were saved.
So this Gospel is how God relates to people. Gospel is God’s bottom line.
But if that’s true – where does the Law fit in? It begins 430 years after Abraham (v17) and it lasts until (v19) the Seed had come.
The Law begins at the mountain of Sinai and ends at the mountain of Golgotha. That is the Law’s place....
A talk on fear... the Egyptian midwives... David and Goliath... David before Abimelech... David in his cave... Psalm 34... Luke 12... just listen! Outstanding!!
Far and away the best Australian comedy ever made, The Castle is a must-see movie. Brilliantly observed, funny, heart-warming and if you're not punching the air at the triumphant ending I fear for the state of your soul.
The Kerrigan family are threatened with eviction by a nasty corporation. But 'a man's home is his castle' so they fight it through the courts and... (last second spoiler alert!)... win.
It taps into some deeply felt Australian myths. It's about home and land - with overt references to aboriginal land rights. It's about family and mateship and a fair go. Most of all it's the myth of the little Aussie battler winning through.
Or is it?
In the story, Darryl Kerrigan (right) is completely helpless. He's all at sea in a legal world far beyond his understanding. As much as he wants to protect his family, he's absolutely powerless. His fate, and the fate of his household, lies with one of two advocates.
First, Dennis Denuto (left) makes terrible representation (see below). All is lost.
But a saviour is found in Lawrence Hammill QC (centre). Everything changes the minute 'Lawrie' utters those words, "I'd like to appear on your behalf - gratis... free!"
To the court, Darryl Kerrigan only looked as good as his representative. When his representative was poor, his case was thrown out. When his representative was good, he was utterly vindicated. His destiny lay in the hands of his advocate.
As an audience, we have a soft spot for the Kerrigans. But Lawrie wins our hearts. Only the emotionally constipated could watch his final speech (not shown above) with dry eyes.
The Castle's not about a working class hero who never gave up. This is not the story of one man standing against the powers that be - much as we love that myth. It's about the powerful one stepping down for the weak. It's the strong advocate who graciously intercedes.
Therefore - two things. 1) Go and see The Castle if you haven't already!
And 2) realise this: You are not the determined little guy who'll make good in the end. You're facing trial - powerless and guilty. But you have a brilliant Advocate. He says, "I'd like to appear on your behalf - gratis!" And He makes faultless representation to the court of heaven. You stand in Him completely vindicated. What kind of Advocate is this!
24 Because Jesus lives for ever, He has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. 26 Such a high priest meets our need--one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. (Heb 7:24-26)
19 Even now my Witness is in heaven; my Advocate is on high. 20 My Intercessor is my Friend as my eyes pour out tears to God; 21 on behalf of a man He pleads with God as a man pleads for his friend. (Job 16:19-21)
This time of year I always feel guilty. When it comes to the end of May and the weather turns nice, there’s a feeling I get. A rising panic has dawned on me ever since I was a teenager. You know the feeling - you step out into the sunshine feeling free and all of a sudden it hits you: I SHOULD BE REVISING!
Are you the same?
I haven’t sat any exams for years. But the weather turns nice and instantly I feel burdened by the weight of exam season.
It's a horrible feeling. And it's exactly like living under law. Let me list some similarities between being in "Revision Mode" and living "under the law."
In revision mode...
You never know if you've done enough. Until you see the exam you can't know what you should have been revising. Therefore, no matter how much revision you do, you could always be doing more.
If you blow off your revision and enjoy the sunshine you never really enjoy it. The knowledge of your coming exams overshadows any fun you might have.
If you stay in and study you spend the whole time feeling like you're missing out. Everyone else is having the summer of their lives, and you're stuck in the library.
Negotiating the exam becomes the whole point of study. Not learning. Not love of the subject. Everything is reduced to these arbitrary hoops through which you must jump.
Techniques become almost as important as understanding. In exams, the ability to conceal ignorance is every bit as useful as actually knowing stuff. Being good at exams can be worth more than being good at your subject.
The end results for which you aim are all about personal advancement - getting the job or university place that's best for you.
Living under the law is exactly the same.
The relentless drum beat that drives you is guilt. 'Do more, do more, do more' says the law. And more is never enough.
You can ignore the law's demands and 'cut loose' in sin, but unless you've been set free by Christ you won't enjoy it. There'll always be the lurking feeling that you should be shackled in religion.
On the other hand, you can clutch those shackles to yourself in self-righteous pride, but only you know how jealous you are of the cool kids cutting loose. Resentment is rising in you, even (and especially!) as you resolve to be good.
Loving your neighbour in self-forgetful joy is not your heart-beat. Instead you need to be told what to do. In measurable, manageable, bite-sized chunks.
Concealing your badness is just as important as showing your goodness. Keeping up appearances is everything.
The end goal is not Christ's love shared, but your status secured. Your goodness is all about you. Which means it's not actually good after all.
What's the answer?
Well at some point our exams come to an end. There's that beautiful moment when the invigilator says: "Please finish the sentence you’re on... PENS DOWN!" And right there - the summer holidays begin. What a moment!
In Galatians 3 Paul likens the Law to "a strict governess in charge of us." (Gal 3:24, JB Phillips). But now we've graduated. Christ has passed our exams for us and earned us the A* (Gal 4:4). The Law has done its job for us and now goes into honourable retirement (Gal 3:25). We can still learn much from its wisdom, we can still consult the old lesson plans. But we're not in revision mode. It can't give us a detention. And its grades no longer apply.
School's out for summer! We're free.
Like the graduate who picks up a book for love of learning, now we can actually pursue the life of Christ without fear, pride, pressure or guilt. Now that there's nothing we have to do we're finally in a position to actually do good! Now that all judgement has been cleared away, altruism is possible! For the first time in our lives genuine love can begin.
The Christian lives under the banner of John 19:30: "It is finished!" So no more "revision mode" spirituality. You've passed the test - with flying colours. Let the summer begin.
If music has some kind of deep resonance, maybe there really are "good vibrations" at the heart of reality
Put it another way, an evolutionary account of music and human personality has a very hard time accounting for a primal connection with something as complex as music.
Music is a deep magic! A profound harmony.
This man didn't choose to listen. He seemed indifferent when the headphones were first offered.
It's the music itself that swept him up into enjoyment of the music.
Music "restores us to ourselves"!
Music is like "the holy" it comes from outside us to tell us who we are.
A talk on fear... the Egyptian midwives... David and Goliath... David before Abimelech... David in his cave... Psalm 34... Luke 12... just listen! Outstanding!!
