Swine Flu - Responding Biblically

Its all over the news, you can't escape images of people with masks over their faces, you can't turn your TV on without hearing 'The latest', we are being given constant updates on the WHO threat level. People have even been ringing into their doctors surgeries asking for Tamiflu as a precaution.

But how should we react? What is Biblical reaction? I guess some people would shrug their shoulders and say whatever will be will be. But that is not the full story.

It is interesting how the media coverage has sparked fears in young children. One of ours was sat on his bed crying, saying that he didn't want to die. All explanation of how unlikely he was to get it, how we hadn't been to Mexico etc... Did no good at all, he was still worried he was going to die. So what stopped him crying? It was when his mum said that if we live great God gives us time to enjoy the world he has put us in and learn more about him, but if we were to die then we get to be with Jesus for ever. His reaction - to stop crying get his school uniform on and start playing now totally reassured.

Sometimes our children's reactions have much to teach us. One of the issues that this potential pandemic is throwing up is people's fear of death. If this world is all you have to live for then rightly so, but if we know that we will only fall asleep in Jesus we need not panic.

So how should we respond as believers:

1. We ought not to worry instead we need to remind ourselves that our future is secure and it is (1 Peter1v5) kept in heaven for us.
2. We should pray, it is another part of the worlds groaning (Rom 8:22) as it waits eagerly for the new creation, another consequence of the fall.
3. Our hope should be obvious to others so much so that they ask us questions about it, and we must be ready to answer them (1 Pet 3:15-16).

Life is fragile, it has been ever since the fall, but the believer can have confidence because our future is secure. Only when we read again and study the words of the Bible and regain a correct view of heaven as our home and this world as the hotel room will we gain a Biblical perspective. We need to hear our Father's words and be comforted by them, be reassured about our real future and security and then live liberated for him.

A Gospel Refresher

Ever feel unsure how to share the gospel with those around you. This video from New Word Alive 2008 put together by UCCF is helpful, both for reminding ourselves of the wonder and scope of our salvation and to remind us of what we have to share with others.

The world pulled over your eyes to blind you.

Can you trust the Bible? I guess if you are a Christian you instinctively answer yes. But do we? In looking at John 16 last we saw that Jesus confronts his disciples with the fact that the world will hate them. That it will put them out of the synagogue and even kill them all the time maintaining that in doing so they are serving God. Is that how we think of the world?

My hunch is that it isn't. In fact the world trumpets its tolerance of all religions therefore it would argue it does not hate us. However, when we stand up for the truth of the gospel that there is no other way to God but through faith in Jesus Christ, when we explain to people what the truth is about what the Bible has to say about their standing before God, then we see through the worlds tolerance. Because telling the gospel provokes reaction and all too often hostile reaction.

We must not let ourselves be fooled into thinking the world love the Christian or even that it tolerates us. The world will tolerate the nominal believer, it will tolerate the liberal believer, but it will do everything it can to silence a gospel believer, even saying it does so in honour of its notion of God or gods.

Being Mission Minded

Spurred on by something I have to prepare for Sunday night looking at Planning for evangelism mobilising the church. I have just sat and read Peter Bolt's excellent Mission Minded book. It challenges us about whether we do maintenance ministry or mission ministry.

It contains a helpful little diagnostic table to use for churches examining the different activities we run and whether they are raising awareness of our church, creating initial contacts, pre-evangelism, evangelism and then in terms of edifying those converted; follow up, nurture and Training in Ministry. I have found it really helpful to read the book and am going to follow it up by using the diagnostic tool to analyse our evangelism.

It has fitted in very well with reading John 14-17 this week in preparation for preaching from John 16 on Sunday, as Jesus prepares to leave his disciples and ascend to his Father, he tells them not only that he is leaving, but that the world hates them (ch15) before sending into the world to proclaim him - the very thing the world will hate them for. However he doesn't send them alone he will send the Holy Spirit, the advocate, helper, counsellor to convict the world as they witness and to make Jesus a living reality for his followers.

Helpful in light of that challenge to then be thinking strategically about how we best do that as a church.

Paper Pastors

I came across this article this morning as I was browsing a blog. It challenges us about who our paper pastors are, who we hold up as the ideal pastor and unfavourably compare our own with. I found it a challenge and a rebuke to my sinfully adopted habit of creating evangelical celebrities. It is well worth a read: http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2009/04/porn-and-paper-pastors.html

Questions answered

Steve Hayes has just republished last years e-book of interviews with a number of leading scholars in which they answer the following questions:

1. Have you been a Christian from Childhood?
2. Did you convert to the faith? If so, please describe your experience.
3. Why do you believe in the existence of God?
4. Why do you believe in the inspiration of the Bible?
5. How do you deal with bible criticism?
6. How do you deal with scientific objections to the faith?
7. What other challenges to the faith would you like to comment on?
8. At this stage of your spiritual journey, would you now give different reasons for your faith than when you began your pilgrimage?
9. Looking back over your life as a Christian, how would you say that your faith has evolved over time? How, if at all, does your lived-in faith differ from when you were younger?
10. Unbelievers often point to the elusiveness of God. In your personal experience, including your experience with other Christians, can you point to any examples of God’s providential presence?
11. Since you’ve been a Christian, have you undergone a crisis of faith? If so, how did you work through it?
12. In your observation, why are most unbelievers unbelieving?
13. In your experience, what’s the best way to witness to unbelievers?
14. Christian apologetics tends to settle into certain stereotypical arguments and formulaic emphases. Do you think there are some neglected areas in how apologetics is generally done today?
15. What do Christian parents, pastors, seminary and/or college professors most need to teach our young people to prepare them for the walk of faith?
16. What devotional or apologetic reading would you recommend for further study?

I have only read the first interview so far but will be back to read the others. Click on this link to read more: http://www.triapologia.com/hays/Love_the_Lord.pdf

YEMA '09

The Yorkshire Evangelical Ministry Assembly will be held at City Evangelical Leeds on Sat 6th June. The speakers are Phillip Hacking and Peter Lewis and the theme is mission. More details can be found by clicking here: http://www.ygp.org.uk/whatson.htm

Northern Men's Convention

Details of speakers etc can be found by following this link: http://www.christianconventions.org.uk/nmc/theconvention.php

It looks like being a good line up on the 9th May.

Evangelism training

A Passion for Life has made some audio evangelism training resources available via the website, just click on this link: http://www.apassionforlife.org.uk/resources_audio_evangtalks.php and then you can download evangelistic talks from the likes of John Chapman, John Stott, Rico Tice and Dr Will Lane Craig.

The danger of the digital world

I was reading a blog a while ago when I came across an article that argued that despite our being more connected than ever we are actually becoming more insular. We have more communications devices than any generation before us: letter, phone (landline), mobile phone, email, wifi communications, Facebook, twitter, bebo and so on and yet we are becoming a generation and a world of lonely people.

Its as if we are losing the power to communicate face to face with people. I want to suggest some dangers of the world we live in and some remedies:

Dangers:

1. Our communication becomes sanitised. Email is quite straightforward, you write what you want to say and send it. It removes the non-verbal signals, it is often emotionless, and it allows us to be disconnected from the response our email generates. I wonder if this is creating people who cannot then deal with the messy world of real communications with real people with all their cluttered non verbal responses, cues and emotions.
2. Our communication becomes clinical. Chatting is becoming a lost skill. We want to say what we want, get our answers and be done with the conversation. But that is not real communication.
3. People abandon church. Because church is messy people avoid it. Either they opt out all together, choosing the less messy world of listening to the radio or they arrive just in time for the service and then dash out afterwards (sometimes I wonder if the church is full of MI5 agents who if they didn't escape as the last note of the last hymn is played we might really get know only to find they would have to kill us as a result).

Remedy:

1. Get over it. The Bible would tell us that such things are sin and they need to be dealt with. We are made for relationship - that's why loneliness is such a big problem. In the garden as the fall out from Adam and Eve's desire to rule themselves begins to be felt one of the first casualties is relationships. Things like email, twitter, facebook and texting are all good, but we need to recognise they are not real ways of relating, and they can become become barriers, they can exacerbate the destructive effects of the fall on our relationships. They cannot and must not replace face to face interaction, actually getting to know the person. In the same way an online sermon or MP3 cannot replace being in a church, Acts 2:42-47 makes it clear there is so much more to being in church than listening to Bible talks.
2. Get out and meet real people. Next time you feel the urge to text someone to ask how they are - why not wait and ring them instead - it is much more relational.
3. Rethink church. Church is not the building, it is not the Bible talk, it is the people. We are Church. But there is more to it than that; church is not just meeting up with the two or three people you find it easy to get along with (what does that say about the power of the gospel? Nothing!). But meeting up with people radically different from yourself who you will find it hard to communicate with and love but who you strive to love because Christ loved unlovely you. That is church, that is what displays the power of God to the world and beyond.

We must work hard at relationships, we must work hard as churches to create an environment that pushes relationship. Hospitality is key in the Early Church and it must be key in our churches too. The church should be a beacon to the world.

We need to be more aware

Are you aware of what is happening in Great Britain in terms of Christianity and the law? What about in terms of the governments attitude towards evangelism and community involvement?

At an event I was speaking at over the weekend I was talking to someone involved in this area and became aware that I know next to nothing about what parliaments attitude towards Christians is. I read the Times most days and one days when I don't read the online version and little of this comes up. I have therefore bookmarked the following website www.ccfon.org Christian Concern For Our Nation and signed up to feeds so that I know what is going on.

It will also keep me informed so that I can write to my MP about relevant legislation and debates coming up in the House of Commons. Some of what you find there is disturbing.

Redemption - can you earn it?

Events in Doncaster this week have shocked the nation, how can two pre-teen boys have acted in such a way. To attack, rob, beat and stab two boys for a poultry sum of money. It has prompted various responses but one has been to ask what made them do it? Is it a result of societies failings or the parents or are these boys just evil?

Behind it all is this question; what is right and what is wrong and who decides? I want to just explore that idea this morning.

Imagine morality as being on a scale like a ladder. At the top is God because he is perfect. I guess you’d put Mother Teresa somewhere near the top, maybe a couple of rungs down. And at the bottom you’d have serials killers and the like. I wonder where you’d put yourself? Where is the cut off point on that scale for heaven? How do you bridge the gap?

The film Seven Pounds explores just such an idea and I’m afraid I’m going to spoil it for you. The films is all about redemption. Tim (Will Smiths character) was involved in a car crash that he caused by using his mobile phone whilst driving, as a result 6 strangers and his fiancée were killed. Where would you put him on the morality ladder?

In the film you see him desperately trying to redeem his mistake. First he gives a lung lobe to his brother, then he donates part of his liver, a kidney and his bone marrow. Then he gives his house to an abused woman and her children so they can escape her abuser. Where would you put him now?

Finally he kills himself but in a way that preserves his heart and eyes so they can be donated, and in the process he saves Emily’s life. The big question have his 7 acts of kindness redeemed him? Has it been enough? Where would you put him now on the morality ladder?

It’s an interesting question what does it take to earn redemption?

The Bible is also concerned with that same idea of redemption. It tells us that the standard is not Mother Teresa, its not Ben Thomas, it’s not me, the gospels show us it is Jesus – and the standard is perfection.

But the amazing thing about Easter is that Jesus the innocent dies a guilty man, not before the Roman courts who declare him innocent, but before God. On the cross Jesus is accused, tried and convicted by God of sin and he experiences judgement for it.

The big question at Easter is why does Jesus die like that? The answer is given by Peter who write: For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. He dies to provide redemption, not for himself but for us. Jesus dies on the cross to close the morality gap between us and God once and for all. He dies cut off from God so we can be credited with his perfect standing with God if we will trust in him. And it doesn’t matter where you start from on the morality ladder, his death can bring us to God.

In the film Tim will only give his gifts to good people, people who deserve it. But God loved us so much that from eternity he planned and Jesus was willing to die for us to close the morality gap. That verse tells us it was not for those who deserved it but those who didn’t – to bring the unrighteous to God.

Can I ask you this morning what is your plan to close the morality gap? And there is a gap whether you are a good nice person like Peter was, or whether you have lead the worst most chequered life because the standard is perfection. Imagine for a minute that on a memory stick I have a video of your life this week, when I plug it in we would all sit and watch it, but it isn’t just your actions but your thoughts and desires too. Where would we put you on the morality ladder?

The only way that works is by trusting in Jesus death for you. It is what makes Christianity unique, it doesn’t call you to do loads of things to earn salvation but to trust in the one who has done it for you.

Helpful Tool

My copy of the ESV Study Bible arrived today and I have to say I really like it. The maps, diagrams and the likes are fantastic, I like the fact the text is all laid out in one column. I do have lots of other bibles however, so why add one more?

The main reason was the access you get to the ESV study bible online, where you can see all the material on line, add your own notes, search and follow notes by clicking on the hyperlinks, and even listen to it read. It has already been useful and I look forward to it proving even more so.

Religious exclusivity

We were looking at Matthew 21:12-19 yesterday and it is a striking passage. As “Jesus entered the temple courts”(12) the King is coming to his house. It’s a fulfilment of Malachi 3:1 where the people of Israel are asking where is the God of Justice and God’s answer is; “Then the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple…” And what does he find? Jesus finds that there is a gulf between God’s expectations and the Jerusalem reality.

It’s a bit like the Queen returning to Buckingham Palace expecting tea in the gardens only to find a car boot sale in full swing. Things are not as they should be.

Jesus stands in the courtyard of the Gentiles and the expectation is that it should be a place of prayer. That doesn’t mean a nice quiet meditative space with just the right ambiance. It means a place where Gentile God fearers can come and call on God. Jesus expects to find a place where the nations can come, where they can see God worshipped rightly, where they are welcomed and where they can enjoy relationship with God. That’s what the quotation from Isaiah 56 tells us(13).

Isaiah 56 is a call for Israel to worship God rightly and for Gentiles to be able to do likewise, for all those who choose to follow God to be able to do so. But the reality Jesus finds is a million miles away from that. He finds dove sellers and money changes clogging up the court of the Gentiles, it is more like a market than a place of prayer. And Jesus rebukes them in the words of Jeremiah, partially because of the oppression of the poor that is going on but mainly because the temple has once again become the sole preserve of the Jews.

Jeremiah rebuked the people of his day from the gate of the temple for trusting in the temple for their security. Their reasoning went like this we have the temple therefore we enjoy God’s favour. They gave no thought to living rightly or to obeying God. The temple which was meant to be a place of inclusiveness and a place the nations were drawn to became a symbol of Jewish elitism, exclusivity and discrimination and an idol in itself. So much so that God removed it.

God is disappointed with the worship he finds in the temple. Jesus anger is because it has become once again a symbol of elitism and religious rigmarole rather than a place where true worship takes place. Jesus anger shows us the gap between God’s expectation and reality.

What counts is relationship not religion. That’s what the temple was designed for, it was to be a place of access, it was to be a place the nations looked to, flocked to when they realised the goodness of God and instead it had become the very opposite.

Do you see the gulf between Jesus expectations and the worshipping reality? I wonder what would Jesus say about our worship? What would Jesus say to our churches, if he walked in through that door what emotions would we see cross his face? Would he find religious rigmarole, would he find us going through the motions?

What about in terms of those we exclude? Are we as inclusive with the gospel as he is? Do we welcome everyone, do we take the gospel to everyone? Or are there people we right off, does the way we do worship exclude some just as the Jews were doing? It may not be Gentiles but have we in Britain made it the gospel of the middle class for the middle class? Have we abandoned sharing the gospel with those of other faiths? Who do we exclude by the way we deliver the gospel, by the way we conduct our worship, by our venues?

Easter is about inclusion, it is about the possibility of salvation for the world. Do we dare limit who we take the gospel too?

Xpedition force Starts today

We are trying something new starting today. We are running a holiday club - that isn't new - but what is is the area we are running it in. Having hired a school hall we are in faith trusting that children will come and relationships with parents will be established in a new area. Who knows in God's plan and purposes for the gospel and his glory what will come from it. Our prayer is that as we have fun, do crafts, play games and learn about the Easter story God will speak and move to teach and save.