Jonah - a timely reminder

Back in the dark days of December I planned for us to follow Easter with a brief 4 weeks series on Jonah.  This week as I've been preparing it I've been confronted, comforted and challenged in ways that I hadn't quite expected.

Our area is changing.  There are over 300 (3, 4 and 5 bedroom) homes currently being built that significantly alter the socio-economic make up of the area.  At the same time there are plans, potentially, for another  700 homes of a similar type.  Not only will the area have doubled in size in 15 years but there will be a significant shift in the type of families living here.  And as that has begun to happen I have noticed a couple of trends which are already in danger of being firmly entrenched.  The main one is division between the haves and the have nots.  Our playground community has always been relative division free, anyone would and could talk to anyone, but that is changing and changing quickly not for the better.

The divisions we see in the media between middle and working class are increasingly being seen played out in the community.  Which estate you live on seems to matter more and more in terms of who you build relationships with and who you talk to in the playground.  That presents all sorts of challenges for the community and for the church.

Into that evolving situation Jonah comes with its call to take God's compassion and grace to all, not to hoard it and restrict it to those like us or who we thought we would be taking that message to.  Here's my confession, my burden has been for the deprived in our community, to reach those who, by and large, our middle class British evangelical churches have not reached and are not planting to reach.  But what do I do with the growing middle class community in our area - at times I find myself thinking there are enough churches who reach them let them do it.  But God has sent them into our area, to the mission field I believe he has called me to, the place where he has planted Grace Church.

Just like Jonah I am tempted to have my prejudices, his is that his message and calling is to Israel mine has become that I am called to take the gospel to some estates and not others.  But Jonah confronts me with that prejudice and calls me to be a compassionate preacher more like my compassionate Saviour and Father than the compassionless prophet Jonah had become.  The gospel, my calling, the churches mission is to ensure that all hear the gospel and have the opportunity to turn to Christ.  But first the gospel it has to do it's work in our hearts so that we are remade into the image of the Saviour who calls us to go to make disciples of all ethnicity's, nations, tongues, and classes without prejudice.

Ephesians 6:19-20

Someone has said that Christianity in Britain is in retreat. I think they have a point, when someone asks us what we believe we’re often tentative, or apologetic, or afraid of their reaction, or we simply stay silent on certain moral issues. Why is that? The presenting cause is the society we live in – we don’t want to offend people, or insist on certain sexuality, or be labelled a fundamentalist. Perhaps it’s partly because we live in the age of aggressive atheism. But though they may be the presenting cause push deeper and it is because we don’t really know biblically who we are or where and when we live, we aren’t secure in those things.

Do you know who you are? Because knowing who you are affects how you will live.

Do you know where and when you live? I don’t mean Doncaster and 2011 but in terms of God’s plan of salvation history.

As we focus on Ephesians 6:19-20 we read Paul ask for prayer for fearlessness and clarity in sharing the gospel. Prayer and evangelism – I wonder how those two words made you feel, in most of us they trigger feelings of guilt – I don’t pray enough, and inadequacy – I’m such a chicken, or I try but it feels like I vomit the gospel over people rather than explain it clearly.

The bible is very honest about the hardships of being a disciple; rejection, persecution, spiritual warfare, but it never warns us that prayer will be a struggle. We have made something a struggle which should be a relational joy, prayer is natural – we need to get over the guilt and the hang ups we have, think less about praying and more about God.

By contrast evangelism is a struggle. Even Paul asks for prayer to be fearless. That must mean he felt tempted to be fearful. In Colossians 4 he echoes this prayer for clarity because messing it up was a real possibility.

But before we really look at prayer we need to understand that both prayer and sharing the gospel are not chores to undertake but flow naturally out of a right understanding of who we are in Christ and when and where we live.

1. God’s Ambassadors
How does Paul describe himself? “an ambassador”. Is that how you think of yourself?
One of Paul’s aims in Ephesians is to help them understand who they are in Christ.
Turn to ch1; Paul begins by reminding them of the wonder of who they are in Christ. (4)They are chosen to be holy and blameless, (5)they are loved and predestined for adoption as sons, (7)they are redeemed and forgiven, (8)they have grace lavished on them and the (9)mystery of the gospel revealed to them, (13)they are sealed with the Holy Spirit and they have a secure inheritance(14).

Ch2; they were (1-5)dead in their trespasses and sins but are now made alive in Christ, and (6)more than that are victors in Christ and are seated with him now in the heavenly realm. And it isn’t just an individual identity they are part of God’s new community in Christ declaring God’s wisdom to the world and beyond.

And how is that great identity possible? It is in Christ and through Christ by faith.
Do you know who you are in Christ? If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ look at who he makes you, look at your new identity. We ought to write that above our bathroom mirror so that in the morning we start each new day knowing who we are, and so that we end each day knowing we are made right with God by grace.

We are not identified by our job, or nationality, we are not identified by our success or failure, by our ministry, or role. You are not just a mum or a dad or a grandparent, or an employee or a church member, or whatever the world seeks to reduce you to. God in Christ has given you a new identity and it is wonderful.

That identity has implications Paul unpacks them in ch4-6. Paul knows who he is in Christ he is God’s ambassador and it isn’t just Paul 2 Corinthians 5:20 “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”

Knowing who we are transforms us.

2. God’s ambassadors in a hostile world
But we need also to understand where and when we live. Paul is not just an ambassador, but “an ambassador in chains”. Being an ambassador was a privilege, being a prisoner a punishment, but Paul knows that even whilst in prison he represents his king. Representing Jesus and proclaiming the gospel is not safe and comfortable and neither is it meant to be, because it is part of a spiritual battle that rages all around us.

Children tend to think all there is in the world is what we know what and can see, feel and touch. But then comes that moment when you see pictures of the stars and the planets and the vast scope and scale of the universe. I was in Romania doing some summer camps last year and our camp base was at a higher altitude that Ben Nevis. At night when we walked even higher up the mountain where there was no light pollution it was like someone had taken the blinkers off to see the vastness of the night sky, the thousands of stars.

Throughout Ephesians Paul has been expanding the believer’s horizons, taking the blinkers off their eyes so they understand when and where they live. (12)”For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

God’s people are engaged in the midst of a spiritual battle, the world around us is not neutral to Christianity, it is not apathetic to Christianity it is hostile to the gospel and our battle is against more than just the world around us. Opposition to the gospel is the norm not the exception.
Do we recognise where and when we live? We live in between Christ’s comings the kingdom is now but not yet. We live in the midst of a broken world at war with its creator, Christ has won the victory but we have to stand for him in the midst of that brokenness waiting for his return.
It matters that we recognise where and when we live because look at (13)it is recognising the battle we are in that will lead us to put on the full armour of God(14-18). If we don’t see the reality of where we live then we will not recognise the need for this armour. The armour is designed so that we can stand, so that we don’t fall back or retreat.

Do you know who you are? Do you recognise where and when we live?

If we don’t then we will not expect hostility and we’ll be unprepared for it, when we share the gospel with someone and they reject it we’ll be crushed, when we stand up for biblical values on moral issues and are met with anger we won’t do so again, when we see Christian values met with injustice we will be fearful and crushed, bitter and cynical and we’ll go into retreat rather than standing. Unless we are rooted in a biblical understanding of who we are and where we live – that we are engaged in battle – we will fall, we’ll go into retreat.

Know when and where you live. The victory is won, that is an absolute certainty, we are called to stand and fight as we wait for the victor’s arrival.

3. God’s dependent ambassadors secure in a hostile world.
Maybe what I’ve said has alarmed you this morning, maybe it’s discomforted you. Can we really view the world like this, if we do where is our security?

There is a danger that focusing too much on the world we live in will rob us of our joy and of our security, but Paul calls them to recognise where they live but to know who they are in Christ, and depend on God their Father. That’s why (18)he calls them to pray on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers, for all the Lord’s people. God’s people depend on their loving heavenly Father – he is their security not their circumstances.

(19-20)Paul asks for prayer. I wonder what you expect Paul to ask for prayer for? My hunch is that we wouldn’t have said for fearlessness and clarity in proclaiming the gospel. Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles, he has preached all over, he’s been beaten, imprisoned, ship wrecked, has planted numerous churches. Yet he asks them to pray that he would not be fearful in making known the mystery of the gospel and that he would speak clearly in whatever situation he finds opportunity.

Isn’t that a tremendous encouragement, Paul feels just like we do when it comes to proclaiming the gospel, he experiences the ‘gulp!’ moment – you know that moment when you swallow hard and put a friendship on the line to explain who Jesus is and why it matters so much. But it doesn’t stop him because it is not down to him, he is dependent on God.

We at SDCC have a mission coming up in the week between Palm Sunday and Easter, you have one in May. What should we be praying for? Pray for the team you have coming – pray that they would be fearless and clear in proclaiming the gospel.

But pray for yourselves too. Pray that you would understand who you are and that it would affect your living so that your friends see God making his appeal through you, so that your lives provoke interest in the gospel, because that is what will get them coming along to hear explained what you believe.

But I wonder how you have heard that this morning? Is it I must be an ambassador for Christ? I must know who I am and where and when I live? Ephesians is really a letter about the church, the greatest advert for the gospel is the church – a community of people who know who they are in Christ and are striving to stand for him dependent on God.

But you say my friends won’t come to church, fine take church to them. It’s interesting how we divide up our world don’t we; we have work colleagues, we have friends we play sport with, or neighbours, then there is our church family, and each little bubble is separate. In fact often it’s only at weddings, big birthdays or funerals that all those different people collide and then we feel a little nervous about how they get on.

It’s seen in the way we do meals isn’t it. Who do you have round for Sunday lunch – people from church? Who do you have round on a Friday or Saturday evening – colleagues or friends? Why not mix and match – we’ve been encouraging our folks to do something called a 50:50 meal. So that friends and family are seeing the gospel community living and breathing in front of them.

Get your friends meeting God’s ambassadors, and get praying. Don’t just pray for the team, pray for yourselves, pray because fearfulness is natural and fearlessness if God given. Pray because no matter how many gospel outlines you learn or how many times you practice your testimony only God through his spirit can make the gospel clear in such a way that it brings transformation and faith.

Know who you are in Christ, recognise where and when you live, and pray to your Father who loves you.

How is teaching the gospel the answer to every pastoral need?

I've been doing some training with people recently on pastoral care. How we do it? Who should do it? and other related questions. What strikes me is how hard we find it to accept that the most pastorally caring thing we can do is teach, apply and re-apply the gospel to peoples lives.

Somehow we seem to have absorbed societies self help culture that says we need to focus on the individual, or deal with each part of the problem. This seems to have at best mortgaged, if not down right robbed us of, our confidence in the gospel. But the gospel understood, applied and enacted is what brings change both in us and in others.

How to stop drift

On Sunday night we were looking at Hebrews. It is a book of warnings, in particular it warns believers about the danger of drifting, of gradually becoming apathetic about the gospel and drifting into a sterile legalism and religiosity. But how do you avoid such a drift because if its so gradual we may not even see it coming?

That's where understanding Hebrews and reading it in its entirety helps. Chapter 10v19-25 says this:

"Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

The key to avoiding drift is one another, it is other believers keeping us gospel focused and applying the gospel to each others lives again and again and again. God knows it is a potential problem we face and so he graciously gives us other believers, he gives us the church.

There are however a number of trends in society that makes this difficult. The first is that we are commitmentophobic - and such relationships require commitment - we must allow the gospel to challenge our individualism and heed its call into community.

The second is that we are proud, we don't like to admit we are drifting and we certainly don't want someone else pointing out what we haven't seen for ourselves. Again the remedy is the gospel where God points out our need before we are aware of it and shows us his love.

Thirdly we devalue the church - it is fashionable to moan about the church; discontent seems to be endemic. There are things in local churches, which if there, we ought to be concerned about; a refusal to teach the Bible, poor/wrong Bible teaching, unchallenged sin. That concern shouldn't result in moaning but prayer and then an approach to the elders of the church. But some things; music style, things just not being quite how I would like it, etc... should not cause moaning. I was always told that if I found the perfect church not to join it because I would ruin it. God gives us one another to gospel one another.

Fundamentally if we don't want to be in relationships which have elements of accountability to one another, if we will not engage in gospel-ing one another then we have failed to understand the call of the gospel and we open ourselves up to the danger of drifting.

The question we need to answer?

How do I know that I am not coasting in the Christian life? Helpfully someone pointed out yesterday that the way to know that you are not coasting is by answering this question about the word of God: When did it last change me?

When was the last time I changed my thinking as a result of what I read? When was the last time it changed the way I acted? When was the last time having heard the word preached that I acted on it?

It is always encouraging to see people engaging with those sorts of questions. But we also must be asking that question and answering it for ourselves.

Lessons to be learnt from Doncaster abuse cases

I was saddened to listen to the news yesterday and hear about the 7 tragic cases of deaths of children in Doncaster which are now being investigated to see if there were failures by social services. It is heart rending when any child dies but especially tragic when someone who should care for a child instead abuses them.

Inevitably already the question is being asked what lessons can be learnt. No doubt there are things that will be done, Doncaster Social workers will be extra vigilant, extra training and systems will be put in place. But eventually the same thing will happen again, because better systems aren't the answer.

The bigger question these cases raise is why do people abuse children. The only adequate answer is that given by the Bible - sin. We live in a broken world and we are broken people. The world is broken, we are broken and our relationships are broken. Putting new monitoring systems in place may help, training social workers may help but it will not solve the problem. the only solution is the good news of Jesus Christ that deals with sinners and changes them one life at a time.

We need to pray for all those involved in such cases, we need to pray for our society, we need to share the gospel with people and allow the radical life changing message of a crucified risen saviour to change people.

Do I believe?

Do you believe in the Word of God? Do you believe it has the power to change lives? Do you believe that it can save anyone, anytime, anyplace?

One of the great encouragements from the Northern Men's Convention was to be reminded in each of the 3 main sessions of the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is preached in Acts. In Acts 2 as Peter speaks it has the power to convict those listening of their sin and rebellion against God and leads to 3000 being baptised. In Acts 10 it has the power to save Cornelius, a Gentile, to break out of the confines of Jerusalem and Israel. In Acts 15 its power is seen in the reports of Gentile conversions and in the belief that this gospel of Jesus Christ as Lord and Messiah is for all.

Then in Acts 16 it is seen as it saves a rich woman, a slave girl and a middle ranking Roman jailer, or put another way a God fearing Gentile, a demon possessed girl and a polytheist. The word of God, the gospel is powerful, it saves. The rest of Acts maps that out as 1:8 is fulfilled and God gets his witnesses with his word from Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria and then to the ends of the earth.

In Acts we see that within the space of 30 years the gospel - God's word - turned the known world upside down. So why all the doom and gloom following on from the news of Christianities seeming decline in Britain. The word of God has not changed, the Holy Spirit has not lost his ability to work in us to equip us to speak for him or work in those we come in contact with, and people still need to hear the news that Jesus is Lord and Messiah. And the gospel is needed by everyone.

Have I lost my edge? Do I still believe everyone needs the gospel? Do I still believe it is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe? Do I still believe the Holy Spirit works in and through us? That belief is not about nodding ascent it is evidenced in action - in asking God's help and cooperating with the Spirit of God living in us to build relationships, show Christianities relevance and proclaim the gospel.

Authority

How did that word make you feel? According to post modern commentators on the world that we live in authority is not a feel good word. It is a negative, it is the antithesis of freedom, and freedom is the buzz word.

The big question is how does this affect those around me every minute of every day? And perhaps as pertinently if not more so how does it affect us and our churches?

We assume that we are free. Ask someone if they are free and they are most likely to say that they are, after all we live in a democracy, we can choose who to vote for, what to believe, whether to go to a religious service or not, how to bring up our children, what to watch on TV, what job to have, what hobbies to have, even what socks to wear! But actually are we really free or are those choices an illusion of freedom?

What is it that actually motivates me to do all those things? What motivates so much of it is the tyranny of approval. And that is not freedom I am enslaved to others. I wear what I wear because it is fashionable and fashion says... Or I do this because thereby I gain the approval of my peers or colleagues or family or whoever. When you actually examine our choices they are not choices made by free people. And the root of all of our choices is self, my need of approval, my need of acceptance, my need of popularity, my need to feel good about myself, my need to feel loved, valued, to feel worth it.

Now the follower of Jesus has been set free from this, but sometimes we find ourselves attracted back into living that way again however subtly. We struggle to live set free from self. But the Christian is not freed to live in a vacuum. Romans 6:18 says "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness." We are freed from sin to live under God's rule, a rule of righteousness, of right relationship with God.

In our churches we need to reassert the authority of the word of God and teach that we are not free to live for self but to live as slaves of righteousness because only as such do we experience true freedom and life! Churches and Christians must live by revelation not experience. As David Wells says in Above all earthly powers people today are on a spiritual quest, it is personalised, individualised and eclectic. It is focused on making life happy, satisfying, fulfilled and meaningful.

The danger in the church is that we take the very real opportunity that brings and mishandle it. There is a tremendous opportunity there to explain the gospel but we must state that this is the Truth as God revealed, not a truth the we have worked out, or formulated, or have amended to feel comfortable with. We have experienced God but our experience of God is not something we determine but that is revealed in the Bible.

Postmodern society and people have been described as being 'allergic to truth claims' and we cannot surrender this idea of truth without losing the power of the gospel.