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Category: pastoral theology

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Published on 7 Comments on I’d like to appear on your behalf – gratis

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)

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Published on Leave a comment on David Wayne – My Battle with Cancer

ht Bobby

I really appreciate David speaking about the theology of the cross and how it teaches Christians not to simply flee to comfort but to fellowship with Christ in whatever suffering God brings.

David continues (sporadically) JollyBlogging.  Please keep him and Bobby in your prayers.

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Published on 23 Comments on What of those who fall away? Hebrews 5:11-6:20

A sermon on Hebrews 5:11-6:20.  Audio here

What do we make of Christians, who belong to our churches, serve in remarkable way, can speak of great Christian experiences.  They’ve heard the gospel, maybe they’ve even themselves taught the gospel to others.  They’ve been involved in ministry and have spoken personally of God’s goodness.  Maybe they’ve even helped you in Christian life and been a real example and mentor to you – and NOW, they are nowhere spiritually.  They don’t call themselves Christians anymore.  They feel like they’ve out-grown it.  They’ve consigned it to the past.  What about Christians who fall away?

Well it seems to me there can only really be two answers.

...continue reading "What of those who fall away? Hebrews 5:11-6:20"

Published on Leave a comment on The Inner World of an Anorexic

A great talk by Helena Wilkinson on eating disorders.   A former sufferer herself, she brilliantly captures the many paradoxes at the heart of the sufferer.

This was just one talk given at a Big House conference on eating disorders in Northern Ireland.  Big House is a fantastic new organisation seeking to provide training for youth leaders and a safe place for youth to find help with difficult issues.  Please do check them out, especially if you're in the province.

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Published on Leave a comment on A story about guidance

True story:

I sat opposite my, then, girlfriend in the restaurant.  I wanted to make her more than my girlfriend.  So I sought God's guidance in the way that seemed most obvious to me.

I fired up a silent prayer in the restaurant.  "Father, if it's right that we marry, please put into her head the thought of our wedding day."

Instantly she smiles.

I ask, "Why are you smiling?"

She says, "Oh, nothing."

"Were you just thinking about our wedding day??"

"How did you know??!"

"Because I just prayed that if we should get married, you'd think about our wedding!!"

...Awed silence...

Now let me come clean.  This woman was not Emma, who is my wife.  Had I married the woman from the restaurant, lovely woman though she was and is, it would have been an unmitigated disaster.  Nonetheless - I had sought guidance from on high.  And it seemed pretty clear she was the one.

So what do we learn?

For one, we learn that much seeking of guidance is in fact seeking God's rubber stamp for our own desires.  I was not looking for guidance, I was looking for a "Yes."

When we seek after signs we prove very adept at creating them.  I don't know what exactly was going on in that restaurant, but I do know that Derren Brown can create far more impressive tricks.  In a restaurant, in a serious relationship, after serious discussion, it doesn't take a genius to predict thoughts of a future wedding.  And it doesn't take much to turn my wish into a prayer and then take it for a sign.  If you're looking for one, you'll take anything as a sign.

We're not promised guidance through signs, we are promised it through the word of God and the people of God.

I was reminded of all this by reading Proverbs this morning:

Proverbs 18:1 Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.

Later on I read this:

Proverbs 20:5 The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

I don't know myself very well.  In fact I have deep desires hidden from my own sight.  Yet they drive me in all the wrong directions.  It's madness, but if these desires really get hold of me I want to avoid anyone with Wisdom.

I can maintain the facade of godliness, because - Hey, I'm still seeking God's guidance!

But I'm seeking it in signs and not where God has put His Wisdom.  He's put Wisdom into His book and into His people.  We must seek guidance there.

Proverbs 15:22 Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.

Anyway, here's an old sermon on guidance...

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Published on 8 Comments on An Easter Sermon – Job 19

To listen click here

What words of comfort do you commonly use?

Imagine you tell of some bad news:

My credit cards have been stolen, they’ve cleared out my bank account...

How do you finish that sentence?

...still, worse things happen at sea

... serves me right for being so careless

... I suppose I’m just cursed

... I guess I should count my blessings

... at least I’m not being boiled alive in sulphuric acid

... at least I have my health

... such is life

Whatever we tack onto the end of our stories of suffering gives a little window onto our theology of suffering.

Me and a friend have stock lines we use and we make fun of each other for them.  He calls me a cautious optimist.  I call him a stark realist.  When I get to the end of my news I say: “So we’ll see.”  When he gets to the end of his news he says “So there we are!”

What’s your response to suffering?  In church we often have some more spiritual sounding consolations.  Things like “Just got to keep trusting I guess.”  “God’s got a plan.”

But none of these are a patch on one line I heard recently.  It was from a woman suffering with cancer.  And after she’d told people the seriousness of her condition she’d say “Still, nothing a resurrection won’t fix.”  Now that’s consolation.

Nothing a resurrection won’t fix.

That’s what Easter is about.  The darkest day on planet earth was Good Friday when the LORD of Glory was barbarically executed - slaughtered as a lamb.  When you kill your father it’s called patricide.  When you kill a king, it’s called regicide.  This was deicide – killing God.  The Word of creation comes and we silence the Word.  The Light of the cosmos shines, and we extinguish the light.  The Life-force of the world comes and we kill the Author of Life.

The sun stopped shining and the earth quaked when the LORD our Maker was lifted up on the cross.  Abandoned by earth, forsaken by heaven – He’s thrust into the air, hanging between heaven and earth, He dies the death of the rejected.  Spat upon, mocked, derided, a spear thrust into His heart.  Taken down, His cold, lifeless corpse was laid in the tomb and the entrance was sealed.  God was dead and buried.  It was the worst thing that has ever happened.

But Easter Sunday – He burst out of the ground, NEW.  The same Jesus – but now He’s been perfected.  He has passed through the fires of judgement and come out refined, glorified.  He hasn’t just dipped His toe into death and come back.  He has passed all the way through death and come out the other side into immortal, resurrection life.

And on Easter Sunday we remember the stories of how He appeared to His disciples, still bearing the wounds of His crucifixion.  He keeps the marks of His death, because we will praise His death into all eternity.  But they are glorified wounds.  Jesus redeems death – He redeems even His death, even deicide is redeemed through the resurrection.  There’s nothing His resurrection won’t fix.

And what I want us to understand this evening is that Christ’s death and resurrection isn’t just an example of how, sometimes, good can come out of suffering.  This isn’t an example – it’s the engine of God’s cosmic redemption.  What God did through Jesus that weekend – He will do to the whole universe.  There’s nothing His resurrection won’t fix.

Just before Jesus died He said this in John 12

24 I tell you the truth, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Jesus is the Seed who falls dead into the ground, but rises up new to produce MANY seeds.  His death and resurrection is the pattern and prototype and power for MANY resurrections.

Put it another way – Jesus is the Head of a new creation.  And as He takes the old humanity down into the grave He rises as Head of a new humanity.  And all who are united to Him by faith are raised with Him.

Put it another way – Jesus is like the needle going through the thick black cloth of suffering, judgement and death.  And Jesus bursts through the other side – taking with Him, the thread.  Us – anyone who trusts in Jesus is united to Him and takes the same path.

Easter Sunday is not just an example of new life.  It is the pattern, the prototype, the power for cosmic resurrection.  And it’s what God is doing in your life.  He is moving you from Good Friday through to Easter Sunday, and there’s nothing His resurrection won’t fix.

...continue reading "An Easter Sermon – Job 19"

Published on Leave a comment on What does Spiritual Health Look Like? [Thawed out Thursday]

When studying the Lord's prayer it's common to think about the character of God that's assumed in the prayer: i.e. Father, in heaven, holy, etc, etc.

What about the character of the one praying it?

Here are some thoughts:

  • Childlike
  • Reverent
  • Expectant
  • Guileless
  • Obedient
  • No agenda of our own
  • Desperate
  • Dependent for all things
  • Confident of mercy
  • Acknowledging sin
  • Repentant
  • Merciful
  • Having a deep appreciation of grace
  • A follower
  • Hating sin and temptation
  • At war with the evil one
  • Sheltering in the Lord's deliverance

Three thoughts:

1) I want to be this person.

2) Jesus has made me this person (John 16:23-27)  The Father regards me as this very person, clothed in my Advocate. I not only pray in and through Jesus but with Him.

3) As I pray, resting in the intercession of Jesus, I am increasingly living up to what I've already attained in Him.

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Published on Leave a comment on Like a bird flocks to seed…

I've had the most incredible couple of weeks in the run-up to our special week of evangelism.  Amazing gospel opportunities along with massive, sometimes bizarre, mostly very tragic disruptions.

In it all I've been reminded that Satan flocks to gospel proclamation like birds to seed.

But take heart - the seed wins in the end.

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Published on Leave a comment on Exodus 20:22-21:36

Read Exodus 20:22-21:36

Here is the original sermon on the mount.  Here is a comprehensive discipleship programme for the Israelites to live out in the land in anticipation of Messiah's fulfilment.

After the Ten Words the LORD seems to make a concluding remark about idolatry and altars (20:22-26).  Here the false gods are differentiated from the true God who meets His people at the altar (20:22-26).  Interestingly the altar is also the place to which sinners flee and from which the unforgiven are banished (21:13-14).

From chapter 21:1 we settle down to the more everyday elements of the Father's discipleship programme.

We begin with slavery and freedom (21:2-11) - very appropriate given the redemption of the Israelites.

Calmet gives us six different ways in which a Hebrew might lose his liberty:

  1. In extreme poverty they might sell their liberty. Leviticus 25:39: “If thy brother be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee”, etc.
  2. A father might sell his children. “If a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant”; see Exodus 21:7.
  3. Insolvent debtors became the slaves of their creditors. “My husband is dead-and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen”, 2 Kings 4:1.
  4. A thief, if he had not money to pay the fine laid on him by the law, was to be sold for his profit whom he had robbed. “If he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft”; Exodus 22:3, 4.
  5. A Hebrew was liable to be taken prisoner in war, and so sold for a slave.
  6. A Hebrew slave who had been ransomed from a Gentile by a Hebrew might be sold by him who ransomed him, to one of his own nation.

They serve only for 6 years maximum and would go free in the Sabbath year.  Slavery and redemption was written into the calendar for the Israelites.

Next we see the protection of life.

Note well that protection of the unborn is naturally covered within these laws for all life.  Its destruction is destruction of "life".  You can imagine how great a concern this would be for the Israelites - especially given that they are waiting for the birth of the Messiah!

"Eye for eye" is clearly in operation here (v23ff).  But this is not to foster a cycle of violence, rather it is the absolute limit of just retribution.  Chapter 23:3-4 will enjoin love and mercy for enemies in very practical ways.  It's simply not the case that OT law itself was into revenge and the NT is into forgiveness.

Other thoughts gladly received in comments...

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