THE WORD @ BBC

The Bigger Picture: Joseph 5

2010-05-25T22:02:00.006+01:00

Joseph 5: ‘The Power and the Glory’

(preached May 23rd, 2010)

Chapter 41 of the Book of Genesis is a little like those visual illusions, which look like one thing one minute and something else the next (see above). Undoubtedly, it is a picture of power – but it’s a picture which actually turns out to be very different to the way it looks when we first set eyes on it. At first sight, there could surely be little doubt where the power lies in this story. Let me take you to two different places – only a short distance from one another, and yet whole worlds apart.

First, we enter the palace of the Pharaoh and see a glorious figure seated upon a golden chair: a man clothed in the finest materials; his strong arms ornamented by beautiful bracelets; his head bedecked with the royal head-dress of blue that is decorated with the sacred asp at the brow and two ribbons flowing from the back; and everywhere there are attendants – some whose duty is to fan him to keep him comfortable in the midday heat; female musicians who play gentle notes upon stringed instruments to soothe his mood; the cupbearer who brings him his wine, having first tasted it to ensure its harmlessness; and miscellaneous others who wait upon his every need.

The palace in which he sits is a testament to his authority, to his opulence, to his dominion: he is the monarch over a vast and highly developed kingdom – he is, in his time, a king without equal.

Now let me take you to a prison building not so far away from the palace. The cells within the prison are tiny compared to the huge, airy spaces of the palace, and they let in just a fraction of the sunlight that floods into the Pharaoh’s quarters, illuminating their magnificence. Then we see one of the inmates – not an Egyptian, but a Hebrew – looking after his fellow prisoners; he is young, yet it’s hard to tell because he has a long and very full beard which makes him look older than his years; he’s also probably quite handsome, but his worn and grubby clothing do nothing for his appearance. He has been given some responsibility within the prison, but he cannot leave, however much he would like to.

As we consider these two scenes, these two men, there can surely be no question of where the power lies, can there? Could there be anyone more powerful than Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who holds the power of life and death – just remember the cupbearer and the baker – and whose word is law? Well, that’s what you’d think when you first looked at the whole situation; but, as we know, things are not always quite as they seem!

PHARAOH’S DREAMS

One night, as Pharaoh slept upon his couch in his sumptuous palace, he began to dream – and what a strange dream he had! He was standing by the Nile, when, suddenly, out of the river appeared seven beautiful, fat cows came out of the water which then began to feed on the grass. Then, seven ugly, thin cows emerged from the water and devoured the beautiful, fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up with a start, feeling quite unsettled; but drowsiness quickly overcame him again and he went back to sleep.

Moments later, he was dreaming again: this time of seven wonderfully healthy ears of grain growing up from a single stalk; but then alongside them grew seven rather sorry looking ears of grain, which turned and swallowed up whole the seven healthy ears of grain. Again, the Pharaoh awoke in an agitated state and, next morning, he summoned all his magicians, sages and interpreters to find out the meaning of the dreams, because he knew they were of great significance. But not one of them could tell him what they meant.

Just consider for a moment the significance of what has happened here. Pharaoh is usually the one who sits upon the throne and dictates what is to happen, and everyone rushes back and forth making sure that it does happen. But this time, it’s different: these dreams have intruded upon Pharaoh’s privacy and the one who normally directs others is now himself being directed. Yet he himself cannot understand the directions he’s being given, so he feels confused, concerned and strangely out of control of the situation.

The apparently all-powerful king begins to see that there really are limitations to the power he wields. Not only that, but the power and mystique of his kingdom is undermined, as none of its learned people, none of its finest minds can explain the meaning of the dreams – Egyptian wisdom and knowledge are found wanting.

JOSEPH REMEMBERED

It’s only now, two years after the event, that the cupbearer remembers Joseph, the man who had accurately interpreted his dream; and so he tells Pharaoh about him. The desperation that Pharaoh feels is illustrated by the fact that he immediately commands that Joseph be brought before him – summoning a foreign jailbird into his presence on the off-chance he can interpret the meaning of some dreams would not be something that the king of Egypt would do if he had any more reasonable alternative.

In effect, by resorting to consulting a Hebrew, he – the most powerful man in the most powerful kingdom – is admitting that he and his nation are out of their depth. They realise they have no control over their own destiny, so they look to Joseph. And notice how he has to have a wash, a shave and a change of clothes before he was presentable to the Pharaoh. I’m so glad that this little detail was put in here, because it emphasises the entirely different worlds that the two men have been living in up to this point in time.

And so the apparently power-full Pharaoh asks the seemingly power-less Joseph to interpret his dreams; but, just as he had told the cupbearer and the chief baker two years beforehand, Joseph makes it absolutely clear that it is not he himself, but the God of Israel who will show Pharaoh their meaning and thus give him the peace he has longed for. Joseph doesn’t hesitate to point Pharaoh towards God – he has no wish to glorify himself.

If only we were as ready to acknowledge God as the source of all our talents and skills as Joseph is here! Often, when we are praised or thanked for something we’ve done, it’s not that we remain silent because we want to take the glory for ourselves, but perhaps because we feel a little embarrassed or reserved to say, “Actually, it’s due to God, not me.” Let’s be less self-conscious and more God conscious, and give Him the glory, just as Joseph does!

GOD RULES, OK?

When Pharaoh describes his dreams, God immediately gives Joseph the true interpretation. I want you to notice that, at the beginning of the interpretation, Joseph tells the king: “God is telling Pharaoh in advance what He is about to do.” Then, in the middle of the interpretation, Joseph breaks off to repeat: “This will happen just as I have described it, for God has revealed to Pharaoh in advance what He is about to do.” And just in case Pharaoh has failed to get the message, at the end of the interpretation Joseph explains: “As for having two similar dreams, it means that these events have been decreed by God, and He will soon make them happen.”

Surely, by now, even Pharaoh must have realised that the dreams were saying that it was God who was in control here, that it was God, not Pharaoh, who had the ultimate power of life and death, and that Pharaoh’s own authority was subject to God’s approval and blessing. You see, the power and authority of the Egyptian kings’ depended upon the fertility of the soil provided by the waters of the River Nile, if the water dried up and the crops failed, the Pharaoh’s authority counted for nothing. In short, the dreams show that God rules.

When Joseph explains the meaning of the dreams, it becomes clear that, over the next few years, life in Egypt is going to be ‘a game of two halves’, to use a good old footballing term! For seven years, there will be good harvests and plenty of food to go round the country, but the following seven years will see disastrous harvests and potential famine.

There’s nothing that Pharaoh can do to stop this happening because it is God, the real Powerful One, who has deigned that it will happen. And to give Pharaoh some credit here, he listens intently to what Joseph has to say – there is absolutely no doubt that he recognises the word of God when it is spoken and he doesn’t jump in with a response when Joseph has finished the interpretation. He is happy for Joseph to carry on with advice as to how to cope with this impending disaster.

JOSEPH PROMOTED

As has been implied in other parts of his life story to date, Joseph is a terrific manager and organiser, so it comes as no surprise that he has a jolly good idea of how to respond to this problem. A discerning and wise man should be put in charge of Egypt, a man who is equipped to supervise the collection of one fifth of the grain by regional commissioners during the fruitful years. This grain should then be held in reserve and distributed according to need during the years of failed harvests that would follow.

Now. I’m absolutely certain that this must be the Holy Spirit of God speaking through Joseph, for how else could a Hebrew prisoner have the bare-faced temerity to tell Pharaoh that he “should find an intelligent and wise man and put him in charge of the entire land of Egypt”? On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit enabled the Lord’s disciples to speak in a multitude of languages and made Peter into a powerful and effective preacher – amazing! But what the Spirit did through Joseph in Pharaoh’s court is no less amazing. What he said could have been taken the wrong way – after all, Pharaoh himself was in charge of the country – but, as we know, God was with Joseph and Pharaoh was led to appoint Joseph himself to the position.

I don’t think that Joseph was angling for the job, he was just telling it like it was and the hand of the Lord was upon him. As I think about Joseph’s qualities here, I’m reminded of some words from Isaiah:

[T]he Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He will delight in obeying the Lord.

Isaiah was looking forward to the coming of a messiah king, but the description also seems quite fitting for Joseph; and, of course, Pharaoh bestowed upon him all the power and trappings of royalty to affirm his new rank and position. He put him in charge of the whole country and gave him his own signet ring which was used to put the royal seal on decrees and invoices; he clothed him in the finest robes and jewellery; he ensured that the whole population paid him respect; and he gave him a high profile bride in marriage – Asenath, the daughter of an Egyptian priest. The contrast between Joseph’s time in the prison and his promotion to the position of deputy king could not be more marked, and it all goes to prove that God is supreme and His timing is perfect.

And this is the whole point that we need to take in today: God is almighty, all powerful, there is none like Him; all governments, all dictators are subordinate to Him and their power cannot compare with the God who holds the future of their countries, their continents, and the whole world in the palm of His hands. There’s a danger that, when we look around the world, we see the world leaders – some of them dictators and tyrants wielding horrific weapons and making all kinds of threats – and we fear their power, their ability to wreak destruction in the world. But we must not forget that, behind it all, the God of Abraham, the God of Israel, the God of Joseph is still in control.

According to His good purposes, He can turn the most dire of circumstances around and, as with Joseph, He can transform a pauper into a prince, a slave into a sovereign. And this same God is our God, the God of power and glory – let’s remember that fact whenever we face drama, despair, or discouragement: our God reigns and can override the schemes of man, so let us have confidence in Him, living in the knowledge of His power and giving Him the glory.

Amen.

The Bigger Picture: Joseph 4

2010-05-19T10:14:00.001+01:00

Joseph 4: Joseph the Prisoner.

(preached May 16th, 2010)

I wonder if you’ve ever felt hard done by? I remember one occasion when I was about 15 at school, when I was told off in no uncertain terms and punished so unfairly by one of my teachers – I hadn’t actually done anything wrong, but my teacher just wouldn’t listen to what I had to say about it. I felt so aggrieved by it then and, more than 35 years later, I still do! Even though it was a relatively small and pretty inconsequential injustice, a sense of hurt has endured over the years.

So, just imagine how Joseph felt. Betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, framed by his master’s wife, and thrown into prison, he had every reason to feel hard done by – after all, he hadn’t done anything to deserve this ... he’d always tried to do the right thing. Was he crushed? Was he bitter? Did he turn his back on God? No, he didn’t, because he knew that God was with him – even though he was many miles from his homeland and his family – yes, God was with him watching over him and caring for him, turning the wickedness of others around to his blessing and making sure the dreams He had entrusted to Joseph would be fulfilled.

But Joseph was still in prison. Through the grace of God, the chief jailer had been kind to him, giving him a degree of responsibility for the care of the other prisoners – but he was still in prison, and there was no prospect of him being released. Potiphar wasn’t going to change his mind and have a wayward slave released – in fact, I expect that, within a very short space of time, he had forgotten all about Joseph ... after all, slaves were ‘ten a penny’. So, how was it possible that he would get out of there? Enter the cupbearer and the baker from Pharaoh’s court.

The Cupbearer and the Baker

At the beginning of Genesis chapter 40, we read:

Some time later, Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer and chief baker offended their royal master. Pharaoh became angry with these two officials, and he put them in the prison where Joseph was, in the palace of the captain of the guard.

Well, what a surprise! Two senior royal officials in prison with Joseph.

The cupbearer would have been the person who tasted the wine and food before it was presented to the king to ensure that it wasn’t poisoned. He was also there to ensure that everything served to the king was of a high standard and healthy. As a result, cupbearers and kings became very close and the king would often treat his cupbearer as a confidant, someone with whom he could share his ideas and his concerns. You may remember that Nehemiah was the cupbearer in the court of King Xerxes and was able to persuade the king to allow him to travel to Jerusalem to repair the city walls.

For the cupbearer and the baker to end up in prison, there must have been some mess-up on the catering front: maybe the baker prepared something which wasn’t of a high standard and the cupbearer mistakenly let it through for the king to eat. Whatever was the cause of their downfall, the important fact is that they ended up in the same prison as Joseph. And Joseph, drawing on his own dreadful experiences, was able to minister to them, able to help them cope with their new circumstances – if he himself had been bitter or angry, I don’t think he could – or, would – have done that. It’s only when our hearts are right with God that we can truly empathise with and minister to someone in need.

Anyway, both the cupbearer and the baker have dreams and they’re depressed when no-one can interpret the dreams for them. Like the 19th and 20th century psychoanalysts, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, the Egyptians and other peoples of that day reckoned that dreams had deeper meanings and that there were those able to unlock those meanings. Little did they know that they were talking to God’s dreamer-in-chief! But Joseph makes it clear to them that only God can accurately interpret dreams and then he invites them to share their dreams – he is so confident that God will give him the power to understand them.

The cupbearer goes first and tells the story of how he had dreamed of a vine that grew with three branches which produced healthy clusters of grapes. In his dream, he picked them and squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup for his master to drink. Quick as a flash, Joseph tells him that it means he will be restored to his position in the royal court in three days’ time. Oh, and he asks the cupbearer to remember him when he is restored.

Hearing this gives the baker confidence to share his own dream. In it, he was carrying three baskets of pastries on his head, when birds came down and ate the goodies in the top basket. Again, Joseph is quick to share the meaning of the dream, but this time it’s bad news: in three days, the baker will be executed! Now, Joseph could have made something up, so the baker didn’t know the full horrific truth, but he didn’t – in fact, he couldn’t, because he was representing God and had to share the meaning that God showed him.

Like Joseph, we too have sometimes to tell people the blunt truth, because this is what God has called us to do. It’s not easy and they may not like it, but it is the right thing to do. We should always be very positive and very compassionate in the way we deal with everyone – that is how Jesus was – but we also have to be very realistic and straightforward with them – Jesus was like that, too.

Maybe people don’t want to hear that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that no-one comes to the Father except through Him; maybe they don’t want to hear that there are dire consequences for those who turn their backs on God and go their own way, but we fail them and we fail God, if we don’t share it with them because we fear hurting or annoying them.

Joseph didn’t fail God in interpreting those two dreams in the way he did and, three days later, he is totally vindicated, as his interpretations come true. The cupbearer is restored and the baker is executed. But, we’re told, “Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer, however, forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.” Again, Joseph has done all that he could do – and got it right – yet still he languishes in prison. What a let-down! It’s enough to knock the stuffing out of anyone.

Application

Being let down, feeling abandoned, feeling hard-done-by are common human experiences. At some time or another, we probably all feel that we have been treated in ways that we just don’t deserve – whether it be a case of being told off at school for something we didn’t do, or of being overlooked for a job that we really should have been offered, or whatever it might be. It hurts and, unless the hurt is dealt with, it will go on hurting and will affect our ability to serve God and others.

An American Christian writer, Chuck Swindoll (in "Joseph: A man of integrity and forgiveness", Word Publishing Inc., 1998) argues that there are four main causes of such long-lasting and hurt:

first, there is the way people have been treated within the family, either in the past or at present or both) – the pain of physical or emotional abuse within the home may affect the victims of it for a lifetime, if not addressed;

then, there is the hurt that comes as the result of unexpected restriction of circumstances – for example, a sudden injury, or the onset of a debilitating illness, can often make a person feel very alone and abandoned;

there’s also the damage suffered through untrue accusations – the spreading of gossip and rumour is so destructive and can cause people such mental anguish that some even resort to suicide;

and the fourth area that Swindoll highlights is unfair abandonment – it may occur within marriage, when one partner or the other leaves without any warning or valid reason, leaving wife or husband high and dry; it may occur when so-called friends disappear when your circumstances change through no fault of your own; it may occur when you’re made redundant, after tirelessly working your socks off for your employer. Let’s face it, it can occur in any number of circumstances.

From what we’ve already read in Genesis, it’s clear that Joseph suffered all these kinds of mistreatment: suffering cruelly at the hands of his half-brothers, finding himself as a slave without any human rights, being thrown into prison because of someone’s false accusation; and then left there by the forgetful cupbearer. He must have felt the pain of all that, but he survived it because he never stopped trusting or hoping in God.

Even though people – even friends and family – may mistreat or abandon us, God never does and, as we turn to Him in hopeful trust, He offers us the healing we need and sustains us in our darkest hours. That is an integral part of His nature: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love” – that’s what the Bible tells us on numerous occasions.

In fact, God took upon Himself all of that mistreatment and hurt, when He came in the form of Jesus Christ to dwell among us. At one point in His ministry, He was dismissed by members of His earthly family as being mad. His circumstances were very definitely restricted when He was arrested and tried by the Jewish authorities, and nailed to a cross by the Romans. He experienced the pain of false accusations, when some said that He must be in league with the devil and when so-called witnesses lied at His trial. And, of course, He suffered undeserved abandonment, when His disciples fled after His arrest and when His closest friend, Peter, even went so far as to deny any connection with Him.

Christ experienced all those hurts and took them to the cross with Him, so that we can find our healing, our relief, and our comfort in Him, and in Him alone. So, if you are hurting right now, turn to Him, trust in Him, pray to Him and, in faith, receive from Him. If you are in that position this morning, I invite you to repeat in your hearts this prayer (from Swindoll's book) that I’m going to say now – let’s pray:

Lord, God, help me now. PAUSE

Right at this moment. PAUSE

Deliver me from my own prison. PAUSE

Help me to see beyond the darkness to see Your hand. PAUSE

As I am being crushed, remould me. PAUSE

Help me to see You in this abandonment, this rejection. PAUSE

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner. PAUSE

Amen.

If you would like to pray with someone about your own painful circumstances, please ask me or any of the deacons afterwards, and we will be delighted to do that, here and now. Or, if you would like to pray at another time, maybe in your own home, do speak to me afterwards and I will gladly arrange to come and visit you.

Next week, we will see how God rescues Joseph from His predicament and dreams begin to become reality.

Until then, to God be the glory! Amen.

The Bigger Picture: Joseph 3

2010-05-11T10:23:00.000+01:00

Joseph 3: Joseph the Slave.

(preached May 9th, 2010)

This morning, we return to our look at the ‘Bigger Picture’ of the Bible and to the story of Joseph that we began two weeks ago. So far, we have seen in the Bigger Picture how God created all things from nothingness; how mankind disobeyed God and paid the penalty; how the wickedness of human beings increased to the point that God said, “Enough!” and cleansed the earth with a flood, saving only Noah and his family; how God chose one man, Abraham, through which to bless the whole world; and how, over the years, God prospered his family, despite their shortcomings.

Those shortcomings have become all too apparent in recent weeks, as we have focussed in on Jacob – Abraham’s grandson – and his family. Three weeks ago, I highlighted their tendency to be deceitful, with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all being guilty in this respect. And then, a fortnight ago, we saw how the father’s favouritism, the favoured son’s behaviour and his brothers’ jealousy combined to bring about a tragic event: the selling into slavery of Joseph.

And yet, in spite of all the upset, there is a clear sense that God is at work here. No, He isn’t mentioned in chapter 37 of Genesis at all, but we know He is there, all the same. We know that, when Joseph shares his dreams with his brothers, those dreams don’t come from his own vivid imagination, they come from God – they are God-dreams and, even though Jacob finds them personally distasteful, he knows deep down that they mean something important and that something significant will come out of them.

And so, at the end of chapter 37, we seem to find ourselves looking at a split screen: on one side, we see the brothers deceiving their father with the blood-stained robe of their half-brother; and, on the other side, we look on as Joseph is forcibly taken into a life of slavery by Midianite traders. Then, the picture fades and the credits start rolling, as the author leaves us with a cliff-hanger: Have the brothers really disposed of the dreamer for good and thereby killed the dreams? Will the broken-hearted father ever recover? Will he ever discover the truth? And what suffering will Joseph experience when he arrives in Egypt? We just have to wait with baited breath until the next episode.

In fact, the next episode doesn’t concern Joseph at all, but tells us about Judah and his relationship with his daughter-in-law, Tamar – an important story, which again involves family strife and deception, but not one we’ll dwell on. Instead, we’re going to move on to Genesis chapter 39, where we find the story of ...

Joseph and Potiphar’s wife

You see, Joseph has been bought from the Midianite traders by no less a figure than the captain of Pharaoh’s guard, a man named Potiphar, to work in his household.

In verse 2 of the chapter, we find some very significant words: “The Lord was with Joseph ... .” As I’ve already said, nowhere in chapter 37 is the presence of God mentioned, even though we know He was active in the situation. But here, right at the beginning on chapter 39, we’re told that “the Lord was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master.” That is so important for us to take on board.

I have said before that I don’t believe God engineered every part of Joseph’s story – because that would mean that human beings are merely His puppets – but I am certain that God responds to the sin of human beings in such a way that ultimately His purpose is fulfilled. That is why I don’t give up all hope when I see the awful things that human beings sometimes do in this world – and let’s face it, human beings are responsible for some terrible atrocities and wickedness. I believe that God, ultimately, always brings good out of evil, so that His will is done.

Here, we learn that, in spite of the wickedness of the brothers which has brought Joseph into a dire situation, the Lord is with him and the Lord makes him prosper. He turns the sins of others to Joseph’s advantage, so that the God-dreams come one step closer to fulfilment.

The fact that “the Lord was with Joseph” is the single most important factor in this chapter. In fact, we’re told that even Potiphar noticed what was happening “and realised that the Lord was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did.” That’s not to say that Potiphar believed that the God of Israel was supreme in authority, or anything like that, but he certainly did realise that the God Joseph worshipped was helping him. That, of course, implies that Joseph must have been very open about his worship of God – and this in spite of the fact that he had recently experienced such hardship.

Now, there’s a great example for us today! Joseph could have been bitter because of what had happened to him, but he didn’t let it affect his faith in God. As I consider all this, I’m reminded of some New Testament texts; for example, Colossians 3:22-24, which says:

22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord. 23 Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. 24 Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.

Those first two verses could have been written about Joseph himself. And, in 1 Corinthians, Paul tells the church: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” That’s what Joseph seems to have done and it gets him noticed.

In the same way, as we recognise in our daily lives that we are to do everything we do for God and for His glory, others will see that the Lord is with us, too, and Kingdom opportunities will open up. Yes, Potiphar sees that God is with Joseph and puts him in charge of the whole household while he is away fulfilling his military duties.

But, just as things seem to be going swimmingly, sin again rears its ugly head: this time through the actions of Potiphar’s wife, a woman who has – perhaps appropriately – remained nameless throughout history. She lusts after Joseph and constantly tries to pressure him into an illicit relationship with her, but he steadfastly resists her sinful advances. You see, he knows that the Lord is with him and that this is most definitely the wrong thing to do – it would be a sin against not only his earthly master, Potiphar, but also against his heavenly master, God.

Of course, we might ask whether this development is the devil’s doing, but sometimes we can too easily assign everything to the devil’s schemes and shift the blame in that direction – ultimately, sin is down to human desire and disobedience. After all, when the serpent enticed the woman and the man into eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they could have said “No!” You know, if we consistently said “No!” to sin, the devil would have no power – it’s in our hands. Remember what the Apostle James tells us in his letter:

“[H]umble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Throughout it all, Joseph remains true to God and spurns the schemes of Potiphar’s wife, but as the playwright William Congreve once wrote:

Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d,
Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.

Although Joseph does the right thing all the way along – even physically running away from sin’s grasp – Potiphar’s wife has another sneaky card up her sleeve, which she uses against him. She frames Joseph, claiming that he has attempted to sexually assault her and showing his left-behind robe in evidence. Again, Joseph’s clothing is used to deceive: just as Jacob was deceived by the sight of his son’s torn and blood-covered finely made robe, Potiphar is deceived by the sight of his slave’s left-behind robe. And, as a result, he has Joseph immediately thrown into prison and left to rot.

But notice what it says again in verse 21: “But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love.” This is the second time that we’ve heard that the Lord was with Joseph and, again, it has immediate effects, because Joseph quickly becomes a favourite of the jailer, who then trusts him with responsibility for the other prisoners and for everything that happened in the prison.

There’s another theme emerging here: that of Joseph as ‘the favoured one.’ First of all, he was the favoured son of Jacob; then he was the favoured slave of Potiphar; and now he is the favoured prisoner of the jailer. And it’s becoming clearer as we go further into his story that he is a favoured one of God – God has chosen him to be the dream-bearer and will be with him through it all, because those dreams must come to fruition.

As I said last time, we, like Joseph, have been entrusted with God’s dreams: dreams of a renewed heaven and a renewed earth; dreams of life everlasting, in which joy will be unbounded and tears have no place; dreams of all creation illuminated by the presence of God Himself. And remember, these dreams are not just flights of fancy, but cast-iron certainties, because they are God-dreams. As we are faithful to God and bearers of His dreams, we become aware that the Lord is with us and constantly shows us His faithful love ... just as He was and just as He did with Joseph.

Conclusions

So, let’s just think a little about what we’ve learnt from this part of Joseph’s story.

Well, first of all, we find out that God isn’t tied to one place: He is with Joseph in Egypt, every bit as much as He is in Canaan with the rest of Jacob’s family. And we need to remember that ourselves: wherever we are, wherever we go, God is with us – there is nowhere we can go which is beyond His love, His care, His reach. No matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, God is with us and we can always turn to Him, for help or for forgiveness.

Later, when the Jews were carried away to Babylon after Jerusalem was overrun, they were distraught because they thought that God had been left behind. But they soon found that He couldn’t be left behind and that He was there with them – just remember the stories of Daniel and his friends for proof of that.

When we believe and trust in the Lord, He is with us. And because He is always with us, we should look upon everything we do as being within His gaze and we should do it for His glory. It might be our regular job, it might be voluntary work, it might be housework, or some other kind of task – whatever it is, we must do it for the Lord. That’s what Joseph did.

And just as Joseph fled from sin, when Potiphar’s wife tried to grab hold of him, we too must be prepared to do whatever it takes to escape sin’s clutches. We must try to avoid sinful, or tempting situations, just as Joseph tried to avoid being alone in her company, but, when necessary, we have to be prepared to run away from them, as fast as our legs will carry us – however undignified we may look! Treat sin like the plague.

So, we leave Joseph in prison, but we know that God has much more in store for the young man who is the bearer of His dreams and we’ll find out more next week.

The Bigger Picture: Joseph 2

2010-05-11T10:15:00.000+01:00

Joseph 2: Dream-killers?
(preached April 28th, 2010)

I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." ...

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day ... one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

In April 1968, an assassin killed the dreamer – Martin Luther King – and the world waited to see if the dream was dead, too. But it wasn’t, because the dream was even bigger than the dreamer, and America is a much different place now to what it was just over 40 years ago.

This morning, we’re taking a look at another dreamer and considering how his brothers planned to kill his dreams by disposing of him. Of course, I’m talking of Joseph, son of Jacob.

But first, I want us to remember how, last week, we started to identify a certain dysfunctionality within the family, a problem that went back generations. We saw how Abraham had deceived Pharaoh in Egypt and Abimelech, the king of Gerar; how Isaac had done the same thing to Abimelech years later; and how Jacob was involved in a series of family deceptions. They were the chosen family of God, but they weren’t without their shortcomings.

This week, we start reading chapter 37 of the Book of Genesis and what do we see? Trouble, that’s what we see. What we have to understand is that Jacob had a huge family, but his children were born to four different mothers: Leah – the wife Jacob was tricked into marrying – was the mother of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun; Rachel’s maid, Bilhah, bore two sons – Dan and Naphtali – for Jacob, because Rachel thought she herself couldn’t have children; Zilpah, Leah’s maid, bore another two sons – Gad and Asher – for Abraham, when Leah thought her own child-bearing days were over; and, finally, Rachel did have two sons, after all – Joseph and Benjamin. Oh, what a tangled web we weave ... !

The rivalry between Leah and Rachel was intense – and no doubt Bilhah and Zilpah regularly came into the equation, too. The rivalry between the mothers must inevitably have been taken on by their sons and daughters (we know there was at least one daughter, Dinah, who was born to Leah). The point is that all was not sweetness and light within the family. So, when Jacob quite clearly favours Joseph, the elder son of his favourite wife Rachel, by giving him a beautiful robe, it’s a recipe for disaster. And Joseph himself doesn’t really help matters, either – verse 2 tells us that “Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing.”

It all results in Joseph’s half-brothers despising him – we’re told that “they couldn’t say a kind word to him.” What a sad, sad situation for any family – and, eventually, something just has to give. The final straw is when Joseph tells his half-brothers about some dreams he’s been having.

Actually, I had a dream this week, too, and it involved all of you. Would you like to hear it? Well, we were all out on a ramble, walking across a lovely green field, talking and enjoying ourselves, when we all suddenly stopped and you formed a semi-circle around me. You all got down on one knee and bowed your head before me. I looked around and noticed that even the sun and the sheep in an adjoining field were bowing down to me. Wasn’t that a truly wonderful dream? No?

Maybe now you can imagine how the brothers felt when Joseph told them that, in one dream, all their sheaves of wheat bowed before his sheaf and, in another, the sun, moon and stars paid him homage. You see, the dreams were provocative – they clearly placed Joseph in a superior position to his brothers and his parents, without providing a clear explanation for why that should be. We who know the full story will, of course, realise that, in time, Joseph will be in charge of Egypt’s stores of grain and be in a position of power over the rest of the family. But they had no way of knowing that then, and there’s no suggestion that Joseph knew, either.

Notice though that, while the brothers seethe with jealousy and anger, Jacob has some inkling that there is a much deeper meaning to them. After all, he himself was a dreamer – he had dreamt at Bethel of a ladder with angels ascending and descending and of a blessing from God ... it was a God-dream. And now we must become aware that these were God’s dreams, not Joseph’s. They may have been entrusted to Joseph, but they didn’t originate from him. They weren’t his property, but they were his destiny. And, because they were God’s dreams, they couldn’t die, no matter what the dreamer has to go through because of them.

And go through it, he does. When he is sent out by his father to check on how his brothers are looking after the sheep, his brothers see him coming from afar off. “Here comes the dreamer!” they say and quickly plan to rid themselves of both the dreamer and the dreams. They sincerely believe that they have the power to achieve all that, little knowing that, ultimately, the dreams are more powerful than they.

But, if these dreams are God’s dreams and the brothers are powerless to prevent them from coming to fruition, does it mean that God engineers all the circumstances? Does it mean that, from the beginning, God arranged it that the brothers would be angry with Joseph and throw him into a waterhole? Does it mean God pre-ordained it that he would be sold to Midianite traders, who would in turn sell him to Potiphar, an official of Pharaoh’s, in Egypt?

You could read Joseph’s story like that – it’s quite possible. But wouldn’t that be a case of God treating the human beings concerned like puppets? Wouldn’t it amount to a denial of human freewill? I think, on reflection, that it probably would.

Perhaps, instead, it is the case that God has an end in view, an end which is for the benefit of humanity, and that He is able to ensure human sinfulness doesn’t prevent that end from being achieved. You see, it is completely inconceivable that God would cause the brothers to sin in such a way – God and sin do not go together. It is man that always takes the “sin initiative”; and then God works it around, so that His will is fulfilled. He may well be aware of how things will occur, but there’s a very definite difference between that and making things happen that way.

So, here in Genesis, when they decide not to kill Joseph themselves or to leave him to die in the cistern, but instead to sell him to the Midianite traders, the brothers actually enable the dream to become a reality – ironic, eh?

Earlier on, we also read some verses from the very end of the Book of Revelation. They describe a vision given to the apostle John of how all things will conclude:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

It goes on to describe how God’s people will dwell with Him forever and there will be no need for lamps or sun, because the Lord God Himself will shine upon them.

A dream, you may say, John’s dream. But just as Joseph’s dream was God’s dream and just had to become reality, John’s dream or vision is God’s dream and it will happen – nothing can stop it. The Devil will do his utmost – particularly by attempting to stop us believing in the dream – but nothing can stop it. The purposes of God will be fulfilled; His will will be done. So, take strength and courage from that – strength and courage that will keep you going on your journey.

Of course, the funny thing about the beginning of the story of Joseph is that God isn’t mentioned once, and yet we know that He is there. We know that, unseen, His hand is very much on the situation, because it is His dream that must be fulfilled. And, today, God isn’t always recognised as we look around us, we don’t often hear Him mentioned; yet His hand is very much upon our situations, very much active in the world, bringing that vision of a new heaven and a new earth, a new heavenly city, to fruition.

Let’s trust in Him to do that and let us be the dreamers who share our dreams with a sceptical and sometimes punishing world.

Amen.

The Bigger Picture: Joseph 1

2010-05-11T10:07:00.003+01:00

Joseph 1: ‘A Dysfunctional Family’
(preached April 18th, 2010)

This morning, we’re returning to our look at the bigger picture of the Bible after a break for Easter. Over the next year or so, we are going sequentially through God’s written word, The Bible, to get a clearer idea of His purposes for creation and of the story of His people.

For a while now, we have been working through the Book of Genesis, and, before Easter, we reached the account of how Abraham and Sarah were blessed with the birth of a son named Isaac. I want us to move on now to look at the family of Abraham’s grandson, Jacob; and, over the next few weeks, we’ll be focussing very specifically on how it was that Jacob’s son, Joseph, was used by God to save his family.

But, this morning, I want to start by taking a look at why, for so long, they were such a seriously dysfunctional family. And a seriously dysfunctional family they were! After all, it’s not every family in which one son is so highly favoured by his father that his brothers – born of several different mothers – attack him, sell him into slavery and then deceive their father into believing that he has been killed by a wild animal.

And yet I think the behaviour of the brothers isn’t just a one-off situation, but has its roots much earlier in the family history, even in the life of the man who is regarded with such reverence by Jewish and Christian people – Abraham!

Abraham’s deceit

No sooner had Abraham first received the call from God to leave his own country and begun the journey to a new home than there was a great famine in the region – a famine so severe that he had no choice but to go with Sarah to Egypt, where there would be food available. There’s only one problem: Abraham fears that, when they get there, the Egyptians will find Sarah so attractive that someone will do away with him in order to marry his wife. So Abraham instructs Sarah to tell the Egyptians that she is his sister, not his wife, so that they’ll treat him well and not kill him.

Later, in chapter 20, we find out that Sarah actually is Abraham’s half-sister – the daughter of his father, but not of his mother – so it isn’t a total lie, but it is a deception; and, as a result of that deception, Pharaoh takes Sarah as his wife and brings judgement upon himself and his household, before sending her and Abraham out of the country.

And, later, just before Isaac is conceived, unbelievably Abraham pulls the same trick again, when he and Sarah arrive at a place called Gerar, a city-state in the south-western corner of Canaan. This time it is the ruler of Gerar, Abimelech, who is deceived and takes Sarah to be his wife, only to be warned by God to give her back to Abraham. When he does so, disaster for himself and his household is avoided.

So, in spite of the reverence with which he is later held – just remember what Hebrews says about him – we see that Abraham is not a flawless individual, but is prepared to use deception to save his own skin, even when it means the dishonouring of his wife. And yet he is still used powerfully by God, he is still God’s chosen.

Isaac’s deceit

Then, we take a look at Isaac, his son, and see that he too deceived the people of Gerar. Like his father, he went to escape a famine and decided that the only way he would remain safe would be by telling everyone that his beautiful wife, Rebekah, was his sister. Can you believe it? He committed the same offence as his father, through deception he risked his beloved wife’s dignity and honour for the sake of his own safety. Of course, it is impossible to put ourselves into the shoes of Abraham or Isaac – they lived in a completely different culture and faced such circumstances as we are unlikely to face – so mustn’t be judgmental, but can you see how the moral legacy of the parents is often inherited by their children.

Of course, the moral legacy that Isaac inherited from Abraham was generally an excellent one, but we’ve seen that he, too, resorted to deception for his own purposes. And when we look at the story of one of his sons, Jacob, it would appear that the propensity to deceive was passed on to him, too. Let’s briefly take a look at how that was evident in Jacob’s life.

Jacob’s deceit

Jacob was born one of twins – his twin brother was Esau. The Bible tells us that they were very active in their mother’s womb and, while Esau was born first, Jacob came out, clutching the heel of his brother. Esau was so named, because right from birth he was very hairy (and, in Hebrew, that’s what ‘Esau’ means). ‘Jacob’, on the other hand, means ‘heel’ in Hebrew – but please note that it can also mean ‘deceiver’! How very apt.

As is common with siblings, there was occasionally tension between the two brothers. For example, once when elder brother Esau returned from a hunting expedition, feeling tired and very hungry, he demanded some of the stew that younger brother Jacob was cooking. But Jacob would only give him some, if he in return passed his birthright as the eldest son over to Jacob. A tricky customer was this Jacob.

Then years later, as blind Isaac is wondering how long he has to live, he announces his intention to pass his special blessing on to his favourite son, Esau. However, when she hears this, his wife Rebekah helps Jacob, her favourite son, to receive that blessing instead. With his mother’s assistance, Jacob tricks his father into thinking that he himself is Esau and, in so doing, he cheats his brother of the blessing that is rightfully his. Egged on by his mother, he lives up to that other meaning of his name, “The Deceiver” – so, you see, the legacy has again been passed on.

Later, when Jacob seeks a wife and falls in love with Rachel, his cousin, and works hard for seven years to win her hand in marriage, he himself is tricked by Laban, his uncle, and unwittingly marries Leah, Rachel’s elder sister, instead. In order to marry Rachel as well, he has to pledge to work for Laban for a further seven years. And so the Deceiver has been successfully deceived by another member of his family.

The deceit doesn’t end there, either. Fast forward some years and we see that, when their sister Dinah is raped by Shechem the Hivite, Jacob’s sons use trickery and deceit to exact their terrible revenge upon the Hivite people – you can read about that particular episode in Genesis, chapter 34.

This has been a very rapid review of 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis and, of course, I’ve only highlighted incidents of deception. I’m not in any way suggesting that this family were truly awful people – they weren’t at all – in fact, quite the opposite, because they were the chosen people of God and God doesn’t make mistakes in His choices. But our brief review of Genesis does reveal that there was a family tendency to resort to deceit in times of trouble – a tendency which will again be apparent as we study the story of Joseph in weeks to come.

Application

So, what lessons do we take from all this?

Well, some Christians speak of something they call ‘generational sin’ – sin which is passed down spiritually from parents to children, from one generation to another, thus bringing successive generations under God’s judgment. They point to scriptures like Exodus 34:6-7, where it says:

And God passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

Now, I’m not sure that the Bible is suggesting that the sins of the fathers are passed down to their children in some sort of spiritual way, so that the children are punished for the sins of their parents; but, even today, we can see how sins and problems are passed on from one generation to another.

For example, it has been shown that the children of alcoholic parents are more likely to become alcoholics themselves; that the children of those who are involved in criminal activity often get drawn into it themselves; and that children who grow up with domestic violence are more likely to engage in it themselves in adult life. Of course, these are generalisations and there are plenty of children who don’t go on to become alcoholics, or criminals, or use domestic violence, even if their parents did.

But, undeniably, sin that is left unchecked and problems that are left unaddressed have a tendency to become entrenched and more likely to be passed down the generations to the detriment of all. The chain needs to be broken and I believe the Church of Jesus Christ can play an important role in breaking it. We can do that by connecting with families (both parents and children) and listening to their concerns and their problems, giving them space to share. We can do that by offering appropriate support when possible – for instance, by running parenting courses and marriage courses – and by pointing them in the direction of other agencies that might be able to help them. We can also do that by praying for specific families and for family life in general; and, of course, by being vigilant. Groups like Tots ‘n’ Toddlers, Girls’ Brigade, and Messy Church are really significant in doing these things, as, of course, is Barn-a-B’s Pre-School.

But the most important and significant thing we can do for any family or any individual locked into sin is to introduce them to Jesus, because when someone comes to Christ the chain of sin is broken. The Apostle Peter writes in his first letter:

“For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom He paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.”

Christ came to break the power of sin that bound us and, through His death and resurrection, all those who welcome Him as Lord are set free. You know, the most important, the most beautiful, the most liberating thing that we can ever do for families is to share with them the Good News of Jesus Christ.

As we come around the communion table again this morning, let us commit ourselves as individual Christians and as a church fellowship to helping others address the problem of sin in their lives and to introducing them to Christ the liberator.

Amen.

Sunday, July 12th 2009

2009-07-13T09:48:00.002+01:00

‘Being A Worshipping Community’

This morning, we come to the end of our series on ‘The Five Core Values of A Gospel People’. We’ve already focussed upon the fact that we are called to be a prophetic community, an inclusive community, a sacrificial community and a missional community, and this morning we conclude by considering what it means to be a worshipping community.

I think that, in some ways, this is the most difficult of the core values to comprehend fully, because we take it for granted that we are a worshipping community – after all, we here every Sunday morning, aren’t we? We worship God every week by singing hymns, by reading the Bible, by saying prayers, by listening to God’s word – so that makes us a worshipping community, doesn’t it?

And my answer would be: “Well, ‘yes’ in one way, but ‘no’ in so many other ways.” For so long – probably from the very beginning of time – we human beings have had a very limited view of worship and of what worship is (and I stress the word ‘very’). We have tried to put it neatly in a box and confine it to a specific time and place within our lives. We open the box and take it out when it suits us – maybe Sunday mornings, or at Christmas, or at funerals – and then we try to put it back in the box until the next time it suits us to take it out again.

In truth, worship just isn’t like that – or, at least, it shouldn’t be. Worship – within the Christian context – means ‘declaring the worth of God and glorifying His name’, and that surely mustn’t be confined to one day of the week, or a few occasions each year, it must be part of our daily lives and permeate every aspect of our lives. Remember what Paul wrote to the Christians in the city of Corinth? He said:

“Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Our worship and our witness, he says, are not confined to the worship service, but extend to whatever we do. Why is that so? Because we are Christ’s representatives on earth – the Church is the Body of Christ – and so how we live our lives and how we relate to people reflects upon Christ and His heavenly Father. In his letter to the Colossian Christians, he writes:

“Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”

You see, we must live our lives to the glory of God, recognising that this is our act of worship for Him. Paul goes on to say in the same letter:

“Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.”

There must be no divide between how we conduct ourselves in church and how we conduct ourselves outside it, at work, at school, at the supermarket, in the restaurant, or wherever we may be. And that point is pressed home by God in chapter 1 of the Book of Isaiah – God says:

“What makes you think I want all your sacrifices? ... When you come to worship me, who asked you to parade through my courts with all your ceremony? ... I want no more of your pious meetings. ... Wash yourselves and be clean! Get your sins out of my sight. Give up your evil ways. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.”

Our whole lives must be worshipful, pointing away from ourselves and towards God and helping the oppressed and vulnerable. If they are not, then whatever we do in church on Sunday mornings and evenings is meaningless.

And that’s my first point this morning:

being a worshipping community is a full time occupation (not a hobby, or a pastime)

For the Christian, the whole of life is sacred and can’t be divided into different pigeonholes.

The second point I want us to think about today is this:

being a worshipping community is a whole body experience

I want to approach this in two different ways. The first way I want to look at it follows directly on from the previous point I was making.

Just as our worship as a community cannot be confined to just one day of the week, or to just one setting, neither can it be confined to one part of our being. Let me explain ...

The apostle Paul often referred to the early church as a body – the Body of Christ. For instance, in Romans 5, he says that “we are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.”

For a moment, let’s think of being a worshipping community in terms of the human body.

And, first of all, I think it’s true to say that

the worshipping community will worship with its heart

Worship must be a response of the heart, in that there must surely be some emotional response to all that God has done for us. If our hearts do not overflow with love and joy and thanksgiving for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the Son of God, who gave His life on the cross and bore our sin, so that we might be saved from condemnation and reconciled to God, our heavenly Father, then there is something seriously wrong with us.

In verse 1 of that modern worship song, “Jesus, we celebrate Your victory”, it says this:

It was for freedom that Christ has set us free,
No longer to be subject to a yoke of slavery.
So we’re rejoicing in God’s victory,
Our hearts responding to His love.

That really is an essential part of worship: our hearts responding to His love. It is an emotional thing to realise just how much God loves us and to recognise the lengths He was prepared to go to save us and so it’s inevitable, I think, that we will respond emotionally in worship. That is why there are quite a lot of modern worship songs that are not theologically deep, but are highly emotionally charged and allow the worshipper to express their deepest feelings in music.

And yet our worship as a community, and as individuals, must be much more than an emotional response, much more than merely a thing of the heart. So, it is good that ...

the authentic worshipping community will also worship with its head

God has not only given each of us a heart, but also a brain and He expects us to use it in worship. With it, we are to discern what is right teaching and what is not – at the beginning of his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul writes this:

“I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding.”

And in Proverbs 3 we’re told:

“My child, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment. Hang onto them, for they will refresh your soul.”

We are called upon to us our intellects, our wisdom and our powers of discernment as we worship, so that we are not misled and so we don’t worship in an inappropriate way – if we are led purely by our emotions, there is a real danger that we will. We must look to be made mature in our faith, so that “we won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching.

I spoke a few minutes ago of the Christian songs which encourage and enable us to make an emotional response to God’s amazing grace. Well, there are of course also those Christian songs and hymns which feed our minds and build up our Christian intellects – traditional hymns like many of those written by Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts; and newer songs such as ‘In Christ Alone’ by Stuart Townend and ‘From heaven You came’ by Graham Kendrick.

But being a worshipping community is not just about listening to our hearts and exercising our brains, it also entails using our hands

And by that I mean more than just raising our hands when we sing! The truth is that we also worship God as we serve others: by obeying God’s commandment to love our neighbours as ourselves, we offer Him the most authentic form of worship. In Isaiah chapter 58, which we read earlier, God describes to the Israelites the sort of worship He really wants – He says:

“Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them and do not hide from relatives who need your help.”

The sort of worship God describes is practical: it’s about righting wrongs and offering help and support to the most hurting and vulnerable people in society.

The implication of what God says in the Book of Isaiah and elsewhere is that, unless we get this aspect of worship right, what we do in church on a Sunday is of little consequence.

And being a worshipping community also includes a willingness to use our feet

As we heard when we thought about what it means to be a missional community, God also commands us to ‘Go’ – to go and make disciples. This means moving outside the church building and taking the gospel to our communities. As we get out there and tell others of God’s grace and mercy, we are declaring His worth, we are giving Him our worship.

So that’s one sense in which worship should be a whole Body experience: we need to worship with our hearts, responding emotionally to God’s love for us; we need to worship with our heads, discerning the truth and declaring it; we need to worship with our hands, in the service of others; and we need to worship with our feet, taking the gospel into our communities.

But it’s also true to say that worship should be a whole Body experience, because it should involve every person in the Church, not just the limited few.

In the Church, we believe in the priesthood of all believers – the apostle Peter wrote:

“You are living stones that God is building into His spiritual temple. What’s more, you are His holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.”

Every one of us has a role to play in making the Church a worshipping community – you see, worship is not a spectator sport ... everyone is expected to participate and bring to it the gifts that God has given them. That might be through getting involved in active service within the community – for example, by becoming part of our ‘Green Team’ which will be doing a monthly litter pick-up – or through helping in some outreach activity, like Messy Church. Or, it could be by offering to do the Bible reading every once in a while on a Sunday morning, or to lead prayers every now and then. If you think you could do either of those things, do let me know after the service, because that would be of great help to me.

So, this morning, we’ve learnt that being a worshipping community is a full-time commitment; that it should engage every aspect of our being, our emotions, our intellects and our actions; and that it is the responsibility of the whole Body of Christ, not of just a select few.

Let’s conclude in prayer ...

Sunday June 28th, 2009

2009-07-03T22:05:00.003+01:00

Being A Missional Community

This morning, we’re continuing with our study of the ‘Five Core Values of a Gospel People’. We’ve already considered how we are called to be a prophetic community, an inclusive community, and a sacrificial community; now, we are going to think about how we should be a missional community.

A missional community? Don’t I mean a missionary community? Well, yes, in a way I do, but the difficulty about calling anything ‘missionary’ is that it conjures up a picture of people being sent overseas from this country to take the gospel to foreign climes – but that is only part of the idea. Being a missional community actually involves everyone in that community accepting the responsibility of promoting the gospel wherever God has placed them – it isn’t merely the responsibility of a few people whom we call ‘missionaries’ and then send out to distant lands. Mission must be a part of the DNA of each church fellowship and each church member.

We are meant to be a missional community, because God Himself is a missional community. Just consider the words of John 3:17 – “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” God sent his Son into the world – mission is about being sent by God and Jesus was sent by God to save the world.

And, of course, there’s the Holy Spirit – later in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples: “I will send you the Advocate — the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me.”

As you can see then, the Holy Trinity is a missional community – God doesn’t stay put in heaven, organising everything from there; no, He comes among us and gets His hands dirty, so to speak. As Paul writes in Philippians:

“[Jesus] gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form; he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.”

And what is more, God sends His people out to continue the work of the kingdom. At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says to His disciples:

Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Notice that Jesus uses the word ‘go’ – “go and make disciples” – He doesn’t call upon us to stay within the confines of the church building, but to be out and about in the world, bringing people to a knowledge of what He has done for us all.

It’s strange, but for so long the Church in Britain has not taken on board the nature of that commission. Oh yes, it’s chosen and ordained gifted people to go out as missionaries to Africa, Asia, South America and all other parts of the world, but has itself largely relied on being attractional – that is to say, it has stayed in its buildings and waited for people to come to it, rather than going to where the people are.

Many local churches have concentrated on making their premises more pleasing to the eye, their music more contemporary, their projects and activities more extensive, as if these things alone will attract more people into the church. But, usually, they won’t. Why? Because, for the average non-Christian, there is no reason to go into a church building, outside of the occasional wedding or funeral. And, even if going to church ever does cross their minds, many would find stepping over the threshold a major challenge because of the vast cultural chasm between the world and the church. So, we need to find a ...

Meeting place

Being a missional community is not about saying to people ‘Come to us’, rather, it’s about us being prepared to go and meet with them, wherever that may be. We need to meet and interact with people in the places where they feel more comfortable – the coffee shops, the pubs, the places of sport and leisure. For example, a group of us in Churches Together in Barnstaple are organising an evening at a coffee shop in the town centre which will include music from local Christian musicians – a venue and an occasion to which Christians can confidently bring their non-Christian friends, without any danger of a cringe factor.

I know, also, of an initiative called ‘Pints of View’, which involves holding informal question and answer sessions on all sorts of topics in the lounge bar of pubs.

These are not hard-hitting, Bible-bashing evangelistic meetings, but work on the basis that the Church needs to be out there, building relationships with people in order to have an opening – at some stage – to tell them the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Of course, chaplaincy is also an example of the Church going out to meet people where they are. The hospital or hospice chaplain can bring comfort to hurting people; the workplace chaplain can listen to the anxieties and troubles of working people; and sports chaplains, like myself at Barnstaple Town, bring the light of Christ into ordinary people’s existences in other ways. And each church member can do the same in his, or her, walk of life.

Another way we can be a missional community is through ...

Shared Projects

A couple of weeks ago, when we were considering what it meant to be a sacrificial community, I mentioned that the local church needs to be prepared to work with other community organisations, and to do so with the minimum of fuss. This is also a feature of the missional church. Shared projects – whether initiated by the church, or already existing – provide the opportunity to establish significant connections within the community.

Just think about what happens when men get together to do an activity, like some DIY job, or a round of golf, or cooking on a BBQ – they talk, they open up, they share stories, and relationships are begun or strengthened.

Or what about when women get together to do some gardening, or to do some task in the kitchen, or to go for a meal and a drink in the evening – again, they talk, they open up, they share stories, and relationships are begun or strengthened.

Likewise, when we Christians get involved in community projects, or community events, or community sport, we meet with others who are not-yet-Christians – and, again, we talk, we open up, we share stories, and relationships are begun and strengthened.

And within such relationships, seeds are planted, nurtured, brought to maturity, and made ready for the harvest. Shared projects and community involvement – significant features of missional fellowships.

With that in mind, following on from the ‘Tidy Up Our Town’ initiative, the Town Council is asking community groups to form ‘Green Teams’ to undertake green projects around the town. This is a great opportunity for us to get involved again and build these significant community relationships. I am planning to do some litter-picking on the morning of Thursday July 10th – if you’d like to join me for an hour or two, let me know after the service and I’ll order the equipment.

Anyway, moving on, the next feature of a truly missional community is that it consists of ...

Contagious Christians

You know, Jesus Himself was contagious: everyone He touched, or who touched Him, found healing, forgiveness and wholeness – He passed it on. For example, remember how the haemorrhaging woman reached out, touched the tassel of His robe and received instant healing. Or, how about the man with leprosy whom Jesus touches and heals, then sends to the priest for verification. Or, then there’s the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair – He tells her that her sins are forgiven. And, in the same way, He declares that the sins of the paralysed man who is lowered through the roof are forgiven.

You see, Jesus is contagious – through His touch, through His word, God’s mercy, God’s grace, God’s love, God’s forgiveness is transmitted to the poor, the vulnerable, the abused, the rejected.

A missional community consists of Christians who are contagious. To illustrate, let me share with you a case study from the Baptist Union booklet ...

A group of Christians began working with young people in a poorer part of Cardiff. There was a high truancy rate at the local schools. Young people were under-performing in their studies. Out of school activities were very limited and drug and solvent abuse was widespread.

The group developed a number of initiatives – going into schools, running after-school clubs and providing holiday activities. They developed a youth centre which became a haven for many, and the project has had a marked effect upon the young people and upon the quality of life in the area.

The staff always prayed together each day, and the young people began asking about what they did when they prayed. The young people wanted to come along and join in.

The staff felt that they ought to let them, but were at first uncertain. Gradually dozens of young people were meeting to sing, pray and listen to scripture, and in time the organisers realised a church had begun.

This is contagious Christianity – God’s people touching the lives of others in Christ’s name and bringing transformation.

Now you may feel as though you are last person who is able to bring transformation into people’s lives, but just listen to what Jesus said:

“The truth is, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and i will do it, because the work of the Son brings glory to the Father. Yes, ask anything in my name, and I will do it!”

And, on top of that, what was it that Jesus told His disciples, when He appeared to them after His resurrection?

“If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

We are called to be contagious Christians, transmitting the mercy, grace, love and forgiveness of God in the world.

So far, my emphasis has been that a missional community is one that is out there, with people, where they are, getting alongside them. Which might suggest that church buildings are surplus to requirements – but the final point about being missional communities is that local churches must be ...

Houses of Hospitality

The local church has, of course, to be prepared to welcome new people, extending the hand of fellowship and friendship to those who hear the good news about Jesus Christ and respond. That will mean receiving people as they are and helping them to feel that they belong, rather than expecting people to immediately conform to our way of thinking.

It will also entail a willingness to explore their particular needs – physically, emotionally and spiritually – and seeking to address them, rather than having a one-size-fits-all attitude. Jesus Himself always found out what each person’s particular needs were and then responded appropriately, whether it be with a physical healing, a pronouncement of forgiveness, or a piece of teaching – He recognised each one as an individual in need of the knowledge of God’s love.

We need to welcome and love the stranger and to be a house of hospitality in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

This morning, I’ve only been able to scratch the surface of what it means to be a missional community – it would take a whole series of sermons to do the topic justice, but I pray that you will be inspired to return to the Bible yourselves to read more of what it has to teach us about being missional.

To God be the glory! Amen.

Sunday June 14th, 2009

2009-06-16T14:06:00.006+01:00

Being A Sacrificial Community.

This morning, we continue to look at the Baptist Union’s ‘5 Core Values for a Gospel People’ as we consider how we are called to be a sacrificial community.

Let’s get straight to the point: being a sacrificial community means following Jesus in being prepared to accept vulnerability and the necessity of sacrifice, and in seeking to reflect the generous life-giving nature of God. Let’s explore that a little further as we listen to our second reading, which is from Mark’s Gospel, chapter 8, verses 27-38. It may be helpful, as you listen to the words of Jesus, to put yourself in the position of the disciples and allow Jesus to address you directly.

MARK 8:27-38

These are incredibly powerful words, aren’t they? How did it feel to hear Jesus speaking them directly to you? If we really want to know what being a disciple of the Lord Jesus means then we need to look at this text very carefully, because it sets out the way of Jesus in a crystal clear fashion. It addresses three fundamental questions:

first, it tells us who Jesus is;
second, it tells us what being the Christ, the Messiah, really means;
and, third, it tells us what being a disciple of Jesus really means.

So, let’s consider the first question:

Who is Jesus?

Let me set the scene for you a little. This part of the gospel story is set in the area around the town of Caesarea Philippi, on the way to the villages in the foothills of Mount Hermon in the north of the country. As Jesus and his disciples were walking along the route, they would have been able to look southwards, down upon the whole of Galilee, the area in which much of Jesus’ ministry to date has been exercised.

For the first time in what must have seemed like an age, they are alone, with no great crowds clamouring for Jesus’ attention, for His healing touch; and, here, in the peace of the hills, with Galilee in sight, Jesus takes the opportunity to invite His disciples to reflect upon what has happened up to now.

“Who do people say that I am?” he asks them. Their minds must have gone over some pretty amazing episodes: the exorcising of the man in the synagogue who had an evil spirit; the leper whom He made clean; the man with paralysis who was lowered through a roof on a stretcher, but who walked out through the front door; the raising of Jairus’ daughter from death; the blind man who sight was restored; eating with tax collectors and the most awful sinners – the list was endless! And at the scene of each of those events, there were people watching who were trying to make sense of the incredible things they saw:

some had whispered, “He’s John the Baptist come back from the dead!”;

others had said, “Well, Elijah is supposed to return, so this could be him”;

and still others suggested, “What he says is a lot like Isaiah – he must be a prophet!”

But when the disciples tell Him all of this, He immediately challenges them with another, much more personal question: “But who do YOU say I am?” He already knew as well as the disciples what other people were saying about Him, but asking the first question gave Him the way in to asking this more pointed one. I imagine that the disciples must have nervously glance around at each other, wondering who would dare to say it. Then Peter stepped forward, looked Jesus in the eye and said, “You are the Messiah.” And, of course, this was true – the readers of the Gospel have been aware of this from the very beginning – but did the disciples know what being ‘the Messiah’ really meant?

In the next part of the story, Jesus invites the disciples to look beyond the beautiful Galilee that held such warm and wonderful memories, towards the more distant city of Jerusalem that lay somewhere out of sight over the horizon, promising a very different experience for them all.

In verses 31 to 33, Jesus tells the disciples what being the Messiah really means, and the picture He paints of the things that will happen to Him shocks and provokes them, to the point where Peter has the audacity to scold Jesus for suggesting such things. The notion that the Messiah could suffer was a nonsense to Peter, as it was to some in the early Church who thought it impossible that the Son of God could really feel pain.

And perhaps the same thing is still a stumbling block for some people today, who think that, if Jesus really was God’s Son, the Messiah, who had power to heal and raise people from the dead, and who had authority over the elements, how come He couldn’t avoid the suffering and the crucifixion. But Jesus hasn’t got it wrong – it’s Peter and the others who are operating under a misconception: Jesus is simply re-defining what it means to be the ‘Messiah’.

You see, the way of the Messiah is the way of sacrifice: it’s not about having the power to avoid suffering and death; rather, it is about willingly accepting suffering and death in perfect obedience to God, for the salvation, the rescue, of others. Peter’s suggestion that it could be any other way than this is strangely reminiscent of how Satan tried to divert Jesus from His mission during the temptations in the wilderness, and it gets the response from Jesus that it deserves: “Get away from me, Satan!”

This is a lesson for us: we mustn’t fall into the same trap of trying to make Jesus conform to our image of what God’s Son, of what the Messiah should be, but instead we should focus solely upon Jesus Himself and let Him show us!

Back in the text, we see that, in verses 34 to 38, Jesus proceeds to tell the disciples what it actually means to be His follower, and the fact that He calls across the crowd that had again gathered to see Him emphasises that what He says here is not merely a word for those twelve men who had been His constant companions, but is also equally relevant and important to those who, through the ages, would read His words and seek to follow Him, including us here this morning.

What Jesus says is truly shocking: it was shocking for the disciples then and it should be shocking for us, too – if it isn’t, then I don’t think we can have fully understood what it is that He’s telling us:

“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.”

Jesus talks the language of sacrifice, the language of complete self-denial. It’s an instruction to overcome the grasping self that exists for its own satisfaction and to liberate the self that loves God and loves neighbour without counting the cost.

And the cost should be considerable: each Christian must take up his, or her, cross, just as Jesus did, and be a self-giving person through all the days of his, or her, life – many of us may be able to deny self for a set amount of time – an hour, a day, a week, a year even; but Jesus is demanding much more than this ... He’s asking for an entire life-change. Jesus’ kind of self-giving means being prepared to relinquish anything, and everything, through love for God and for neighbour: it means willingly giving of one’s time, money and other resources without hesitation and without complaint.

So, let’s take what we’ve learned from the Bible text and consider how, as a local church fellowship, we might be ...

a sacrificial community

I think the first thing that has to be said is that, to be a sacrificial community, the local church fellowship has to choose Kingdom over Empire - we have to be Kingdom workers rather than Empire builders. And what I mean by that is that, as a church, we have to set aside any other agenda we may have in order to work wholeheartedly for the extension of the Kingdom of God.

You see, there’s a real temptation for any local church to begin building its own little empire, competing with other local churches on the number of projects and the number of people coming through the front door, and thereby to lose sight of its calling to glorify God. You may remember that Jesus Himself faced a similar temptation in the wilderness ...

Then the devil led Jesus up to a high place and quickly showed him all the nations on earth. The devil said, "I will give all this power and glory to you. It has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. Just worship me, and you can have it all." Jesus answered, “The Scriptures say: ‘Love the Lord your God and serve only Him.’”

We must resist the temptation to chase after our own glory, our own fame, our own power and serve the Lord our God only. That will mean recognising that we are just a small part of the one Body of Christ and committing ourselves to working with the rest of the Body of Christ, particularly the Body of Christ in Barnstaple. Together, we are much stronger than we are when we are all working in isolation. Together, we can bring the fullness of gospel life to a greater number of people. Together, we can encourage one and another and build each other up, as Paul tells us we should.

That’s why I am excited by the way that Churches Together Barnstaple is shaping up. I sense a real desire and a strong commitment on the part of its member churches to work together for the good of the Kingdom of God. That’s well illustrated by the emergence of the Street Pastors project and the Healing on the Streets initiative that Jerry has told us about this morning. And let’s not forget the excellent turnout from across the churches for the Good Friday act of witness in the High Street, or the way so many churches worked together to make Schools’ Week at Barnstaple Parish Church such a success.

These are really exciting times because we – the churches in the town –
are truly becoming Kingdom workers, rather than Empire builders!

The second significant thing that needs to be said about becoming a sacrificial community is that we need to get alongside and support existing social projects in our neighbourhood – secular as well as Christian – and be prepared to do so quietly and humbly rather than with a blaze of publicity that’s designed to enhance our reputation locally.

Jesus told a parable about a tiny amount of yeast mixed into a huge amount of bread dough, which caused it to rise and produce delicious bread. The yeast did its work silently and invisibly throughout that huge amount of dough – that’s just what the Kingdom of God is like, said Jesus.

When we are working for the Kingdom, we don’t have to have a fanfare of trumpets to draw attention to what we’re doing, we just need to continue to serve God and our neighbours sacrificially. Of course, we are doing what we can to help the residential service next door that’s run by Young Devon and we’re trying to do it in a low-key way – that’s the way it should be.

It’s lovely to receive recognition for what we do in Christ’s name, but we certainly shouldn’t be seeking that recognition – remember how Jesus lambasted the hypocrites who drew attention to their good deeds and prayed publicly on street corners so they’d be the focus of attention: that’s all the reward they’ll get. But those who do good discretely and who pray in private – while they won’t receive great public acclaim – will receive a lasting reward from their heavenly Father.

A third sign of a local church becoming sacrificial community is a willingness to give generously of money, of time, of ourselves – both within and beyond the fellowship – for the extension of God’s Kingdom. That doesn’t mean overstretching ourselves to the point that our health and our relationships are damaged – Jesus certainly doesn’t want that to happen – but it is a call to consider whether there is anything more that God is asking us to give, or to do, in His service.

Our giving must be sacrificial – just as the giving of the church in Macedonia was in the apostle Paul’s time. In 2 Corinthians, chapter 8, Paul writes:

Though they have been going through hard times, their wonderful joy and deep poverty have overflowed in deep generosity. For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford but far more. And they did it of their own free will.
In this case, Paul was talking about the money they had given for the relief of the church in Jerusalem, where there was a terrible famine; but, in our modern context, it might be more than just money. For example, it could be giving time to a local charity, or offering a friendly ear to someone who desperately needs to talk, or walking alongside someone who has profound problems ... and especially when it’s costly, difficult and even painful. Sacrificial giving is risky, because it means making ourselves vulnerable; and yet, because we do so in the name of Christ for the glory of God, we can completely trust in Him who has graciously created, sustained and redeemed us.

There are many other ways in which we can be a sacrificial community for the sake of God’s Kingdom, but I have run short of time this morning. Please do let me know your thoughts about how we can be a sacrificial community, by leaving a comment on our sermon website – http://www.wordatbbc.blogspot.com/; via email; or by giving me a written note.

Let’s have a conversation about how we can be a prophetic community, an inclusive community, and now a sacrificial community. For, as we do, we will become aware of God’s will for us as a fellowship and that has to be a very good thing.

Amen.

Sunday June 7th, 2009 - Church Anniversary Service / Trinity Sunday

2009-06-16T14:03:00.002+01:00

Anniversary Service – The Holy Trinity.

It’s a little like one of those detective novels, where all the evidence is included in the story and the reader will reach the right conclusion if they can find it all and put it together. I’m talking, of course, about the Holy Trinity, the Holy Three-in-One.

You see, nowhere in the Bible will you find the word ‘Trinity’ – you can read it from start to finish, or search through the concordance, and you’ll discover it doesn’t feature at all. Yet the evidence for the Holy Trinity is plain for all to see, if we keep our eyes open and our minds focussed as we read through the New Testament.

This morning, I chose to read two New Testament passages – one that appears in pretty much the same form in three of the Gospels and the other from the end of Matthew’s Gospel. Both have the three members of the Godhead in view, without ever mentioning the word ‘Trinity’.

First, we read the account of Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. Jesus joins the queue of those waiting to be baptised and John, knowing that Jesus is the divine Messiah, is understandably reluctant to do it – after all, how can he offer a baptism of repentance to the sinless Son of God? But he is persuaded by Jesus that it is the right thing to do.

And so Jesus is dipped – fully immersed in the waters of the Jordan – and, when he comes up again, the Holy Spirit descends upon Him like a beautiful dove and, from heaven, His Father says that this is His Son with whom He is delighted. And so, if we freeze frame this instant, we see God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit together – the Holy Trinity in all but name.

But doesn’t the notion that God is three go against what the Old Testament teaches? After all, doesn’t it say in the Book of Deuteronomy. “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one”? How can the Lord be one if there’s Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

The verse in Deuteronomy is stating that the Lord, the God of Israel, is unique – there is no other like Him in the nations surrounding Israel – and He is totally consistent – He is unchanging and of one purpose. Indeed, the Book of Genesis speaks of both God and the Spirit of God without any difficulty.

Over the centuries, there have been several illustrations to try to explain the nature of the Trinity – God in three persons, yet essentially the same. There has, of course, been the idea of water, ice and steam; and St Patrick is credited with using the three-leaved shamrock as a picture. But I like the Old Testament image of the three-braided cord, which appears in Ecclesiastes:

“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.”

Whilst this isn’t written of God, it got me thinking: the cord is made of three different braids, each of the same material, interwoven and giving tremendous internal strength – three braids, one cord. Father, Son and Holy Spirit – three persons, one God by the name of Yahweh.

In the second passage, we hear the risen Jesus sending out his friends to make disciples of all nations, baptising them “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Notice how He says in the ‘name’ – one name, not three – the three have one name, Yahweh. Again, we have the Holy Trinity in view, yet there is clearly only one God, not three.

Today we celebrate the 176th anniversary of this church and it is a time to give thanks to God for all He has been and is to us, and for all He has done in the life of the church. And so we say thankyou to the Father who made us, to the Son who saved us, and to the Spirit who energises us – God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Amen.

Sunday May 31st, 2009.

2009-05-31T21:56:00.003+01:00

Five Core Values: Being An Inclusive Community.

Over the next few weeks we are following up on the reflection we did on our Church Awayday in April at Speccott Barton. We looked at the Baptist Union’s “Five Core Values for a Gospel People” and how we are called to be a prophetic community, an inclusive community, a sacrificial community, a worshipping community, and a missional community. Last week, we thought in little more depth about how we – a small local church – can be a prophetic community and, this morning, we’re going to consider what it means to be an inclusive community, which I think is very appropriate for Pentecost Sunday!

Of course, to be ‘inclusive’ literally means being prepared to include everyone, regardless of their background or circumstances, within the life of the church fellowship. And that, surely, should be something which is a natural part of the church’s mindset, since the whole of Jesus’ life and ministry was the epitome of inclusion and acceptance. Let’s just reflect upon the truth of that for a few minutes...

Let’s start with Jesus’ birth. When God sent His Son to be born as man just over two thousand years ago, He didn’t choose a woman of wealth or power to bear Him, but an ordinary young girl named Mary, who lived in Nazareth in Galilee, considered to be a bit of a backwater at that time. You may remember the occasion when Nathanael, the disciple, first met Jesus and said, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nazareth wasn’t thought particularly highly of, it seems!

And remember that, when Jesus was born, He was laid in an animal feeding trough, because all the decent accommodation in Bethlehem was full, and His first visitors were a small group of lowly shepherds, who had been tipped off by the angels as to where they would find the Saviour. Later, the family was visited by learned men from eastern lands who had seen a star rise over Judea and now came bearing gifts for one born to be King of the Jews.

In the Temple, when Jesus was taken by His parents to be dedicated, two elderly people, Simeon and Anna, recognised Him for who He was and praised God for His blessing.

You see, right from the very beginning, it was clear that Jesus Christ entered this world for everyone, without distinction. As we’ve seen, the circumstances in which He was born made Him, to some extent, something of an outsider Himself. And the people who were drawn to Him, who recognised Him for who He was, were also outsiders – shepherds were not popular among the people at that time and, of course, the learned men from the east were foreigners and Gentiles. Anna and Simeon were elderly and yet they both clearly saw that this small child was the Saviour of young and old alike.

Now let’s consider Jesus’ earthly ministry. He was clear from the beginning that He had come especially for the sake of those who were considered to be outsiders: the diseased, the disreputable, the disabled, the despised, and the disenfranchised. And so He had no problem with the haemorrhaging woman who touched the tassel of His robe; He delighted in giving back sight to those who were blind; He didn’t hesitate to expel evil spirits from those who were afflicted; He enjoyed dining with tax collectors; and He dared to sit and talk with a Samaritan woman at a well.

These are just some examples of the many ‘outsiders’ with whom Jesus interacted and whom He invited into the Kingdom of God. No one was turned away, no one was written off as a hopeless case, no one was made to feel small – Jesus didn’t discriminate on grounds of gender, race, ability, or age ... He knew that the most important thing was the state of people’s hearts and He offered forgiveness to anyone who wanted to turn away from their bad ways and turn to God’s ways.

Even during His crucifixion, Jesus had an incredible effect on outsiders. Remember how He responded to the criminal being crucified at His side who said to Him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into Your Kingdom” – He told him, “Today, you will be with Me in paradise.” And, when He breathed His last upon the cross, the Roman soldiers on duty said, “Truly, this was the Son of God!” So, let’s be very clear about this: in birth, in ministry and even in death, Jesus Christ is the Saviour of all and embraces all.

But today is Pentecost, so what do the events of Pentecost say to us about inclusion?

Well, just consider what happened on that festival day in Jerusalem: the disciples were gathered together in a house, when the Holy Spirit came upon them in a totally remarkable way; and, as a result, they started speaking in many different languages, so that many pilgrims from all over the Empire were able to understand. We’re talking about Partians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Rome and many other places.

Now, this could only be the work of God, because ordinary Jews, like the disciples, may have been multilingual – speaking Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic – but they couldn’t possibly have known all those other languages. You see, there are no barriers for God – language isn’t a barrier, race isn’t a barrier. And, through those people who gathered to hear what Peter had to say, the Good News about Jesus Christ would be spread around the Empire.

In the period that followed Pentecost, the Holy Spirit directed Philip to convert the Ethiopian official; sent Peter to bring a Roman army captain named Cornelius to the Lord; and worked powerfully through the disciples to heal the sick. As Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28: “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians – you are one in Christ Jesus.” You see, God’s Kingdom is an inclusive kingdom, and God Himself is inclusive – He doesn’t want anyone to be left outside and if anyone remains outside of the Kingdom, it isn’t God’s doing.

It follows then that, we – the Body of Christ on earth – are called to be inclusive communities. But what does that mean? And what does it look like?

Well, perhaps the first concern of an inclusive church is ...

Accessibility

As a church we need to ensure that our building is accessible to those people who have mobility difficulties, whether that’s because of a disability, or through the frailty that comes with old age. If people can’t get in, or move around and use the facilities in the building, they clearly can’t be properly included in the life of the church.

But accessibility isn’t just about physical aspects of the building – it’s also about how we present our worship and other activities. For instance, it’s so easy for us to use Christian jargon in our services that those who aren’t from a church background, or who have a learning disability, just don’t understand what we are talking about – even words like ‘sin’ and ‘salvation’ can be mystifying, let alone phrases like ‘washed in the blood’, or ‘going home to glory’!

Let’s just remind ourselves that, when Jesus communicated with the crowds, he used stories and language that people could connect with and so, if we want to be an inclusive community, we must do the same.

The second word I want to use in connection with being an inclusive church is ...

Attitude

Twelve years ago, I wrote an article for the New Christian Herald about the attitude of the Church towards people with disabilities and, in that, I quoted a father of a child with a disability who said,

“In the final analysis, it is not the stairs, but the stares, which make the disabled and their families feel unwelcome in public places.”

The welcome that we give to people who come to church on Sunday or to any other church event is probably the single most important thing we do. And that welcome should be equally warm for everyone who arrives, regardless of anything about them that makes them a little bit different. We should be accepting of whoever comes through our front doors and affirming their desire to worship the living God. Whenever we offer a welcome and hospitality to a stranger, we are offering it to Christ Himself.

And, of course, a bad attitude can have all sorts of consequences, as all of you who remember the story of how Mahatma Gandhi was once turned away from a church and told to worship with his own people will appreciate. Let’s always endeavour to display an attitude of acceptance and affirmation to everyone.

Then, the third word that is to be associated with being an inclusive community is ...

Action

Jesus didn’t remain in Nazareth, or base Himself at a synagogue, and expect everyone to come to Him. He was out there, travelling around Galilee, Samaria and Judea, available to people.

And I think that, to be an inclusive community, we too have to be active in the world. It isn’t just about offering the outsiders a welcome when they come to us, it’s also about working outside of the church building in speaking up for the interests of people who are marginalised. We can be advocates for the homeless, the poor, the elderly, and people with disabilities, giving them a voice and helping them to challenge discrimination where it occurs. This is where being a prophetic community comes together with being an inclusive community.

The Holy Spirit was given to us, so that we would be active – the Spirit gives us energy, direction and strength to be a force for change in the world. If we are not active in standing up for the vulnerable in our society, we are going against God’s will for us and for them.

The final ‘A’ word that I want to bring to you in connection with being an inclusive community is ...

Assessment

We need to assess regularly how accessible we are to everyone who comes to us. Of course, we need to do an audit of the church building to ensure our premises are accessible, but we also need to audit our presentation, our attitudes and whether we are actively supporting the vulnerable and marginalised people in our own community.

And this is where we all have a part to play. I want to know if there are areas of church life where we are not doing enough, or where we can improve and I hope that you will tell me, or the deacons – not in a critical way, but a constructive way. We must aim to be the inclusive community that God wants us to be and must allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in this quest.

But, equally, each of us must assess our own behaviour, our own language, our own attitude towards those who, in some way, are different to us and ask God to help us to change, where necessary.

I want to end with a verse from 1 Peter 2, which Peter himself quotes from the Book of Hosea:

“Once you were not a people; now you are the people of God. Once you received none of God’s mercy; now you have received His mercy.”

Let us remember that, at one time, we were all outsiders – all outside God’s Kingdom – but God by His grace invited us in. May we do all we can to extend God’s grace and invitation to everyone without exception, and do it with the greatest of pleasure.

Amen.

Sunday May 24th, 2009.

2009-05-27T19:44:00.003+01:00

Five Core Values: Being A Prophetic Community.

At the end of April, over 30 of us went for our Church Awayday at Speccott Barton and I think we all had a pretty good time. During the teaching sessions we had that day, we thought about five core values that should underpin our life and our ministry together as a church. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be following up on that teaching, as we consider what it means for us to be a prophetic community, an inclusive community, a sacrificial community, a missional community, and a worshipping community.

I hope that this will be a chance for us to share ideas about what sort of fellowship God intends us to be. All the sermons will be available via the church website and I want to find out what you have to say about it all.

Anyway, this morning, we’re going to be looking at how the church is called to be a prophetic community, and I want to start with ...

The prophet’s job description

I don’t know if you’ve ever wanted a new job, but, when you received the job description, you suddenly realised that it probably wasn’t as straightforward as it looked and that you needed to read between the lines. So, for instance, it might say that the successful candidate “will have responsibility for establishing an efficient filing and office management system”, which really means “We’re in total disarray and you’ll spend your first six months in the job clearing up the mess!” Or, another example might be: “The successful applicant will be engaged in a wide variety of tasks, as directed by the manager”, which means, “Whoever takes on this job will get all the dirty and menial jobs that no one else wants to do.”

So, what might the job description of a prophet of the Lord look like? Perhaps, it would be something like this:

First of all, ...

· “The prophet will represent the Managing Director (that is, GOD) by addressing the press and the public, as instructed by the Managing Director.”

Which means that the prophet doesn’t say whatever he, or she, wants, but is purely a mouthpiece for God – this means that when prophets speak, they do so with the full authority of God. Notice how Amos prefaces all his declarations with the words. “This is what the Lord says ...” – whether or not the people take Amos seriously they need to understand what he says comes directly from God

Next ...

· “The prophet will have a responsibility for dealing with complaints.”

Which means that the prophet has to carry the can when people don’t like what he, or she, is telling them! There are several examples of prophets who didn’t want the job – Moses and Jeremiah, to name just two – and maybe you can’t blame them, because many of the Old Testament prophets suffered terribly for their efforts.

You certainly didn’t become a prophet to enjoy a quiet life!

And last on the prophet’s job description comes this ...

· “The prophet will have a responsibility for the implementation of the disciplinary procedure.”

Being a prophet always entails a lot of plain speaking! When the people start to get things badly wrong, it is the prophet’s duty to tell them that they have reached a point of crisis and, where necessary, to deliver God’s judgment.

The Hebrew prophets usually addressed their prophecies to the royal and religious authorities of Israel, but they could never be described as ‘political activists’. And yet, what they say always challenges the existing political situation: when they speak God’s word, they undermine the authorities’ claims that all is well, and invite their audience to see things differently. This is a really important notion for us – the Church in the twenty-first century – to take on board.

So then, for us – the Body of Christ – today ...

What does it mean to be a prophetic community?

To be a prophetic community, first of all, we need to refuse to be squeezed into the mould of the world, a course of action that may have negative consequences for us as Christians, just as it did for the Old Testament Jewish prophets and for Jesus Himself. In the Baptist Union’s material on the five core values, there’s the story of one Christian who wouldn’t conform:

Jason was a middle manager for a firm doing cleaning contracts for his local City Council. As a conscientious Christian, he had from time to time been uneasy about some of the things he was being asked to do. However, things came to a head when he was asked to give assurances to staff about the security of their jobs, when in reality those jobs were about to be axed. He refused to give these false assurances and, as a result, he lost his own job. In his early 50s, this was a risky step to take. In fact, apart from some part-time and very unrewarding work, Jason never did work again.

I wonder how many of us here would have taken that course of action in those circumstances? Would you have been prepared to stand up for truth and justice in the face of all the pressure to conform to the way of the world?

As Christians, we are called to live in the world without being of the world – which is much easier said than done, because there will always be a tremendous pressure (and temptation) to go along with the will of those around us and not cause waves, rather than follow the will of God and accept the consequences. As the Church, then, we must have the courage of our Christian convictions and speak God’s word into the public arena, no matter how much at odds that puts us with worldly wisdom.

Here’s a fine example. The Maranatha Community, an interdenominational group of Christians, has for many years stood up publicly for Biblical values, submitting reports to Parliamentary inquiries into subjects like the reclassification of drugs, sex education in schools, assisted euthanasia, abortion, and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Often, the views it has expressed have conflicted with the generally held views of society, but it has never shied away from speaking God’s word into public discussion. We - like the Maranatha Community, and other Christian organisations like it – must refuse to be squeezed into the mould of the world.

The second thing required of a prophetic community is the courage to stand up and speak out against injustice. The Revd Martin Luther King once said that “[t]he ultimate tragedy is not the brutality of bad people, but the silence of good people.” It was an essential feature of King’s life to stand up and speak out against injustice, against the racial prejudice and hatred which was directed at the black citizens of the southern states of America. Equally, it should be an essential feature of the life of the Church to challenge injustice and oppression, wherever they occur: locally, nationally, and internationally. We need to expose instances of injustice and immorality and, where appropriate, join with others to oppose and change them.

A really good example of the Christian Church doing this is the work of the Stop The Traffik organisation, which is campaigning against the trafficking of human beings around the world. Already it is being taken seriously by the United Nations, which has appointed its founder, Rev Steve Chalke, as a special adviser on the issue. It is also having an impact on the trafficking of children in Africa for the purpose of producing cheap chocolate, with Cadbury’s and Mars now committing themselves to producing traffick-free chocolate in the next few years. We can support their work by buying only Fair Trade chocolate products

Another great example of the Church acting prophetically in recent years has been its significant input to the Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History campaigns for the cancelling of the debt of the world’s poorest nations. And let’s not forget the work of Christian organisations like Open Doors and the Barnabas Fund, which expose and oppose the persecution of Christians around the globe. By highlighting individual cases and helping Christian communities who are being oppressed, these organisations are standing against injustice and promoting righteousness.

But being a prophetic community isn’t just about supporting those who are fighting global injustice, it’s also about being prepared to speak God’s word into local issues, such as the poor provision for homeless people, the need for rehabilitation facilities for drug abusers and the deprivation experienced on some of our estates.

Yet I think that being a prophetic community shouldn’t be just about reacting negatively towards things, but should also include supporting, encouraging and highlighting examples of good, just and righteous practice. It should also involve us providing an alternative way of looking at the situation by practically supporting the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed in our own neighbourhood.

I think that the link we have made with the residential service next door to the church is significant, because we are supporting something that is good and important in our community, because the staff need to know they are appreciated, and because the young people they serve need to be aware that they are loved. We must build upon this link and extend our support to the whole Young Devon charity that runs the service, because this is something good, something to be celebrated and something to be encouraged.

But, as we come to a close, let’s return to our Bible passage. Through Amos, God gave the king and his court an image of justice being like a river and of righteousness as a never-failing stream. It’s a dynamic image, because justice is dynamic – it’s like the constantly flowing waters of a river – it’s never static, it never rests. Justice is something that God’s people are called to do and to do justice means to act in the interests of the powerless: to stand up for the poor; to defend the oppressed; and to protect the vulnerable.

Through Amos, God gave the authorities a vision of what their society should be like. And this is what we, the Church, are called to do in this day, in this age: we are called to be the kind of light in this world that exposes the failings and injustices of our society. But, at the same time, we are also called to be the light that illuminates the road ahead, the light that helps people to move in the right direction.

In the way that God moves, judgment is always accompanied by hope – once He has revealed us as we really are, He then shows us what we can become if we do His will. That is the role of the prophet within the community. That is the role of the prophets we encounter in the Bible.

So, may we truly be the prophetic community that our heavenly Father wants us to be. May we be prepared to face the cost of that calling and count it as joy that God sees fit to use us in this way. Glory be to His name, for ever and ever. Amen.

I really want to know what you think about being a prophetic community: what do you think are the local issues that Barnstaple Baptist Church should be concerned about? What do you think God is saying to the people of Barnstaple? If you have something to offer, please write your thoughts on a piece of paper and drop it in the basket in the foyer. Or, if you have a question that has arisen from this message, do drop that in the basket as well and I’ll try to address it in future weeks.

Let’s sing now our final song, a prophetic song that looks forward to the coming of Christ in glory – “These are the days of Elijah”...

Sunday May 17th, 2009.

2009-05-27T17:57:00.000+01:00

10. James 5:13-18 ... Powerful Prayer

This morning, I want to start with a little story:

A grandfather overheard his granddaughter repeating the alphabet in reverent, hushed tones.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m praying, Grandpa,” she said. “I can’t think of the right words, so I just say all the letters. God will put them into words for me, because He knows what I’m thinking.”

That’s an amusing story, but there’s a lot that we can learn from it about prayer. It’s true that prayer isn’t always easy (and some would say it shouldn’t be easy!): maybe sometimes we don’t know what to pray about; perhaps life events make us feel like not praying; or perhaps we’ve lost confidence in prayer. The fact is, we all go through times when prayer is a struggle – and I’m no exception!

The girl in the story is a good example to all of us. She had the confidence in God to keep praying, even though she herself couldn’t put her prayers into words – she knew that if she turned to God, He would be able to make sense of her prayers, because He is aware of our prayers before we even say them.

Today, we turn to the Letter of James for the last time in this preaching series and, at the end of chapter 5, we are prompted to consider the importance of prayer and the importance of praying in every circumstance of life. I’m going to make a few direct observations on the text, so you may want to have your Bibles open at James, chapter 5.

The first observation I want to make is that ...

Prayer is always appropriate (v. 13)

In verse 13, James writes this:
Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray.
Are any of you happy? You should sing praises.

When James asks if any are suffering hardships, he is particularly referring to the hardships that come from persecution, oppression and abuse, because, at the time he was writing, many Christians were subject to mistreatment as a consequence of their faith. So he urges them to pray about it, however rough it might get for them.

It seems to be getting tougher to be a Christian in Britain these days, too – obviously not as tough as it was in the Roman Empire nearly two thousand years ago, nor as tough as it is for Christians in some other parts of the world, but it is getting tougher. When we speak about our faith, work colleagues look at us as if we’re speaking a foreign language; Biblical values are being undermined and opposed through legislation; and the Church is increasingly being held up for ridicule and as a target for anger.

James’ guidance is to pray about it – “You should pray”, he writes – and the Greek he uses has the sense of praying, not just once, but continually. In effect, he is telling us to “keep on praying about it”: keep on praying about it, even though you feel miserable about the treatment you are receiving; keep on praying about it, even though you dread some of the conversations that arise in the staff room, or the office; keep on praying about it, especially when you wonder whether it is worth being openly Christian.

The implication is that there isn’t always an instant remedy to our suffering, that our afflictions may be ongoing. Of course, when we come under attack, when we experience extreme difficulties, and our prayers are not promptly answered as we would wish, there is a terrific temptation to stop praying, to give up on God – James says, “Don’t!!! Just keep on praying!”

Here’s a wonderful hymn, which we’re not singing this morning, but which sums up the need to be persistent in prayer:

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

We have a Saviour who hears our prayers and who is able to give us peace and comfort, even when – for whatever reason – it is not God’s will to remove our problem immediately. Instead of blaming God, or retaliating against the oppressor, we are to keep on praying, we are to keep on turning to God.

A couple of years ago in The Baptist Times, there was a story about a widow and her son, who were both training to be Baptist ministers. The woman had lost her husband and her daughter at very early ages, but what she said in the story made a deep impression on me and I kept the quote. She said:

“There’s no getting away from the fact that as a family we have had more than our fair share of death at an early age. But we’ve also had a huge amount of joy. I have learned what it is like to walk in the dark, but we still have joy. Life has been difficult, and it continues to be, but God has been there.”

In the face of their loss, their hardships, they might have turned away from God, given up on Him, yet God was there when they were at their lowest ebb and, as they turned to Him in prayer, they both found comfort and direction in life.

The point is that prayer is appropriate – indeed, essential – when we are under pressure; but it is equally appropriate and essential to pray when things are going well and we are feeling particularly blessed.

And James goes on to write: “Are any of you happy? You should sing praises.”

Prayer isn’t limited to words spoken quietly under our breath, or even shouted out loudly. As we sing out songs of thanksgiving and praise, we are lifting prayers to the Lord – earlier on in the service, we were singing “My heart is filled with thankfulness”, a prayer of thanksgiving. And, again, the sense of what James writes here is that we should keep singing His praises.

I remember that, when I first gave my life to Christ, I was a teacher in Manchester and, when I wasn’t on lunchtime playground duty, I would go for a walk in the park next door to the school and spend the whole time singing praise songs quietly to myself as I walked around. We should keep singing His praises.

Yet, the strangest thing often happens: when we find that things are going well in our lives and we are happy, we can easily forget to give God the thanks and praise He is due.

So, James is telling us that, whether things are going badly or well for us, we must remember to keep on praying and to keeping on singing. Prayer and praise are absolutely ESSENTIAL!!! So, let us be quick to turn to Him who perfectly loves us in every circumstance of life

Next, James tells us that ...

Prayer is healing (vv. 14-15)

In verse 14, he writes:

Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.

This verse suggests that the practice of anointing those who were sick had become a common practice within the very early church. Today, many Non-conformists may have reservations about the use of oil in this way, yet here is a Biblical endorsement for doing it. James isn’t claiming that the oil itself has healing properties, but is testifying to the tremendous power of prayer.

Verse 15 says:

Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well.

The anointing doesn’t act like some kind of medication, which heals the ailing person – no, it is the use of the name of Jesus in the prayer of the church leaders which effects the healing, and the oil is purely symbolic of Christ’s healing power. In some cases, people with seemingly incurable conditions have been healed in quite miraculous ways.

But it’s not just about physical healing, because James adds:

And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.

For James, physical and spiritual healing go together. The Jewish view was that body, mind and spirit were inextricably linked and that, when one of them was unhealthy, all would be affected. This is a very holistic approach which is being taken increasingly seriously in modern medicine.

And notice that the sick person is instructed to call upon the leaders of the church to come to anoint and pray over him, or her. Illness moves from being a personal burden to being a concern of the whole Christian fellowship – it is not to be kept private, but to be addressed by the Body of Christ. After this service, you may ask me or any of the deacons of this church for prayer, whether your ailment be physical, emotional or spiritual – please don’t go home without asking.

But what of those cases where prayers of faith are not followed by physical healing, but by continuing illness and pain, or even death? Does this mean that in the sufferer, or in the ones praying, there was insufficient faith?

No, I don’t believe that to be true for two reasons: first, because I myself have witnessed people of great faith being prayed for by others of great faith and yet death has followed quite quickly; and, second, because the words of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 stand out to me:

“[T]o keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud.

8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.”

Paul himself prayed three times to be relieved of what was almost certainly a physical ailment and yet he wasn’t healed, because the Lord wanted Paul to depend totally upon Him and not rely upon his own strength.

Why does God heal some and not others? I have to say that I honestly don’t know and neither does anyone else, but I choose to put my complete faith in God nonetheless and I continue to pray, believing wholeheartedly in God’s power to heal.

The next thing that James says is that ...

Confession is good for the soul (v. 16a)

At the beginning of verse 16, he writes:

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

These days, we are perhaps happy to participate in generalised prayers of confession during congregational worship, but probably wouldn’t entertain the idea of routinely and openly confessing our sins to other people. Yet that seems to be what James is advocating. In his scheme of prayer, people confess to one another, then pray for each other about those specific areas identified, then receive forgiveness or absolution, and, as a consequence, healing takes place – whether that is healing of relationships, healing of the spirit, or even physical healing.

Now, I don’t think James had in mind the idea of sitting in a confessional box with a priest – that’s a construct of the later, institutionalised church – but the principle of sharing one’s indiscretions with at least one other believer and praying it through is definitely advocated here.

That sort of openness and vulnerability may be a difficult thing to contemplate, but can we, in all integrity, simply ignore a Biblical injunction like this one? I’d be interested to know your thoughts on it.

Finally in this short passage, James tells us that, in the hands of righteous people, ...

Prayer is powerful (vv. 16b-18)

In the second half of verse 16, he writes:

“The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”

And he cites Elijah as a prime example, causing a drought to befall Israel and then ending it ... all through prayer. The implication of what James is saying is that the prayer of those who are strong in faith and godliness is more powerful than that of those who are not.

Now that may well be true and we can accept the example of Elijah and, of course, the ultimate example of Christ; but, what it all comes down to in the end is the grace of God, because it’s true to say that He answers the prayer of the weakest believers, as well as the strongest. The worldly person who has reached the end of their tether, turns to God and screams, “God, please help me”, will have their prayer answered if they are sincere in their plea. The weaker we are in faith, the more reason to turn to God in prayer, because as we trust in Him our faith is strengthened and we are made whole..

Yes, prayer is powerful, but it is God’s power that is manifest, not our own. So, however weak in faith you feel this morning, turn to prayer, not away from it, and allow God to do a powerful work in you and through you.

So, as I draw to a close, let us remember what we have learned this morning:

· prayer is always appropriate;
· prayer is healing;
· confession is good for the soul, and
· prayer is powerful.

Let’s pray ...

All-seeing God,
teach us to be open with You about our needs,
teach us to seek Your support in our trials,
teach us to admit before You our sins
and to thank You for all Your goodness;
for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.

Sunday May 10th, 2009

2009-05-12T22:49:00.000+01:00

9. James 4:11 – 5:12

A fortnight ago, I was talking about how we undergo two types of conversion: first, we are converted to Christ – we are made a new creation and enter into life everlasting, as we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord; and, second, we experience a process of ongoing conversion, as – by the grace of God, our heavenly Father, and in the power of the Holy Spirit – we are transformed into the likeness of Christ … a process which will last our lifetimes.

At the beginning of chapter 4, James berates his readers for holding on to many of the behaviours and attitudes they displayed before they became Christians and urges them to repent and to be open to God’s transforming power. In this second half of chapter 4 and into chapter 5, he warns them against some of the other things that may have been carried over from their worldly existence into their Christian lives.

First of all, he speaks out against …

Judgmentalism (4:11-12)

The Good News Bible has the beginning of verse 11 like this: “Do not criticise one another, my friends.” The New International version has: “Brothers, do not slander one another.” In this instance, I prefer the New Living Translation which says: “Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters.” And the reason I prefer it is that “speaking evil against each other” encompasses several different sins of the tongue: criticism of others; slanderous talk; and even gossip. These three are heavy duty pieces of the devil’s armoury, because each of them sows discord and causes division. How sad, then, that they are so often used within a fellowship of Christians; how tragic that, through them, people are often lost to the local church and sometimes even to Christ. During the Second World War, there was the warning that “Careless talk costs lives”; in this different context – the Church – the same words ring sadly true.

There should be no place within the local fellowship for such talk and yet there is probably none of us who is lily-white in this respect, so let us not pretend otherwise. No, let us rather acknowledge our shortcoming and pray to God for the strength to hold our tongues when we are tempted to speak a harsh word against someone and to focus more on one another’s strengths than on our weaknesses. If we fail to do so, then we are placing ourselves in opposition to God and inviting His judgment upon us.

In Luke’s Gospel, we read that Jesus told the crowd, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.” Harsh words are not only wounding of others, but also have consequences for the speaker – as we criticise, as we slander, as we gossip, our own judgmentalism is turned around upon us.

James puts it in another way: he writes, “If you criticise or judge another Christian, you criticise and judge the Law. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it.” The injunction against slander and other sins of the tongue goes way back in the Jewish writings – in Leviticus 19, verses 16 and 17, the Lord says to the Israelites through Moses: “Do not go about spreading slander among your people. … Do not hate your brother in your heart.” And in Psalm 50, God says of the wicked: “You use your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit. You speak continually against your brother and slander your own mother’s son.” The one who criticises or slanders another is not only judging another human being, but also judging God’s Law to be inconsequential and that really is a foolish thing to do.

So, my friends, let us curb the wicked side of our tongues – there is no place in this church for malicious criticism, gossip, or slander and it must not be tolerated.

A second vice that James speaks out against here is …

Arrogance (4:13-17)

Or, maybe it’s complacency? However we might label it, it is about taking things for granted and not acknowledging God’s sovereignty in all things. Again, we probably all say things like “Next year, we’re going on holiday to …”; or, “When we retire, we’ll do this, that or the other.” Now, of course, it isn’t wrong to plan ahead, or to look forward to something in the future, as long as we recognise that it isn’t all down to us, that we are in God’s hands, not our own.

James says, “What you ought to say is this: “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Were we all to do that, we would be reminding ourselves of God’s sovereignty and impressing the notion upon other people.

The Gospel story that comes to mind is the one that Jesus told about the rich man who enjoyed a bumper crop and said, “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat drink and be merry.’”

The man was boasting in his blest situation, he didn’t have a word of thanks for God, and had no thought for the good he could do for others, little knowing that he would not have the opportunity to enjoy his prosperity.

It isn’t wrong to make money, it isn’t wrong to make plans, it isn’t wrong to have hopes and dreams, but it is sinful to leave God out of it all, to act as though He has nothing to do with it all. Rather, we must give thanks to God in all things, we must listen for His voice and ask for His guidance in our ideas and schemes – ultimately, we must seek to be a part of His plans, not expect Him to fit in with ours.

In the third section of this morning’s passage, James sounds off against …

Self-indulgence (5:1-6)

In chapter 5, verses 1-6, James seems to go into prophetic mode, condemning the rich for their obsessive selfishness and their unjust behaviour towards those who are dependent upon them. Although it is unlikely that James was aiming this rant at wealthy believers, I think it is still particularly relevant for Christians to consider, because, as Mark Twain once observed, usually the last thing to be converted in a Christian is his wallet!

It often seems that, when we become a disciple of the Lord, we immediately see the need for change in our behaviour patterns, but fail to recognise a need to reassess what we do with our money. Being rich is not, in itself, sinful – after all, comparatively speaking, probably all of us here this morning would be counted amongst the top 5% richest people in the world – just the fact that we have a roof over our heads, enough food in our refrigerators and clean water flowing from our taps puts us in that bracket. No, being rich is not the issue, it is how we handle our wealth that is key.

Basically, it boils down to what Jesus said during the Sermon on the Mount: “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” When our own comfort, our own luxury, becomes more important to us than God, becomes more important to us than the welfare of others, that is when we find ourselves in the service of Money, rather than in His service. The fact is that our conversion must include how we use the resources that God provides and how we treat other people.

But, as I have said, I don’t think that James is directly addressing Christians here, so I’ll move on to the fourth part of the passage, a message of encouragement which is definitely intended for his Christian brothers and sisters.

Encouragement (5:7-12)

In verses 7 to 12, James urges the Christians hearing his words to remain patient in the face of trials, in the certain hope of the Lord’s return. Those who grumble that Christ is too slow in returning should remember how long a farmer has to wait to harvest his crop – from sowing to reaping he must go through the seasons of the year.

Maybe we too are impatient for the Lord’s return, maybe we too are losing hope as we see what is happening in the world around us, maybe we too feel under threat within our society; yet we too need to demonstrate the same patient endurance that James advocates.

James cites the prophets as inspiration because they fearlessly did God’s will and brought God’s word to the nation, in spite of the cruel way in which they were often treated. They persevered, even when they knew they themselves would not be alive to see Israel’s deliverance – they had a certain hope in God and that confidence carried them through all their trials and tribulations.

We must have that same strength of faith and resolve in these days.

Conclusion

Maybe at first sight, the Letter of James seems a bit of a hotch-potch of teaching, with little natural flow to it. But James’ over-arching theme is one of ‘readiness’: he wants you to examine yourselves and assess whether your faith is demonstrated in your deeds; control yourselves, especially your tongues; persevere through your present difficulties and endure the troubles ahead; FOR CHRIST IS COMING!!!

May we take James’ teaching seriously and not be unprepared. Amen.

Sunday April 26, 2009

2009-05-12T22:41:00.000+01:00

8. James 4:1-10

‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’, or so they say; and this morning, as we return to our study of the Letter of James after a short break, I hope that you are now looking forward to learning more from what the brother of our Lord Jesus writes.

As there has been a bit of a break, it might be helpful if I give a brief recap of its background. The letter itself was almost certainly written by James, the brother of Jesus, and since we know it must have been written before 62 AD when he was martyred, it must be one of the earliest of the Christian scriptures in the New Testament.

James is writing to Christian believers scattered around the Empire, many of whom are new in the faith – and let’s face it, at the time James was writing, almost everyone was pretty new in the faith, because Jesus’ crucifixion had happened probably less than thirty years beforehand! So James’ purpose in writing is to exhort his readers to stay faithful to the Lord, to live godly lives and not to revert to their previous worldly ways. Sometimes James comes across as sounding quite severe, but it is all in order to keep his readers on the right track and his guidance is always very practical.

I think all this is extremely important to remember as we read through the letter as a whole, and particularly this part of it in chapter 4. True enough, he sounds harsh in some places – for instance, when he calls his readers ‘adulterous’ in verse 4 – but there’s no doubt that his motives are pure and that he’s actually writing for their eternal spiritual benefit. So, bearing all this in mind, let’s take a closer look at this first half of chapter 4 …

Continuous conversion

The first thing that I want to pick up on is the verse I just mentioned, verse 4, which reads:

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

It all sounds very dramatic, doesn’t it? But remember that many of the people he’s addressing are not longstanding in the Christian faith, so there’s still a real danger that they will be tempted to return to the ways of the world and will forsake the ways of heaven. At the end of chapter 3, James has already said:

“…if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s type of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual and demonic.”

You see, these people have accepted Christ as their Lord and they gather in His name, but their ways of thinking and their behaviour are not yet completely holy. This serves to remind us that “conversion is a continuing process” [Johnson, NIB, 1998] rather than a one-off event – and that’s the first point I want to make: conversion is a continuous process.

Within the evangelical tradition, there is a definite tendency to think of our conversion, our turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, as happening at a particular moment in time – everything before that moment is considered darkness, and everything after it is light … in an instant, then, we move from the worldly to the godly and we are changed people.

In one sense, of course, that’s absolutely true: as soon as we give our hearts to Christ, we are saved for eternal life, and we’re no longer bound by death – and we should all praise the Lord for that. But, in another way, it is a little misleading: when we accept Jesus as Lord, we do indeed move from death to life, but in no way are we the finished article, the complete Christian: you see, in this sense, our conversion from being a worldly person to being a heavenly person is an ongoing transformation, rather than something that happens overnight, and it is something that is not achieved by us, but by God Himself.

Under construction!

In Romans, chapter 12, we’re told by Paul:

“Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.”

When I use my computer to surf the internet, I often reach some church’s or organisation’s website which says on it in large letters, “UNDER CONSTRUCTION”. The website is there and it may well have some material on it which is available to read, but it isn’t finished yet – it’s a work in progress which will look very different and will be very much better when it’s completed. Even when we become Christians, we are still works in progress, we remain ‘under construction’ – although we have embraced a new way of life, it takes a time for us to divest ourselves of all the different elements of our old way of life, and, let’s face it, being in the world can make it very difficult for us to stop being of the world. I well remember giving my life to Christ twenty-two years ago in a small Baptist church in Birmingham – that day my life was immeasurably changed for ever by God, but I wasn’t suddenly the finished article. There were still things in my life – both behaviours and attitudes – which were not right, not godly; and yet, looking back now, I can see how God – through the Holy Spirit – has been steadily transforming me into the likeness of Christ. And I’m still not there yet, because I know that this process will continue throughout my earthly life. I think we need to remember that, because I’m sure that all of us at some time or another feel despair when we fall short of God’s standards – it’s not that we should ignore or excuse our sinfulness, but, equally, let’s not forget that we continue to be “UNDER CONSTRUCTION.” So, is there anything we must do to help the process along?

Open to change?

The simple answer is “Yes!”

In his letter, James reflects Paul’s advice to the Christians in Rome: ‘let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.’ Notice the way Paul says, “Let God …” Even though it is God who does the transforming, as Christians, we need to allow Him to do that – we need to “let God”; if we choose to remain focusing on the delights and the ways of the world, rather than to look to God and desire His ways, then we’re just not allowing Him to begin the process of perfecting us.

In those first few verses we read from chapter 4, James points out to his readers that the fights and quarrels they are experiencing are a direct result of still remaining rooted in – and focused upon – the ways of the world. When they pray, their prayers are unfruitful because their motives for praying are all wrong – they are driven by a desire for personal gain, rather than for the well-being of others.

James puts it bluntly: Don’t you realise that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God.

Now, we have to be careful about how we read this, because I’m sure it is not advocating that we completely cut ourselves off from the world for fear of being corrupted; neither do I believe it is suggesting that we take up a stance of hostility towards the world – after all, John’s Gospel tells us that “God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not die but have eternal life.” God didn’t cut Himself off from the world, nor did He hate the world, and we must surely follow His lead. But what James says in his letter is meant as a warning against being so immersed in the culture that we go along with everything the world does – it is a call to godly living, not worldly living.

So, we must continue to engage with the world, proclaiming the gospel in culturally relevant ways and demonstrating an alternative way of living, without ourselves bowing down to worldly wisdom and adopting worldly ways. I fear that this is already becoming more difficult in our society, as there is increasing pressure upon the Church to conform to worldly values and abandon the divine values which we find in the Bible. In the days ahead, we must be clear in our minds and steadfast in our hearts that the ultimate authority belongs to God and to no-one else, so let us always seek to rely upon heavenly wisdom and to follow God’s will, rather than seek the approval of the world and do its bidding. We are to be in the world, but not of the world.

James puts it like this in verses 7 and 8:

So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God and God will come close to you.

The time is surely coming when each of us will be called upon to stand up for what we believe, so let us humbly submit ourselves to God, because as we do He will be with us and will strengthen us. And let us be prepared to resist the devil in our everyday lives, by repenting of our own sinfulness, receiving God’s forgiveness, putting on the spiritual armour that Paul speaks of and living our lives for Christ; because I believe that each of us has a very significant role to play in maintaining a clear gospel message in this country.

But I want to conclude by reminding you that the victory has already been won – that Christ conquered all upon the cross and that whoever remains faithful to Him will be with Him in His glory. So let us shun sinfulness, let us love one another and let us bow down before our almighty God alone.

Amen.

Sunday March 29th, 2009

2009-05-12T22:30:00.000+01:00

7. Wisdom (James 3:13-18)

Let me start with a story:

One evening, an angel appears at a church meeting and tells the pastor that because of his unselfish and exemplary behaviour, the Lord wants to reward him – he can choose from infinite wealth, infinite wisdom, or infinite beauty. Without hesitation, the pastor chooses infinite wisdom.

“Done!” says the angel and disappears from view. Now, all the church members look toward the pastor, who sits surrounded by a faint halo of light. Then, one of the deacons says to him, “Let is have some words of wisdom – go on, say something.” The pastor looks at the leaking roof, the paint peeling from the walls, the failing heating system and says, “You know, I really should have taken the money!”

As we heard earlier in the service, in the First Book of Kings, Solomon is given a similar opportunity and he, too, chooses wisdom. We’re told that ...

10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. 11 So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies—12 I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have!

In Israel, wisdom was valued above everything and, as we again take a look at the Letter of James, we see that the brother of Christ, also, emphasises the need for wisdom. But how do we recognise wisdom?

First, let’s take ...

The wisdom test (v.13)

Most people – including you and I – would probably consider themselves to be pretty wise ... we might not say so out loud, but inside we think we know what’s what. In verse 13, James writes:

If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.

Or, to put in a slightly more straightforward way: if you are truly wise, your wisdom will be demonstrated by good deeds and sensible behaviour.

Here, James is revisiting one of his earlier points from the letter: if you remember, he declared that a Christian’s faith is proven by his, or her, actions – and, just as faith without action is worthless, a wisdom which isn’t expressed in the person’s conduct is not a godly wisdom at all. In the Book of Proverbs, it says:

A fool finds pleasure in evil conduct, but a man of understanding delights in wisdom. (Prov. 10:23)

No-one whose life is marked by ungodly behaviour should ever be regarded as having godly wisdom – the two things cannot co-exist. So, if you want to ascertain how wise someone is, first consider their everyday conduct. There are plenty of people these days who present themselves as some sort of guru and who seek to pass on their ‘wisdom’ to others through TV programmes, DVDs, books, training courses, and the like – they will try to convince you that their philosophy, their approach to life, will revolutionise yours.

Don’t be taken in by mere words and glossy presentation, but take a look at their lives: if they are not living godly, moral lives, if they are self-seeking and self-promoting, then their ‘wisdom’ is worthless.

This makes it clear that there are two different types of wisdom: there is the false wisdom, which is the wisdom of the world; and there is true wisdom, which is the wisdom that comes from God.

Let’s look first at ...

False wisdom (vv. 14-16)

Worldly wisdom is based upon human understanding, human standards and human objectives – and, as we must all know from our own experience, these are always imperfect, always flawed. You see, worldly wisdom makes the human being the source of authority – it doesn’t recognise God’s sovereignty, God’s will, or God’s truth – and that’s a recipe for disaster!

Psalm 111 is quite clear on this subject:

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts have good understanding.

Fear of the Lord comes with recognising who God is. He is the Creator of all; all things in heaven and on earth and throughout the universe are wholly dependent upon Him; He has perfect power and complete authority. The proper response to God is fear – fear in the form of a sense of abject unworthiness, a sense of absolute awe, an attitude of total respect and worship. Look how Isaiah responded when he saw God in His heavenly throne room – he said:

“My destruction is sealed, for I am a sinful man and a member of a sinful race. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Now, that is fear of the Lord – Isaiah recognises who God is, acknowledges His power and sovereignty, and realises his own inadequacy. Only fools would ignore God’s authority – wouldn’t they?

And yet, we see it happening around us all the time, people who are so wrapped up in themselves and their own desires that they fail to bow before God. Their foolishness is demonstrated by the jealousy and selfish ambition that’s evident in the way they live their lives. Oh yes, on the face of things, they may seem to be successful people: people who have gone far in life because of their drive for self-gratification, for wealth, power and influence; people who always want more, who want to have better than everyone else they know. But they are motivated by a worldly wisdom that has its origin not in God, but in the devil. They are not serving the purposes of God, but playing into the hands of Satan.
The wisdom they live by is not wisdom at all, but complete foolishness – a false wisdom that will be their undoing.

Yet, on the other hand, there is ...

True wisdom (vv. 17-18)

James describes the nature of true wisdom in verse 17:
But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favouritism and is always sincere.

True wisdom originates with, and in, God and He bestows it upon all who put their trust in Jesus Christ, His Son, and build their lives upon Him. Remember how Jesus teaches the people about wisdom, using this parable:

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

Wisdom is connected to salvation. That is, it is inexorably linked to gaining everlasting life: only those who have godly wisdom (that is, faith in Christ) and who are ready for when Jesus returns will be safe – remember the story of the wise and foolish young women and their lamps.

And how is our wisdom to be recognised? By the extent to which we respect and obey our Saviour’s teaching. Verses 17 and 18 are very reminiscent of the Beatitudes:

James writes, “the wisdom from above is first of all pure”; and, of course, Jesus had said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” The Christian is made pure by God through a belief in Jesus Christ as Lord.

Then, James writes that godly wisdom “is also peace loving, gentle at all times and willing to yield to others”, reflecting Jesus’ assertion that “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” In other words, you will recognise a wise person by their general demeanour.

And James also says that true wisdom “is full of mercy and good deeds”, just as Jesus had said that “blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.” The wise are forgiving to those who wrong them and compassionate to those who are in need.

The wisdom we’re talking about here is not something we can produce ourselves, not something we can learn about from books, but comes only through a trusting relationship with God, which is marked by submission to His authority and obedience to His will. It is also something that we should pray for: rather than riches, popularity, or good looks, we should be choosing to pray for wisdom, first and foremost, because that is how we can best serve God.

Conclusion

So, how can we make use of this teaching in our everyday lives?

Well, first of all, we should be applying the wisdom test to those who are telling us what to do, or who are claiming to be able to change our lives. Remember, a person’s wisdom will be shown through his or her conduct: those whose lives are riddled with immorality do not have godly wisdom and should not be followed; whereas, those who are trying to do God’s will – maybe not always succeeding, but who have a godly heart – we should listen to. These may not be the most good-looking people with the most charismatic personalities, but it’s their faith in God that counts. We can apply the wisdom test to politicians, church leaders, to life-style gurus – to anyone who seeks to influence us in any way.

We might also apply the wisdom test to ourselves: only if we are God-focused, rather than self-obsessed can we be truly wise. As we centre our lives upon God and upon Christ’s teaching, He will transform us, providing us with wisdom from heaven.

How do we centre our lives in such a way? By spending time with God in prayer every day and, if possible several times a day. We also centre our lives upon God by reading the Bible regularly and systematically, and by trying to practise what it tells us.

Let me close with a couple of verses from 1 Corinthians chapter 1:

The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”

Seek the wisdom that comes from heaven and be wary of the worldly wise!

Amen.

Sunday March 22nd, 2009

2009-05-12T22:28:00.000+01:00

6. Control Your Tongue (James 3:1-12)

As we return this morning to the Letter of James, we also return to an issue that James has previously raised in chapter 1 – remember how he wrote:

“If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.”

It’s obviously an important issue for James and it should be an important issue for us, too, because it could be said that a person’s speech is a reliable indicator of physical health. You see, the tongue can only reflect the state of our hearts: a gossiping tongue, a tongue that speaks foul language, a tongue that spits vitriol, all are a sign of an ungodly inner condition.

In Matthew 15:18-19, Jesus puts it very straightforwardly:

“The things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these are the things that make a person ritually unclean. For from his heart come the evil ideas which lead him to to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie and slander others.”

I remember an advert for the American Express credit card from years ago which claimed that ... “It says more about you than cash ever can!” Well, quite literally, your tongue says more about you than anything else ever can.

So, let’s for a moment consider James’ first point in verse 1 of chapter 3 ...

Let the teacher beware! (v. 1)

James writes:

“Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly.”

Teaching and preaching within the church is a wonderful privilege and I thank God each day that He has called me to this role, BUT along with that privilege goes a tremendous responsibility as well. And, as a consequence of their responsibility for guiding people down the narrow path, God will examine those who teach and preach with greater vigour than He does others.

When James says, “Not many of you should become teachers in the church”, he isn’t trying to discourage others from preaching and teaching among God’s people, but he is stressing that those who feel called to such a role must examine themselves, should thoroughly test their faith, before offering themselves. We know from the gospels that some who were in a teaching role were not spiritually mature, but liked the attention they received from speaking from the front. Of the Pharisees, Jesus says:

“They do everything so that people will see them. Look at the straps with scripture verses on them which they wear on their foreheads and arms, and notice how large they are! Notice also how long are the tassels on their cloaks! They love the best places at feasts and the reserved seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the market-places and to be called ‘Teacher’.” (Mt. 23:5-7)

Their actions did not reflect what they were teaching and demonstrated spiritual immaturity – and Jesus had stern words for them. Similarly, it seems likely that people in the early church were also being attracted to teaching roles because of the status and profile it gave them, and so James was stressing that only those whose lives were totally God-focused should step forward to teach and preach.

But James goes on in verse 2 to suggest that everyone – teachers and non-teachers alike – will be held accountable by God for the way they use their tongues. I think that an older edition of the New Living Translation which I have on my bookshelf puts this verse a little better than the edition we’ve got in church – it says:

“We all make mistakes, but those who control their tongues can also control themselves in every other way.”

While teachers will be judged by God with special strictness, we all have a responsibility for controlling our tongues. I read somewhere that scientists say that “once a sound wave is set in motion, it continues on a never-ending journey, and that, if we had sufficiently sophisticated instruments, each wave could be captured and reproduced at any time. If that is true, every word spoken by any person who has ever lived could be retrieved!” I’m pretty sure that that’ll never be possible, but, of course, God doesn’t need such an instrument to hear every word we speak and we will be held responsible for what we say. Jesus told the people:

“You can be sure that on Judgement Day everyone will have to give account of every useless word he has ever spoken. Your words will be used to judge you – to declare you either innocent or guilty.” (Mt. 12:36-37)

That sounds very heavy, i know, but that is how it is, or will be, so let’s spend a little more time thinking about what we are to say, before we open our mouths to speak. A journalist, William Norris put it like this:

If your lips would keep from slips, five things observe with care: To whom you speak, of whom you speak, and how, and when, and where.

If we are able to do that, we will have taken a major step towards controlling all of our behaviour. You see, the person who has learned to control his tongue is also the type of person who will have control over the rest of their life as well.

The second point James makes can be summed up like this ...

Small tongue, big impact (vv. 3-5)

Your tongue, although it is very small, is very powerful. James makes this point well by using two interesting illustrations.

First of all, in verse 3, he compares the tongue to a small bit in the mouth of a large horse. He writes:

“We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth.”

The image he conjures up is that of a large healthy horse running across an open field. And, although it is powerful enough to do what it wants and to go its own way, a rider is able to control the massive animal by means of a small piece of steel in the horse’s mouth.

Then, in verse 4, James compares the tongue to a small rudder on a large ship. He writes:

“a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong.”

James is talking about the great ships that sailed the Mediterranean Sea in his day. Many of them were up to 1,000 tons in size and, incredibly, they had crews of up to 600 men. They were monsters, and yet they were steered by a little rudder only about a foot long.

Likewise, we need to appreciate the power of the tongue and keep it under control. The tongue can make people feel ten feet tall, or really small; it can build them up, or knock them down; it can bring peace to a situation, or make things immeasurably worse. Let us never underestimate the power of the tongue and the impact it can have.

So, my third point is that we must remember that ...

The tongue can be an instrument of evil (vv. 5-8)

Again, James makes the point in two graphic ways:

First, in verses 5-6, he tells us that the tongue can be as destructive as a spreading flame:

“a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.”

Recently, we’ve seen the terrible forest fires in Australia which have killed so many people and devastated large areas. Sadly, some of these fires were started deliberately, but some forest fires are caused by carelessly discarded cigarettes, or the remains of a campfire. From just a little spark an entire forest can be set ablaze.

And be aware that our words can be the spark that begin a conflagration! One word of gossip, one lie, one insinuation, one harsh criticism and a blazing fire can begin. Just one little act of verbal thoughtlessness can spread from heart to heart across a community and leave behind it charred and burned reputations, broken hearts and broken homes. The damage can be both extensive and irrepairable!

Here’s a little story that I came across:

A young man, riddled with guilt during the Middle Ages, went to see a monk and said, “I’ve sinned by gossiping about someone in town. What should I do now?”

The monk said, “First I want you to put a feather on the doorstep of every person to whom you have spoken in town.”

The young man did as the monk said and, when he was finished, he returned to the monk to see what he was to do next.

The monk said, “Now go back and pick up all the feathers.”

The young man replied, “That’s impossible! By now the wind will have blown them all over town.”

The monk replied, “Your words of gossip are as difficult to retrieve as those feathers.”

A few misplaced words can wreck a marriage, destroy a career, or bring despair. And the evil that the tongue wreaks has its origin in Satan himself – “it is set on fire by hell itself,” James says. The fire rages and Satan laughs!

Second, in verses 7-8, James suggests that the tongue can be more dangerous than a wild animal, or a deadly poison:

“People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison.”

The tongue may behave like a restless animal looking for something to devour. The words it speaks can be like snake venom spreading around the blood system. The only way the destructive power of the tongue can be controlled, or neutralised, is if we consider the root cause of the problem – our hearts. Biting our tongues when we begin to say something unhelpful is not a very reliable method of stopping ourselves, but if we concentrate on bringing our hearts into tune with God’s heart, if we allow Him to work in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, the venom supply to our tongues will effectively be cut off and Satan will be thwarted. So, I think that our tongues’ propensity to cause pain can be stopped.

Indeed, my fourth point is that ...

The tongue can be a force for good (vv. 9-12)

James writes in verses 9-12:

“Sometimes [the tongue] praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring.”

Remember that James is talking to fellow Christians through this letter and he reminds them that it is completely incongruous for them to be speaking holy words about God one moment and slandering their neighbour the next.

We need to consider how we speak to one another at all times – it’s not acceptable if we sing the hymns, say the prayers, be nice to each other here this morning, then go home, or to work, or go out socially and speak badly of – and to – others. But words of encouragement, words of comfort and consolation, words of praise build others up, give them hope, pull them out of dark places and point them in the right direction.

As well as an instrument of evil, the tongue can be a most powerful force for good, and that goodness springs from a heart that has been renewed by God. The good news is that Jesus promises a new and clean heart to all those who will turn from their sin and trust in Him. When a person believes the gospel, Christ immediately starts changing the person ... including his or her speech.

As God moves within a person’s heart, he also acts upon his tongue. When God controls the heart, he controls the tongue and we are transformed.

So, this morning, the message is simple: believe the gospel and allow God to tame your tongue.

Amen.

Sunday March 15th, 2009

2009-03-18T22:52:00.000Z

5. Faith Works (James 2:14-26)

This morning we return to the Letter of James after a short break due to special services and I hope we’re ready to resume our study of a New Testament book that helps us get a greater grip on what it means to be a Christian in the real world.

When we looked at the first half of chapter 2 of James, we were reminded that discrimination against others is not acceptable in the Christian Church. This week, in the second half of chapter 2, James focuses on the meaning of faith and he maintains that there are basically two different types of faith.

First of all, there’s …

Dead faith (2:14-20)

In verse 14, he says:

“What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?”

The Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century was theologically built upon the revelation of Martin Luther that “justification is by faith alone” and it has had most significant consequences for the Church ever since. At the time, it was very liberating, because it refuted the idea that people’s sins could be forgiven if they bought what were called ‘indulgences’ and it countered the belief that grace could be earned through religious practices like pilgrimage.

It is truly one of the most important developments in modern developments in modern theological understanding, because it made it clear that salvation cannot be earned, and is never deserved, but is wholly dependent upon faith in Jesus Christ. That is an essential point sure enough, but it has led some Christian theologians and commentators to downplay the importance of what James has to say about the vacuousness, the emptiness, of a faith which is not expressed through works.

James is not saying that salvation is earned by works, by acts of charity, by good deeds, but rather that an authentic faith, a belief in Jesus, which is not expressed in such actions is actually not worth very much at all. He takes the view that “what we do, reveals who we are” – faith and works go hand in hand; or, as William Booth, the founder of the Salvation army put it:
“Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works; and then faith again, and then works again – until they can scarcely distinguish which is the one and which is the other.”

And this thinking is very much based upon what Jesus Himself taught in the Sermon on the Mount – remember this from Matthew 5:16:

“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven.”

The fact is, Christians are known by their fruitfulness and the way that we bear fruit is by following the Lord and putting His teaching into practice, rather than just sitting on the knowledge, the good news, we have received. Again in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples:

“By their fruit you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?

Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them.
(Matthew 7:16-20)

I’ll say part of that again: “... every good tree bears good fruit ... by their fruit you will recognise them.” It is by the ways in which we live out our faith that our faith becomes evident to others. Anyone can say they are a Christian – someone may even believe that Jesus is Lord – but if their life doesn’t reflect their claim, then their words have no weight. It is what might be called ...

an empty confession (v.14)

One Christian commentator has said, “It costs us nothing to become a Christian, but everything to live fully as one.” To put it another way: we need to walk the talk. One thing is certain: when our actions don’t match our words, people are turned off the Church, they are less receptive to the gospel, and they may even be lost to Jesus – just remember my story about how Mahatma Gandhi reacted when he was turned away from a church.

Jesus once told a parable about two sons:

“There was once a man who had two sons. He went to the elder one and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ ‘I don’t want to,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. ‘Yes, sir,’ he answered, but he did not go. Which one of the two did what his father wanted?”

Words are cheap; actions are pure gold. Our confession of Jesus as Lord must not be empty!

And then James also berates …

false compassion (vv.15-17)

Just look at what he says in verses 15 and 16:

“Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, ‘Goodbye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well” – but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?”

Again, it’s a case of empty words: if we see someone in need and ignore that need, our faith can be questioned. It’s of little comfort to merely dismiss someone with a “God bless you”, when, in actual fact, it should be through us that God does indeed bless them – if we turn away from them, we are, in effect, blocking God’s blessing upon them.

Just think again of the early believers in Jerusalem that we read about at the beginning of the Book of Acts – they were regularly meeting together and, in verse 45 of chapter 2, it says:

“They sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with those in need.”

Their care for one another was not false compassion, but a compassion that resulted in the relief of the needy. It’s fair to say that this, and the other texts, focus on the needs of fellow believers in Christ, yet I believe that the principle must be extended to the needs of everyone – in fact, didn’t Jesus Himself show compassion towards Samaritans and Roman army officers?

So, let our care for all people be genuine and practical – for faith without such compassionate action is actually dead faith, as James says in verse 17.

Then, in verses 18 to 20, James warns against ...

shallow conviction (vv.18-20)

verse 19 says:

“You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this and they tremble in terror.”

It isn’t enough merely to believe that there is one God, or that Jesus is Lord, because even the demons, the forces of evil, know that to be true. It seems to suggest that this sort of knowledge is actually a matter of fact, not of faith!

If you want more evidence of that, then take a look at Luke 4, verses 33-35, which takes place just after Jesus has begun His ministry:

In the synagogue was a man who had the spirit of an evil demon in him; he screamed out in a loud voice, “Ah! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Are you here to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One sent from God!”

Jesus ordered the spirit, “Be quiet and come out of the man!” The demon threw the man down in front of them and went out of him without doing him any harm.

You could say that the demon believed in Jesus, but that’s as far as it went – everything that the demon did was inopposition to Jesus’ ministry. If our belief, our faith, goes no deeper than merely a recognition of who Jesus is, then where does that leave us?

An empty confession, false compassion and shallow conviction all add up to DEAD FAITH!

Living faith (vv.21-26)

So what’s the alternative? What does a living faith look like? James illustrates living faith by the stories of two prominent figures from Jewish history and faith: Abraham and Rahab.

Abraham (vv.21-24)

In the New Testament, Abraham is portrayed as the very epitome of faithfulness – the letter to the Hebrews tells us that ...

It was faith that made Abraham obey when God called him to go out to a country which God had promised to give him.

By faith he lived as a foreigner in the country that God had promised him.

It was faith that made Abraham able to become a father, even though he was too old ...

It was faith that made Abraham offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice when God put Abraham to the test.

You see, Abraham had a fullness of faith in God which is an example to us all. And notice that three out of those four verses about Abraham’s faith speak of him actively demonstrating it by what he did: he left his home country to go where God told him; he was prepared to settle in that new land, even though he knew no-one; and he was ready to sacrifice his own son – but, praise God, he didn’t have to do it! It’s just like William Booth said:

“Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, then works.”

His actions confirmed, or proved, his faith – James puts it like this in verse 22:

You see his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete.

The second person James highlights as an exemplar of faith is a little more surprising ...

Rahab (v.25)

I say surprising because Rahab was, of course, a Gentile and a prostitute – a stark contrast to the figure of Abraham. And yet, both here and in Hebrews, she is commended for her faith. You may remember that it was Rahab who hid the Israelite spies sent to Jericho by Joshua behind sacks of flax on her roof. Before the spies return to the Israelite camp, Rahab says to them:

“I know that the Lord has given you the land. ... The Lord your God is God in heaven above and here on earth.”

Rahab acknowledges that the God of Israel is God almighty and acts accordingly – her actions confirm her beliefs. If she hadn’t acted on her faith, she would have died in Jericho with her fellow countrymen and we certainly wouldn’t be celebrating her today.

As different as they are, Abraham and rahab have the most important thing in common – faith in God; and it is a faith which leads them to put everything they had at risk for the Lord. I pray that we will show as much faith as they did.

Conclusion (v.26)

James ends this part of the letter with this blunt summary:

Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.

We are all like “dead men walking”, if our professions of faith are not expressed in our everyday lives through acts of compassion and mercy. Words are not enough. In Matthew 7:21, Jesus tells his followers this:

“Not everyone who calls me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only those who do what my father in heaven wants them to do.”

If that’s not a call to action, I don’t know what is! Amen.

Sunday February 15th, 2009

2009-02-22T17:08:00.000Z

4. Living without prejudice (James 2:1-13)

We are rapidly approaching the beginning of the season of Lent, an ideal time for individuals and churches to examine themselves and consider whether or not they are living their lives in accordance with God’s will for them. Often during Lent, we give up things like chocolate, or alcohol, or some other little luxury, as a way of identifying with Christ’s time of testing in the wilderness. As valuable an exercise during Lent (if not more so), would be for each of us to spend a little time each day allowing God to show us areas of our life which require attention. If we need some help with that sort of self-examination, the Letter of James is the scripture we just have to read.

Anyway, this morning as we begin chapter 2 of the Letter, the first thing that James wants us to know is that we should be ...

Looking beyond appearances (vv.1-4)

James puts it quite bluntly in the first verse of the chapter:

My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim that to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favour some people over others?

Surely, it’s outrageous even to imagine that a church would discriminate between people, or show prejudice towards someone? And yet it does happen, sometimes with significant consequences. For instance, there’s the incident with Mahatma Gandhi:

In his autobiography, Gandhi wrote that, during his student days, he read the Gospels and seriously considered becoming a Christian. He believed that, in the teachings of Jesus, lay the answer to the caste system that was causing so much trouble for the people of India.

One Sunday, he decided to go to a service at a nearby church and talk to the minister about becoming a Christian. When he tried to go into the church. The person welcoming visitors refused to give him a seat and suggested that he should go and worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned. He reflected, “If Christians also have caste differences, I might as well remain a Hindu.”

And so Mahatma Gandhi was lost to the Church and never accepted Christ.

It really is an outrage if any Christian church discriminates against anyone who is seeking to worship God and desiring to know Jesus Christ on the grounds of race, gender, disability, social status, or anything else for that matter, because Christ Himself broke down all the barriers that once separated us from God and from each other. The apostle Paul confirmed the truth of that when he wrote these words:

There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians – you are one in Christ Jesus. [Gal. 3:28]

All who are believers are one in Jesus Christ, so there should be no discrimination between us; and neither, I believe, should we discriminate against those who have not yet come to faith, because Jesus died for them as much as me and you. The single most effective way of stopping people from accepting Jesus as their Lord is to give the impression that we don’t think they’re good enough in some respect, or for them to see us treat them differently to others. We must always act towards others, as God Himself acts – Romans 2:11 says, “God does not show favouritism.”

In verses 2-4, James picks up on a very particular situation, the favouring of rich, important people over poor, scruffy people. Whether this was a common occurrence in Christian fellowships, or it was merely a general warning against what was often seen in the outside world, I don’t know, but the injustice of it is clear.

One morning as church members began to arrive at church, they were aghast to find a homeless man sleeping on the steps of the church. He was particularly scruffily dressed, with a dirty cap covering his face as he snored, and the church people thought this was disgraceful – “Why didn’t the pastor send him away before we arrived?” they muttered, as they stepped over him to enter the church.

The church filled up and the service was just about to begin, but there was no sign of the pastor. Just as the church secretary was about to go and find out what had happened to him, the door to the minister’s vestry opened and the scruffy old tramp came out and walked up to the platform. He took off his dirty, worn-out coat and cap and everyone saw that it was their pastor. He began to speak, “I was naked and you did not clothe me, I was hungry and you fed me not, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.”

All of us – Christians and non-Christians alike – have this wicked tendency to judge by appearances, we have this problem with trying to relate to people who are very different to us and, as a result, we pigeonhole, we stereotype and we reject those whom we should be going out of our way to welcome! The truth is, if we don’t treat those in need in the way that God treats them, then His love is not in us; if we favour the rich over the poor, we are acting completely contrary to Christ’s own teaching.

So, James goes on, in verses 5-7, to say that we should be ...

Seeing through God’s eyes (vv. 5-7)

“Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom He promised to those who love Him?”

We overlook the poor, or discriminate against them, at our peril, because often it is the poor, the disenfranchised, the oppressed who are strongest in faith. Maybe it’s the Christian woman in East Africa unfairly infected with HIV/AIDS who is shown to have great faith in God, even though her prognosis is poor; or, perhaps it’s the Chinese Christian farm worker who risks beatings and imprisonment to attend a forbidden house church meeting; or maybe it’s the father in another part of the world who converts to Christianity, knowing that it means rejection by his family and perhaps even death for apostacy.

Jesus Himself appreciated the tremendous faith of some of the poor people He encountered during His earthly ministry. Remember the poor widow’s offering?

While Jesus was in the Temple, He watched the rich people putting their gifts into the collection box. Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two pennies. “I assure you,” He said, “this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.” [Luke 21:1-4]

When we underestimate the faith of poor people, we ourselves are impoverished. And when we favour the rich over the poor, we are surely acting foolishly, because “it is more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle”; whereas “the poor are blessed, because theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” In God’s eyes, “rich” and “poor” are not standards of wealth, but measures of faith.

On another point, remember how Jesus told the rich young man:

“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

It seems, then, that the way we treat the poor here on earth has a bearing on how we will be rewarded in Heaven. The thing is, we need to see all people through God’s eyes, by reading and reading the Bible, so that we become familiar with the way He wants us to live and by just resting in His presence, seeking His will in prayer.

Then, in verses 8-11, James talks about ...

Reserving judgement (vv. 8-11)

In vv. 9-10, James writes:

But if you favour some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law. For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.

I think that what James is saying here is that we should not be so quick to condemn others for being sinful, for doing wrong things, when we ourselves are not without fault. If we discriminate against the poor person, or someone of a different race, or someone who is disabled, etc., then we are sinning and are certainly no better than those we want to push away or mistreat. In the eyes of God, the sins of those we despise most are no better or worse than my own.

Many Jewish leaders of that time when James was writing, recognising that no-one could possibly keep every commandment for a whole lifetime, argued that God’s grace led Him to overlook most disobedience, and some rabbis even taught that obedience to just one essential commandment was enough to satisfy God. James was saying that this isn’t true: it’s only through Jesus that we receive mercy, and so we shouldn’t take it upon ourselves to be the judge of other people.

And then, finally, James tells us in verses 12 and 13 about ...

Receiving our just desserts (vv. 12-13)

We need to be aware of the consequences of our own actions. These verses hark back to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus tells His followers:

“Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, for God will judge you in the same way as you judge others, and He will apply to you the same rules you apply to others.”

If we judge others – and that, in effect, is what we’re doing when we discriminate against certain people or sections of society – we can expect to be judged in exactly the same way; but if we are merciful to others, God will show mercy to us. It’s as simple – or, perhaps, as difficult – as that. “Do unto others, as you would have God do unto you” is the idea.

In the Good News Bible and the New International Version, verse 13 finishes like this: “mercy triumphs over judgement.” I think this is a better translation than the New Living Translation and it emphasises something very important that we need to bear in mind: we must appreciate that God’s mercy is boundless, that, through the sacrifice of His own Son, Jesus Christ, and His subsequent resurrection, mercy has triumphed over judgement and we – the guilty ones – go free. Regardless of poverty, of skin colour, of disability, of age and of gender, God’s mercy triumphs over judgement – what better thought is there to leave you with than that one?

Let’s pray ...

Sunday February 8th, 2009

2009-02-11T14:37:00.000Z

3. True & Counterfeit Faith (James 1:19-27)

As we return to our study of the Letter of James, we come to the end of chapter 1. In January, we first heard what James had to say about how people of faith should respond to the trials of life that we all face. Then, we considered how we who have faith should respond to temptation. This week, in the final verses of chapter 1 of the letter, we see that James now begins his teaching on how we must put our faith into practice.

First of all, in verses 19 and 20, James appears to be saying that we need to ...

Control ourselves (vv.19-20)

He splits that self-control into three distinct parts:
· first, be quick to listen
· second, be slow to speak
· and, third, be slow to get angry

Be quick to listen

These days, everybody has an opinion on everything and we are keen for everyone else to know what our opinions are. It seems that our twenty-first century society has seized upon the right to free speech and almost made it compulsory to be speaking most of the time! Of course, I’m exaggerating a little, but it does seem as though the art of listening is being lost, as a consequence.

I really believe that listening to what other people have to say is a very important, very loving thing to do, because through careful, respectful listening, we might ease someone’s pain or distress; or, we may allow someone to express pent-up frustration or anger in an appropriate way; or, we may even help to alleviate their fear of something. But the listening we do has to be good listening:

- when we listen, we need to give time and space for the other person to say what he needs to say ... if we appear impatient, or if we interrupt, he will feel insecure;

- when we listen, we need to look at the person and give her our full attention, not stare out of the window or continually look around ... we should be listening with our eyes;

- when we listen, we need to nod in the right places and show the appropriate expressions on our faces, then the other person will feel valued.

Good listening has many healing possibilities and surely this is part of the ministry to which Christ has called us. Remember, Jesus once said, “Do for others what you would like them to do for you. This is a summary of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” (Mt. 7:12) If we can do nothing else for others, we can at least be their good listeners.

Then, James also tells us we should be ...

Slow to speak

As I argued earlier, in the modern world there is perhaps an over-emphasis on speaking, when perhaps there should instead be a greater emphasis on remaining silent.

Maintaining an attentive silence when someone else is talking is respectful and often helpful to that other person, as we’ve seen. In addition, if we hold our silence and resist the temptation to interrupt, we give ourselves time and space to consider what our response should be to what is being said to us. For instance, if someone is criticising us, or having a rant against the Christian faith, we may want to jump in and defend ourselves, or our faith without delay; but, in truth, it is much better that we wait, listen and don’t speak until we can do so in a considered way. If we speak too soon, we may say something we regret, or we may appear overly defensive, or we may exacerbate the situation unnecessarily, rather than fostering peace. As Christians, we have an important responsibility to be careful how and when we speak.

Just listen to what Proverbs 10:19 says: "The more you talk, the more likely you are to sin. If you are wise, you will keep quiet."

That says it all, doesn’t it? But James does write more about controlling our tongues later in this letter, so we will re-visit this particular topic soon.

James also maintains that, as Christians, we must be ...

Slow to get angry

And if we are obedient to this, then we are following God’s example, for He is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love.” In the Jewish and non-Jewish cultures of the time that James was writing, angry speech was a sure sign that a person lacked wisdom. Indeed, Proverbs 29:11 says:

"A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control."

Of course, it was particularly important that, within the Christian community, people were slow to show anger to one another, because it would – and in some cases already had – caused problems. Jesus Himself was very hard on displays of anger and bitterness – in the Sermon on the Mount, He told His disciples:

"You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit murder. Anyone who does will be brought to trial.’ But now I tell you: whoever is angry with his brother will be brought to trial, whoever calls his brother ‘You good-for-nothing!’ will be brought before the Council, and whoever calls his brother a worthless fool will be in danger of going to the fire of hell."

Personal anger, bitterness and resentment directed towards others doesn’t serve the cause of Jesus Christ and is not acceptable to God, so we need to maintain our self-control and seek the way of peace rather than recrimination.

Next, in verse 21, James says that, in addition to controlling ourselves, we need to ...

Clean up our act (v.21)

So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.

James is addressing Christians – people like us – and so, we need to heed his call to rid ourselves of every type of inappropriate behaviour. The thing is, we can so easily spend all our time focussing and commenting on the sins we see other people committing and end up not dealing with our own sinfulness. You may remember that Jesus was very firm about this – He said:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye.”

Interestingly, the Greek word for ‘filth’ is closely related to the word for ‘ear wax’ – something that obstructs the hearing – and this is what James is trying to convey: we must clean out of our lives anything and everything which may get in the way of us hearing what God’s saying to us. And the way that we do that is to confess our sins, show sincere repentance and conduct ourselves appropriately in the future. Only then can the word of God work effectively within us.

So, according to James, we need to control ourselves; we need to clean up our act; and, third, we must ...

Comply with God’s word (vv.22-25)

It is not enough to receive God’s message, to hear His call, we also have to act upon it – as James stresses:

“... don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise you are only fooling yourselves.”

The example that James gives of looking in the mirror, seeing our appearance and then going away and forgetting what we look like is deliberately silly – is there anyone who gazes into the mirror, sees themself as they are, but then forgets how they look as soon as they walk away? James is saying that anyone who professes to be a Christian, who reads God’s word, who hears what God is saying to them, but then forgets about it and doesn’t act upon it, is just as ridiculous.
Obedience seems to be a bit of a dirty word today, because, when we obey someone, it implies that they have authority over us and, in our modern society, people don’t like to admit to that – they assert their independence at every opportunity and present themselves as free spirits.

We who truly follow Christ, we who recognise what He has done for us through His death on the cross and His resurrection, declare that Jesus is Lord and thereby confess that He has authority over us; that we are not independent, but dependent upon Him; that we are not free spirits, but belong to Him. This being so, we must be obedient to Christ, obedient to God and what He tells us, and through our obedience we will be blest by Him – this is what James is saying here.
And if we are obedient to God, one of the things that we will be careful to do is to ...

Curb our tongues (v.26)

James writes:

If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.

As I’ve already said, I’m not going to dwell on this too much today, because we will be considering the importance of controlling our tongues in much more detail in a few weeks’ time when we reach chapter 3 of James’ letter. But, just in passing, let me share with you an epitaph that can be read on an old grave stone in a small country graveyard:

Beneath this stone, a lump of clay,

lies Arabella Young,

who, on the twenty-fourth of May,

began to hold her tongue.

Suffice to say that an uncontrolled tongue can cause untold upset and, in fact, it reveals more about you yourself than it does about the one of whom you’re speaking. Someone who, on the surface, seems to be very pious – attending church every Sunday morning, saying all the right prayers, giving to the collection every week – but who, at the same time is heard to gossip, speak ill of others, or be foul-mouthed, reveals that their religion is really only skin deep and therefore worthless. Let’s not be like Arabella Young, but rather, learn to hold our tongues before the grave!

Last of all, James tells us to ...

Care for the needy (v.27)

“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”

It’s a theme that God returns to again and again in the Bible: true religion, true faith is seen in how we relate to the neediest in society, not in how we behave in church. In the early church, the neediest people were usually orphans and widows: there were no insurance schemes to help those who had suffered tragedy; there was no benefits system to support them; and it would be difficult for them to find work for themselves.

A true Christian faith is demonstrated by the way believers speak and act; it’s shown by how we care for and look after those who have the deepest needs – it’s not a matter of merely looking after those who are closest to us ... our friends and family ... but all who are in distress and especially those whom the world rejects. It is the extent of our love for others that reveals the depth of our faith and the sincerity of our love for God.

Conclusion

So, as we reach the end of chapter 1 of the Letter of James, we are already very much into the apostle’s very practical teaching about the Christian faith – this is not all airy fairy, theoretical stuff, this is meaty and relevant to everyday life. So do stick with it, as we learn about how we can more effectively witness to the grace of God and the love of Christ in our own lives.

Amen.

Sunday January 18, 2009

2009-01-19T21:16:00.000Z

2. Facing Temptation (James 1:13-18)

Last week, we were reminded that being a Christian doesn’t exempt us from the trials of life that everyone experiences, but that if we persevere – showing a joyful attitude, an understanding mind, a submissive will and a faithful heart – we will receive from Jesus the crown of life, a gift so wonderful that all our current tribulations pale.

This week, we focus in on one of the things in life that we all face … temptation. It doesn’t matter whether we’re young or old, rich or poor, clergy or lay – whoever we are, we all experience temptation, probably on quite a regular basis.

Did you hear about the man who was desperately trying to lose weight, but one morning arrived at the office with two dozen doughnuts.

His colleagues asked him why he got the doughnuts if he was trying to diet, to which he replied, “Well, as I came to the corner where the bakery is, I told God that if He wanted me to buy some doughnuts He should have a parking space free right in front of the bakery. … And, behold, on the eighth time around the block, there it was!”

So, first of all this morning, let’s consider what – or indeed who – is

The source of temptation (vv. 13-14)

One of the most common things that happens when people do something wrong is that they try to blame somebody, or something else. I can remember many occasions when I was at junior school hearing some other child telling a teacher, “It wasn’t my fault – he made me do it.”

That was exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden story, when God discovered that the human beings had sinned. When God asks, “Did you eat the fruit that I told you not to eat?”, Adam replies, as quick as a flash: “The woman you put here with me gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” And when God asks Eve to explain herself, she answers, again without hesitation, “The snake tricked me into eating it.” It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it? Eve blames the snake; Adam blames Eve … or is he actually blaming God? is he saying it’s the woman’s fault for giving him the fruit? Or, that it’s God’s fault for putting the woman there with him in the first place?

Let’s get one thing absolutely clear: the source of the temptations we face in our day-to-day lives is not God; and there is no way that, when we do wrong, when we sin, we can turn around and claim that God is responsible. In fact, I think James sounds quite stern when he writes this in verse 13:

Remember, no one who wants to do wrong should ever say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and He never tempts anyone else either.

Throughout the Bible, God is described as holy – when Isaiah sees the Lord, it’s an awesome sight and seraphim were flying around the throne, calling to one another, “Holy, holy, holy! The Lord Almighty is holy! His glory fills the world.”

The apostle John describes in Revelation chapter 4 how, in heaven, four living creatures never stop singing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come.”

And Jesus tells a man whom He meets, “No one is good except God alone.” God is holy and good – He is the epitome of holiness and goodness and there is no evil in Him, so it’s impossible that He would tempt human beings to do evil things – because the very act of tempting would be evil.

So, we can be clear that God is not the source of temptation, although He does allow people to be tested – just like Job and Jesus Himself were – because, as we heard last week, faith needs to be tested and testing is ultimately for our own benefit.

Of course, we know that it was Satan who tested Job to the limit, it was Satan who tempted Jesus in the wilderness, and it’s widely believed that it was Satan in the form of a serpent who deceived Eve. But James doesn’t accept that “the devil made me do it” is a valid excuse – after all, Job came through his testing with his faith battered but intact, and Jesus robustly resisted every temptation that was presented to Him. Ultimately, everybody has to take responsibility for their own actions, rather than seek to deflect the blame onto God, or anyone else for that matter.

In verse 14, James argues that “temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.” Temptation is an inner struggle that springs from our own sinful desires. Most of you will probably remember the adverts for cream cakes a few years ago, in which someone had a cream cake on a plate in front of them, they tried to resist the temptation to eat it, but then took a big bite out of it, saying, “It’s naughty, but nice!” Basically, the person ate the cream cake, because deep inside they really wanted it and couldn’t resist the temptation.

Now, if you had a cream cake on a plate in front of you, but you didn’t like cream, then there would be no temptation to take a bite out of it, would there? You see, the temptation comes from an inner yearning. Please don’t get the idea that I’m saying that eating cream cakes is sinful – if that were true, I myself would have to be counted the king of sinners! – but the same principle often applies to things that really are sinful. For instance, if we have a lust for money, we may be tempted to pocket someone else’s £20 note that we find lying around; or, if we crave power, we may be tempted to tread all over people to get it; or, if we have an unhealthy passion for food, we may well be tempted towards gluttony.

I think James wants us to take a look at what we are like within ourselves and I’m sure that, if we do, we will become aware of our own little weaknesses, those things through which we regularly face temptation. When we do recognise our weaknesses, then we need to stay alert to them and pray about them – Jesus said to His disciples:

“Keep watch and pray that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

The course of temptation (v.15)

If these weaknesses, these lusts, these desires, these out-of-hand passions go unchecked and unaddressed by prayer, the course of temptation is a sad and destructive one, as James points out in verse 15:

These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.

We need to take a look at ourselves, we need to have a regular check-up, to be aware of anything within us which might cause problems. Just as a car goes in for a service to ensure that it’s running alright and that any minor problems which may develop into major ones are found and put right; so we, too, should regularly take a look at ourselves and deal with any minor issues early, before they cause us a whole lot of trouble in the future.

Many will prefer to do that privately with God in a devotional time; and some might want to enlist the help of a soul-friend, a spiritual director – someone with whom they can share their innermost thoughts and struggles. Richard Foster, an American Quaker and a well-known Christian writer, promotes the idea of Spiritual Formation Groups – small groups of Christians who meet regularly to share the struggles and joys of the Christian journey using a highly structured meeting format which includes a time of confession.

The most important thing is that we have the courage to examine ourselves, that we are honest with ourselves and with God concerning what we find, and that we are constantly prayerful, because if they are left unchecked, sinful desires will have eternal consequences. Instead of the crown of life awaiting us, there will be only death.

So, having written about the source of temptation and the course of temptation, James now briefly alludes to …

The deceit of temptation (v.16)

Verse 16 simply says, “So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters.” In the Garden of Eden, the snake undermines the instructions of God and convinces Eve that God is just a killjoy who has told her a lie. Eve believes him, rather than God, because she really wants to taste that fruit.

Eve, because of her burning inner desire, was deceived into believing that God could behave in a less than perfect manner. But James tells us, “Don’t be deceived! Don’t be misled! God is good, so take responsibility for your own actions.” It’s as simple: God is good, so don’t blame Him for your own shortcomings; God is good, so don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

What, then, is …

The answer to temptation (vv.17-18)?

Verses 17 and 18 tell us that we can trust in God because He provides us with everything that is good and perfect; and the fact that He is the creator, the maker of the Sun, the Moon and the stars is testament to that. God never changes – He isn’t loving and giving one day, and then hating and tempting the next – He is constantly good, forever reliable and always true.

And, more than that, God is our Father and we are special to Him – as verse 18 says: “… we, out of all creation, became His prized possession.” There’s another Scripture which is very pertinent here – in Matthew 7:9-11, Jesus says:

“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or, if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!”

When we are tempted, we must look to our heavenly Father and seek to do His will rather than seek our own gratification, because, ultimately, we can trust Him to do whatever is best for us. But in order to seek His will and to strengthen our trust in Him, there are some practical things we can do.

A Christian magazine once surveyed its readers about temptation and got the following, very interesting results:

· well over ¾ of respondents said that temptations were more potent when they had neglected their time with God;

· over ½ said temptations were more potent when they were physically tired.

So, we need to ensure that we make time to be quiet with God and we need to get enough sleep – so make sure you go to bed at a reasonable time!

Over ¾ of those taking part in the survey said prayer is essential, in order to resist temptation; and, again, over ¾ said that you should do whatever you can to avoid compromising situations in the first place.

Many others said that Bible study was helpful, and over half thought that being accountable to someone else was a good thing – which reinforces what I was saying earlier.

But, you know, the best way to deal with temptation is to deal with it early. Temptation starts with a thought: an inappropriate thought, yes, but also an appealing thought. It may sometimes start with the words “What if …”, or “Maybe I could …”, or “I wish …”. This is the time to quash any thought that is inappropriate – immediately! If you allow yourself to ponder on that thought, if you give it the attention it doesn’t deserve, then it grows in power – and, while it grows in power, your own power to resist is often diminished.

I want to share with you a helpful tip that I have picked up from the monastic tradition this:

as soon as an inappropriate thought comes to mind, imagine that it is a chunk of slate, which you then raise above your head and dash against rocks so that it is smashed to smithereens – then turn your back on it.

Make no mistake: you must destroy that tempting thought as soon as it arises – before it has a chance to destroy you!

So, it seems then that, in order to triumph over temptation, we need to take a good look at ourselves and immediately address the weaknesses we find; we should take a good look at God our heavenly Father and recognise that He is the source of all good things; and we must take a look at the Lord Jesus Christ, who triumphed over temptation for all our sakes, and give Him our lives.

To Him be all the glory. Amen.

Sunday January 11, 2009.

2009-01-08T13:45:00.000Z

1. “Facing life’s challenges” (James 1:1-12)

Over the next few months we’re going to be looking in depth at the Letter of James. It’ll be an extended study of one of the lesser known books of the New Testament anyway, but it will be extended even further as special services punctuate the series, so hopefully you’ll have enough stamina for the journey!

Why have I chosen to examine the Letter of James at the beginning of this new year? Well, I very much believe that we cannot effectively share the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ with others unless that gospel is rooted within our hearts and is transforming our own lives. I believe that the Letter of James is a treasury of teaching that will help us to walk the Christian path – it is full to the brim with words of encouragement, words of warning and words of enlightenment, all of which will enrich our faith and prepare us for living out that faith in the real world.

So, I hope you’ll come each week with a heart that is open to what God wants to say to you through this important Christian text, and with a mind that is willing to reflect upon its message long after the sermon is over. I have again set up a website on which will appear all the messages I give – the address is in the weekly bulletin - and I invite you go there, re-read the message and post comments on what the Lord is saying to you through His word.

Now, whenever I open a letter, the first thing I look at is ‘who has sent it’, because when we know who is writing to us, we have some understanding of how to read the letter and of how much store to lay by what is written in it. If it’s a longstanding friend, or another trusted person, like my Regional Minister, I will read the letter very differently to how I would read a letter signed by someone who is the Sales Manager of a company I’ve never heard of. That being so, I think it’s important that I spend a few minutes telling you about the writer of this letter we’re about to read together.

Who was the author?

There are several men named james in the New Testament who might fit the bill. First, there is James, the brother of John, the son of Zebedee, and one of the apostles closest to Jesus. Then, there is another of the apostles called James, who is said to be the son of Alphaeus. And, finally, there is James, the brother of Jesus Himself.

It’s reckoned that James, son of Zebedee, was martyred very early on and so is unlikely to have written it; and there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever to point to James, son of Alphaeus; so the most likely author was James, the brother of Jesus, who was an important leader in the early days of the Jerusalem church.

In 1 Corinthians (15:7), we’re told that he was a witness of the risen Christ; in the Book of Acts and in Galatians, we discover his staus within the early church; and we know that he died for his faith around 62 A.D. So, it is very believable that he wrote this letter and, consequently, we can trust wholeheartedly in what it contains.

This morning, I want to look in more detail at what James says in chapter 1, verses 2 to 12, in which he talks of how the Christian can realistically face up to the challenges of life. And take particular note of verse 5, which is our text for the coming year.

Let’s take a look at it together now …

READING: James 1:1-12

1 This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad.

Greetings!

2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

5 If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. 6 But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

9 Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. 10 And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. 11 The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements.

12 God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

Christians are not exempt from the pain or the problems that are experienced by everyone else – we must all surely realise that. James himself himself accepts that as a fact of life – in verse 2 he writes: “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way …” – he doesn’t say, “if troubles come your way”, but “when troubles come your way.” When we become Christians, when we give our lives to Jesus Christ, we are changed – like I said last week, we are like new creations – BUT we are still open to the many trials and tribulations of everyday life. We still get ill, we still get hurt, we still get picked upon, we still face frustrations. We don’t suddenly have an easier life just because we have chosen to follow Christ – indeed, sometimes it seems even more difficult!

So, how should we respond to the trials of life? How can we face life’s challenges? James suggests several ways – first of all, he says we should maintain …

A joyful attitude (v.2)

In verse 2 he writes: “… when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” Responding to our troubles with joy would seem to be almost unnatural, wouldn’t it? On the face of it, ‘trouble’ and ‘joy’ would seem to be on opposite sides of the coin. How can we possibly be joyful when we are facing trouble?

James isn’t telling us to pretend to be joyful, but to be genuinely happy that we are being challenged by whatever trial we face. A joyful attitude comes from the inner security of knowing that God is at work in our lives, it comes from being able to look beyond the uncertainty of the moment to the assurance of eternity. In fact, it’s the same attitude that Jesus Himself had upon the cross – just listen to what it says in Hebrews 12, verse 2:

“He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy He knew would be His afterwards.”

And, from prison, the apostle Paul was able to write this to the church at Philippi:

“… even if my life is to be poured out like a drink offering to complete the sacrifice of your faithful service (that is, if I am to die for you), I will rejoice, and I want to share my joy with all of you. And you should be happy about this and rejoice with me.”

Both Paul and Jesus could find joy in the fact that they were doing God’s will and that the pain they were experiencing now would pale into complete insignificance when they passed through death to eternal life. When we ourselves face trials, we can find joy in drawing closer to the Lord in prayer, through studying the Bible, and through meeting with His people; and, as we do so, we become more aware of His perfect goodness, His wonderful love and His amazing grace.

So, we should respond to our troubles with an attitude of joy and James also suggests that we respond with …

An understanding mind (v.3)

He writes: “For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.”

As Christians, we need to know – to understand – three things:

· first of all, we must understand that faith is always tested – the apostle Peter writes in his first letter: “Be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for a while.” Interestingly, it suggests that our faith not only is tested, but must be tested.

· second, we must understand that testing proves our faith – Peter continues: “These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold – and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold.” It is through the trials and tribulations we face that our faith is proven without doubt to be the real thing and is refined, so that we mature as Christians.

· and third, we must understand that testing is ultimately for our benefit – Peter goes on to say:

“So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honour on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”

The maturity of our faith, refined in the fires of trial and tribulation and enduring till the end, will be recognized by God when Jesus Christ returns..

So, in the face of trouble, we need to maintain a joyful attitude and have an understanding mind. And the third thing we need is …

A submissive will (v.4)

We need to allow God to strengthen and perfect us through the troubles we face. Verse 4 says, “So, let it (that is, your endurance) grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

There’s a sense that we must allow God to work in us, to submit to His will, rather than try to run from our troubles, or – worse still – to run from God.

In the Bible, there are numerous examples of people who, in the midst of a very stressful situation, bowed to the will of God and trusted wholly in Him, even though they had the chance to run away and take what, in human terms, seemed an easy way out. I’m thinking of people like Abraham who was prepared to sacrifice his son, Isaac, even though it seemed to make no sense at all; and Moses who obeyed God’s call to confront Pharaoh and then lead the Israelites out of Egypt, despite his misgivings; and, of course, there is the ultimate example of Jesus who, in the Garden of Gethsemane, said, “Father, if you will, take this cup of suffering from me. Yet, not my will, but Your will be done.”

In times of trouble and strife, may we, too, trust in God completely and surrender ourselves into His hands.

Lastly, we need to keep …

A faithful heart (vv.5-8)

Of course, verse 5 is our church text for 2009: “If you need wisdom ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.”

In fact, verses 5 to 8 urge us to ask God for the wisdom to know how to respond to the troubles we find ourselves in and tell us to believe wholeheartedly that He will give us what we need – we mustn’t have any doubts.

But, sadly, some Christians do doubt that God will equip them for what they are facing

- maybe that’s because they believe they don’t deserve it … which, although true, has no bearing on God’s graciousness;

- or maybe they think God has more important things to do than to address their worries … and yet God loves His people so much that He is concerned about the smallest things that bother them;

- or maybe it’s because they blame God for their situation in the first place.

Whatever their reason for doubting, it puts up a barrier between them and God. Hebrews 11:6 puts it very clearly:

“So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that there is a God and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.”

If we want God’s help in our troubled circumstances, we must keep a faithful heart.

So how, then, should we respond to all that the world can throw at us? As we have heard, James tells us that we should do so by demonstrating a joyful attitude, an understanding mind, a submissive will, and a faithful heart. Now that’s a tall order, a really tall order – make no mistake – but the reward for those who persevere is beyond compare. Verse 12 says it all:

“God blesses the people who patiently endure testing. Afterwards they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.”

As we prepare to leave this place and enter into a new week, let us gain strength for our own individual struggles by focussing on Him who conquered death for our sake, so that we might receive from His own hand the crown of life. And let us resolve to support one another through every challenge of life …

For Jesus’ sake. Amen.