pastoral theology – Page 5 – Christ the Truth

Being renewed after the image of our Creator [repost]

glenscrivFebruary 21, 2013Leave a comment

Four simple questions and four (perhaps) surprising answers regarding Colossians 3:10:

Put on the new self (the new man), which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

1) Who is the Creator referred to?

In context you'd think it was Christ, who is the Creator Image of God (Col 1:15-17)

2) What gets renewed?

The "new self" gets renewed. It's not simply that we are renewed by getting a new self. And it's not simply that we are given a new self. We are given a new self and the new self is renewed.

3) How does renewal happen?

Knowledge. Note all the knowledge language of the letter. This is just from chapter 1:

"heard... word of truth... gospel... learned... understood... all its truth... knowledge... spiritual wisdom... understanding... increasing in knowledge... make the word of God fully known... Him we proclaim... teaching everyone with all wisdom."

We desperately and continually need gospel knowledge to be renewed.

4) What does our Creator look like (given that we're supposed to look like Him)?

He is compassionate, kind, humble, meek, patient, forbearing, forgiving - in a word: He is love (v12-14). We know that these character-traits originally belong to the Lord because a) it says "Forgive as the Lord forgave you" and b) these virtues are outlined in the context of our becoming like Him.

So we don't become forgiving, humble and meek because God will hold us to account and He's big and powerful. We are forgiving, humble and meek because He is forgiving, humble and meek. And He has demonstrated it at the cross.

Therefore as we appreciate and know the goodness of this good news our new selves are being renewed to look like Christ - the compassionate and humble God.

Surprised by any of those answers?

Do Not Worry – A Sermon on Matthew 6:25-34 15

glenscrivJanuary 13, 201315 Comments

We spend our lives worrying about what we’ll eat and Jesus takes bread saying “I’m the bread of life, broken to feed worriers like you.”

We spend our lives worrying about what we’ll drink and Jesus takes a cup saying “This is my blood poured out for anxious souls like you.”

We spend our lives worrying about what we’ll wear and on the cross Jesus is stripped, so that we can be clothed in His righteousness.

Sermon text

Audio (I had to re-record the last 3 minutes after the service).

Helping the Helpers 1

glenscrivDecember 22, 20121 Comment

On Thursday I wrote a piece on Emma's blog about how I coped through her illness. I hope it might help others too. Here are the headings...

The Priesthood of Christ is vital for you both...

You are their vicarious hope-r...

You must believe in the bondage of the will...

A theology of the cross is vital...

A theology of the cross is not the same thing as “Misery loves Company”...

The goal is not getting back to how things were...

That feeling of impotence is inevitable, it’s good and it’s bad...

You will need to change...

Giving an addict what they want is not love...

Firm, buoyant love is the tone to strike...

Don’t do it alone...

Headship means being a prayer warrior...

This is not a distraction from real life, this is it...

Read the whole thing...

Irrevocable but not irredeemable [repost] 3

glenscrivDecember 6, 20123 Comments

Every year Eastbourne hosts a major airshow called Airbourne. The F-16 fly-pasts rattle your fillings loose and make your bowels shudder. People either love that kind of stuff or hate it. I think it's beyond awesome.

One time I was down at the seafront watching the show with a friend and the Red Arrows came on - the Royal Air Force's display team. They were extremely impressive and we were oo-ing and ah-ing until they did their trademark love heart formation. Over the tannoy they dedicated it to some member of their publicity team.

"Cute" I thought.

"Idiot!" said my friend.

Huh?

"Idiot!! Oh you idiot, you idiot, you total moron!"

"What's the matter?"

"The dedication!! I was supposed to ask them whether they'd dedicate the love-heart to my parents! It's their 40th wedding anniversary. I was supposed to ask them and I forgot."

"Oh" I said, my keen pastoral insight shining through.

To be honest there was nothing to say. His father spent his life in the RAF. It was their ruby wedding anniversary. They were also at the seafront listening to the same commentary. His mother had asked him that morning to make the request as a surprise for his dad.

He remembered many things about his parent's anniversary that day. But this one task slipped his mind. A simple mistake to make. But there was no taking it back. The moment had completely passed - an irrevocable error.

And boy did I feel for him.

Because life is made up of irrevocable errors. The deadline passes, the door closes, the opportunity vanishes. The words have left your mouth, the email has been sent, the damage has been done. And there's no getting it back.

Of course the temptation is then to wallow in regret. We go over the mistake again and again, turning back the clock in our minds as though we could somehow reverse the mistake through remorse.

But there is no getting the toothpaste back into the tube. Because God has designed the world in just this way.

He drives Adam and Eve out of paradise and determines that humanity must journey on to the city, not back to the garden.

He calls Abraham out of Ur and never back.

It's one-way traffic through the Red Sea - they are coming out of Egypt, never to return.

It turns out that the curses and blessings of the covenant are discrete phases the people must pass through - first the judgement, then blessings on the other side.

They don't avert judgement by cleaning up their act but bow their head to the coming exile.

Christ doesn't avoid but passes through death to resurrection, calling His people to likewise take up their crosses.

Death then resurrection and no resurrection without death.

The very passage of time marks the relentless forward motion of the God of hope - the Redeemer God who is always moving on.

Through every stage of life - in every moment even - the Lord shuts the door behind us and beckons us forwards.

Of course we don't like moving on. We'd rather go back over our mistakes and redeem them ourselves. We'd prefer to recapitulate our fallen humanity rather than allowing Christ to do it. Our regret is a kind of mental salvation by works. But it's futile and faithless.

Instead we ought to be resurrection people. Those who know that redemption lies ahead, on the other side of these one-way gateways. We look to the Lord who will restore to us the years the locust has eaten (Joel 2:25). But restoration is not in our hands and it's not in the past. It's in the Lord's hands and we receive it in the future.

Therefore we are prisoners of hope. We must live by a forward looking faith in the redeeming Lord, leaving restoration in His hands and moving forward through countless points of no return.

Life is full of the irrevocable. The Lord wants it that way. So often the irrevocable makes us wallow in regret. Yet the very opposite should be the case. The door has been locked behind us and we should stop banging on it. Instead we are beckoned forwards towards resurrection, knowing that life may consist in the irrevocable but that nothing is irredeemable. And for those in Christ, all things will be.

Evangelism and Pastoral Care

glenscrivNovember 9, 2012Leave a comment

Just guest-blogged on A New Name. Here's the opening...

Picture an evangelist. What are you imagining? Perhaps a motor-mouth with the enthusiasm of a labrador pup, the skin of a rhinoceros's hide, the social skills of a barge pole and the patter of a "Phones 4 U" sales rep.

Now picture a pastoral carer. What are the images now? Surely it's endless cups of tea, frowns of concern, shoulders squeezed and pained benedictions: "Aw bless" they say with an empathy perilously close to patronising.

In the popular Christian imagination, these are two different species. One of them we're very happy to send off to "The Mission Field." Then, with the wild-eyed enthusiasts out of the way, the pastoral people can settle down to their head-cocked expressions of condolence. And never the twain shall meet, right?

Read the whole thing...

“Lord, Enable Me!” The Resolutions of Samuel Johnson

glenscrivNovember 5, 2012Leave a comment

At Transformission Mike Reeves spoke of life "in the flesh" and "the spirit of slavery" that dominates those who are in Adam.

When you think of the realm of "the flesh" (or the "sinful nature" - NIV), what do you imagine? So often our minds run to 'the naughty things'. Gross disobedience. Licentious living.

That might be an outworking of the flesh. But in Romans 8:15, Paul charactierizes life in the flesh as bound by a spirit of slavery. This spirit is contrasted with the Spirit of adoption. It's whatever is opposed to our gracious adoption by a generous Father. Similarly in Galatians 4, Paul makes the contrast between slaves and sons and the slavery is all about bondage "under the law". In Philippians 3 the horrific evil of "those dogs" - the circumcision sect - is that, through their legalism, they were "putting confidence in the flesh." (Philippians 3:1-11).

Life in the flesh might be about sex. But - even worse - it might be about circumcision! Vain self-confidence can be found in the party animal. But how much more can such vanity exist in the champion of temperance. And with the added stench of self-righteousness!

We can be distracted from much bigger battles when our struggles with "the flesh" merely focus on "bad behaviours." As John Gerstner has said: “The thing that really separates us from God is not so much our sin, but our damnable good works.”

The devilish thing about religious carnality is that it doesn't appear to us as carnality. Instead the "spirit of slavery" makes us toil away at our "damnable good works". And just as the licentious sinner gets less and less of a kick out of their drug of choice, so the self-righteous prude finds less and less goodness to take pride in.

Take the example of 18th century moralist Samuel Johnson. At Transformission, Mike read to us from his prayer journals. Each entry is a window onto life "in the flesh." Here is the diary of a carnal man:

September 18, 1738 - Oh lord, enable me by your Grace to redeem the time which I have spent in sloth, vanity and wickedness, to lead a new life in your faith, fear and love; and finally to obtain everlasting life.

1757 - Almighty God, enable me, from this instant, to amend my life that I may not finally lose the things eternal.

1759 - enable me to shake off idleness and sloth

1761 - I have resolved till I am afraid to resolve again. Yet, hoping in God, I steadfastly purpose to lead a new life.

1764 - I have made no reformation; I have lived totally useless, more sensual in thoughts, and more addicted to wine and meat. Grant me, O God, to amend my life. My purposes, from this time, to avoid idleness. To rise early. To read the Scriptures.

A few months later: I have now spent 55 years in resolving; O God, Grant me to resolve aright, and to keep my resolutions. I resolve to rise early, not later than six if I can.

1765 - I purpose to rise at eight, Because though I shall not rise early, it will be much earlier than I now rise, for I often lie till two.

1775. When I look back upon resolutions of improvement, Which have year after year been made and broken, Why do I try to resolve again? I try, because reformation is necessary. I try, in hope of the help of God.

It is pitiable, laughable and tragic. This is what "the spirit of slavery" does to a person. And it is every bit as fleshly as the debauched hedonist. Only Christ can save.

Listen to Mike's excellent talks here.

It’s not about rules it’s about Working Hard at My Relationship With God… 11

glenscrivOctober 31, 201211 Comments

It's happened three times in the last three weeks, so let me give you a composite account of the conversations...

-- [Embarrassed biting of lip] Umm... I know I should know the answer to this... And I feel really silly for bringing it up. I realise it's, like, really basic... but it's been bugging me for ages now: How do I Have A Relationship With God?

-- What do you mean?

-- Well I know it's not about rules. I keep hearing that Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. Well, ok. But how do I Have A Relationship With God? It sounds so stupid that I should ask that. I know this is Christianity 101. It makes me wonder whether I'm even a Christian. But when people talk about "having a relationship with God", I kinda know what they mean. But I'm not sure I have what they're talking about. What are they talking about?

-- To be honest, I don't really know what they're talking about. And I wonder if they know what they're talking about.

Yes, that's really how I've been answering this question. Really.

Which will make you wonder whether I'm even a Christian. I mean honestly, who could possibly be against having a relationship with God??

Well I'm not against enjoying the gift of relationship with God. But I'm dead set against definitions of Christianity that throw the spotlight on me and my relationship with God. That might sound like a trivial difference. Actually it's all the difference in the world.

Don't get me wrong, I know the living God - a personal God - I hear Him in His word, I speak to Him in prayer. I enjoy fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Honest, I do. It's great. All a wonderful gift that's mine in Jesus. Fantastic.

But if I have to "have a relationship with God" then I'm stuffed. Seriously. I'm hell-fodder if 'relationship with God' is up to me.

Let's put the exact same truth in slightly different terms and you'll see what I mean: I love the law. It describes the good life of loving God and loving neighbour. Brilliant. And I have performed good works which the Father has prepared in advance for me to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). And that's been a lot of fun. Yay law. Yay works. Yay. But if I ever start talking about 'the heart of Christianity' as 'me obeying the law' then let me be accursed! If I ever say "People get the wrong idea about Christianity, it's not about ancient rituals, it's actually all about legal obedience" - you'll instantly realize my error. Well, it's just the same when you say "It's not about being religious, it's about Having A Relationship With God."

And you'll say - No, Glen, you've got it backwards. Religion is about rules - yuck. But Christianity is a totally different thing. It's all about relationship. It's not the same thing at all!

To which I'll say - Really?

Really??

I understand that the essence of Christianity is not my outward works (so far, so good) - but then I'm commonly told that it's about the quality of my inner devotional life towards God. Do you see what's happened? We've come to a different swamp, but we're still sunk. We're still lost in 'works righteousness', it's just there's a different flavour to the 'works'. Before it was all about outward, ritualistic hoops. Now I'm being told it's all about inward, pietistic hoops.

Well Hallelujah! Don't you feel the chains just falling off you? Rejoice, you don't have to perform physical acts, only mental and spiritual ones! Is that the freedom the gospel brings?

No, it's just a different kind of slavery. And in some ways, it's an even deeper slavery. That's why Christians, furtively, secretly, wonder to themselves (and sometimes they wonder it aloud to visiting Christian speakers) What is this Relationship With God I keep being told to manufacture? And why is it spoken of as liberating when all I feel is condemned by it??

Because, seriously, who on earth can have "a relationship with God"? Where would you even begin?

Look at the person in that photo at the top. Are you like them? Can you do what they're doing?

And if you could manage it, what, precisely, would be the point of Jesus? Do we really need "the One Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus"? Is He actually crucial to our Christianity? Or perhaps He just gets us in the door and then leaves us to get on with the main work of Christianity: having a relationship with God? Is that it?

No! The priesthood of Jesus is absolutely vital to understand. And this is what I've told my questioners when they've asked. The good news is this: We, by nature, are sunk in self and sin and have no chance of a relationship with God. But Christ is our Mediator who became Man for us, who lived our life for us, died our death for us and rose again to the Father's right hand for us. He now lives to intercede for us, carrying us on His heart the way Aaron carried the sons of Israel on his (Exodus 28:29).

Jesus is the true David - the true Man after God's own heart. Now, by the Spirit, I am swept up into Him - carried on His heart while He enjoys the ultimate heart-to-heart. I am included in the true God-Man relationship - not because of any devotional aptitude or inclination on my part. It is a sheer gift of grace given freely in Jesus.

I have a relationship with God. The good news is that it's not my own relationship, which would be as fickle as my feelings. No the relationship I have with God is Christ's relationship with God.

Some don't like this way of speaking. They think it diminishes a warm and personal walk with God. The opposite is the case. To know that I have Christ's relationship with the Father is where my personal walk begins. Secure in Jesus I can enjoy my status as a child of God. I can even join in with the Spirit's constant prayer: "Abba, Father." But none of this is a relationship I must manufacture. It's the grace in which - FACT - I now stand through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 5:1-2).

So this is what I said to my questioners. Don't look within, trying to find a relationship with God. You won't find it in you. Look to Christ - your Mediator, Advocate, Intercessor and Priest. He is your relationship with God. To the degree that you know you're on His heart, you'll feel Him in yours.

Why I need a Saviour [repost] 2

glenscrivOctober 25, 20122 Comments

A little confession of mine...

I desire in all things to be effortlessly superior

Of course between effortless and superior there’s a trade-off.

Usually I favour the effortless.

I only do what’s easy or what shows me off best.

I serve myself. Always. Even when I’m serving you.

I’m entitled – entitled to ease, respect, acclaim, admiration, understanding.

I'm outraged when this sovereign sphere is infringed.

I try to appear better than I am

I need to be right

I enter each conversation with a persona and an agenda

I don’t enter the conversation with me and a servant heart

I rob people of a true heart-to-heart by trying to appear cool/knowledgeable/funny/attractive

If I can’t appear cool/knowledgeable/funny/attractive I’ll withdraw

I’ll give you my talents, knowledge, anecdotes, humour. I won’t give you me.

The ‘me’ and the persona have become difficult to disentangle anyway.

I’m not a bit player in your story, you’re a bit player in mine.

In my story I am a noble sufferer, a heroic knight, a whimsical comic and a wise sage.

I force myself into this role. And I will force you to play along with my fantasy.

Your mistakes are crude, mine are complicated

Your mistakes have no excuses, mine have many excuses. Let me list them...

Your mistakes show your true colours, mine are out of character

If your sins are different to mine, I dismiss you as freakish

If your sins are the same as mine, my inside knowledge makes me dismiss you all the more

I’m devastated by my sins – but only for how bad they made me look (to others and to myself)

I hate myself – but only because I think I deserve better

I’m self-deprecating – but only because it plays well

I’m shy – but only as a cover for real engagement

I’m quiet – but not listening. Just self-absorbed.

By the way... I desperately don’t want you to know all these things. So I’ve got to keep you close enough to buy the persona but not close enough to see through it. In other words, I’ve got to manipulate you. Constantly.

I have a plethora of warm, witty, charming falsehoods to draw you in.

I have an arsenal of cold, sharp, closed quips to keep you back.

This is my complicated splendour.

Enjoy.

What Jimmy Savile, Jeremy Forrest and Lance Armstrong teach us… 3

glenscrivOctober 11, 20123 Comments

Three prominent stories in the news reveal the same human condition.

Jimmy Savile's molestation of minors was even recorded in his autobiography. It's not even disguised, it's right there on the page. He remembers an incident in the early '60s when he managed a dance hall in Leeds. Police asked him to keep a lookout for an attractive 16 year old girl who was missing. He told the female PC if he found her, he would keep her for one night as his reward. She did indeed turn up at his club that night and, as he writes, it was ‘agreed that I hand her over if she could stay at the dance, come home with me, and that I would promise to see her when they let her out’.

This is precisely what happened and he 'handed her over' to the police at 11:30 the next morning. Jimmy adds, she ‘was dissuaded from bringing charges against me by her colleagues, for it was well-known that were I to go I would probably take half the station with me’.

Scores more stories like these are emerging a year after Savile's death. People knew. People were told. Savile even told us. But somehow we couldn't quite allow the truth to confront us in all its stark horror.

Today is the day Jeremy Forrest appears in Eastbourne Magistrate's Court. The 30 year old maths teacher, who's been married for a year, ran off with a 15 year old student. They ended up in France before the authorities caught up with them. Back in May he wrote a blog post entitled "You hit me just like heroin." After speaking of the difficulty of an unnamed moral decisions he concludes: “At the end of the day I was satisfied that if you can look at yourself in the mirror and know that, under all the front, that you are a good person, that should have faith in your own judgment.”

As the relationship with his student grew, you can imagine the secrecy and the insanity ratcheting up in equal measure. With no-one to break in from the outside and say "This is nuts!", they end up fleeing to France. And then what!!? That should have been one of a thousand questions bringing them up short. But no. He 'looked in the mirror', was content with what he saw and acted accordingly.

The third story is about Lance Armstrong. The US Anti-Doping Agency has released "staggeringly voluminous supporting documents" for the decision to strip Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles. ESPN journalist, Bonnie Ford, writes "After today, anyone who remains unconvinced simply doesn't want to know."

But what's fascinating is the admission by Ford that there would indeed be many who don't want to know. She concludes her article saying:

Armstrong will always find a place to race and people who want to race with him, or at least come to watch. He is stubborn enough to be capable of existing indefinitely in a sort of parallel universe where he is still who he purported to be -- a purveyor of hope on wheels. And there will always be people who loved those three-week travelogues every July and don't want to give up on their longtime protagonist, either.

Sunflowers and lavender and Alpine switchbacks are far more appealing images than syringes and blood bags and a cult of personality channeled into coercion. Armstrong's legacy lies now not only in the eye of the beholder but in the willingness of that beholder to take off the blinders and see.

Here's the common thread... no-one wants to take off the blinders and see. With Savile, for Forrest and for Armstrong's fans, we just don't want to know. As the saying goes, there's none so blind as those who will not see.

But that's all of us, according to the bible. "All men are liars" said Paul in Romans 3. Calvin said this should be the first principle of Christian philosophy! And Thomas Cranmer's anthropology was well summarized thus:

"What the heart loves, the will chooses and the mind justifies." (Ashley Null)

Our minds are brilliant at justifying what we already love. We don't see because we don't want to see. This is part and parcel of our human condition.

When people pretend to a dispassionate appraisal of "the cold hard facts" and pledge to follow them "wherever they lead", we can admire them. But we also have permission to smile and shake our heads. It's just not how we tick.

So is there an answer to our universal flight towards fantasy?

Well Paul and Calvin and Cranmer would say Yes. The answer comes in the Word.

We need to be confronted with Truth from beyond. We need a Voice that contradicts us - that judges us and frees us. If it only judges us, we'll flee it indefinitely. But in Jesus, we have a verdict that condemns us as sinners, but then raises us as justified. It tells us - Yes, Savile really could be this evil, but still there's a way to confront it and deal with it. No, Forrest cannot look in the mirror and see a good person, but still there is a way back from this madness. No, Armstrong is not a hero but we don't have to divide between truth-deniers and Armstrong-haters.

This is a problem that besets us all. We are all, continually, involved in justification. Either justification of ourselves or justification of our heroes and principles. Christ alone can free us. He brings truth and grace. Truth to judge our lies. And grace to raise us again on His footing. The only answer to self-justification is Christ's.