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Category: pastoral theology

Published on Leave a comment on You are entirely unnecessary but utterly loved

On the King's English I've been thinking about a triune creation.

In the beginning

Let there be light

Let us make man in our image

Be fruitful and multiply

Behold, it was very good

God rested

The Breath of Life

It's really striking me how profligate is the triune God of grace.  The Father, Son and Spirit bubble over in love.  A unitarian god needs creation.  And all relations between such a creator and its creature are quid pro quo arrangements.  The triune God does nothing about of necessity.  It's all about gift and free overflow.

We can genuinely say "You really didn't have to."  And the Lord will reply, "I know, but I wanted to."

So my friend, whoever you are.  Know in your heart: You are entirely unnecessary.  Entirely.  Unnecessary.  You are a profligate extravagance, a superfluous addendum, a needless flourish.  The Lord, His universe, His church, His kindgom purposes could so easily do without you.  You are completely surplus to requirements.

And you say "I need to be needed!  If my children don't need me, I'll fall apart.  If my church doesn't need me, I'll crumble.  If my work doesn't need me, who am I?"

But you don't need to be needed.  You only think you need to be needed because you've forgotten you're loved.  So let me remind you...

You are wanted.  You are desired.  And not for anything 'you offer.'  You are surplus to requirements.  But our God doesn't deal in requirements, He enjoys the surplus.  He delights in you.

Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.  (Eph 2:4-5)

You are entirely unnecessary, but utterly loved.

Published on Leave a comment on Joy to the World

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QsR-D1HYnk&feature=BF&list=QL&index=15"]

Joy to the World , the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

 

Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

 

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

 

Published on Leave a comment on Good Advice for Boasters [repost]

its-all-about-me

Are you a boaster?

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Bet I'm a bigger one...

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See?

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I've been thinking about the early chapters of 1 Corinthians recently.

Here's some of the things they boasted in.

Chapter 1:31 alludes to Jeremiah 9:23.  There the spotlight is on wisdom, strength and riches.

This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD.  (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

Wisdom, strength, riches - do they tell you who you are?  Is that where you turn for an ego boost?  Well really- Forget that stuff.  That's small-time boasting.  That's like being proud of your long bushy nasal hair.  "Hey guys, check out my new perm!"  You're being ridiculous. Stop it.

But it's not just our own wisdom and strength we  boast in.  The Corinthians demonstrated the perennial temptation to boast in our connection to the world's wisdom and strength.  They got a big ego trip from keeping up with the intellectual elites, the opinion formers, the celebrity power players.  It's not even that they were these big players, but they got a kick out of knowing their celebrity gossip, following their diets, repeating the arguments of the columnists at dinner parties, adopting the attitudes and management techniques of the movers and shakers.  Yeah, they were in with the people that really matter in the world.  Paul says, that's puny, God's made that look pathetic at the cross (1 Cor 1:18-20).   It's like pointing to smoking rubble and saying 'Lookey!'

Then there's the most subtle yet most rampant kind of boasting in Christian circles - to boast in Christian labels and leaders (1 Cor 1:12).  I know where I stand because I'm emergent or neo-reformed or whatever.  I'm ok because I line up with Stott or Carson or Driscoll or Piper or whoever.   And Paul says - forget those guys, they're just slaves (1 Cor 3:5).   Slaves might boast about knowing their famous masters, but who ever boasted about knowing a slave?  They're farmers. (1 Cor 3:8).  Whoever heard about celebrity farmers.  They're builders (1 Cor 3:10-15) - and you're not the ones to do the survey of their building.  God is.

Do not boast in Christian cliques, and parties, theologies and  leaders.  Was Calvin crucified for you?  Were you baptised  into Barth? (1 Cor 1:13).

And anyway, it's all yours!  (1 Cor 3:21-23)  You don't belong to Christian leaders, they belong to you - all of them belong to all of you.  Anything Christ-exalting said by the Arminian, the Pentecostal, the Catholic, the Emergent, the Orthodox, even the Anglican - it's yours.  Cheer up, you're inheriting the whole universe and Paul, Apollos, Cephas, Martin, Thomas, and Karl are thrown in.

Stop all this boasting in you, in your worldly connections, in your Christian connections - stop that.

But...

Don't stop boasting.  No, no, no.  By all means keep on boasting.  Paul commands it:

"Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." (1 Cor 1:31)

Boasters of the world take heed.  Do not put a lid on your boasting.  Boast with gusto, with verve, with unstoppable audacity.  Boast big-mouthed and full-throated.  Boast until you're blue in the face.

Just don't boast in you.  Boast in Jesus.

Notice how the very next thing Paul does is describe his evangelistic ministry.

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.  (1 Cor 2:1-5)

Here is what it looks like to switch your boasting from self to Christ.  It looks like a trembling, humble evangelist, no techniques, but bold as brass for Jesus and dead certain of His foolish message.  In other words it makes for missionaries unsure of themselves but certain of Christ.  And that's what the world needs.

So, boasters of the world, for goodness sakes let's stop boasting in ourselves.  But don't stop boasting.  Let's use the decades of practice we've accrued and turn it to good.

We used to rabbit on about our own achievements, now let's rabbit on about Christ's.  We used to name drop Christian leaders, now let's name drop Christ.   We used to slip impressive facts about ourselves into conversation, now let's slip in impressive facts about Jesus.  We used to think of ourselves in relation to worldly power and wisdom, now let's regard ourselves according to the cross.  We used to gain identity from theological labels, now let's claim the LORD as our banner.

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Published on Leave a comment on Bacon, Bible and the Boys 4 – United to the God of Love

Continued from here.

AUDIO HERE.

UNITED TO THE GOD OF LOVE

INTRODUCTION

Jesus is THE Revelation of God.  Not just the Best or the Final Revelation – THE Revelation.

If we want to know God, we need to begin again with Jesus and let Him reshape our vision of God.

When we do that we discover a God totally different to the Omnibeing of western imagination.

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: He is full of the Spirit and Son of the Father.

Therefore Jesus reveals to us the Trinitarian God

Trinity is not a maths problem but a simple truth: God is Three Persons United in Love

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Wonderfully, through Jesus, we are invited into the God who is Love.

Jesus became what we are through the crib and the cross.

Believers become what He is as the Spirit incorporates us into Jesus.

We now participate in the Son’s union and communion with the Father

In Jesus we become children of the Father, filled with His Spirit.

Thus we are christs, sons of God IN Jesus – the Christ, the Son of God.

In the words of 2 Peter 1:4 we participate in the divine nature.

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THOUGHT STARTER

“Feelings are feelings, they’re neither good nor bad, what counts is what you do with them.” Discuss.

 

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...continue reading "Bacon, Bible and the Boys 4 – United to the God of Love"

Published on Leave a comment on Questions of Faith 4

Thanks for comments so far.  I'll get around to responding later on today or tonight.

Continued from here.

Can there be a place for Sharia law in our multi-cultural society?

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Any provision of Sharia law within a multi-cultural western society would be extremely complicated, and not something I’m in any position to comment upon.  But it’s complication shows us something – it shows that admirable liberal values like “respect” and “tolerance” can’t, by themselves, arbitrate in a multicultural society. What does it even mean to “respect” a cultural practice that is entirely alien to modern, liberal western values?  How should the British Raj have “respected” the Hindu practice of burning widows on the funeral pyre of their dead husbands?

For all talk of “respecting” different faiths and outlooks, a single rule of law must, by the nature of the case, outlaw certain religious practices that are dear to certain of its communities.  The tolerance card only goes so far – everyone finds something intolerable.  There are, it turns out, taboos, sacred cows and unforgiveable sins even for the most secular legislator.

Therefore, for all the attempts to make our laws neutral with regards to faith communities, the rule of law cannot be neutral.  Every rule of law is faith based.  It embodies a certain vision of the healthy, flourishing society.  It comes from a certain worldview.

What faith is embodied by this country’s laws?  I’m certain that we have passed a tipping point whereby Christianity is no longer our shaping faith commitment in the passing and upholding of laws.  Instead there is another faith informing our laws: liberal, pluralistic humanism.  That is our grand vision for humanity and what we are and what we should aspire to – it shapes our legislation and our judiciary.  And necessarily so.  All laws come from faith commitments.

Now I’m not here advocating that we lobby against liberal pluralistic humanism and try to get Christianity back onto the statute books.  I don’t think you legislate Christianity, I think you preach it.  But I’m a preacher – of course I think that.

If the debates about Sharia law do anything, I hope they make us more self-consciously aware of the faith commitments we already hold as a society.  I hope we scrutinize carefully what it is that Sharia law wants us to believe.  It has a vision of what it means to be human, what it is to be woman, what it is to be man, what is right, what is wrong, what is just.  And I want us to scrutinize and question those things very carefully.  But I also hope we scrutinize what it is that our own law-makers want us to believe.  Who are we, what do we need, what must be protected, what must be rejected, what is true, what is just.  The answers to those questions are not obvious.  And simply to slide along with the majority view on those questions is not wise.  Neither will it allow us to say a firm "No" when a faith community demands something really abhorrent in the name of "tolerance."  We need a firmer foundation than "tolerance" or "respect."

Jesus Christ says, Come to me and I will show you who we are, what we need, what is true, what is false.  He frees us to think again about what life is really about.  And His vision is not the Sharia vision and it’s not the liberal humanist vision either.

But His rule is the one rule which outsiders should fear the least.  Because here is One who loves and bleeds and dies for His enemies.  He does not merely wish us to "tolerate" outsiders.  He commands us to love our enemies.

And He invites you into an alternative, counter-cultural kingdom, even as you live in the United Kingdom.  He tells you to honour the law-makers as far as is humanly possible: He says “Give to Caesar what is Caesar, but give to God what is God’s.”  And a society in which Christians are vigourously living out Christ’s other-centred life in the world – whether they happen to wield political power or whether they are a small, oppressed minority – that society is better off.

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Once again, I very much appreciate your comments...

 

Published on Leave a comment on I thank God my wife is not nice

From Emma's blog:

...This reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a friend. We were discussing what it is we pray for and she suddenly dropped a conversational bombshell.

'Every day', she said, 'I pray to be nice'.

You might think, well, what's wrong with that? But 'nice' to me... is what Kyrptonite is to Superman. It's a terrible word. An insipid, pastel-coloured emotion, laden with shoulds and oughts and good intentions and utterly devoid of passion.

However, when I suggested as much to this friend, she looked at me aghast. Now, to be fair, I could have been a little more sensitive. I didn't help matters by shouting 'You pray to be NICE? WHY? It's not an adjective, it's a biscuit. You're not nice! You'll never be nice! If you turn 'nice', our friendship is OVER'.

No-one is nice in the bible.  I am so grateful my wife is not nice!

Her whole article

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Published on Leave a comment on Waiting

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[A repost]

Ever noticed how much the theme of waiting comes up in the Scriptures?

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Two examples from the OT.

People waiting for Jesus:

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In Genesis 49 we see the kings from Judah promised as throne-warmers for the Universal King (v10).  In the midst of Jacob's many prophesies he says:

"For Your Yeshua I will wait O LORD."  (Gen 49:18)

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Let's leap over loads more and land on Psalm 130:5-8:

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with Him is full redemption.  He Himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

The LORD Himself is coming to redeem His people.  Wait for Him.  Watch for Him.  Put your hope in Him - which is strictly parallel to putting your hope in His word (interesting parallel).

Well the Universal King came and He offered full redemption.  So NT people are not people of waiting right?  Wrong.

Hebrews 9:28 explains:

Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.

What's the distinguishing mark of the Christian?  Waiting for Jesus.

I could pick loads more but what about 1 Thes 1:9-10; 2 Tim 4:8 and Jude 21:

You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, Whom He raised from the dead--Jesus, Who rescues us from the coming wrath.

Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.

Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

Do you have "expectant" mothers in your church?  I hope you're not dumb enough to ask them whether they've given birth yet.  But if you were to ask them how they're doing, you'll invariably get the response, "Still waiting."  There's an event in the future that's coming and it changes everything in the present.  How you doing?  Waiting.

That's the Christian's outlook on life.  Waiting for God's Son from heaven, longing for His appearing, waiting for His mercy and eternal life.

Do you miss Jesus?  Is there a yearning for face-to-face with the Lord who died for you?

When I was engaged to my wife we were on opposite sides of the planet.  In fact we did long-distance for over a year.  But here's what kept me faithful to her.  And more than faithful, here's what kept our long-distance relationship positively vibrant.  We were waiting for our wedding day.  And that expectancy shaped virtually every minute of our lives.  Simply waiting for this future state rendered any notions of infidelity unthinkable.  Waiting was not an absence of activity.  It wasn't a lack that necessarily needed filling.  It was not a nothing preceding a something.  It was a something of enormous substance.  Waiting in this sense is a tangible reality.

So it is with the Christian.

When we're asked how we're doing, perhaps we should respond like the 'expectant' mum or the engaged couple.  How am I? Still waiting.

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Published on Leave a comment on Lusting, Loathing and Lying

In Colossians 3:5-9 Paul describes our 'earthly nature.'

First lusting:

sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry  (v5)

then loathing:

anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language. (v6)

then lying:

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices. (v9)

Now Paul doesn't explicitly teach a progression here.  But is it too much to see one at work?  Especially when you put this together with Jesus' and James' teaching.

In Matthew 5, Jesus particularly puts His finger on loathing (v21-26) and lusting (v27-30) and in James 4:1-2 he co-ordinates the two:

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.

First you desire.  But then your desire is thwarted and you hate and kill.  Lusting leads to loathing.

And then, back in Colossians 3, perhaps we can see the crowning sin to this progression: lying.  Because lying is part and parcel of 'our old self with its practices.'  In the raw we are lusters and loathers, but then lying becomes our sophisticated method of getting what we want.  It's our lusting and loathing woven into a whole relational style.  It's the mask we wear to avoid or to win the quarrels and to fulfil our lusts.

But Paul says, we've taken it off.  So let's trace back the verses in Colossians 3.

v9: The mask is gone, no more lies.

And we might think - Yikes, I'm exposed.

v8: Maybe it reveals anger and quarrels.

Where do these come from?

v5: Our lusts.

What should I desire instead?

v1-4:  Set your heart and mind on Christ.  He's the one to desire.

In obsessing ourselves with Jesus, our new self gets renewed in knowledge in His image.  (v10)

Anyway, those were some thoughts that didn't make it into my Sunday sermon on Colossians 3.

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