I remember the joy when I was first selected to represent my school football team. I was 11 years old, 5ft nothing and convinced that one day I would play in goal for Tottenham Hotspur. The first match we were scheduled to play was against Ilford County High, which was the boys county grammar school and renowned for turning out a decent side.
The first five minutes seemed to go well, as the onslaught of their vastly superior team bombarded our fledgling defence. When the first goal went sailing past my right, outstretched, diving hand, I felt a sense of failure, the likes of which I had not known up until that point in my young life. It was at this point that I heard the most dreaded sound I could have ever imagined, 'Come on James', thundered the voice of my father. I had never imagined he would actually come! I thought he was joking when he said he would leave work early to come watch the game. Now the pressure was on.
I would like to write of the Hollywood victory, that a rag tag group of could nots were somehow unified by a higher power, moulding us together into a team and that we came back from behind, against all adversity to claim victory, but sadly, Hollywood endings only happen in one place...Hollywood. We lost 8-0. The embarrassment was indescribable, but as I limped, deflated towards my waiting father, he said something I'll never forget, 'chin up James, you'll do better next time'. Funnily enough it was the truth, we did do a lot better next time, we only lost 3-2 and I saved a penalty. It taught me something very valuable about the power of having good support, it taught me that my father loved me and should not be feared, but instead, relied upon to be there for me, in my failures, as well as my victories.
The stoning of Stephen is the turning point in the mission of the early church, as it is from this point that the gospel begins to travel from Jerusalem, out into the rest of the world. The imagery of this barbaric event, however, is dominated, not by the savagery of Stephen's execution, but instead, by Stephen's vision of the Son of Man, standing by the Father's side in glory. This picture blows my mind, as it is written in the epistle to the Hebrews, that after Jesus had offered Himself once, as a propitiation for our sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Father, because His work was finished. So what would cause the Son of God to stand up?
What we see in Stephen is a picture of man's potential being fulfilled. Here one man, full of the Holy Spirit, full of grace and truth, stands selflessly proclaiming the gospel in the face of the same kind of opposition that Jesus Himself did. Finally, we see a human being living the Christ life, as Stephen's dying words mimic that of His saviour, 'Lord forgive them, they do not know what they are doing'. At the sight of this act of true righteousness, Jesus stands to cheer Stephen on. You can imagine Jesus, much like my Dad at the side of my first football match, full of love and and encouragement shouting, 'Come on Stephen, you can do it! I AM with you always, I have never left you, I have never forsaken you'. It's not the success that Jesus is applauding, it's the fact that Stephen is believing the truth and, therefore, walking in true freedom, even though the path of that freedom is leading him to his own death. Stephen firmly picks up his cross and carries it to his own personal Calvary, not for his own sake, but for the salvation of those who are killing him. It is no accident that standing watching this horrific event is Saul, who will go on to meet Jesus on the Damascus and one day become the apostle Paul.
The truth is that our Father does not wait for us to achieve greatness before He stands by our side to cheer us on. God loves His children and is proud of us, whether we succeed or not. His love is unconditional, which means He has already accepted us, irrespective of our performance. This is the most precious gift of His grace, the truth that sets us free to be the best that we can be, fully equipped with His Spirit and with nothing to prove, we are living examples of His grace and mercy, having been given victory over sin and death, we radiate the very presence of Christ in the world, shining like children of the Morning star, bringing hope to the hopeless, liberty to the captive, even life to the dead. Like Stephen, we have become just like our saviour, just like Christ Himself. Paul writes to the church in Rome, that Christ would be the first born among many brethren. Imagine an army in the image of Christ, armed not with weapons of war, but of love and grace, giving their lives to save those who would see them stoned, for those who know not what they do. That is what it means to be a Christian, as sons and daughters of the living God.
Stephen is the picture of success, the model for us all. Doesn't quite fit in with the health and wealth gospel does it?
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Monday, 27 December 2010
End of the year, or end of the road?
Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly (Matthew 1:19)
There is something quite special about this man, Joseph, who the Lord selected to father His Son. This is a righteous man, well, as righteous as a man who lives by the law is ever going to be. He has compassion and mercy, a true picture of what an Israelite is supposed to be. Can you imagine the scene? A thirteen year old girl going to her fiancee and telling him, I’m pregnant, but I’m still a virgin. It sounds like an episode of Hollyoaks. Those kind of things don’t happen, except in fairy tales and the bible. We all know where babies come from, so how does a righteous man like Joseph, a good and merciful man, deal with this situation? Surely these kind of things don’t happen to righteous men, who keep the law and honour God by their deeds? What are his options? The law gives him two choices; one, he could expose the sin of his wife to be before the elders, at which point she would be dragged into the street and stoned to death by the entire village. Two, he could quietly have a decree of divorce pronounced and have the young woman sent away. What to do?
So here is Joseph, a contender for the Jeremy Kyle show, humiliated, embarrassed and with a very difficult truth to face, because whatever he decides, he will still be in need of a greater deliverance than his own faithful adherence to the law can provide. He, like all Israel, is looking forward to the one Who is to come. No matter how much good he can do, it will never be enough. The law can never take away sin, never heal the wounds of Israel, never save the people from their sins.
Now, Joseph knew the scriptures, he knew the prophet Isaiah had written, ‘Behold the virgin shall bring forth a child and you shall call Him Emmanuel’, but it is unlikely that he ever imagined the woman, to whom he was betrothed, was pregnant with the Messiah, so being the righteous man that he is, Joseph decides to do the just and merciful thing. He decides to send her away in secret, thus saving her from an agonising death. Perhaps this is why the father chose him, because he understands what the purpose of the law is, as Paul writes in his epistle to the Galatians, the law was the babysitter, it was the law’s job to look after the people of Israel until Daddy came home. Until the true glory of the Lord arrives, the righteousness of the law will shine as a substitute, a lesser light, until the arrival of the Saviour. For no matter how righteous a man or woman you were in the eyes of the law, it was only a way for God to keep you safe until the revelation of the God man, Jesus Christ, the One who will save His people from their sins.
As we move into 2011, perhaps, looking back over the last year, we can see that our righteous deeds have not been met with blessing, but instead with tragedy and injustice. Maybe, instead of the prosperity we desired, financial insecurity and suffering has been the reward for our 'faithful' adherence to the should’s and should nots of churchianity? Can we now see the futility of our endless effort, knowing that it's time that we return to the One we have neglected, the Architect of our salvation. The beauty of grace is that He waits for us to come, in our weariness and our brokenness, He stands with His arms open, longing to gather us unto Him, like a mother gathering her young. It is not time to start again, it’s time for the struggle to end. The simple truth is that we don’t struggle to overcome, because in Christ, we have overcome the struggle.
May 2011 bring about a fresh revelation of the truth that we live in the year of the Lord’s favour, in the dispensation of his grace. We have been set free for freedom, as living epistles of God’s grace and mercy. Let us find hope, strength, life and righteousness in Christ alone, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
There is something quite special about this man, Joseph, who the Lord selected to father His Son. This is a righteous man, well, as righteous as a man who lives by the law is ever going to be. He has compassion and mercy, a true picture of what an Israelite is supposed to be. Can you imagine the scene? A thirteen year old girl going to her fiancee and telling him, I’m pregnant, but I’m still a virgin. It sounds like an episode of Hollyoaks. Those kind of things don’t happen, except in fairy tales and the bible. We all know where babies come from, so how does a righteous man like Joseph, a good and merciful man, deal with this situation? Surely these kind of things don’t happen to righteous men, who keep the law and honour God by their deeds? What are his options? The law gives him two choices; one, he could expose the sin of his wife to be before the elders, at which point she would be dragged into the street and stoned to death by the entire village. Two, he could quietly have a decree of divorce pronounced and have the young woman sent away. What to do?
So here is Joseph, a contender for the Jeremy Kyle show, humiliated, embarrassed and with a very difficult truth to face, because whatever he decides, he will still be in need of a greater deliverance than his own faithful adherence to the law can provide. He, like all Israel, is looking forward to the one Who is to come. No matter how much good he can do, it will never be enough. The law can never take away sin, never heal the wounds of Israel, never save the people from their sins.
Now, Joseph knew the scriptures, he knew the prophet Isaiah had written, ‘Behold the virgin shall bring forth a child and you shall call Him Emmanuel’, but it is unlikely that he ever imagined the woman, to whom he was betrothed, was pregnant with the Messiah, so being the righteous man that he is, Joseph decides to do the just and merciful thing. He decides to send her away in secret, thus saving her from an agonising death. Perhaps this is why the father chose him, because he understands what the purpose of the law is, as Paul writes in his epistle to the Galatians, the law was the babysitter, it was the law’s job to look after the people of Israel until Daddy came home. Until the true glory of the Lord arrives, the righteousness of the law will shine as a substitute, a lesser light, until the arrival of the Saviour. For no matter how righteous a man or woman you were in the eyes of the law, it was only a way for God to keep you safe until the revelation of the God man, Jesus Christ, the One who will save His people from their sins.
As we move into 2011, perhaps, looking back over the last year, we can see that our righteous deeds have not been met with blessing, but instead with tragedy and injustice. Maybe, instead of the prosperity we desired, financial insecurity and suffering has been the reward for our 'faithful' adherence to the should’s and should nots of churchianity? Can we now see the futility of our endless effort, knowing that it's time that we return to the One we have neglected, the Architect of our salvation. The beauty of grace is that He waits for us to come, in our weariness and our brokenness, He stands with His arms open, longing to gather us unto Him, like a mother gathering her young. It is not time to start again, it’s time for the struggle to end. The simple truth is that we don’t struggle to overcome, because in Christ, we have overcome the struggle.
May 2011 bring about a fresh revelation of the truth that we live in the year of the Lord’s favour, in the dispensation of his grace. We have been set free for freedom, as living epistles of God’s grace and mercy. Let us find hope, strength, life and righteousness in Christ alone, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
Thursday, 23 December 2010
We have the technology...
It is interesting to think that there are very few actual solutions to be found in politics, or government. In fact, it seems that all politicians can do is serve to fill in until technology can present real solutions. Government can only legislate laws into existence that will try and limit the damage done by the socially delinquent and immoral, until an actual way of stopping the perpetrators can be installed into everyday society. There is little the law can do, if the individual has the heart and the mind to continue to break it. It has no actual power to speak of. For example, the law says clearly that one should not drink and drive, but there is nothing to actually stop the drunken driver from getting into a car and smashing into an innocent. If social conscience isn’t going to stop them, then the threat of some future punishment isn't going to either. A real solution would be a car that will not start if it detects alcohol in the system of the person behind the wheel. Legislation can’t do that, but technology can.
However, man’s technology will never become advanced enough to solve his biggest problem, because the real problem is man himself. He is faulty, the technology which operates him has been corrupted and is in need of replacing. The real problem is, what causes the drunk driver to get drunk in the first place? There is something fundamentally wrong with the heart of man, the mainframe can no longer function to produce valid results. It seems then trying to find technological solutions to the spiritual problems of our society is like shutting the barn door, long after the horse has bolted. What we need is a technology that will cure the brokenness of man himself, fixing his broken heart and soul. However, this kind of technology will never be developed by human technicians.
In the book of Romans, chapter 8, the Apostle Paul introduces us to a radically new and advanced technology. Having already described our spiritual bankruptcy and the failure of the inadequate technology of Moses, Paul now leads us triumphantly to the revelation of the technology God has engineered, the cure for our depravity and our inability to perform the function for which we were created. The Holy Spirit has the ability to go inside the broken mainframe of man and reform the faulty model from the inside, at the very heart of the issue itself, which is, the heart itself! The purpose of man’s creation can now be fully and perfectly realised, for he now has the necessary programming and tools to glorify the God Who created him. This is the free gift of God to all who call upon His name and put their trust in the saving work of Christ at Calvary.
The lost and broken can be remade, thanks to this gracious and perfectly inventive gift of God. We now have the technology, not of our own creation or effort, but by the grace of God, Who is still the author and perfecter of our faith. The solution to the problems of our world cannot be solved by politicians, or technicians, but God, the One Who is above all, through all and in all!
However, man’s technology will never become advanced enough to solve his biggest problem, because the real problem is man himself. He is faulty, the technology which operates him has been corrupted and is in need of replacing. The real problem is, what causes the drunk driver to get drunk in the first place? There is something fundamentally wrong with the heart of man, the mainframe can no longer function to produce valid results. It seems then trying to find technological solutions to the spiritual problems of our society is like shutting the barn door, long after the horse has bolted. What we need is a technology that will cure the brokenness of man himself, fixing his broken heart and soul. However, this kind of technology will never be developed by human technicians.
In the book of Romans, chapter 8, the Apostle Paul introduces us to a radically new and advanced technology. Having already described our spiritual bankruptcy and the failure of the inadequate technology of Moses, Paul now leads us triumphantly to the revelation of the technology God has engineered, the cure for our depravity and our inability to perform the function for which we were created. The Holy Spirit has the ability to go inside the broken mainframe of man and reform the faulty model from the inside, at the very heart of the issue itself, which is, the heart itself! The purpose of man’s creation can now be fully and perfectly realised, for he now has the necessary programming and tools to glorify the God Who created him. This is the free gift of God to all who call upon His name and put their trust in the saving work of Christ at Calvary.
The lost and broken can be remade, thanks to this gracious and perfectly inventive gift of God. We now have the technology, not of our own creation or effort, but by the grace of God, Who is still the author and perfecter of our faith. The solution to the problems of our world cannot be solved by politicians, or technicians, but God, the One Who is above all, through all and in all!
Monday, 20 December 2010
Teaching the Truth...
I have for some time been pondering the styles of biblical teaching, worship and discipleship in our English churches. It seems to me that our basis for everything, as Christians, must flow from a biblical understanding of Who the scriptures proclaim God to be, and the truth of who we are in Christ. The purpose of the Church is that the manifest presence of God would be made present on the earth, glorifying God and shining as a light in a dark world, bringing hope to the hopeless. In order for the Church to live up to its mandate, there must be a body of believers who are being built up into the full measure of Christ, who, by their lives, make a visible display of the invisible attributes of God. We are being transformed by His Spirit, being brought into a deeper understanding of who He has made us to be. This process is the function of discipleship, which must be underpinned by sound systematic biblical teaching.
In many of our churches, there seems to be a culture of ‘stand alone’ sermons, which gives those in church leadership an opportunity to confront certain issues that they perceive to be present in the church. This style of micro management has little long term spiritual benefit. It’s as though every sin has to be confronted and repented from individually, which will then bring us back into right relationship with God, as if our actions could ever justify us before God. Going to the scriptures with a message in mind, searching for a passage, which can then be ripped out of context and made to fit the particular message the preacher has in mind, is not ever going to bring a church into a place of spiritual maturity. This style promotes the idea that God is somehow separated from His people and that we need to go and meet Him somewhere. The preacher can often be heard to say, ‘Did you come here to meet God this morning’? Which is a ridiculous question. The believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a dwelling place for God, Who does not live in buildings built by human hands, but in the hearts of His people. This misunderstanding is reflected in every area of our ministry, especially worship, where the trend is to call for God to come down in a very Old Testament, temple style. Now don’t misunderstand me, I am not suggesting that God doesn’t still move in this way, because He does, but the expectation is that if He doesn’t, in some way we have blocked His coming, or we have not worshiped hard enough to attract His attention.
It is my belief that a lack of systematic biblical teaching is at the heart of this condition. The scriptures, when taught in their fullness, reveal the person of God, through the revelation of Jesus Christ, being illuminated by His Hoy Spirit. When we come to an understanding of Who God is and Who our Messiah is, then possibly we will come to an understanding of who we are in Christ. The bible is not the story of man, it is the story of God, Who remains to be the source of our salvation. The message of God’s grace does not end at the cross, it begins there. We cannot continue to promote the idea that we are responsible for our own transformation, like in some way we are changed if we stop sinning. We have been changed, therefore, we no longer sin. The difference is not merely semantic, it is critical to our understanding of Who God is, as this perception will affect our worship of Him and ultimately our representation of the gospel.
In many of our churches, there seems to be a culture of ‘stand alone’ sermons, which gives those in church leadership an opportunity to confront certain issues that they perceive to be present in the church. This style of micro management has little long term spiritual benefit. It’s as though every sin has to be confronted and repented from individually, which will then bring us back into right relationship with God, as if our actions could ever justify us before God. Going to the scriptures with a message in mind, searching for a passage, which can then be ripped out of context and made to fit the particular message the preacher has in mind, is not ever going to bring a church into a place of spiritual maturity. This style promotes the idea that God is somehow separated from His people and that we need to go and meet Him somewhere. The preacher can often be heard to say, ‘Did you come here to meet God this morning’? Which is a ridiculous question. The believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a dwelling place for God, Who does not live in buildings built by human hands, but in the hearts of His people. This misunderstanding is reflected in every area of our ministry, especially worship, where the trend is to call for God to come down in a very Old Testament, temple style. Now don’t misunderstand me, I am not suggesting that God doesn’t still move in this way, because He does, but the expectation is that if He doesn’t, in some way we have blocked His coming, or we have not worshiped hard enough to attract His attention.
It is my belief that a lack of systematic biblical teaching is at the heart of this condition. The scriptures, when taught in their fullness, reveal the person of God, through the revelation of Jesus Christ, being illuminated by His Hoy Spirit. When we come to an understanding of Who God is and Who our Messiah is, then possibly we will come to an understanding of who we are in Christ. The bible is not the story of man, it is the story of God, Who remains to be the source of our salvation. The message of God’s grace does not end at the cross, it begins there. We cannot continue to promote the idea that we are responsible for our own transformation, like in some way we are changed if we stop sinning. We have been changed, therefore, we no longer sin. The difference is not merely semantic, it is critical to our understanding of Who God is, as this perception will affect our worship of Him and ultimately our representation of the gospel.
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