Eastside Baptist Church Invercargill

 Pentecost 2012.

 Next Sunday is 10 days after the Ascension of Jesus and that day is called Pentecost.  Next week we have Neil Perry from Tranzsend speaking here but Pentecost is too important for us to ignore so I hope you don’t mind, I will speak about it today. “The day of Pentecost was a most notable and vital day for the Christian church, and it was also one of the great turning points in the history of the world. Without understanding it, it is quite impossible to have any correct notion as to the character and nature of the Christian church and the Christian message.”^[1] Let’s read Acts 2 (2:1-4): When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

But what I want to focus on today is the speech of Peter following this infilling of the Holy Spirit.Peter in addressing the crowds at Pentecost quoted a famous prophecy from the prophet Joel.  He said: (Acts 2:16-21)  

¹⁶ … this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:  In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.  Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

The prophecy he was quoting was not an obscure prophecy, but one which the Jews took very seriously. In fact the prophecy was so important that unlike our breakdown of the book of Joel, in the Hebrew bible it stands as a chapter by itself.[2] What Peter was saying by quoting the scripture was that “The prophecy given to Joel is now fulfilled! The first age of the Messiah on earth is over, and the last days have begun. The outpouring of the Spirit on men and women alike has commenced. From this point on the heavens and the earth will increasingly show the signs of the end of the age.”[3] When Peter observed the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost he saw it as the first stage in the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. He believed that the kingdom was then being offered to Israel and that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit signaled the coming of the Millennium.^[4]  The ‘last days’ that Peter took from the Joel prophecy began with the ministry of Christ on earth and will conclude with the “day of the Lord”.   My reading of the Book of Revelation is that is the case.  The end of times started with Jesus and will come to a conclusion when God deems it the right time.  The book of Revelation details that period which is already happening. Unlike some premillennialists like the author Tim Le Haye, the author of the Left Behind series, the times of Revelation are upon us now and not some future event. These are the last days and have been for 2000 years and will continue until God says it’s over. The period of time which Joel foresaw is now. The afterwards – the last days – are now. It came about when the Holy Spirit came upon the 120 in the upper room and they began speaking in foreign languages. During the Old Testament era, the Holy Spirit was given only to special people who had special jobs to do, like Moses and the prophets, the judges and great men like David. But the promise God gave through Joel declared that the Spirit would come upon all flesh, which included men and women, young and old, Jew and Gentile, rich and poor.[5]  The prophecy has been fulfilled in this era.  The rest of the prophecy has yet to come into being. The whole prophecy is in the process of being played out. We are in the times of the last days. We are in the times where the power of the Holy Spirit rests on each on of us who believes in Christ Jesus. Pentecost is such an important event because we are powerless as Christians or as the Christian church without the Holy Spirit. Pentecost signalled the coming of the Holy Spirit in power to all who love Jesus. We are “utterly dependent on the Holy Spirit. Without the gifts of the spirit, however dedicated and however many of the right hands have been laid on them, the work of the church will be a failure.”[6]  “The Holy Spirit is given to make the presence of Jesus an abiding reality, a continual experience.”[7] “It is the Holy Spirit who gives power to the church so that it can fulfil its role of reaching the unbelieving and disobedient world around it.”[8] Think of Paul writing to the church at Corinth: (1 Corinthians 2:3)

³ I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling. And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.

But it is not only in what we do for God as a church that the Holy Spirit is such a key, but also in our personal walk with God.  Life for the believer is qualitatively different from what it was prior to faith.^[9]  “Jesus came back in the Spirit to dwell in our hearts. It is this alone that will help us to go, the minister to his congregation in its difficulties, the business man to his counter, the mother to her large family with its care, the worker to her Bible class. It is this only that will help us to feel, “I can conquer, I can live in the rest of God.”[10] “Where there is no Spirit, there is no life. Lack of Christian growth and vitality are reliable indicators of the need for openness to the quiet but powerful impact of the Spirit on human life.”[11] Can we say that the Holy Spirit reigns in power in our lives?  I hope so. 

Paul writes to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:13-14)  Hold on to the pattern of wholesome teaching you learned from me—a pattern shaped by the faith and love that you have in Christ Jesus. Through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us, carefully guard the precious truth that has been entrusted to you.

And to the Romans, he writes (Romans 15:13)  I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And Jude writes:  But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit,   and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.

You can see that just in these few examples from Scripture that our walk can only be effective if we trust in the power of the Holy Spirit that resides within us.  It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we can know the truth, that we can pray to God, that we can experience the hope that comes from God. So when you come to next Sunday, thank God for sending his Spirit, not only then at Pentecost but every day in our lives now and in the future.

 Ascension of Christ

Next Thursday the 17th we celebrate the 3^rd of the four major calendar events of our faith – the ascension of Christ. Let’s read the account in Luke 24:50 - ^"Then [Jesus] led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. ⁵¹ While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven."  Again in a fuller account recorded in Acts 1:^6-11 "When they were together for the last time [the disciples] asked, "Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?" He told them, "You don't get to know the time. Timing is the Father's business. What you'll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world." These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there, staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared—in white robes! They said, "You Galileans!—why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly—and mysteriously—as he left." (The Message) There is no Christian faith without the ascension of Jesus to heaven. It is as dramatic as the incarnation of the Son of God as a baby, or the resurrection of the dead Jesus.  It is no less significant for our faith than those miracles.  “Good Friday, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost form a single indivisible mystery, the one transition of Jesus through death to life.”[1]  There was a group of liberal Christian rationalists in 1985 called the Jesus Seminar who said, among other discrediting statements about Jesus that the ascension of Jesus was a lie, that it was a rhetorical device because we know scientifically that heaven is not up and therefore Jesus could not have ascended.  But they missed the point. It is immaterial whether heaven is up or not.  The point they missed is where Jesus is now.  Besides for the Jews, heaven was up – there were 3 heavens – the first heaven where the birds fly, the second is where the stars are, and the third heaven is where God dwells.  Recall Paul saying in 2 Corinthians 12:2 about being called up to the third heaven.  The ascension is an important event to be observed and understood. What the ascension narrative is saying is that in passing from the earthly space-time to the heavenly state, Jesus was observed to move away from the earth, just as at his second coming he will be observed to move towards the earth.^[2] A very reasonable explanation comes from the theologian Thomas Torrance:  Jesus Christ has ascended from man’s place to God’s place… [but] the nature of ‘place’ is differently defined in each case…Man’s place is defined by the nature and activity of man…God’s place is defined by the nature and activity of God.[3] We understand Christ as ascending above all space and time without ceasing to be man or without any diminishment of his physical, historical existence.[4]  

So that brings us to the question of why it is important that Jesus ascended, and why he needed to go anywhere at all.  There is a clear scriptural answer that pervades the whole ascension narrative and the subsequent letters of the New Testament that I want to focus on today. And it is that because of the ascension, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the throne in heaven. "Jesus came into this world and took my sins upon Himself. He bore my punishment. He died my death. He rose again, and now He is in heaven, seated at the right hand of God, ever living to make intercession for me; he took His seat at the right hand of God in the glory everlasting; and He is seated there still and He is ruling over all creation." ^[5]  That is a powerful statement of what Jesus is doing now. Scripture tells us that (1 Peter 3:22) “Jesus Christ… has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.”  And (1 Corinthians 15:25) that “he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”  Jesus is reigning.  He is in charge. Everything in heaven and earth is answerable to him.  There is nothing that is not subject to him."  Jesus himself told us that was where he was going:  In answer to the accusations of the Sanhedrin, he replied: (Luke 22:69) “from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” When he said that statement the Sanhedrin believed that their case of blasphemy was proven. Why is such a statement scandalous and blasphemous to the Jews? Because he knew that if they understood the Old Testament prophesies about the Messiah, then they would know that the Son of Man would be seated on the right hand of the power of God. So although his answer is cryptic, its meaning would not be hidden to anyone who knew the Scriptures. He was indeed claiming to be the Messiah.^[6]  What is so important about being seated at the right hand of God? Why not the left side?

A person of high rank who put someone on his right hand gave him equal honour with himself and recognized him as possessing equal dignity and authority. And this is what the Apostle Paul writes of Jesus Christ in Ephesians. " His mighty strength which He worked in Christ in raising Him from the dead, and He seated Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality and authority and power and dominion, and every name being named, not only in this world, but also in the coming age" (Ephesians 1:19-21). The Father is exalting Jesus above all others by seating Him at the right hand of himself.[7]  Scripture tells us that (Hebrews 8:1) “we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent  that the Lord, and not any mortal, has set up” and that high priest is (Romans 8:34) “Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us” The reality of our salvation is anchored on the divine side of reality, which the lamb is slain before the foundation of the world has ascended to the right hand of God the Father almighty, and sits down with God on his own throne because he is God.[8]  All this is very well but what does it mean for us here and now: It means that the Christ of God—Jesus of Nazareth—is alive. He is in the heavens, seated at the right hand of God, saying to men and women in this world, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18). He says to us, “Whatever your needs are, I am able, I am willing.” He can give all that we need and infinitely more. He came into this world to deal with our radical problem, the paralysis of our souls. He is filled with pity joined with power and is looking down upon us. He knows all about our paralysis. That is why He came into this world.^[9] 

It means that with his ascension that Jesus Christ was fully installed in his kingly ministry.[10]  He is the King right now of the universe. Here was the culmination of the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. Not only has he saved the people from their sins and conquered death, but he has been elevated to the right hand of God. So it was not the fact that he had gone that was important, but where he went that fills us with joy.^[11] It means that Jesus is not just out there somewhere, waiting for us to die and go to him.  He is active in our continued salvation.  He is the King, the High Priest, the eternal Prophet.   And it means that because Christ has won the battle, because Christ is interceding on our behalf in the throne room of heaven, because he has gone to prepare a place for us, we do not have to worry about what is happening here and now. Colossians 3:1-2 tells us that since we have been raised with Christ, we are to set our hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. We are to set our minds on things above, not on earthly things.  We work down here, we have a mission down here, but we do not have to worry about the things of this earth because Jesus has conquered all the problems and issues that we face. He is our conqueror and he reigns supreme over all of creation. We do not have to worry but instead we are told in Hebrews 12:1–2 to persevere: Therefore since we are surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Because Jesus is the pioneer who blazed the way and he is also the “finisher” who gives us the power to complete the journey, if we remain faithful as he did, then we will attain a full share in the inheritance that as heir that he has obtained for us. Faithful living is the essential element of Christian existence, ensuring salvation for those who persevere to the end ^[12] 

Prayer 1036 in SPCK Prayers, pg 406

 The Battle belongs to the lord

Last week we spoke of never getting weary of doing good for God and today I want to give you a reason for that.That reason is that it is not our battle that we are fighting, it is God’s battle.We like to think that we are self sufficient and we can fight our own battles – that we are adults in charge of our own destinies. We have a problem accepting the idea that every battle we win results from God doing our fighting for us. It is not anything we do, and it is not our strength that wins battles. It is God.In Exodus 14:13 “Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.”Repeat: The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still. And in 1 Samuel 14:47 we hear David facing Goliath and he calls out to him that “the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.”Repeat: the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.But the passage I want to focus in today is actually from 2 Chronicles 20, specifically v 15.

‘Do not fear or be dismayed at this great multitude; for the battle is not yours but God’s.’

This incident is in the time of the King Jehoshaphat.  King Jehoshaphat ruled Judah from 873-849 bc.  Judah was the southern kingdom with Jerusalem as its capitol; Israel was the northern kingdom after they split. Jehoshaphat strengthened the defences of the country by fortifying and placing soldiers in towns. His reign is noted for its adherence to Yahweh’s instructions and He eradicated much of the pagan worship.^[1] In fact, the kingdom of Judah was never more prosperous than under his reign. ^[2] The Bible says he was thirty-five years old when he began to reign; he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem [and that] He walked in the way of his father Asa and did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the Lord. Let’s pick up the story from verse 1 of chapter 20 of 2 Chronicles: the Moabites and Ammonites, and some of the Meunites, came against Jehoshaphat for battle….[ Jehoshaphat was warned and he] was afraid; he sought the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. [All the people] assembled to seek help from the Lord; from all the towns of Judah they came to seek the Lord.  The king and his people were filled with alarm at the prospect of the enemy armies gathering at the borders, and they sought God in prayer. This seeking God for help was the right response then, and it is the right response now for us when we face opposition and threats. So often we treat it as a last resort but not Jehoshaphat  - he hears the news and immediately starts praying, and gets his people praying. In that prayer: Jehoshophat reminds God of what God has done in the history of Israel and what he has promised for His people. Next, he commits himself and his people to stand under God’s umbrella of protection. In verse 9 he says: ‘If disaster comes upon us, we will stand before this house, and before you, for your name is in this house, and cry to you in our distress, and you will hear and save.’ He is reminding God of who God is, but also reminding himself and his people what God has promised to do.And finally, he closes the prayer with a proclamation of faith in God. (Verse 12)

“For we are powerless against this great multitude that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

And it says that all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children. So it was not Jehoshaphat alone or only the men who were praying but the whole of the nation of Judah had assembled and were praying. As one 19^th Century commentator remarked: “It seemed [like] a time for fighting, not for praying, but even at that critical moment, the king and his men, whom it might have appeared that plain duty [should be] called to arms, were gathered in the Temple, and were praying”.[3] Their first response was not to gird their loins and prepare for battle but to turn to God in prayer for his salvation.  There is a lesson in there for us. Meanwhile, whilst they were praying, God replied through a prophetic voice from one of the people gathered in prayer: It says in verse 14 that “the spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel, a Levite, in the middle of the assembly. ¹⁵ He said, “Listen, all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat: Thus says the Lord to you: ‘Do not fear or be dismayed at this great multitude; for the battle is not yours but God’s. ¹⁶ Tomorrow go down against them; [and told them where their enemy would be assembled] ¹⁷ This battle is not for you to fight; take your position, stand still, and see the victory of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you.” Amid the prayers, the voice of God through Jahaziel the Levite was heard reminding them that the battle was God, not theirs and announcing that in the morning all this great enemy army would be overthrown.  When reading this, we can imagine the relief that must be going through the minds of the people and of the king when these words are heard. Whew, God is in charge and he will fight the battle. Those words are for us too: the battle is not yours but God’s.  As the 19^th century writer Alexander McLaren writes (in that quirky 19^th century way that they did): May we not take that inspired Levites’ message as one to ourselves in the midst of our many conflicts both in the outward life and in the inward? If we have truly grasped God’s hands, and are fighting for what is accordant with his will, we have a right to feel that ‘the battle is not ours but God’s, and to be sure that therefore we shall conquer.[4]  Let’s return to the story in verse 18: [On hearing these words of God] Jehoshaphat bowed down with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. ¹⁹ And the Levites stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud voice. They praised God for his promise.  Is that our response when we hear that God is in charge of our problems, or are we more likely to try and retain control and adopt a “let’s make it happen” attitude? Back to the story: The next morning something extraordinary happened.  You can picture the clanging of armour and sharpening of swords and all that sort of activity going on in preparation for the day’s battle.  And we can picture Jehoshophat standing in front of his troops giving them the rah-rah speech – for king and country.  I picture him like William Wallace in the movie Braveheart, in front of the Scots troops, all painted in blue, getting his soldiers in the fighting frame of mind.

²⁰ They rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Listen to me, O Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the Lord your God and you will be established; believe his prophets.”

Then the amazing bit:  When he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in holy splendor, as they went before the army, saying, “Give thanks to the Lord, for his steadfast love endures forever.”  It was not the soldiers leading the army out, but the musicians!  It was not the rah-rah chanting of the army that was heard, but it was hymns and worship singing.  The unarmed musicians were leading the army out into the battle. Jehoshophat believed God at his word and heard God say that the battle was Gods to win, so instead of making it happen, he believed God and lead out his army with the musicians, because their purpose was not to fight but to praise God for the victory they were about to receive. But note, they did not stay home and wait for God to do his thing – they went out prepared to be a help to God. Saying that the battle belongs to the Lord does not entitle us to go home and sit on the couch and expect God to take care of everything. If you are in a situation in which you see that God wants to provide deliverance, then listen for His voice. God gives the victory! But we need to step out in obedience & trust Him to provide the power to do what He asked us to do.   That is why Jehoshaphat told his people to believe in the Lord your God.   That was why he put the soldiers behind the musicians. If they had been in the front, they would have assumed it was their prowess and ability that caused the rout of the enemy.  Jehoshaphat wanted to show that it was God who was fighting the battle. And the Judah army began to move to the frontier.

²² As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the Ammonites, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. ²³ For the Ammonites and Moab attacked the inhabitants of Mount Seir, destroying them utterly; and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another.  

Jehoshophat and his army had not even encountered the enemy and still were heading to the battlefield, but God had already done his work.  The enemy armies had turned against each other and fought among themselves and they had killed all their own troops so when… ²⁴ When Judah came to the watchtower of the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude; they were corpses lying on the ground; no one had escaped. By the time Jehoshaphat and his musicians arrived, there was no one left to fight. God had shown that he was in charge – it was his battle.  The Judah army did not have to lift a sword out of the scabbard; the musicians did not have to feel vulnerable and unarmed in front of an armed enemy, because when they got there, there was no one to fight. God had done the business.

²⁷ Then all the people of Judah and Jerusalem, with Jehoshaphat at their head, returned to Jerusalem with joy, for the Lord had enabled them to rejoice over their enemies. ²⁸ They came to Jerusalem, with harps and lyres and trumpets, to the house of the Lord.

There is a lesson for us all even in this last verse: when God wins a battle, we need to celebrate his success.  We take none of the glory ourselves, but we praise God for his work.Let me pick up 2 words from this story that I want to expand on:

Trust

As the writer Barbara Johnson wrote: If we really trust God, then we won’t fear anything. If we really trust God, then we can meet the challenges of life head-on, knowing that in the end, God’s side “wins[6]

And the second and final thing I want to highlight is Weakness:

Our helplessness is a fact, though most of us manage to get along for the most part without discovering it.  We pretend we are not weak but the truth is that we are, and it is only when we acknoweldge our weakness and throw ourselves on God that we will see God work in power.[7] Remember Paul writing in 2 Corinthians 12:9ff - “God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power  is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. ¹⁰ Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.." Marva Dawn, a theologian once wrote that we need a theology of weakness to remind us that our relationship with God is utterly dependent upon the Triune One’s infinite grace and mercy, and that only through total reliance upon that grace are we able to live as God’s servants in the world.[8] 

Acknowledging God is God and we are not and trusting in him is the only way forward as a Christian. When we take control back from God for our lives, then we are saying we are God and he is not, and that is idolatry.

The battle is not yours but God’s – let us remember that.

  Never Give Up

Today I want to use as my text, the passage from Galatians 6:9  Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. The weeks after the Easter mountain top experience can feel like a down, an anticlimax.  Easter is a time when our emotions are charged and we focus on and rejoice in the saving acts of Jesus on the cross and through the tomb to the resurrection, and afterwards we are left feeling drained and a little flat. In the Southern hemisphere this feeling is not helped by the fact that the signs of winter approaching are all around us – shorter days, deciduous trees turning yellow and red, colder temperatures, no more holidays until Queens birthday weekend. So it is timely to recall this verse to remind us to keep on keeping on; of continuing to do good to those around us. Having a down after a high is not something to be ashamed of. Nature does it every year when the trees become dormant over the winter and they do not put on as much wood as in summer. Every living thing has cycles of ups and downs.  We cannot live on the mountain tops because it is in the valleys where the nutrients lie and where we are fed for our next mountain top experience.  We need to come down so we can go up again. We need the downs so we can recognize and rejoice in the ups. But it is the staying down that the Bible warns about: Let us not become weary in doing good. The bible recognizes that God’s people sometimes get weary. We get weary when we do not see observable results from our work. We get weary when we see people around us who are hindering God’s work by their lethargy and by their criticism. We get weary when we are criticized for our work. We get weary when things seem to remain unchanged around us despite all our efforts. To that weariness, Scriptures remind us: Let us not become weary in doing good.  This is a theme that is written not once in Scripture but many times.  The Bible tells us to keep on keeping on.  In 2 Thessalonians 3:13, Paul writes:  Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right. And in Hebrews 12:1, the writer urges us to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” If the road was easy, the Bible would not have to tell us to persevere. If everything was sweet roses, we would not need to be reminded to hang in through the tough times. We can become discouraged with spiritual sowing because the harvest is often long in coming.  I was talking to someone this week, who has been working with the poor for longer than I have been alive and he spoke of the lack of progress and the lack of impact he felt he had made.  Sometimes we go through that thought. Am I really making a difference? Am I growing the Kingdom of God? But the results are not ours to worry about, they are the Lord’s. Our job is obedience to his call.  “The reaping will come at God’s proper time, which may be only in part in this life and in full in the life to come at the judgment seat of Christ,” we are told.^[1] In the face of this reality the apostle told the Galatians not to become weary or give up because the harvest is sure.  Life often leaves us feeling powerless…we feel helpless to effect change that will improve our situation…eventually such a sense of powerlessness results in apathy and despair.[2]  “There is in all of us too great a proneness to do this; we are very apt to flag and tire in duty, [even] to fall off from it, particularly that part of it to which the apostle has here a special regard, that of doing good to others. He would have us carefully to watch and guard against” ^[3]says Matthew Henry. When we think of the giants of our faith, we see that they too struggled with the lack of immediate results. Think of Abraham.  How old was he when he was told by God to go to the Promised Land and that his offspring would number the stars?  He was 75 years old when he set out from Ur (Genesis 12:4), and how old was he when he had his first child? He was 100 years old (Genesis 21:5).  So much for a 5 year plan, so much for God’s plan being instituted straight away! So much for God’s plan being implemented in our acceptable time frames!  And we see in this story the lack of perseverance by Abram and Sarai.  They gave up running toward the goal and trusting in God’s promise and shot themselves in the foot. Remember Sarai told Abram that God had closed her womb and that in order to have an heir, he needed to sleep with her slave girl Haggai, which resulted in the birth of Ishmael. They became weary of waiting.  They could not wait for God’s timing and tried to make things happen.  The result is unending strife in the Middle East. We too try to make God’s plans fit our timeframe and then we become despondent when they don’t work out. I remember some sage advice from a senior pastor that we overestimate what we can do in one year in ministry but underestimate what we can do in 5.  God’s timetable is not ours.  In our instant society, where 2 minute noodles take too long to cook, we need to wait on God and trust in his provision, and not become weary of doing good, just because we cannot see instant results. We are not go to that place of despondency. It is in these times of feeling down or that we are being ineffective, that we need to recall the promises of  Scripture. Isaiah 40:28ff The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. We read stories in the Bible to be reminded that we are not alone in our feelings. Think of Moses.  How old was he when he encountered God in the burning bush? (Exodus 3:1)  How old was he when he lead the Israelites out of Egypt?  He was 80. How old was he when he actually looked over the Jordan and saw the promised land? He was 120 (Exodus 34:7) God’s plan took ages to come to fruition, but Moses ran the race so as to win the prize. He epitomises our key text: Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.  Scripture is our encouragement that God will come through in the end, in his time, not ours. In Jeremiah 31:25, God tells us “I will satisfy the weary, and all who are faint I will replenish.”  Sometimes it is also nice to hear praise and encouragement from our fellow Christians, and even the world around us. Last Monday Ken Rout wrote to his followers on Facebook:  he described Eastside as one of the most interesting churches in the south and that it was where the rubber met the road.  That is an encouragement that we are doing good for God. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.  We need not despair of any lack of results, because as Paul writes in this verse: for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up, or as the KJV says ‘in the proper season…”. Paul reminds us that doing good works is like a farmer sowing seed.  If he only sows half a paddock, he only gets a  half paddock of produce, but when he perseveres in the plowing and tilling and sowing for the whole paddock he will receive a full harvest in due season. As I thought on this analogy, I was reminded of this summer here in Southland.  I think it was Roy or Nancy who told me of a farmer planting his winter crop of Swedes but because of the drought, no seeds came up, so he replanted and this time they came up and I assume are now ready for his winter feed.  Had he thrown in the towel after the first ones failed to germinate, his sheep would have starved over winter, but through his persistence – his not giving up, that his flock has feed. So it is with us: let us not grow weary in doing good. In James it is written (James 5:7-8,11): Be patient, therefore, beloved,  until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. ⁸ You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near….¹¹ Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. We sometimes act like children concerning the harvest.  Children plant and then they dig up the seed the same day to see if it has grown yet.  That is not the way of doing good deeds.  The results, like plants are not overnight but come in their season. Hence the warning from Paul in our text: Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. The New Zealand Baptist Missionary Society was set up in 1885 and sent out their first missionary to India in 1886. She was Rosalie McGeorge from Hanover St Baptist in Dunedin. In 1920 after 24 missionaries and mission couples had been sent out, there was a call to focus elsewhere because there was ‘meager results from such an unresponsive field”[4]. In Calcutta after 120 years there was a church membership of only 120. In Chittagong after 100 years, there was a church membership of 20.  Yet they persevered and now we are seeing a growing number of people coming to Christ in that area, in the vicinity of 150,000.  The mission society held to the Scripture:  Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Many of those 24 missionary families may not have seen converts, what would have happened if the Missionary Society had said, our plans have not met our planned targets, let’s do something else where we can see results? Mother Teresa, the little Albanian nun, received a call to work for God in India with the poorest of the poor in 1946. 33 years later in 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. She died in 1997 still at work 51 years later.  In that time, she had set up an organization called the Missionaries of Charity which opened homes not only in India but in Venezuela, Rome, Tanzania, Australia, New York, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China and Russia, ministering to lepers, those with AIDS, orphans, drug addicts and prostitutes. Had she solved the poverty problems of the world by the time of her death? Had all that she ministered to received Jesus as their saviour? No, she had ministered to the least of these my brethren all her life and taught and showed others how to do the same. She never grew weary in doing good  Just like Mother Teresa, we are assured that there is a reward in reserve for all who sincerely focus themselves in well doing; that this reward will certainly be poured out on us in the proper season—if not in this world, yet undoubtedly in the next.^[5] In Romans 2:7 we are told of that assurance through perseverance: To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.

 Sacrifice

Wednesday is Anzac day when we remember those New Zealanders who fought in international conflict in decades past and we remember particularly those who lost their lives, for us and for the freedoms we now enjoy. We all have had someone in our families and in our lives who has lost loved ones to international conflict. For me it was my great uncle Colin, killed when his tanker the SS Coimbra was torpedoed by U boat 123 in the Atlantic on 15 January 1942. He was a third engineer officer and was 27 years old. On a previous ship he had been captured by the battleship Graf Spee and imprisoned in the Altmarck, until captured by the British Navy. My dad’s father fought in World War One through Europe and Russia but survived to come to NZ via India.  We are fortunate also to have a close link in this church family too with those conflicts, with George fighting in World War 2 and Dennis fighting in Vietnam. It is timely also that Anzac Day falls so close to Easter, when we remember Jesus who died on the cross for our sins, because both of these days commemorate sacrifice for us.Today I want to pick up on that theme and speak about our sacrifice for God.  The Hebrew and Greek words used in Scripture to denote our sacrifice are translated ‘martyr’ in the KJV and ‘softened’ to ‘witness’ in the modern versions. In Acts 22:20 we hear of the first Christian martyr, Stephen : ²⁰ And while the blood of your witness [or martyr] Stephen was shed, I myself was standing by, approving and keeping the coats of those who killed him,’ says Paul reflecting on his pre conversion role of persecutor of Christians.And in Revelation 2:13 we hear of Antipas: Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you. Tradition says he was burned alive in a large copper cow.And later we hear in John’s revelation “And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.” (Revelation 17:6) We are talking today about sacrifice through persecution and martyrdom.  A martyr is one who has proved the strength and genuineness of their faith in Christ by bearing witness of the truth, and suffers death in the cause of Christ, often undergoing a violent death. The focus however is not on the death but the reason for the death. As both Augustine of Hippo back in the 3^rd century and Napoleon Bonaparte in the 18^th century said, it is not the punishment [or the death] but the cause that makes the martyr. It is the cause that people die for; it is the cause which is important. Martyrdom is something which characterises the Christian faith. Our willingness to lay down our lives as Christ laid down his life for us is a defining characteristic of our faith. It was this willingness to face death in the Colosseum, at the mouths of lions or of being burnt alive at the stake that made a lasting impression of the first century Europeans.  It was this willingness to die for Christ that saw the growth of the faith.  As one writer put it, “The Christian faith is something that changes the lives of men and women. It produces saints. … There was something about these Christian people. Not only could nobody understand it, they could not put a stop to it either. The Jews tried to do so, and so did the Romans. There were grievous persecutions so that the church was repeatedly driven underground, and yet she still went on. They murdered the Christians, they tried to murder all the leaders, but “The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.”^[1] There are plenty of stories about men and women who gladly preferred to die rather than deny Jesus Christ and who died triumphant, glorious, knowing they were going to be with Him. All of the original disciples were martyred for their faith in Jesus, except one. And he was the exiled prisoner John.  And all through the history of our faith are the dead bodies of those who willingly laid down their lives to serve Jesus, and it continues today.This knowledge of heroic deeds of self sacrifice in history makes me consider my role as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus. Remember I prayed on Good Friday: Jesus told us to pick up our cross and follow Him. Lord, I confess that I don't want a cross. I want a comfortable home with loving family and no worries. I don’t want to lay down my life.That is a legitimate fear but it is not the course of life we have chosen. We witness because we are commanded to and we are prepared to die for our cause if need be.  This is Christianity with sharp edges, Christianity on the edge. Christianity on the cutting edge, the sharp pointy bit. Jesus in John 15 said: Servants are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. ²¹ But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me…²⁶ “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. ²⁷ You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

In this passage we hear about being persecuted because of our faith and our witness to the fact of Jesus being our Saviour.Jesus says to his disciples (in Luke 10) that he is sending them out as lambs to the wolves. Jesus himself is a lamb prepared for slaughter, and any Christian who is willing to follow after Christ must be prepared to suffer. On more than one occasion Jesus says that those who follow after him will certainly know persecution, tribulation and suffering in the world. True disciples will inevitably encounter a hostile world, the ravenous wolves that Jesus speaks of. …[We], therefore, ought not to be surprised when that same hostility that is directed against God, and was directed against Christ, overflows and is poured out against us.^[2] We are to take up our cross daily and follow him. That means following Jesus through pain and suffering to the ultimate and everlasting glory.  There is no bypass, that is the path we need to follow - The path that Jesus took. That path goes through the cross. We in the West do not have a good theology of suffering.  We expect God to save us from suffering.  That is not the experience of the church in the East.  We need to develop a theology of suffering that experiences joy through suffering.[3]Consider a current story from the country where Jordy and Peihua are currently– China. On Nov. 25, 2009, Pastor Wang Xiaoguang and four other Linfen-Fushan church leaders from Shanxi Province were sentenced to criminal detention for two to seven years. The five church leaders were accused of "gathering people to disturb the public order," because they organized a prayer rally on Sept. 14, the day after 400 military police raided the church's grounds. During the raid, more than 30 believers were seriously wounded and 17 buildings were destroyed.  As of this week, they are still in prison for their faith.[4] Let me choose another from our orange segment of the world: In Feb. 19, 2007, Father Nguyen Van Ly was arrested in Hue, Vietnam for distributing material “harmful to the state.” In March, he was sentenced to eight years in prison. He had issued statements criticizing the government’s confiscation of church property, lack of seminary training and the influence of the state in church teachings and had been a powerful advocate for Christian freedom. On March 15, 2010, Father Nguyen was released on medical parole after he suffered three debilitating strokes. He spent 16 months convalescing before the government demanded he return to complete his sentence.
Seriously ill and weak, Father Nguyen was rearrested on July 25, 2011.  He remains in prison, as of this week.[5] These men remind us by their persecution that Jesus never promised a “rose garden” tour of life. However, he did promise, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).  For these men and the rest of those suffering for their faith today, a verse like this is their life preserver. But let us not think that only men suffer for their faith. Both these men are pastors, what about the suffering and persecution of their wives. Alice Yuan was the wife of a pastor in pre Communist China. Her husband when the Communists took over was sentenced to imprisonment and he spent 22 years inside.  His wife Alice was left to face the persecution on the outside, raising her children with the label of antirevolutionary hanging over her head. Because of that label, no friends or relatives would come near her. She was alone.  Both her and her children faced being discriminated and humiliated in their workplaces.  The public criticism, examinations and trials continued for years. Alice never saw a single smiling face. Everyone was determined to break her.  In the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s she was forced to shift quotas of bricks in a handcart in the icy conditions. But she did not bow to the pressure and eventually her husband was reunited with her after 22 years.[6] As Moses told the people of Israel, and God himself said to Joshua:

 The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”  (Deuteronomy 31:8)  What a comfort to those being persecuted for their faith!

As God through the prophet Isaiah claimed:  “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. ^When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

This is the promise that the young Israelites Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego held on to when sentenced to death and were thrown into the fiery furnace. Their confidence in God was such that they could say to the king: ^{17 “}If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. ¹⁸ But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:17) They did not shy away from the suffering but saw in it the realisation of life with their God. And as the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 23:4, and which has been the source of much relief for people undergoing persecution through the ages, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.” It was the 23^rd Psalm which sustained Alice Yuan all those years of persecution. It was her source of comfort. And from Jesus himself, in the Beatitudes: (Matthew 5:10-11)

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

All these scriptures are marvelous words of comfort for any people undergoing persecution because of their witness to Christ. They are an encouragement to continue on.Again I return to my prayer from Good Friday about taking up my cross. This time I wonder if I will have the strength to continue to witness despite persecution, even to the point of death.And I am reminded by the great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon that it is not on our faithfulness to God that this responsibility rests. He identifies that we humans are as variable as wind, as frail as spider’s web and as weak as water but we are not reliant on our faithfulness, but on the faithfulness of God.  He writes: “This faithfulness of God is the foundation and cornerstone of our hope of final perseverance. The saints shall persevere in holiness, because God perseveres in grace.”[7]My prayer for us, in this soft land where there is no persecution of Christians that we pray for those who are suffering worldwide for their faith, those who are facing laying down their lives for their Saviour.  And that we focus on those verses which sustain us in trouble so that they are embedded in the deepest parts of our minds so that when the trouble comes, we will remember them.Let us look at a clip to focus our minds on this worldwide issue, and then we will pray.

 Death where is thy sting?

I have entitled this Easter Sunday message “Death where is thy sting?” which you may think an odd title because it is often heard at funerals.  But today is Easter Sunday and I think it is appropriate. Paul was bold enough to write to the church at Corinth: (1 Cor. 15:51ff)

⁵¹ Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What an outlandish claim – that we will have eternal life, even as this mortal body perishes.  Where could Paul have got such a belief that he could proclaim this? After all, doesn’t everyone fear death?  Hasn’t death overtaken sex as the taboo topic of conversation? Isn’t the growth industry in cosmetics and youth enhancers because we don’t want to get old, because old age reminds us of a future death? The French philosopher Rousseau once wrote: “He who pretends to face death without fear is a liar” and Dr Johnson claimed that ‘no rational man can die without uneasy apprehension.”[i]  How then can Paul claim that death has no sting?  The answer of course is the reason for this Easter celebration:  Jesus is no longer dead!  He is the first fruits of our resurrection. Paul again writing to the Corinthians: (1 Cor 15:20ff)

²⁰ … Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.

That is the basis of Paul’s claim that death has no sting.  We who are numbered with Christ have an eternal life awaiting us because Christ was resurrected first. And when we speak of eternal life, we mean just that! Marva Dawn explains: Christ’s reign began at His (the first) resurrection and continues until the end of time, when the second death finally separated his own from those who have rejected Him...Those who participate with Christ in the first resurrection do not have to fear the second death at the end of time when all the powers of evil are destroyed.[ii] Walter Kasper continues: the Resurrection of Jesus is an act of salvation, in which the Scriptures are fulfilled. It is the decisive turn in the history of salvation, the final proof of God’s faithfulness, justice and love.”[iii]  Another writes that ‘the resurrection is a supernatural or miraculous event, quite inexplicable from [our human side of the divide] and it is comparable only to the act of God in the creation itself or in the incarnation”[iv] ‘By entering into our death as the Holy one of God, Jesus robbed it of its sting, he took away its power as he accepted the divine judgement in the expiatory sacrifice of his own life and thus triumphed over the forces of guilt and evil which had made death the last stronghold of their grip over man. He triumphed over the grace through his sheer sinlessness.’[v]

In the book of Revelation we hear that “Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.” (Revelation 14:13)  This hope of eternal life is not the forlorn hope of a better something; this is not a deluded hope that annihilation can be avoided.  As the poet W B Yeats in his poem Death wrote: “Dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.” Our hope is not like that. Our hope is a certain hope. Our faith in the resurrection is the truth that those who believe in the lord Jesus Christ will – not may or possibly, but will – have eternal life.  That is our promise from one who does not lie. God by resurrecting Christ on this Easter Sunday way back when did ‘a mighty act within our humanity and its sin, corruption and death, shattering the powers of evil and death once for all.’[vi] In fact the resurrection is the core of our faith in God.  As one Christian wrote “If you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re not a believer”[vii] and another wrote that “a Christian faith which was not also a faith in the Resurrection, would be of wood not iron. With the faith of the Resurrection stands and falls the Christian concept of God.”[viii] So what is this resurrection look like for us who follow Jesus? Contrary to the old Negro Spiritual, which said that "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but His soul's marching on," when we talk of resurrection we are talking about bodily resurrection, not just the soul.  We don’t get dismembered at death and go to separate places. In Jewish thought there is no dualism between body and soul, so when they spoke of resurrection they meant the whole shooting box – the whole of us.

Similarly ‘Christian orthodoxy does not teach the immortality of the soul; it teaches the resurrection of the body.’[ix] Not only body and soul resurrected, but also our personality: ‘the resurrection of the body means the survival of the personality; it means that in the life beyond, you will still be you, and I will still be I’.[x] We will not be dispossessed souls, body-less souls for eternity. We will be us for all eternity.  Our body will be changed but we will be us.  Jesus when he appeared to his disciples and others after his resurrection was still recognisable as the Jesus they knew, but there was a difference.  The two on the road to Emmaus did not instantly recognise him, perhaps through their grief and the unexpected arrival of one they knew was dead, but they recognised him as soon as he broke bread – as soon as he did something they recognised. What will our new bodies look like?  I don’t know.  Jesus had a recognisable similarity to his mortal body, including his wounds, but Paul talks of an ear of wheat falling to the ground (dying) and something more wonderful coming out of it, different to the seed, so I cannot make a realistic suggestion what we would look like in all eternity. How will I know my grandfather whom I knew as old, when his parents would have known him as young?  I don’t know.  But let’s not get tangled up with the small print – that’s the stuff theologians can argue about.  The big print is the important bit and that is that we will live forever because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Saviour.   And we need not worry about death, because it has lost its sting. That is what we need to know, the other stuff is just fluff. Naturally we worry about those we will leave behind and stuff like that, but we do not have to worry about where we are going.  It is the non believers who have to worry about their outcome.  The Greek philosopher Epicurus wrote: ‘what men fear is not that death is annihilation, but that it is not!”  If heaven is not an option, if we have not professed Christ as Lord, then we can expect the opposite of heaven and that is cause for worry. Hell is eternal separation from God, not annihilation.. Jesus himself said that “the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. (John 5:28-29) The end result of the resurrection of Jesus and our resurrection promise to the resurrection of life is that we have one less worry on our plates. As Bruce Milne writes: “[through Christ’s resurrection] we need not grasp at life here, but are freed to invest it in the service of others; for all this is but preliminary to the everlasting life which awaits us beyond death and is indeed already ours in him[xi] With the worry about what will happen to us when we die alleviated through the sure and certain knowledge that we have a mansion prepared for us in heaven by Jesus, we can get on with living down here.  We can get on with doing what God has set for us to do down here, in this limited period of time we have in this part of our eternal life. When we realise that our future is secure, we can forget about worrying about it, and we can focus on the really important things. As the former US President Woodrow Wilson said "we are not here merely to make a living. we are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. we are here to enrich the world, and we impoverish ourselves if we forget the errand."  We are here for a purpose and because of our resurrection promise, we have the opportunity to worship God. Paul said that if we want to show our thanks to God, we need to make our lives a living sacrifice of praise. When we are freed from the worry of death, we are free to worship the God who made that possible. We can worship God with our thoughts and words of praise, we can worship him by offering God our material resources, we can worship God when we share our faith with others and we can worship God through our service.[xii] 

 Atonement New Testament

This Sunday is known as Palm Sunday – the day that Jesus triumphally entered the city of Jerusalem to much hurrah and waving of branches by the people, but within a week those same people were baying for his blood.  I have spoken about the fickleness of humanity in past Palm Sundays.  It is not a day of celebration, it is a day of shame that they did not recognize the Messiah for who he was; rather they were seeking a messiah in their own image to meet their own purposes, and the shame for us is that we sometimes look for the Jesus of our own convenience rather than for who he is.  We want a God in our image, rather than want to be made in God’s image. But today I don’t want to dwell on human failing, I want to return to the reason for Jesus coming to Jerusalem in the first place.  Last week we backgrounded this with a discussion on atonement in the Old Testament times, and about the sacrifices made to God. Remember we focused on the passage in Leviticus 16.   And remember I closed of with the comment that there was a better way than killing herds and flocks of animals to pay for our sin.  That better way is Jesus.  Today I want to talk about Jesus in relation to the atonement.  And to focus our attention on this huge topic, I want to ask 2 questions that were asked of me recently at Wednesday at Eastside.  The first was “what is the significance of the blood of the lamb” and the second was ‘where was God when Jesus was on the cross and he called out, My God my God why have your forsaken me”.  Both of these questions are related and they relate to this thing we have been talking about called the Atonement. The Atonement – remember it means a covering - refers to God’s how God death with the primary human problem which is sin.  In Old Testament times it was through the blood sacrifice of animals but as we learned last week that such sacrifices only created an outward performance of ritual but did not effect an inward change in behaviour for the people doing the sacrifice. The better way that I alluded to last week, was the Son of God coming and dying for us once for all. In the book of Hebrews, we learn that “Jesus entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.  For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified,  how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God! (Hebrews 9:12-14⁾  In the Old testament, the priests had to enter the Holy Place every year to atone for the sins of the people, but when Christ came,  (v 15) he appeared once for all at the end of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself; and that he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. And again in Hebrews 10:¹¹ … every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. ¹² But when Christ  had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,” ¹³ and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” ¹⁴ For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. 

The death of Jesus is the central pillar of our Christian faith.  All history prior to that pointed forward to the cross, all history subsequent to the cross points back to the cross.  We focus today about what happened on that cross. And that concept is called atonement.  In the concept of atonement there are:

- elements of ransom – that Christ is the ransom that buys back sinners from Satan and gains the victory over death.  Jesus himself said in Mark 10:45 that the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. 

-elements of satisfaction – that Christ’s death appeased the honour due to God that has been robbed by human sin. Men are under the wrath of God on account of their unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18), but Christ delivers us from this. Paul tells us that Christ ‘redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us’ (Gal. 3:13). 

⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. ⁹ Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. (Rom. 5:9).

-elements of penal substitution – Christ stood in the legal place of sinners, bearing the just punishment due us because we transgress God’s law[i] He ‘was put to death for our trespasses’ (Rom. 4:25). He came specifically to die for our sins. His blood was shed ‘for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mt. 26:28). He ‘made purification for sins’ (Heb. 1:3). He ‘bore our sins in his body on the tree’ (1 Pet. 2:24). He is ‘the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 Jn. 2:2).

The death of Christ is representative - he died specifically for us. He was our representative as he hung on the cross. This is expressed succinctly in 2 Cor. 5:14, ‘one died for all; therefore all have died’. [ii] By the power of the blood of his cross Jesus is making crooked things straight; he is adjusting all things on earth to the divine order from which they have fallen.[iii] He did not come for the purpose of establishing a new relationship, but for the purpose of making known a relationship which is from everlasting to everlasting.[iv] 

So to come back to the first of the 2 questions:  What is the Lamb of God?

1 Peter 1:¹⁹ says: … with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.  This harks back to the sacrifices of the Old Testament.  You could not use a runty little crippled lamb as the sacrifice, it had to be the best, and so it was with Jesus. He was the best.  1 Cor. 5:7 says: ‘For Christ our paschal [Passover] lamb has been sacrificed. And John the Baptist called Jesus: ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world’ (Jn. 1:29). To understand these references, we need to remember two incidents from the Old Testament.  The first is when Abraham took his son Isaac to the mountaintop to sacrifice him to God to prove his faith in God.  He had bound his son and placed him on the altar and was about to raise the knife to kill him, when God intervened and gave him a ram to kill in Isaacs place. Just as the ram died in Isaac’s place, so Jesus died in our place. We should have died and been punished for our sin, but Jesus died and took our punishment on the cross. He is our substitute.  If the ram had not died, then Isaac would have died. If Jesus has not died, then we would have had to pay for our own sin-debt, which is eternal death and separation from God forever in the Lake of Fire[v]  The second incident to remember is the time of the Exodus from Egypt of the Israelites.  They were told to kill a lamb and put the blood over the lintels of their doorways, so that the angel of death would pass over their homes as he wiped out the first born of every person in Egypt.  That event is celebrated every year in Judaism as the festival of Passover. And this has particular significance for Jesus, because he was killed at Passover.  He became the Passover lamb, the paschal lamb. Just as the blood of the lamb protected the Israelites from the angel of death so too the blood of Jesus protects us from eternal death. “God provided a way for his judgement to pass over us, and in so doing all the judgement we deserved came to rest upon Jesus”.[vi]  In the words of many Christian songs: it’s your blood that covers me, it’s your blood that brings new life. It is the blood of Jesus that we remember in our Communion as we will do today. Now let’s turn to the second question.  What was happening when Jesus was on the cross, when he called out “My God my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) The answer to that again is the atonement.  In his death Jesus took our place.  As Paul identifies that for our sake God ‘made him to be sin, who knew no sin’ (2 Cor. 5:21) God is holy and nothing unclean can enter his presence.  Habbakuk 1:13 speaks to God: Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing;  There is a barrier between the holy God and sinful humanity. In Old Testament times it was the temple with its curtained off Holy of Holies, where God dwelled and only one priest a year could enter – remember we talked of that last week about the way that Aaron had to prepare himself to enter. We cannot stand in his presence because of our sinful nature, but on the cross Jesus took all of our sin (past, present and future) on his shoulders and his father could not look at him. For the first time in Jesus’ eternal life, while he hung on that cross, there was a separation between Father and Son.  Hence the pain and anguish in his cry. He experienced the unfathomable horror of separation from God, who cannot look on sin. Dying for sinners, He experienced separation from God. He died forsaken by God so that His people might claim God as their God and never be forsaken.[vii.  In the darkness of judgment, Jesus suffered the anguish of judgment. In the anguish of separation from God, Jesus reached out to the Father but Jesus was bearing sin for others[viii] and his father could not look upon him. That is why he cried out “My God my God, why have you forsaken me?”  In those few hours that he hung on the cross, Jesus endured an eternity of torment. He willingly took the punishment for our sin on himself. He became our substitute lamb and died.[ix] When I hear those words, and hear the pain of lostness in those words, I realize the enormity of our human distance from God.  Jesus knew what it was to be in constant communion with the Father, and he lost it for that time, because of our sin.  We had not known such communion with the Father since the times of the Garden of Eden, but Jesus had and it was a painful experience.   But that is not the end of the story.  We know the end of the Easter story. We know from Hebrews 2:14-15  ¹⁴ Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, ¹⁵ and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.  That conclusion is yet to come – next Sunday but as we lead up to that time, our knowledge of what took place on the cross brings the reality of the resurrection into sharp contrast. It makes the detail so stark and the reality of our sin so powerful.  It reminds us that sin is not something little or minor, but of such consequence that Jesus had to die for us because of our sin.  It is of such consequence that God sent his Son to die for us.. Let me close with a quote from George MacDonald: “Christ did not die to save us from suffering but from ourselves. He did not die to save us from injustice, far less from justice, but from being unjust. He died that we might live – but live as he lives, by dying as he died, who died to himself that he might live unto God.”[x] 

 The Atonement – an Old Testament view

In preparation for Easter, it is helpful to understand the reason for the death of Jesus, so that the events of Easter make sense. In this I am not saying that a full understanding of the reason is essential for salvation. We can be a Christian even with a dim and shadowy conception of Christ’s sacrifice. We are not saved by any theory or theology but by Christ himself. We are saved without knowing anything about the nature of Christ’s death, just as we can perform the functions of life without knowing anything about the nature of life.  But it is helpful to seek out the reason for our hope in Christ.[i]  It will strengthen our faith. So to give us some understanding leading up to Easter, over the next 2 weeks I want to talk about this thing called Atonement.  This week, we travel back into the Old Testament. And right back to the beginning: After Adam and Eve sinned, they became aware of good and evil and realized they were naked; they covered themselves with leaves and hid themselves from God.   When God brought them out of hiding, he killed an animal and covered their nakedness with the skin.  This is the first occasion of death in the Bible.  They were not thrown out of Eden because of their sin of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but because they had not obeyed God in that regard and they could not be trusted to not eat of the tree of life.. (Genesis 3:22-24)

²² Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. 

Did the blood of the animal that God slaughtered cover their sin of disobeying God’s directive?  It is not specifically mentioned that way.  However, when their children Cain and Abel made sacrifices to God, only Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable because it was a blood sacrifice – the death of an animal.  Cain’s unacceptable sacrifice was a vegetable one. In Leviticus 7:11 God stated that “the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you for making atonement for your lives on the altar; for, as life, it is the blood that makes atonement.” God was saying that our sin-debt can only be paid – or forgiven – if there was death. God was saying that he would accept an animal’s death in his place – as a substitute. So an animal was to be killed and its blood shed. God’s instructions are very important for 2 reasons:

1)                  The death of an animal illustrated what God’s law demanded. Sin demanded death. We know this from the New Testament book of Romans: The wages of sin is death, it says. The sacrifice showed the law of sin and death being obeyed and justice being fulfilled.

2)                  God said that the shed blood would make atonement for sin. The word atonement means covering. The shed blood would cover our sin, therefore when God looked at us, he would no longer see the sin. We would be viewed as right with God and God in his holiness could then accept us. The relationship would be restored. [ii]

This got codified into Jewish Law through Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – which is still in force today with Jews.  This year it is celebrated on 26^th September.  To understand this need for a blood sacrifice, I need to pick some bits out of Leviticus 16 for you: To get a proper understanding I suggest you read the chapter in full later. God gave very specific instructions to Aaron about approaching God, with the warning that it was a dangerous thing to do, in fact it was life threatening.  Aaron was told to cleanse himself and to bring with him two male goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering. (vv1-5)  One of the goats was offered to God as a sin offering, the other became what we know as a scapegoat. The directions for the scapegoat were: Aaron was to confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness … The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness (vv21-22) . A bull was killed as a sin offering for himself and for his house (v11). The other goat was killed to make atonement for the sanctuary, because of the uncleanliness of the people of Israel, and because of their transgressions, all their sins.  The blood was sprinkled over the holy of holies, the skin and skin was burnt elsewhere.  It was the blood which was the important element. This was to happen every year for the sins of the nation – corporately and individually and Yom Kippur continues to this day. In all, Jews in the Old Testament had 5 different sacrifices to perform but they can be categorised as 2: the sin offerings which were confessional, and the thank offerings which were Eucharistic in nature.[iii] These offerings were not to appease an angry God, but to make the relationship between God and human right once again. The word we use for this is Atonement. It literally means a covering, but can be used to denote the reconciliation.[iv] 

It is clear that in the OT it was recognized that death was the penalty for sin. Ezekiel 18:20 plainly says: The person who sins shall die. But that God graciously permitted the death of a sacrificial victim to substitute for the death of the sinner. So clear is the connection that the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews can sum it up by saying ‘without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins’ (Heb. 9:22). ^[v]Atonement in Old Testament times was made for the whole group by the priest without specific participation by the people, although they were aware it was being done for them.[vi] And it is apparent that not all sins in the Old Testament could be atoned for – murder (Numbers 35:33) and idolatry (Exodus 32 20ff) for example, and in these God demanded blood from the guilty party.[vii] Even the sins of the Israelites in the wilderness could not be atoned for and they could only enter the Promised Land when that generation had died. Sacrificing an animal on the altar did not take away their sin. They were still sinful. The sacrificed animal only provided a covering for sin.  In the same way that God had covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness with acceptable clothing made of skins, now their sins would be covered by the blood of animals that had died in their place. Sacrificing the animal on the altar was an outward demonstration of an inward reality – the inward reality that we were trusting God.[viii] And we learn as we read the Old Testament that thousands and thousands – perhaps millions - of animals were slaughtered and the blood offered to God on the altar in the temple to atone for the sins of people. But it did not work, because people were doing the outward actions of sacrifice but their hearts were not changed. The prophets kept calling people back into right living, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. God through the prophet Isaiah complained to the people:

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. (Isaiah 1:11)

The prophet Samuel told the sinful King Saul: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)

God through the prophet Ezekiel laments the unchanged hearts of his people: “Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin.  ³¹ Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? ³² For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live. (Ezekiel 18:30-32)

The people were doing the actions of ritual, of shedding the blood of animals in place of their own sin, but there was no changed heart. It was done because it was the thing to do, rather than because of a contrite heart. In Proverbs 15:8, we are told:  The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord. The system implemented by a just and loving God was being abused.  The atonement made possible by God through the shedding of the blood of an innocent animal instead of the fatal shedding of the sinful person’s blood was being made a mockery of. The writer of Hebrews identified that “Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. ² Otherwise, would they not have ceased being offered, since the worshipers, cleansed once for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? ³ But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. ⁴ For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. (Hebrews 10:1-4) There was a better way.  That better way, we will talk about next week. 

 Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

Last week I said that our preparation for Easter does not start on Good Friday, nor does it start on Palm Sunday, it starts well before that, and many churches celebrate that journey toward the cross through a festival called Lent which is the 40 days before Easter, which I recommended that you try this year. All of the Bible talks of the journey toward the cross, in fact even the prophets in the Old Testament talk of the purpose of the Messiah, but today I want to focus on the Gospels and Jesus’ prophecies about his role in Easter and the response of the disciples to his expressed role. I want us to realize that Easter could have had no other outcome. I want us to realize that Jesus went to Jerusalem, fully aware what the outcome of his visit would be.  I want us to realize that he went there with his eyes fully wide open. Let’s pick up the story in Mark 8:31-32

Then [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly.

When was this?  The week before, the month before?  We don’t really know but in Mark it is recorded in chapter 8 of 16 and also in the 9^th chapter of Luke which is 24 chapters long, and again in chapter 16 of Matthew which is 28 chapters long.  All indicate that this is early on his ministry.  Jesus said this because “as a representative of humanity and one who would one day be their judge, he first must suffer judgment himself.”[i]  Jesus identified publicly to his disciples early on in his 3 ½ years of ministry that his pathway was to go to the cross.  Can you imagine that burden for Jesus? Let’s bring this into the 21^st century and our medical model of life: Since 1989 there has been identified a condition called the Death Row phenomenon suffered by those awaiting execution.  It causes severe depression and psychological problems, similar to those knowing that they have a terminal illness.In 2011, death row inmates in USA waited an average of 178 months from the time of sentence until their execution.[iii] That is almost 15 years. Little wonder that your mind snaps, knowing that at any time your life could be ended. Putting yourself in Jesus’ shoes, how would you handle the knowledge that your pathway was leading to your death on a cross? The Son of God, or the Son of Man as Jesus called himself, knew from the time he was incarnated as the baby Jesus that his purpose was to die for humanity.  That is 33 ½ years. But I hear you say “but he was God, he was better than us!”  Hold on. When you go down that thought path, you need to be careful because that is Docetism, which says that Jesus is God but only appeared to be human.  One theologian put it: “Any denial of Jesus’ humanity means denying the reality of salvation; for if he had only an apparent body, then he only apparently suffered and we are only apparently saved.” [iv]       

So Jesus, in his humanity, would have had the same emotions that the rest of us humans have, and that also his reaction to his foreknowledge of his death would have been a human response. Unlike death row prisoners or those with terminal illnesses, he could still choose another path. No one forced him to go to Jerusalem; no one forced him to do as God the Father had planned for him. But he chose to walk those steps to Jerusalem, knowing the outcome of that journey. That concept of Jesus’ choice was canvassed in what many Christians consider the blasphemous movie by Martin Scorsese called the Last Temptation of Christ.  That was a fiction, but the option discussed in the movie of not going to the cross and dying there was always available to Jesus, in his humanity.The truth is however that Jesus chose to obey. Can you imagine choosing that path? “He told his friends that nobody was taking his life from him; he was laying it down of his own free will.  He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem when he knew quite well that by doing so he was signing his own death warrant…he pointed out that the good shepherd is the one who is prepared to lay down his life for the sheep.”[vi]  The writer and theologian William Barclay sums it up: “If Jesus had stopped somewhere before death, if he had gone so far but not the length of dying on the Cross, he would have been saying: There are limits beyond which I am not prepared to go. There is something at which I draw the line. But because he went to death he was saying: There is nothing in all the world that you can do to stop me loving you. I love you like that’.[vii] So we even if Jesus had chosen to obey to the point of death, what was the response to Jesus telling his disciples of his pathway? We pick up the account in  Matthew 16:22

Peter took him aside [after hearing this] and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

“Peter clearly understood Jesus’ words, but could not reconcile his view of “Messiah” with the suffering and death Jesus predicted. So Peter began to rebuke Him for this defeatist approach.”[viii]  What would our response have been?  Contemplate that for a moment.  One you love, one whom you have given up everything for, one whom you believe to be the saviour of Israel, the promised Messiah, he tells you that he is going to die.  What is your immediate reaction?  Would it have been as Peter blurted out?  I think mine would have been.  It is our natural reaction to try and find a way out of such a situation; we would begin plotting and scheming in order to save our Master. Denial is one of the first steps we turn to when faced with the unimaginable.

²³  [Jesus] turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

“The rebuke could not be stronger. Peter was addressed as Satan’s proxy, having expressed a satanic idea, namely, that Jesus would never suffer.”[ix]  Did Peter deserve the backlash from Jesus?  Did he deserve to be called Satan? How would you have felt? Think on that for a moment. Let’s unpack why Jesus said that.  Why did Jesus call Peter the name of God’s enemy? Peter was the first disciple he chose. Why would he call him the devil? The reason was that Peter was seeing it from “a human perspective … that Jesus should exercise his messianic prerogatives as an expression of raw power with no suffering. However, God’s plan was that by suffering, Jesus would identify with the fallen condition of people and take care of sin on their behalf. The rejection and suffering were an integral part of the plan.”[x] Jesus rebuked him because Peter’s comment, by feeding into the humanity of Jesus, had the potential to divert Jesus from his calling. The devil had a plan to divert Jesus from the path.  It is graphically illustrated in the Marilyn Manson look-alike androgynous Devil portrayed in the movie the Passion of the Christ.  If he had diverted Christ from his path, he would have won.  His intent was to divert Jesus from his path, and his intent for us is the same: to divert us from the path of following Jesus.  After chastising Peter, Jesus then turns to us and tells us that our pathway is not going to be laid out with rose petals either.

^{Mark 8:34} “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷ Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸ Those who are ashamed of me and of my words  in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

The path of least resistance is often the pathway to destruction. Jesus is saying choose the hard path, I have chosen the hard path, follow me. This exchange was stored away by Jesus and stored away by the disciples as they trod the dusty roads of Israel and Galilee over the intervening period – the time of teaching and miracles.  The thought would not go away. In Matthew 17:22-23 Jesus once again spoke to them on the same topic:

As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, ²³ and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.” And they were greatly distressed.

In this explanation, Jesus also indicates that he knows one of his disciples will betray him.  How do you get your head around such knowledge? How do you know that and continue to be friends with him and teach him and dine with him? In Mark and Luke’s account of the same event (Mark 9:30 & Luke 9:45), they record that the disciples “did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” Little wonder after what he said to Peter the last time. I would keep my mouth shut too. But two times was not enough for Jesus to tell his disciples. He knew they did not understand , and it was crucial that they did, if not then but in hindsight after his death, so He tells them a third time

^{Mark 10:32} They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, ³³ saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; ³⁴ they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”

In this third explanation, Jesus indicates he knows the nature of his death. It is not an unknown quality. He knows exactly what is going to happen to him.  He is specific but yet again the disciples did not or chose not to understand.

^{Luke 18:34} But they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

Maybe they were like the Sky ad where the guy puts his fingers in his ears and goes “Nah nah nah” so he can’t hear the score of the game he has taped. “All these reports of Jesus speaking about his death show Jesus as having foreknowledge of his death and they stress the voluntary character of his acceptance of his fate. In addition, [it shows] Jesus’ death as a divinely ordained necessity.”[xi] As you delve into the emotions that accompany the story – the emotions of Jesus, the emotions of the disciples, it is overwhelming.  Emotions of grief, sadness and disempowerment overwhelm me.  I find myself aligning with the disciples and choosing not to hear or understand because the truth is too painful, the horror too great to get my head around. The lead up to Easter is a time of mixed emotions.  Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross for me, but wasn’t there another way?  I know I don’t have to repay what you have done for me, but it makes me wonder my worth (in my eyes).  I know that you find me a treasure worth dying for. How come I don’t feel like one? I empathise with “the disciples [who] still did not understand these remarks about his death and resurrection. Their [later] reaction to his arrest, death, and burial would continue to display their confusion over this issue, but Jesus’ resurrection would finally open their ears.”[xii]   I hope as I journey with them to Golgotha that my eyes will be opened too.

 Introduction to Lent

Some have asked me about what this thing called Lent is that many churches celebrate at this time of the year.  Lent is the period of 40 days leading up to Good Friday. It started on Ash Wednesday, back on February 22^nd. It is often asked whether it is appropriate to celebrate Lent as a Protestant – in other words, as a non Roman Catholic, or more particularly as a Baptist.[i]  This and other holy festivals were thrown out by the Reformation as being Catholic institutions.  This stance by the Anabaptists – the forerunners of Baptists and Brethren and Mennonites and Amish –removed all holy festivals from church, including Christmas Advent and Lent. But increasingly Protestant denominations have included these particular religious festivals back into their church calendar in some form or other over the last 3 centuries.[ii] The Anabaptists were wrong about such festivals being Roman Catholic in origin because in actual fact Lent was observed before the Roman Catholic churches and Eastern Mediterranean churches split. It was one of the early practises of the church. Both Irenaeus (who died A.D. 202) and Tertullian (who died A.D. 225) refer to it. It was originally a very brief 40-hour fast, growing eventually to a week, then by A.D. 325, the Council of Nicaea recognized the format of 40 days of Lent.   “One can safely conclude that by the end of the fourth century, the 40-day period of Easter preparation known as Lent existed, and that prayer and fasting constituted its primary spiritual exercises.”[iii]  The purpose of Lent is to be a season of fasting, self-denial, spiritual growth, conversion, and simplicity. Because the word Lent comes from the Germanic word for springtime, it can be viewed as a spiritual spring cleaning: a time for taking spiritual inventory and then cleaning out those things which hinder our corporate and personal relationships with Jesus Christ and our service to him. Of course that spring time for us is at the wrong time of year but we get the picture. The Baptist theologian Jim Denison gives a couple of reasons for Baptists observing some form of Lenten practice. First: we cannot fully appreciate Jesus' resurrection unless we have experienced something of his sufferings. A fast of some sort is an appropriate means of spiritual identification with our Lord's suffering for us. Two: we need a period each year for intentional spiritual introspection and contemplation. The late theologian John R. W. Stott said that he required an hour a day, a day a week, and a week a year to be alone with his Lord. We need a time every year for spiritual renewal.  The things we do during Lent are supposed to ultimately transform our entire person: body, soul, and spirit, and help us become more like Christ. Eastern Christians call this process theosis, which Athanasius who died in AD 373 describes as "becoming by grace what God is by nature." It is a time of preparation for the Easter events. There are a few basic tasks that traditionally have been associated with Lent. Many of these have a long history. These are fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, as well as reading the Scriptures.

The one most commonly identified with Lent is that of Fasting: When we "give something up" for Lent, we are embracing a form of fasting, an excellent spiritual discipline. We normally think of giving up a certain food at Lent, like meat or chocolate or alcohol but the Eastern Christians have a more rigorous fast, abstaining from meat, wine, oil, dairy products, and even fish. Apparently some people choose to give up sins (gossip, drunkenness, etc) for Lent – but I thought we had to do that anyway regardless of Lent. Some give up things they have an inordinate desire for, e.g. sweets, caffeine, TV, Play station. By giving something up, Lent represents a spiritual training time to overcome evil. By giving something up, we learn through fasting to control a particular part of our life, which leads to greater self-discipline even when Lent is over.  Whatever you decide to fast from, remember Lent is more than a diet. Lent is about spiritual results, not material ones. So, while losing a few pounds may be a nice side benefit, all fasting should be done for God's glory and spiritual growth. “Self-denial is not an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take our crosses in order that we may follow Christ.”[iv]  Fasting brings both soul and body into submission to the Holy Spirit. Fasting does not change God, his purposes, plans or standards. But it does change us.[v]  Whilst we are thinking of fasting, Lent is a time when we are able to learn, examine, and get under control our material excesses. I have heard the term: "spirituality of subtraction" which counters the greater "spirituality of addition" that we have all bought into. “In our culture of staggering affluence, grace is best experienced when we purposefully take away something. It brings integrity to our witness, freedom to our service and identification with the less fortunate. We need a spirituality of subtraction challenging us to be less encumbered and burdened in our calling to follow Jesus,”[vi] said Mark Johnson, an American Baptist pastor. Lent is a good time to practice that spirituality of subtraction.  Do I really need all this stuff? Give it up for Lent and see if you really need it. At the end of that time, you may want to permanently get rid of the clutter which was surrounding you – you may find the streamlined life you have tried for Lent is better for you.

The next discipline associated with Lent is Prayer.  The Baptist Missionary society has traditionally used Lent for its Self denial and prayer focus, but increasingly that campaign has shifted to other times of the year. But the concept is still true - that self denial – fasting – and prayer go together.  Lent is a good time to develop or strengthen a discipline of daily prayer. Many people shy away from prayer because they are not sure that they are doing it right. After all there are thousands of books written on prayer and it seems that technique matters – we have to jump through the hoops just the right way or it will not work.  That is a lie of the devil. “Prayer is not a system at all but the development of a relationship between us and God.”[vii] As Richard Foster, a major thinker on the spiritual disciples writes: “Simple prayer involves ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a loving and compassionate Father…we do not try to conceal our conflicting and contradictory motives from God or ourselves.”[viii]   In other words, we can be ourselves with God, after all he knows who and what we are even before we come to prayer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer  writes: “It matters little what form of prayer we adopt or how many words we use, what matters is the faith which lays hold of God and touches the heart of the Father who knew us long before we came to him. Genuine prayer is never ‘good works’, an exercise or a pious attitude, but it is always the prayer of a child to a Father.”[ix] I hope these few words will help you try the experience of the power of prayer at this time of Lent, leading up to Easter. In this of course, I am not limiting this to only private prayer but also prayer in groups, like our inspire groups or our prayer meetings and at our worship services.   

A discipline that is often overlooked in the modern “me-me” society is that of Almsgiving, which is an old fashioned word for Charity or for giving to the poor.  While Lent is about giving something up (i.e. fasting), it is also about putting something positive in its place. It is said that the best way to remove vice is to cultivate virtue. Lent has been a traditional time of helping the poor and doing acts of charity and mercy. Of  course just like prayer, this should be a year round act of service for all Christians but Lent is a good time to examine ways to get involved and to make resolutions to actually do them. Giving alms does not just mean giving out money to people on the street. It can be done by helping your family, friends, and neighbours out of tight situations or being more generous to staff. It may mean considering what you contribute to the work of the church ministries. 

In this time of personal reflection and preparation for Easter, a key component should be Scripture Reading. In reading [scripture], studying them, memorising them we lay a strong foundation for character formation.  Out of a biblically formed character we can discern more clearly how best to live to the glory of the Triune God.[x] We come to the Scripture to be changed, not to amass information.[xi]  Our role in Scripture reading is not to be more informed but to be immersed in the awesomeness and power and love of God. As one person commented, Biblical illiteracy among Christians of all types is rampant and, quite honestly, shameful. Lent is an excellent time to remedy this problem.  There are many prayer books and pamphlets about, which focus on the scriptures in preparation for Easter.  It may be helpful to promise to read two chapters a day of a particular book or maybe finish a medium sized book by Easter. Closer to the event, in the final week between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, many churches are involved in the Stations of the Cross – which we did last year – which is a time of reflection and of looking at the scriptures as Jesus made his way to the cross.  But the journey started well before the Easter events and it is helpful to read the whole story over this Lenten period.

All prayer, reading, meditation and all the activities [during Lent] are aimed at purity of heart, an unconditional and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and of our situation as willed by him. It means the renunciation of all deluded images of ourselves, all exaggerated estimates of our own capacities, in order to obey God’s will as it comes to us in the difficult demands of life in its exacting truth.[xii] Just because I am talking about Lent later than it traditionally starts does not mean we should not have some sort of preparation for Easter using the Lenten traditions.  There is ample time in the next 4 weeks to practice the presence of God and to that end I have provide you in the newsletter with a list of 12 suggestions you may like to try during this period. Let’s start our thoughts on Lent with this You tube clip.

[ii] Kenneth W Collins “Why did we start observing Lent?” 2004

 Sense of Call

 We are going to round off this series on work by talking about our sense of call to work in the marketplace or workplace.  Often we limit the use of the word ‘call’ to that of working for God full time, people talk about a call to missions or a call to be a pastor.  But our word ‘call’ comes from the Latin word voca, from which we get the word vocation, which we think of as a career or profession in the secular world. So we can be called to work outside the church. Before I talk about our sense of call to work, I want to make some declarations about our call: The first fact is that all of us are called and that call is “to be followers of Jesus – his disciples.  That is what we as Christians are called to be and do, primarily and above all else. The second fact is that any role we play or tasks we do are simply outworkings of our call to follow him,”[i]   Marty Martin once wrote: I go to work because I have a job that’s part of a career, which is part of a profession that I do because of my vocation that is the shape of my life.[ii]   So we can see from the diagram that our jobs are part of our larger call. As Wayne Kirkland points out: “Biblically, our primary calling (vocation) is to follow Christ and obey him. All other ‘callings’ are secondary subsets of this…My call to follow Jesus involves working at the ‘inward journey’ (my relationship with God) and fleshes out in a whole variety of different roles. My paid work is not my vocation/calling. It’s part of it – just one expression.”[iii] That is what Marty Martin was trying to say and what I tried to depict in the diagram. The third fact is that our call is “less on what we do and more on what we belong to. It concerns our identity; and that our calling is to join someone rather than to do something or go somewhere,”[iv] It’s easy for us to focus on what we are called to do. But God is concerned about who we are called to be.[v]  We are called to be Christlike, we are called to be light just as Jesus is light, we are called to be truth just as Jesus is truth.  Not what we do but who we are.  We are co-heirs with Christ, we are children of God, we are grafted into God’s chosen people. That is who we are.  We are called to be, what we do after that is secondary. It has been said that “our fit is not just what we do. It is also who we are – the values we hold, the dreams we nurture, the kindness and the compassion we offer, the energy and enthusiasm we harness.”[vi] But because this series has been on work, I am going to limit my discussion today to our call in relation to work. When it comes to our work, many of us worry about making the mistake of wasting our life in places or tasks that just don’t suit us at all, and we wonder and fret whether we are in the right place to be serving God. We worry that if we get it wrong we will miss God’s blessing. As one counsellor told me, many Christians think that God’s will is a knife edge along which we have to balance. One false move and we fall off to the left or the right. That belief is immobilising because we fear making a step in case it is wrong.  But as he describes it, God’s will is a playground where we can choose to play on any of the apparatus there, and still be in God’s will as long as we don’t climb the fence and leave the playground.  That is truly a releasing picture.  Not a single knife edge to walk along but a pletoria of choices that are still within God’s will.  Of course there may be one thing that is best suited to us, but any of the apparatus are within God’s will for us. 

A person here told that they know that they have been called by God but they don’t know what to.  There is worry in that comment.  What if I missed the opportunity that God wanted me to complete? We know that “God wants [us] to reach [our] potential by using and developing the mix of temperament, gifts, talents, skills motivations and yearnings that go to make up the person that [we] are”[vii] – we spoke last week about that – Jesus’ parable of the talents - and we worry that we might be on the wrong track. We worry that we have not used the talents that God has given us. The playground analogy of God’s will releases us from worry.  So does another analogy from the New Zealand researchers MacKenzie Kirkland and Durham:  “rather than thinking of God is having a wonderful [single] plan for our lives, it makes much more sense to think of them having a wonderful purpose. A purpose is like a stream flows to a distant sea. The stream may be diverted from time to time. It may even wander aimlessly in swamps for a period. But it can also recover its way further down the valley and still have the potential one day to become a great river.” [viii] This belief in the knife edge will of God is so ingrained in our thoughts that it has become a straitjacket and an immobilising fear among Christians. Dallas Willard, in his book In Search of Guidance tries to break that straitjacket. He wrote “God does not have an ideal, detailed life plan uniquely designed for each believer …so the perfect will of God may allow, for a particular person, a number of different alternatives which may all equally be God’s perfect will, none being in themselves better or preferred by God in relation to the ultimate outcome desired by him and the sincere seeker should assume that this is so, and move forward with faith in God when no specific guidance comes on the matter soon after a reasonable period of time.” [ix]  In essence we need to break the knife edge mentality. The New Zealand writers MacKenzie, Kirkland and Dunham are more scathing than the nice Mr Willard. They say “Sometimes we develop romantic notions of finding the one thing we were created for but it would be foolishly simplistic to think we could ever reduce our lives to a single function. We are called to life in all its fullness.[x] 

So point 1 is that even in our jobs, God does not have just one call for us 

Calling means that expression of our personalities and exercise of our spiritual gifts and natural talents in a given direction in power. [A calling is] not done for ourselves, or for our families, or our businesses or even humankind, but for the Lord, who will hold us accountable for them. [xi]  As Joshua said: As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. We have spoken about this before, quoting the Pauline scripture, that all we do is for the glory of God, we work in whatever we do, as to the Lord. 

My second point is that just because something is easy does not mean it where God wants us.

“It's encouraging to be where we feel most comfortable in. But we need to remember that God often pushes us out beyond a comfort zone.[xii] Henry Blackaby noted that: “Some people say, "God will never ask me to do something I can't do." I have come to the place in my life that, if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something that I know I can handle, I know it is probably not from God. The kind of assignments God gives in the Bible are always God-sized. They are always beyond what people can do, because he wants to demonstrate his nature, his strength, his provision, and his kindness to his people and to a watching world. This is the only way the world will come to know him." [xiii] Peter had to let go of the side of the boat before he could walk on water.  Jesus had to die before he could be resurrected.  Everything that God calls us to do requires courage.  Every encounter with God (through an angel) in the Bible required the angel to say “Fear not”, because fear is our natural reaction when we are called to do God’s business. I cannot tell you what your call is, and nor can anyone else. Anyone else can only advise but “Each [of us must] must listen for the Voice of God for ourselves and then obey at all costs.”[xiv] 

The fourth point is that our call could be ‘over there’, wherever ‘over there’ is but more often it is exactly where we are already. 

MacKenzie and Kirkland rightly point out that “because of our emphasis on being called to do, invariably a call is seen as something that takes us out of our current situation (geographical or task) as God leads us into a new one...  The norm should be that we remain where we are already placed and allow God to transform us, our relationships, our tasks and our whole perspectives within that context.[xv] The call to follow Jesus means we can serve Christ whenever we are. Rather than seeking change in our situation, we should be working to discover ways that our calling to follow Jesus can be lived out through our current circumstances. [xvi] Another thing to remember is that “we are not just pawns in some great cosmic game of chess. [Our call and direction is] a growing partnership with God, where we have freedom to make the calls as we understand more and more of his heart for us.”[xvii] As we press into God, we will hear more and more, clearer and clearer what it is that is the best piece of playground equipment that we can serve God on.[The Puritan] Cotton Mather declared, “Oh let every Christian walk with God, when he works at his calling, act in his occupation with an eye to God, act as under the eye of God”.[xviii] When we work, we work for God. He is the one who guides our steps and he is the one our work glorifies.

[ii] Philip Yancey Rumours of another world 64

[iii] Wayne Kirkland “God’s Co-workers” Reality April/May 2000 19

 Work in the New Testament

So far in this series on work, we have looked at the example of God the Father, of Jesus and the people in the Old Testament in relation to work.  We have found that work is a blessing not a curse, that work is fulfilling when we remember we are working for God. Today I want to build on that platform and turn to the attitude to work in the New Testament. The marketplace, the workplace was the place where the Gospel grew, where people came into a relationship with the living God. It was the place where the miracles happened. So much so that “only one of the 40 extraordinary manifestations of God's power recorded an Acts happened in a religious venue.”[i] Every other God moment took place where the people lived and worked out there in the work place and marketplace and in the home. So why do we come to church to see miracles and the hand of God?  We should be looking out in the places we inhabit every day of the week; and not only that, we should be instruments of God’s power every day of the week in our workplaces and the marketplace. 

1) We are called to be God’s ambassador into our workplace and marketplace. Apart from the 12 disciples, there is seldom a call in the New Testament for believers to leave their jobs and go into full time ministry.  Remember the man who was possessed and was living in the graveyard in Gerasenes (Luke 8:26ff), running naked and so possessed with such demonic strength that he could not be bound. Remember how Jesus exorcised the demons from him, the demons went into a herd of pigs and were drowned and remember the man was healed by Jesus. As he regained his mind, he wanted to go with Jesus but Jesus told him to go back to the city he came from.  His witness to the power of God was his transformed state. John the Baptist, when asked gave instructions to people wanting to know what they were to do to show they were genuinely repentant. He never told them to quit a job and go into full-time preaching. To the tax collectors, John’s instructions were to collect taxes fairly. To the mercenaries, his instructions were not to use force to gain from people what the law did not require of them[ii] 

Luke 3:12

¹² Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” ¹³ He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” ¹⁴ Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”

He did not call them out of their employment, but as we learned last week, he wanted them to honour God in the practice of their employment. Similarly Paul in Ephesians 6:5, he speaks to slaves and slave owners: ⁵ Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; ⁶ not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. ⁷ Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, ⁸ knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free. ⁹ And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

He does not tell slaves to leave their masters nor masters to let their slaves go, but he calls on them to honour God in their treatment of one another. As we learned last week from the Old Testament heroes, we are called to work where we are placed.  And for most that is the marketplace and workplace. Interestingly, the market place people played a vital role in the emergence, establishment and expansion of the early church because most of Jesus followers remained in a full-time business while simultaneously conducting full-time ministry.[iii] We know that Paul and Aquila and Priscilla were tent makers (Acts 18:2-3) – modern day mobile home builders.  We know that Lydia was a seller of purple (Acts 16:14) – that is a high class textile manufacturer and retailer and that Tabitha was a seamstress (Acts 9:39), Onesimus was a runaway slave whom Paul sent back to his master Philemon to continue working for him. This is just to name a few. Each of them through their jobs, were connected with the communities in which they worked, and it gave them the ability to speak with people about the Lord. Even the missionaries who travelled around, like Paul and Barnabas were workers. They were not the itinerant monks of another religion who expected to be fed and catered for, sponging off the people. They were workers.  Paul even wrote to the church in Thessalonica reminding them that he did not expect to be supported by them but that he paid his own way.

You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters; we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. (1 Thes 2:9)

[Read the quote on pg 161 Forging a new world faith]

One of the reasons for being a worker was in being able to connect with people. And that tradition continues today.  Missionaries cannot go to many countries as missionaries; they need to have an occupation.  Sarah Jean got into Banda Ache because she was a nurse.  Jordy got into China because he was a language student and can only stay there because he is a businessman. Many Tranzsend missionaries go as English language teachers.  MMM and the Tranzsend Go teams go to provide building teams. Marine Reach goes into the islands, bringing medical relief..Work is the vehicle for self funded financial support and as a means of building a reputation and contacts with people who do not know Jesus.

2)  Work is not just something that a workaholic like Paul puts value on.  Think also of Jesus in his parable of the talents, recorded in Matthew 25:14ff, he also values work. He tells the story of a boss leaving his servants with a lot of money to use wisely. He gave them 5 talents each, which equated to 15 years wages as a labourer.  He wanted them to grow that money.  2 of the three mentioned in the story did that and were blessed on the master’s return, but the one who hid his talents and returned them unused to his master on return was punished severely.  On first reading that seems really harsh.  But what we really hear out of this is that we have received talents (not money necessarily, but definitely skills and abilities by our master Jesus) and God wants us to use them, to give him honour and glory.  When we sit on our talents and don’t use them, we have wasted God’s good gift to us and he is none-too-pleased.

3)  Another point arising out of the New Testament concerning work is that of the value of work.

Paul affirmed this idea of work in his letters to the Thessalonian Christians, especially the second letter. To some of the Thessalonian church people who evidently felt themselves above the need to work, Paul pointedly said, “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. (2 Thess 3:10-12)

When Paul said this, he was not speaking against the welfare system. He was speaking for the goodness of work. Work is creative, life-giving.[iv]  It is a God honouring and God ordained role that we are called to do.  He is not talking about those who through no fault of their own are unemployed. He is talking about those “who have deliberately chosen not to work.”[v] He is saying if you can work, you ought to be working.  He was speaking abut those who choose not to contribute but expected to receive their full ‘entitlement.’ Remember once again, I am not talking about just paid employment, but any meaningful work that we do, whether it is voluntary or paid – and we have heard these last weeks from various people just what that may entail – from raising a family, to doing meaningful jobs for people without pay, to paid employment. As Matthew Henry pointed out way back in the 16^th century: “Industry in our particular callings as men [sic] is a duty required of us by our general calling as Christians.[vi]  No Christian who is able but unwilling to work should be maintained by others who labor on his behalf.[vii]. Ray Stedman comments on this passage in his book Waiting for the Second Coming:  “You can work,” says the apostle. “You have an able body and a good mind. Now go to work and earn your own living.”  Not working when you are able is serious business. Those who refuse to do so are not allowing themselves to be fulfilled in the way God intended.”[viii] We miss the blessing that comes from work when we choose not to work.Work is something that we can be proud of, it furthers the kingdom of God through our actions and our interaction with other people yet to believe.  It is something at the end of the day that we will be asked about, just as Jesus pointed out in his parable: (verse 29):  ²⁹ For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. ³⁰ As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ We all want to hear when we get to be with Jesus, eternally in his presence (Matthew 25:21 & 23): ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. 

Work Old Testament

We have looked at God the Father and at Jesus in relation to their work and being the models for us of what a worker is.  We have considered that work is not a curse but a blessing for each of us, and we have determined that when we speak of work we are not just talking about paid employment but of meaningful tasks that we perform regardless of monetary reward. Today we turn to the people of the Old Testament and see how they determined the value of work.  We heard earlier that for the Jews – the people of the Old Testament – there was no dualism between sacred and secular – that work for the Lord included all they did. Today I want to make 3 claims from the Old Testament view of work. The first is a reinforcement of the claim that we work for God, not only in the church but in everything we do. The second is that God is interested in how we perform our work.  And lastly we are going to look at the book of Ecclesiastes and find that self serving work is meaningless.

So to begin, cast your mind over all the key people in the Old Testament.  How many of them were priests – in other words, people working in the church?  Not many eh?  The fact is that “the majority of the Old Testament heroes were not ascetics; rather, they were people deeply involved in everyday marketplace issues.”[i] And the other startling revelation is that “God spoke to them in and through the everyday working lives. Though they were believers most were not told to leave their employment in order to follow God's leading-people like Joseph, Daniel, Nehemiah and Esther to name a few.” [ii] They did what God wanted them to do in the roles they were already in.  In fact it has been worked out that 75% of all the people of the Bible never held a religious job in their lives. They lived and worked with challenges and issues that are similar to ours today.[iii] And they are the heroes of the Bible.  In fact we see the later Jesus and Paul commending the people for their faith, and reserving their condemnation for the religious leaders. So when you read the Old Testament, you are seeing more of you than me in the people in the stories – less of the clergy and more of the laity.  If there was another Testament included in the Bible (which there never will be), it would be talking about your stories, not the professional pastors.  That makes you think about the importance of what you do 24/7 doesn’t it?  It makes what you do outside this building really important.  The other startling thing you find when you start delving into the lives of the people of the Old Testament, we find there is a ready acknowledgement that their gifts and abilities and talents that they use in their work-a-day lives came from God.  They recognised that God equipped them to do “non-religious” things. In fact the only group set aside to “religious” things were the Levites but there is no hierarchy that they were considered any better than those of the other tribes who did not minister in the temple. They just had a different job.  Let me pick a few instances for you.  Exodus 35:30-35 identifies God as the source of the skill Bezel and Ahola used in working with gold, silver, brass, and cloth, as well as other kinds of work. [iv]

³⁰ Then Moses said to the Israelites: See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; he has filled him with divine spirit, with skill, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, in every kind of craft. And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. He has filled them with skill to do every kind of work done by an artisan or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue, purple, and crimson yarns, and in fine linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of artisan or skilled designer.

And the passage goes on to say that other craftsmen were equipped by God. Further, in Isaiah 28:23-29 God is referred to as the source of the farmer’s creativity in growing crops.

Listen, and hear my voice; Pay attention, and hear my speech. Do those who plow for sowing plow continually? Do they continually open and harrow their ground? When they have leveled its surface, do they not scatter dill, sow cumin, and plant wheat in rows and barley in its proper place, and spelt as the border? For they are well instructed; their God teaches them….²⁹ This also comes from the Lord of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.

Each of these illustrations implies that God is intimately involved in daily work and that the worker is participating with God in developing the world. In the Old Testament, it was recognised that “their faith was a faith for the real world and not for the restricted environment of professional religion.”[v]  This is clearly brought out in God’s concern over business dealings. God is concerned about how is followers carry out their faith in the marketplace and the workplace. In Leviticus God says you can be holy by using just weights and measures. You can be holy by leaving some of the harvest for people to pick up off the ground. You can be holy in a whole range of things in the material world.[vi]  In the section labelled moral holiness, we hear of a command to have business related integrity:

³⁵ You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity. ³⁶ You shall have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. (Leviticus 19:35-36)

¹³ You shall not defraud your neighbor; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning. (Leviticus 19:13)

In Deuteronomy we also hear that business integrity relates to holiness.

¹³ You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, large and small. ¹⁴ You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, large and small. ¹⁵ You shall have only a full and honest weight; you shall have only a full and honest measure, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁶ For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are abhorrent to the Lord your God. (Deu 25:13-16)

And again in Ezekiel: You shall have honest balances (Eze 45:10)

And of course in Proverbs:

10        Diverse weights and diverse measures are both alike an abomination to the Lord. (Pro 20:10) and in Proverbs 15:5 we hear that dishonesty in the workplace leads to exclusion from the kingdom: Who may dwell on your holy hill? Those … who do not lend money at interest, and do not take a bribe against the innocent.

God is not only interested in our performance around church and church related ministry, but he is interested in the whole of our lives – what we do as an employer, what we do as an employee, what we do on voluntary committees.  It is our whole of life holiness that he is interested in. Finally I want to turn to King Solomon and his discussion on the meaning of life, in the book of Ecclesiastes. Having discussed the futility of human achievements in general and the futility of his own achievements in view of death, Solomon then turned to consider the value of the toil he had expended in accomplishing them and the value of human toil in general. Viewed in the light of the impermanence of its fruits Solomon asked whether a man’s labor in this life was really worth it all.

^2:18 I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me ¹⁹ —and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. ²⁰ So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun, ²¹ because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. ²² What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? ²³ For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

This sounds like he is dissing work – that it is meaningless.  But that is not what he is saying, he is saying that if we work only for ourselves, it will seem pointless in the end[vii].  Not only that but it becomes idolatry when work becomes an end in itself [viii] . He is saying that out work has to have a wider benefit, and the widest benefit possible is that we work for God in our chosen tasks. Solomon also identifies that a person will be judged on the basis of his ethical behavior and his trust in God or lack of it. Second, Solomon wrote that this judgment would take place in this life (not in a life after death) and would involve temporal not eternal rewards.[ix]   Work was important in the Old Testament, it was part of our holiness and our worship of God.  It was not extra to our religious life, it was our religious life. Let’s hear from Rebekah as she muses on what it means to be a Christian in the workplace.

[i] Ed Silvoso Anointed for Business59

[ii] Alistair Mackenzie and Wayne Kirkland Where’s God on Monday 69

Work and Jesus

Last year we looked at the “I am” statements made by Jesus and we looked at the divine attributes that he claimed for himself, like judgement, salvation, forgiveness, creation, authority over life and death. In essence we focused on the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, that he was divine, that he was part of God we know as Trinity. One + one +one = one. We know that Jesus was fully God and fully human, so today in our series on work we are going to focus on Jesus the man who was fully human.  In fact not only fully human but the standard by which we judge humans. And we are going to look at Jesus in relation to work. “Traditionally we picture Jesus as remote, more of a monk than a manager. However, because of the roles he embodied -ruler, teacher and businessmen-he belongs in the marketplace even more than in a monastery.”[i]  We focus a lot on what Jesus did in the 3 ½ years of his ministry – from the time of his baptism until his death, resurrection and ascension.  We focus a bit on his birth too but what about the bit in the middle.  He started his ministry at 30 years of age.  What was he doing before then? The Gospels are purposefully empty on this topic because the focus of the Gospels is not a biography of Jesus, but who Jesus was in relation to the Kingdom of God. So we have to make some educated guesses about his time spent before his ministry commenced. We can say that He was a worker just like us.  He worked at a job.  His particular job was that of a carpenter, a craftsman in wood, maker of farm machinery and household furniture. Remember when he returned to his hometown after he had started his ministry.  The comment recorded in 2 of the gospels is the question from the people: “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Mark 6:3).  He was a carpenter, just like his father Joseph. “Jesus was, first and foremost, a working man from a working man's family, we cannot afford to forget that.”[ii]  We can also make the claim that “By the time of his baptism Jesus had been working at his profession for at least 20 years. He was not a mere apprentice but a well established Artisan.”[iii] Remember Joseph his step dad is no longer around when he started his ministry and it is believed he had died, so it would have befallen Jesus as the eldest son to earn a living to support his mother and his siblings. Even though it may be unusual, even uncomfortable, for us to picture Jesus working to make a living, this is precisely what he did for most of his adult life.[iv] Gordon MacDonald in his book, Forging a real world faith asks us to picture some relevant questions: [read pg 160]. Although we do not know very much at all about his life or his work during that pre-ministry period, we can assume from the verse that says that “Jesus grew through wisdom in stature, and in favour with God and men,” that he was accepted as “a man in the marketplace, doing his work, making his money, and developing a network of relationships”. [v] We can take it he was a good worker by such a comment, and that he was a man who had integrity and good work ethics and a good reputation as a businessman and worker. We can assume this also from his later dealings with people.

Remember his first miracle, of turning the water into wine.  A less than scrupulous worker would have thought, “these people are drunk, they will not know the quality of the wine I turn this water into” and would have been tempted to put out a substandard product.  But no, Jesus turned the water into the best wine, so much so that the guests commented on it and praised the host. Luke 2:9 “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

Remember his feeding of the 5000.  He did not just give them a snack to stave off hunger pains until they could get a decent feed in town later. He provided them with as much as they could eat and even then there were 12 basketfuls of left overs.  Matthew 14:20 ²⁰ And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

Think about when the disciples came back after fishing all night, with no catch and he ordered them out again to fish.  He did not just provide them with sufficient for a feed, but he filled their nets to overflowing, so much so they had to call their mates because the boat was going to capsize. 

He provided well above what was expected. He had pride in his workmanship. He went the extra mile.  He exceeded the brief, not to garner praise for himself, but to give glory to God. From just these 3 examples we can assume that as a worker, he was also one who prized his workmanship and put out the best quality product. So contrary to the usual pictures of Jesus in a white robe, manicured fingernails, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth look upon his face ascetic,  Jesus was used to the reality of dirty, callused hands, the conversations of hard-bitten men, and the disappointments of business reversals as well as the satisfaction of a hard earned sale. [vi] Let us not lose sight of the fact that Jesus was a worker.  He was comfortable in the workplace and marketplace.  “He recruited his disciples there, not in the temple. None of the 12 was a member of the professional clergy or a leader in the synagogue”.[vii] They were workers – fishermen and office workers among others.      Jesus’ parables show that he was thoroughly familiar with the marketplace and its operation.[viii] He used what the people knew to illustrate and demonstrate the truths he was telling them. He was able to tell such stories because he was a worker himself and had been around workers all his life.  He was a worker used to being in the marketplace and workplace. “Most of the significant people in Jesus life were distinctly insignificant when evaluated by the traditional criteria for importance. They were not wealthy or famous, nor were they social, business, or government leaders. They were little people of the world with problems and needs similar to ours.”[ix] They were blue collar workers and those on the fringe of society. Jesus saw that the workplace is a legitimate place for Christians to be. The majority of Jesus’ interactions with people, as recorded in the Gospels, occurred in the workplace. So what can we learn from Jesus in this snapshot look at his working life?

1)         The workplace is important.  Jesus was comfortable in the workplace, rubbing shoulders with workers and others in the marketplace. And if he was, so should we.  We should not be separated from the world, but actually get down and dirty in the marketplace, because that is where our Lord spent his time

2)         The workplace provides us a means of meeting people and connecting with people.  It is hard to meet people if all we do is hang out with Christians.  How can we be light and salt if we only hang out with light and salt?  It is in the marketplace and workplace that we can shine the light of Jesus into this world.  It is in the workplace and marketplace that we can meet people’s needs and demonstrate what it is to be a follower of Jesus.

3) Our work in the workplace needs to be glorifying to God. “It should never be said of Christian workers that they are half-hearted, careless, tardy, irresponsible, whiny, or negligent. Behaviour like that embarrasses God. It brings reproach on Him.”[x] Jesus was a man of good reputation as a worker, so should we be.  I cringe when I hear stories about Christians doing less than an honest days work, of being the biggest moaners in the tea-room, of them doing a sloppy ‘who-cares” sort of job for their employer.  Jesus did not do that, what makes us think that we can do otherwise. Jesus himself in another context shows this:  In Matthew 5: ⁴¹ and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.  Do not do just enough, but go further – just as Jesus did.

It is Paul who writes in Colossians 3: 23 that Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. But I want to talk about Paul and his view of work another day.

Let’s hear from Lindsay and what his views on being a Christian in the workplace are all about.

 Prayer for Waitangi Day 2012.

E te whanau a te Karaiti, This Waitangi weekend, let us praise and thank God who has called us - Maori and Pakeha - together, in this land of Aotearoa New Zealand. Let us thank God for the richness of the different cultures in our country, and for the harmony that exists among us. E te Atua - we thank you for those who brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to New Zealand nearly 200 years ago. We thank you for the changed lives and the impact your Gospel has had in this country, for the security and freedom and prosperity you have brought. We thank you for the work of the missionaries - both Maori and Pakeha - which laid a foundation for te Tiriti o Waitangi 172 years ago which we celebrate tomorrow. We know there have been times when we have not spoken in truth and love, nor served you with our whole lives as we should. For these we are truly sorry. Lord - please make Waitangi Day a day when we can celebrate being New Zealanders together, celebrate what you have done in this country, and be renewed to bring your message of joy and peace and justice to all who live here. Lord may we honour the intentions of those original missionary authors and all the signatories to the Treaty, our founding document, and forge ahead into a partnership of two distinct cultures in one land, finding what kawanatanga and rangitiratanga and the articles of the Treaty mean for us in order for us to work together into the future. Amen.

[Adapted from http://www.vision.org.nz/prayer/805-waitangi-day-prayer.html

God the worker

Last week we talked about whether work was a curse or a blessing and I hope that you came away realising that we are created to work, and that it is a blessing. One of the reasons that were meant to work is that we are made in the image of God and God himself is a worker. In Genesis 1 & 2 we read of God creating. In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.  And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.  Then God said, “Let us make humankind  in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. …God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

God created everything out of nothing. Have you considered what it is to create something out of nothing? Have you tried to think of nothing? Where can we find it? Obviously nowhere! Because it is nothing, and nothing doesn't exist. It can't exist because if it did it would be something and not nothing! It makes your head spin doesn't it yet we are told that God created the world out of nothing. Creation is something like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat except that God didn't have a rabbit and he didn't even have a hat. God created the world from nothing. Once there was nothing, then suddenly by the command of God there was a universe.[i] The Bible leaves us with the unmistakable message that, right from the beginning of time, work was good. Genesis 1 is really an account of work-embarked on by God, and it was obviously very satisfying to him;[ii] after each day he looked and saw that it was good, and on the 6^th day he actually commented that it was very good. We know that God is the creator, and creativity is work, so we come very easily to the premise that God is indeed a worker. When you think about it God at creation wore a number of occupational hats: strategic planner, designer, civil engineer, real estate developer, project manager, waste manager, and many more. ^[iii] Someone once asked: Haven’t we got a worker God in Genesis 1, creating, engineering, decorating, reviewing, finishing and appreciating? Haven’t we got a worker God in Genesis 2? Doesn’t he command people to look after the Garden? In Genesis 3, doesn’t he tell the people about the consequences of their rebellion on their work? And in Genesis 4, isn’t the first symptom on Cain’s rebellion – which is going to lead to murder – actually that he disconnects work from worship, that he doesn’t offer the fruit of his labour to God with a faithful heart?[iv]  In the first 4 chapters of the Bible, we see God at work and we see the mandate for us to work. But if you think that God worked only at creation time; that he wound up the world like a big clock and left it alone to wind down and do its own thing, then you are wrong.  That is a heresy called Deism and it was very popular in the early modern era. People like the Frenchman Voltaire, and the Americans George Washington, Benjamin Franklyn and Thomas Jefferson were deists.  The truth is that unlike granddad winding up the mantle clock in the front room and leaving it chime out the hours until it would down a month later, God continues to work even after the mammoth task of creation. The biblical portrait of God as worker is also a stark contrast to the picture of the gods of the ancient Near East. Work was beneath their dignity.[v] That is not the image of the God of the Bible. Our God is not a God who fears getting his hands dirty. Our God started to work at creation and has not finished work. He continues to do so even now and as a result “work on earth has dignity because the Almighty God works”.[vi] Our work has dignity because God is a worker.  One writer identified 16 different human occupations that God is involved in, in the Biblical record.  In his book, God the Worker, Robert J. Banks finds biblical comparisons drawn from the world of human work to depict God, including God as composer and performer, metalworker and potter, garment maker and dresser, gardener and orchardist, farmer and winemaker, shepherd and pastoralist, tentmaker and camper, builder and architect.[vii]  I think there are more.  See if you can add to that list on your insert in the newsletter. You see, God is more than just a creator he is the model of what a worker is. It is from him that we gain an appreciation of work.  Let’s look at a few of these images of God the worker: In Malachi 3:2-3 we hear of God the metal worker - For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. And in Zechariah 13:9 God himself claims that role - And I will put [them] into the fire, refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested.  In Job 38:4-6 we hear of him as architect, landscaper and surveyor. He asks Job the question:  “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone? In Psalm 127:1 we hear of him as a builder and a security guard: Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain.  In Psalm 23:1-2, he is the classic God role of shepherd - The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters. In Proverbs 3:6, he is a tour guide - In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.  In Jeremiah 18:6, he is another classic God image of the Potter - Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. In Matthew 3:10 we have the picture of him being an orchardist - Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. In Isaiah 27: 12, he is an agricultural worker - On that day the Lord will thresh from the channel of the Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you will be gathered one by one. In John 6: 45 he is a Teacher -  It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. And for those who think of God as ‘male’: in Isaiah 66:9 he is a Midwife -Shall I open the womb and not deliver? says the Lord; shall I, the one who delivers, shut the womb? says your God.  The roles that God has (and this is just a sample) legitimise our roles in the work that we do. If God works and we are made in his image, guess what?  We also are workers. We have discovered that “work is intrinsic to our nature because we are made in the likeness of God, and God is a worker.”[viii] And if we are made in his image and if “work is part of God's nature, he clearly intended it to be part of ours as well”[ix], as we see in Genesis 2-4.When we appreciate God as worker, we discover a new dignity in work and are able to embrace it more confidently as a holy business.[x]  This is not a godless task that we perform, separate from our spiritual lives. Rather it is a role and function that we were created for.  There is no secular/sacred dichotomy.  There is no “I am working for God only in church” belief and it takes the holiness of work to wherever we employ find ourselves working. As humans we learn from our parents and we mimic them and learn their beliefs and habits.  Rebekah Zwies put on face book this week that she found Oliver breast feeding his doll and putting it over his shoulder to burp it.  We learn by copying our parents.  How much more do we need to learn and copy from our Father in heaven? We learn our work ethics from God. Sometimes though,  God in heaven seems so distant and out of the range of our thinking – it is hard to imagine a God so big that he created the entire universe, from the smallest atom to the greatest constellation.  It is hard to get our little brains around the enormity of a God who created everything yet still can hear my prayers and answer them.  God knew we would have problems with his enormity, so he came and gave us someone we can relate to.  That person is the second person of the Trinity – God the Son – Jesus.  Jesus said if you have seen me, you have seen the father.  It is far easier to imagine Jesus than God the father.  And in Christ Jesus we have the image of the worker.  In John 5:17 Jesus said, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”  Through Jesus, we can grasp that “God is at work in the world, changing things for the better, making things new, advancing creation”[xi] Next week we are going to look at Jesus in the marketplace, but suffice to say that Jesus not only had eternal major working roles of judge, creator, saviour, sustainer of life, conqueror of Satan, but he had roles that we can relate to in our workplaces and in the marketplace. More of that next week.  Let’s hear from Andrea about what being a Christian in the workplace means for her.

Work a curse or God ordained.

So often we hear that work is a curse, that it is something we do because we have to, to gain money so that we can do what we really want to. And I've heard it said that this problem we have with work comes from the fact that work is cursed based on the Genesis 3 curse by God upon man following our fall from grace. But is that the truth? Is work really a curse arising from the fall or is it a blessing and God ordained? The idea of work as curse comes from an interpretation of God’s pronouncement to man in Genesis 3. The man and the woman had yielded to the trickery of the serpent and eaten the forbidden fruit. God then gave to each—serpent, woman, and man—a punishment appropriate to their respective roles.

Genesis 3:17ff

 And to the man  he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The curse on the ground is the specific source of the idea of work as curse or punishment. “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (v. 17). Man is now in a contradictory, conflicted relationship with the very ground from which he himself was created. Alienation, estrangement, discord, and difficulty now mark the relationships that once were characterized by unity and intimacy. But is the curse on the ground the source of work? Not at all, for work existed in Eden even prior to the temptation, and subsequent punishment. Someone once said, “Sin did not make labour necessary, but it made it less rewarding and subject to frustrations and problems.’’ Genesis 3 suggests that the wrong choice made by the man and the woman changed them as well as their circumstances. Therefore, work becomes drudgery – it became toil.Let's turn back to Genesis 1 and 2 and hear from God about the creation of Adam

 Genesis 1:26ff

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.  God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.

 Genesis 2:7ff

Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ^…15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

We can trace the idea of work as God’s assignment to human beings to the first chapters of the first book of the Bible. The first reference to this assignment can be seen in God’s instructions to human beings to be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. (Gen 1:28) The instructions to “subdue” and “have dominion” can be understood as relating to the idea of work. The instructions to “subdue” and “have dominion” involve functioning, working, on God’s behalf in developing the world God brought forth out of chaos. Genesis 2:2 shows God to be a working God who “rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” This working God is the God in whose image human beings are made. As creatures made in this working God’s image, human beings have been assigned the task of working on God’s behalf in the midst of God’s cre­ation to subdue and have dominion over it. The creation account in Genesis 2 amplifies and personalizes God’s assignment to human beings to work: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it” (v. 15). God had planted this garden and placed the man in it (v. 8). The creation account in Genesis 2 pictures God as having worked, and then as having assigned to human beings the responsibility for working to care for what God had planted. This assignment means that we have a role in God’s plan for developing the world, and we fulfill that role when we work. That does not sound to me like work was designed as a curse. It seems to me that we being made in the image of God have his character and as we will learn next week God himself as a worker. As one person once wrote: “For too many generations the church has taught that work is a penalty for sin. Because we have viewed work as God's retaliation for a rebellion, a hostile attitude towards work seems to be both reasonable and right. This terrible distortion of God's truth has had devastating effects on both Christian people and the Christian message;” and that “Work is intrinsic to our nature because we are made in the likeness of God, and God is a worker”.[i]  Work, then, is our divine assignment to develop our world on God’s behalf. Furthermore, work is the means by which we carry out that assignment.  Bill Hybels writes that “[God] knew human labour was a blessing. He knew it would provide them with challenges, excitement, adventure, and rewards that nothing else would. He knew that creatures made in His image needed to devote their time to meaningful tasks.”[ii]  Work was a divine assignment before work was ever viewed as a curse. Even in the paradise of Eden, work was a part of life and considered to be an assignment by God.  Of course it begs the question, how does my daily work really contributes to developing the world of which God has made us caretakers. We do have choices to make as to which part of the garden we work in, and it seems reasonable to assume that we would be more productive in certain areas than in others. The overarching truth, however, is still the same. For daily work is, at least potentially, a way to carry out God’s assignment to human beings made in the early chapters of Genesis.  Clearly we see that just as everything else in the world has been distorted by the fall in the entry of Satan into our world so too the original purpose of work has been distorted by the Fall. And because of us falling to sin, instead of the freedom of our authority over the natural order and the animals, the estate manager now finds that the blessing of work becomes a toil.[iii]   God has not left like that though; he has redeemed us in all that we do through Christ Jesus. God will not leave his broken world unredeemed. For the whole creation is groaning, and standing on tiptoe eagerly waiting for the redemption of God’s new humanity. With us, the whole created order will be brought into the kingdom of God’s glory.[iv] We need not see work as being under a curse or a curse in itself. Rather, as one theologian affirms, “When God, incarnate in Jesus, became a worker, our understanding of work was finally freed from the tradition of the curse.” So work itself is not a curse, whatever we may feel about our work on a given Monday morning.

God’s provision of redemptive grace can remove at least some of the consequences of life in a world gone astray from God. Work’s frustrations and problems are among the consequences with which God’s grace can assist, if not remove entirely. Then why is work so frustrating and not at all a paradise even if we are people of faith? One way of answering this question is to realize that even God’s grace does not return people to the paradise that existed prior to the Fall. Rather, following the biblical image, we continue to live in a fallen world where the consequences of sin are evident. That world includes the world of work. Just as we are in a situation of already but not yet in relation to our righteousness and salvation so to we are in that situation with our work. The world around us is still full of sin and of work being distorted by sin. But we are people who reside in the kingdom of God and we have had ourselves, our bodies and our spirits our minds and activities redeemed by God so whilst the world may see work as a curse arising from the sinful nature, we as followers of Christ are able to see that work has been redeemed and that is a divine call upon our lives. It is our role as Christians in the workplace to be an example to those who have yet to accept Christ . We are told that “Human labour is a blessing, but only when it takes its rightful place and is carefully balanced with spiritual, relational, recreational, and physical demands.”[v]  We can redeem the world by introducing people through our work ethics and our behaviour and our words to the releasing redeeming love of God.  As Bill Hybels writes: “When workaholics experience the tender touch of God’s love, and the cleansing, forgiveness, and acceptance that accompany salvation, they can become free from the bondage of workaholism.”[vi]  Our role is to live out our working lives working for God in our workplace, so we can redeem work back to its rightful status in the Kingdom of God. Although frustrated by human sinfulness, work is something to be accepted willingly as a means of God’s blessing.[vii] [viii]

Intro to Work series

Late last year I had a conversation with one of our people who felt their calling to work for God was in the marketplace in which they are trained and not in the church programs that we run. And this had created a dilemma for the person because of inherent thought in Christianity for the last thousand years that we are only working from God and using our gifts for God if we are using them in the church and not the marketplace. The term for this is the dualism of secular and sacred. There is this prevailing feeling that religion is separate from what we do every other day of the week. We have accepted the false premise that our faith is somehow separate from how the world operates: That our beliefs are subjective, while science and law are objective, whether it is politics, law, science, education, morality, government, family, etc.  But the truth is that there is no where we can go that is away from God's presence and sovereign rule. The reality is that it is God's world and what He says is the only objective truth. All things were created by Him, all things consist because of Him, all knowledge and wisdom are found in Him.[i] The New Zealand researcher Alistair MacKenzie bemoans the fact that “The activity that takes up almost 40% of our waking lives seldom ever gets a mention in church”[ii] and that “the average Christian spends less than 2% of their waking time at church, yet the church puts most of its energy and resources into that 2% and very little into the world of daily work.”[iii] Another New Zealander Christian businessman bemoaned that “The church and para church have been so occupied with evangelism and the baptism of the holy spirit and healing and deliverance et cetera that it is given little thought much less direction to people that are whole, about what life is all about, other than get involved in church oriented activity.[iv]  He also claimed that “If the resurrected life of Christ was not to have an effect on seven days a week, then all the doctrine we talked about so much in church was gobbledygook.”[v Because we know that we are 24-7 Christians and our faith is exhibited by our works in all spheres of our lives, I want to address this forgotten area of the life of a Christian over the next wee while. One woman once wrote that: It is not right to acquiesce to the notion that a man's [sic]  life is divided into the time he spends on his work and the time he spends serving God. He must be able to serve God and his work, and the work itself must be accepted and respected as a medium of divine creation. Every maker and worker was called to serve God in his profession or trade-not outside of it.[vi]  Whilst we may agree in principle with this, is that view the worldview of Christians, both now and in the past? May I run you through a quick potted history? Let’s go right back to the Greeks. Greek dualism states that life is divided into multiple spheres and these spheres war against each other. At the heart of dualism is the belief that there are two opposite forces at work in the world: good and evil. The Greeks applied this concept of division to all of life. They rightly believed man had a body as well as a spirit, but they wrongly believed there was a clear division between his body and spirit. And they didn't stop there. They also taught the body was bad and the soul was good—and work associated with man's soul was the only work that mattered.[vii] So that meant that in the Greek world, daily work was considered to be a curse and that the higher aims should be in philosophy and oratory and that daily work was the fate of slaves – to be avoided by better people.  As a total opposite the Jews believed that daily work was to be embraced as part of God's purpose for them. In the Christian life of the first century after Christ it seems that Christian life and daily work was integrated; however from the third century – from the time of Augustine, there was a separation of work from religious experience and it was considered from that time that only those pursuing the contemplative life or a priestly role in church were said to have a true calling. Augustine himself considered the contemplative life of prayer and meditation in monasteries as superior to the active life of ordinary work in the world.  So this two-tiered system of work and church came into being – the dualism of secular and sacred; and the equally insidious two tiered clergy over laity. As we see, this situation is from Greek thinking and not from Judaism. With the Reformation in the 15^th century Martin Luther and the other reformers began to teach that all of life including daily work could be understood as part of a calling from God. He felt that everyday pursuits had become devalued and sidelined from God's purpose. He believed that it was largely through the daily work of his people that God works to sustain life, continues as creative activity, and redeems those aspects of life where rottenness has set in. Even though that was the right view 5 centuries ago, and we are followers of the reformers like Luther, we have unfortunately kept the dualism of secular and sacred lying in the back of our thoughts. In the modern age since the Industrial Revolution we have tilted the pendulum even further to the point where work is no longer degraded but has been elevated to a state of being worshipped and demands huge sacrifices. It uses so much time and energy that we struggle to live out our calling as Christians and the other spheres of life-at home, in the community and church life[viii]  It has come to the point in this time that “rather than our identity being rooted in our relationship with God and others, it has become bound up with our work [ix].  What is the second question we ask when we meet someone?  What do you do? Pete Hammond, a guru on marketplace theology rightly claims that the image of God is to be expressed in two ways- workplace and family [and that] the church exists to help us be a Christian in both these areas.[x]  But as the NZ researchers have complained the church has been sadly lacking in helping us to be Christians in the workplace. This lack of teaching on what it is to be a Christian in the marketplace by the church has led to several conclusions: 1.                  It has led us to believe the only work that matters to God is paid "full-time ministry." And we conclude that if we really want to please God and if we really want to live a life of significance, we must become pastors or missionaries. But the Bible tells us all work is Christian work if done well with the purpose of meeting the needs of others and enhancing the lives of others. In 1 Peter 4:10, Peter tells us whatever gift you have received, use it to the benefit of others. 2.                  It has caused many Christians to become spiritually fragmented and divided. They have believed falsely that there should be a clear division between the sacred and the secular and the private and public. Most protestants and Catholics alike no longer know how to integrate their faith into each sphere of their lives—family, work, recreation, and church. But the Bible tells us a Christian is to be a person with integrity, which means whole, healthy, undivided. We are to be the same person in private as in public and vice versa. 3.                  It has led us to believe God is only concerned about souls and not about the body or the physical world. Yet the Bible states that God created the body as well as the spirit and called them both good. Our bodies are God's homes on earth. Also the Bible states we will have both a body and a soul in the new heavens and the new earth. So the body has high value. When we care for the bodies of other humans, we are doing a good service. God also created the earth and commanded us to be good stewards of it. This means he cares about the environment and expects us to care about it as well. 4.                  It has led us to believe it is the clergy's job to evangelize and make disciples. So we neglect leading Bible studies and prayer groups at work. Even worse, we don't engage co-workers in meaningful conversations and relationships. God gave each of a mandate to go into all the world, the workplace, home, neighbourhood, church, school, etc. Jesus said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19-20). That command is for all of us, not just the paid staff. [xi] My intention over the next few months is to reclaim the truth that God gives about work. We are going to look at whether work is a curse which some people allege from the passages in Genesis 3 after the fall or whether it is ordained by God before that. We’re going to look at our sense of call and how that can be into the marketplace as well as/or instead of into church ministry or missions. We are going to look at God in the Old Testament and the view of work there and also from the writings of Paul and the other New Testament writers about their view on work, not forgetting of course Jesus’ views on work. Hopefully in the end we will be able to recognise that is good for people to work, as the author of proverbs claims; and we will not endorse Oscar Wilde who was quoted as saying work as a curse of the drinking class; nor endorse the quote on a bumper sticker which says work is for those who cannot fish or the one on our fridge that work is for those who cannot garden. At the end of this time I hope that we will take on board the view of Wyn Fountain,  that “Our everyday occupation should be a vehicle for our ministry, as we serve the Lord and others. Every occupation provides that vehicle. It should be just as real, and pointed, effective and part of kingdom life as a ministry that goes on in the pulpit. “[xii] And I hope we will realise that God is not just in the church and in the activities of the church but is actually in our workplaces as well. I love the word picture expressed by George MacLeod in his claim that Christians are rightfully answering a call by being in the marketplace. He said:” I simply argue that the cross be raised again at the centre of the marketplace, as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in the cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town garbage heap; at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew, and Latin and Greek; at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that's where he died. And that is what he died about. And that is where churchmen ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about.” Some may think that that's all very well if you are a social worker or a teacher or a policeman or a nurse or a support worker or other profession in the helping sphere but what about those who are doing ordinary jobs; how is driving a truck or working in the shop or painting houses, or mowing lawns or looking after kids answering the call to honour God in a workplace. I hope I can answer that. I hope that we catch a sense of worship of God through our work.  I agree with Tom Wright who wrote: the task may appear unimportant or trivial, but the person doing it is never that, and he or she has the opportunity to turn the job into an act of worship. [xiii] For those of you, who think I'm only talking about those in paid employment, let me stress that I am not.  “If we’re to think biblically about work, we must stop thinking only in terms of a job…much of our time outside of paid employment is work.”[xiv]. It involves being on advisory boards and in sports groups or interest groups like Special Olympics. It involves getting lunches ready for kids, helping out around the community. Just because you are not in paid employment does not mean that the series is not for you. “Wherever we work, whatever our job description, our ultimate boss is Jesus Christ.”[xv] And “all satisfied workers share one thing in common: They labour in the field of their motivational abilities. They do work that is consistent with their God-given abilities, talents, and interest.”[xvi] I hope that at the end of the series we will recapture a sense of God in the midst of the mundane and that we would have developed a new kind of everyday spirituality and a new sense of awe in the ordinary. And that we will recognise God at work in every set of circumstances with no part of life untouched by his presence, or excluded from his purposes[xvii]. One writer who specialises in spiritual disciplines writes that “Our work becomes prayer. It is prayer in action…all are praying by offering their work up to God…The work of our hands and of our minds is acted out prayer, a love offering to the living God.”[xviii] And this series will not just be about me telling you how it is, because truthfully I have been on the other side of the divide for 13 years now – I have been on the clergy side and not in the marketplace. So we will be hearing from people who are in the marketplace, and who have a sense of call about being there from God. Have a think about these questions, as a start to this series:

·         Do I see myself as a missionary in the workforce and the work I produce as a primary Christian ministry? Am I being intentional about practicing the fruits of the spirit in the workplace so that co-workers and clients will see Christ's work in my life?

·         Am I doing my work in such a way and with such an attitude that my co-workers and clients can't help but see that I pursue excellence in my work?

·         Am I bearing the image of Jesus in the workplace? Am I going beyond words to being Christ-like in my relationships with co-workers and clients? Are the fruits of the spirit evident to others . . . love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.?

·         Do co-workers and clients sense they are in the presence of one of Jesus' disciples when they are around me? Do they feel respected, valued, even loved?

Celebration

Augustine of Hippo back in 300 AD said that the Christian should be “an alleluia from head to foot.”[i]  Today we are going to talk about celebration because celebration is at the heart of our relationship with God.  It flows on and is part of our practice of the presence of God, which we discussed last week. [Read the story of Hank in The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg, p 27] We rail against the fact that many people are turned off Christianity but is it any wonder when they see Christians who are unfeeling, stiff, unapproachable, boring, lifeless, obsessive and dissatisfied[ii] [who] interrupt pleasure, mumble excuses at parties, shuffle out of step and slightly behind the times?[iii] We seem to have lost the art of celebration but it was not always that way. Celebration is at the very heart of the way of Christ.[iv]Remember back to Luke 2:10 when the Angel says to the shepherds at the birth of Christ: I bring you good news of great joy which would come to all people. And Jesus says himself in John 15:11 these things I have spoken to you that my joy in may be in you and your joy may be full. So where have we lost the art of celebration as Christians? Modern man has been pressed so hard towards useful work and rational calculation that he has all but forgotten the joy of ecstatic celebration.[v] Celebration, and its associated word Joy, is not a result of a feeling.[vi]  Joy is a fact. It is knowledge of the truth of God’s reign through Christ.[vii]  Celebration doesn't have to wait until sorrow was over[viii]. Celebration is not something we do when we have time but it over arches all that we do. Marva Dawn writes that the reason that Americans, and I presume us Kiwis, do not seem to be as good at revelry as people in other cultures is because of our habits of busyness and efficiency and perhaps our wealth and possessiveness which blinds us to the delights that could change our perceptions and bring us gladness. Sometimes we are too busy to take time to notice all the goodness of their lives, sometimes we are too overwhelmed by struggles to remember God's underbidding here, sometimes we can't imagine that God is really in control when the catastrophes happen or maybe we have been so richly blessed that we expect only good things and take them for granted. She says that celebration is a matter of discernment as we focus on what is good in the midst of sorrow and this in turn leads to better choices.[ix]  Sometimes we think that celebration is only designed for a particular time or a season or festivity or a day like birthdays and graduations but the truth is that celebration should be part of our everyday life. It should be occurring while we are carrying out the demands of our day- eating working, play even sleeping. It would be wonderful if we took thanksgiving breaks rather than coffee breaks at 10 and three[x] - time to thank God for what is happening here and now around us wherever we may be – part of that practising the presence of God – enjoying and acknowledging his hand all around us. Wouldn't it be great to be described as Frank Laubach coined the phrase, as being God intoxicated?[xi] This are not talking about false smiles of the superficial “life is great,” or being happy clappy or pseudo praising God for our troubles, but giving out something that is genuine - something far greater, something more internal shining out of us- something that is rooted and grounded in God.Sara Wenger Shenk, a Mennonite describes celebration as the honouring of that which we hold most dear, as delighting in that which tells us who we are, as taking the time to cherish each other, as returning with open arms and thankful heart to our maker[xii]We celebrate because joy is the result of provision, of place and personality, functioning properly in the course of our daily live, which comes a result of an abundant life Jesus promised having taken over the ingrained habit patterns of our lives. That means thanking him for his provision, for placing us where we are at any one time and thanking him for making us who we are. Provision, place and personality – 3 P’s.Celebration is grace because it comes unmerited from the hand of God. In Hebrews we are told to continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God in Hebrews 13:15. Our joy comes from focusing on the Lord instead of on ourselves. Perhaps our” lack of celebration is because we try too hard to control ourselves”[xiii] and do not abandon our own control to God. In talking about celebration we are not talking about the mindless partying gluttony dissipation or acquisitiveness but the joy that comes from knowing who God is, who we are in God, and what God’s present and eternal gifts to us convey[xiv]. Celebration doesn't only mean singing and dancing and shouting although it can mean those things - after all we hear in Psalm 150 that the people celebrated with trumpet and lute and harp and timbrel and dance with strings and pipe and with clashing symbols. The Bible tells us that we should be approaching God as little children, so how do little children celebrate? They celebrate with noise and activity[xv] and laughter.  Does our stiff upper lipped English heritage mean we dare not laugh, dare not crack a smile, or be exuberant in our celebrations? Why don’t we laugh more? Laughter is good for us.  Remember the adage from Readers Digest of Laughter being the best medicine.  Remember God gives us laughter – who can remember rolling round on the floor in uncontrolled laughter at the time of the Toronto Blessing?  God gives us joy and wants us to celebrate. Miriam the prophetess lead the people in the great celebration dance in Exodus 15:20 and of course we remember David dancing in front of the Ark as it came into Jerusalem dancing in his ephod - dancing in his holy undies.  Why were they celebrating, and why should we? We are celebrating because God is good. Praise is the secret of joy because praise shifts our attention away from ourselves to the character of God whom we laud.[xvi]  I love Annie Dillard’s quote from her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: She writes that there is always an enormous temptation in all our lives to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. We are so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where creeks and the winds pour down, saying I never merited this grace, rightly so, then sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage.  I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain or Lazarus[xvii] . Choosing to celebrate lessens our woes and freezes up for more festivity[xviii]. Celebration properly understood as acceptance of life in an ever growing recognition that it is so precious. Free yourselves from the constraints and allow yourself to celebrate every day – celebrate God and celebrate with God.  It will be good for your soul.

Living in the presence of God.

How many of you have ever heard of Nicholas Herman? You may know him better as the 17^th century Carmelite monk or lay-brother called Brother Lawrence. He was born of peasant parents in Lorraine France and initially was a soldier fighting against Germany – in fact became a prisoner of war and they threatened to hang him as a spy.  His claim to enduring fame has nothing to do with his war exploits however but because a book of his letters and advice published after his death in 1691, at the age of 80 by his friend the Abbe de Beaufort.  That little book – less than 100 pages long - is called The Practice of the Presence of God. And it has been a classic of Christian literature for the past 300 years.[i] Brother Lawrence was a servant for the Carmelite order – in the kitchen, running errands, doing the shopping. In essence he was worker just like us, not a monk that we would think of one. He described himself as clumsy and uncoordinated, and he admitted that he had initially hated working in the kitchen yet he learned an important lesson through each of his daily chores. That lesson was that the time he spent in communion with God should be the same, whether he was bustling around the kitchen – with several people asking questions at the same time – or on his knees in prayer. And this thought is what I want to explore today for us in 2012. Each day before he began work, he offered his work to God and at the end of the day he thanked him for the privilege for having done it for his (God’s) sake (p23). Morning and evening prayers – nothing radical in that – many of us grew up with that format built into our lives by our parents; but Brother Lawrence went further. From his own words Brother Lawrence described his day: “During my work, I would always continue to speak to the Lord as though he were right with me, offering him my services and thanking him for his assistance. Also, at the end of my work, I used to examine it carefully. If I found good in it, I thanked God. If I noticed faults, I asked his forgiveness without being discouraged, and then went on with my work, still dwelling in him.” (p82). "I began to live as if there were no one save God and me in the world."[ii]As I read that, I wondered if it was something that we should be more consciously doing in our lives.  So often we claim we are too busy for daily God stuff – we gulp down the ½ page processed devotional comment from Bob Gass in the morning with our coffee, calling that our quiet time.  But in reality it is not quiet time with God, because we are not conversing with or listening to God but just listening to Bob about what he got from his quiet time with God – it’s a second hand quiet time!Brother Lawrence - remember he was a working servant of the order, at the beck and call of the monks, doing all the chores. He was not a contemplative who did nothing but sit around contemplating God all day yet he demolishes the argument that we are too busy to keep conversing with God.  In one of his letters he writes: “To think that we must abandon conversation with him in order to deal with the world is erroneous.” (p12).  In effect he is reminding us of the injunctive in scripture to pray without ceasing (from 1 Thessalonians 5:17).  Prayer after all is conversation with God but in any conversation if only one is talking that is not a conversation - that is a monologue.  So we talk and listen to God in prayer which is conversation.  Someone once said we were given 2 ears and 2 eyes but only one mouth, so we are to listen twice as much as talk. Sage advice! For Brother Lawrence, the whole of life was God’s. He said: "The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.^[1]I wonder what our day would look like, if in everything we did and everywhere we went, we conversed with God – perhaps not audibly, they may lock you up for that – but that we were part of  an ongoing conversation with God which occurs in the depth and centre of our souls, where our soul speaks to God heart to heart. (p68).   Being with Jesus through out the day is not like when we were kids and having to put on our Sunday best and putting our airs and graces and put on our best manners when we had important company coming over.  God is with us always – it says so in scripture. In fact it says that there is no where that we can hide from him – as Jonah found out.  So when we practice the presence of Jesus in our lives, it does not necessarily mean we have to change what we do.  Brother Lawrence wrote: Our sanctification does not depend as much on changing our activities as it does on doing them for God rather than for ourselves. (p24)But in reality there will be some activities we do during the day that need to change. Wyn Fountain – a New Zealand Baptist and a businessman once wrote that either an activity is under the Lordship of Christ or it is not. If it is, it is sacred. If it is not then it is not a legitimate activity for a believer to be engaged in.[iii] About those things that we do and are not too proud of, it would be well to ask ourselves if Jesus was physically present would I continue this activity - our tantrums, and spitting of the dummy, our immoral activities, our spiteful gossip.  Imagining Jesus present will tell you whether what you are doing is okay or whether it is as Wyn Fountain points out, something we should avoid. Those things have to change, but we don’t need to get out the best china just because we are in the presence of God.  He saw you before you were born remember and has every day since.According to Brother Lawrence, if we are born again Christians, we have already completed the first step in acquiring his concept of being in God’s presence – that is our new life in Christ, received by salvation through his blood. That is our entry ticket.  The Holy Spirit now resides in us, and if conversing is heart to heart we know that the Holy Spirit is the means of that happening. Scripture says that the Holy Spirit interprets our groans. It says in Romans 8:26 -that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God,  who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.The second step is to faithfully practice God’s presence.  This is always done gently, humbly, lovingly, without giving way to anxiety or problems. (p69).  Brother Lawrence writes that when he was with God, nothing frightened him (35).  In Scripture we are told to cast our anxiety on him in 1 Peter 5:7 and further in Philippians 4:6-7 not to worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let our requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.In this I don’t mean that we wait until the end of the day or week or whatever when they mounded up and go to God with a shopping list, but talk to God when they arise throughout the day.  It is not about what we do, it is about how we do it. Brother Lawrence: "Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.This practicing the presence of God is also not a matter of technique. Brother Lawrence said: "Men invent means and methods of coming at God's love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God's presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?"Practicing the presence of God is a matter of total surrender.  Bro. Lawrence: To accomplish this presence of God it is necessary for the heart to be emptied of everything that would offend God. He wants to possess our hearts completely. Before any work can be done in our souls, God must be totally in control. (p33).  This is not a new concept to us, we know that sin puts a barrier between us and God – that is why it was necessary for Jesus to come and die for our sins.  What we are being told here is that we need to do regular housekeeping – take up your cross daily, we are told – and confess our sins and receive forgiveness. We need to keep a short account with God.Once we have achieved this, the final step is to maintain the presence of God by keeping our eyes on him, particularly when we are out and about in the world (p 69).  This is the difficult part - creating the habit of keeping a conversation going on with God when the world presses around us – remembering to be conversing with God especially when the pressures mount. Even Brother Lawrence acknowledged that. He admitted that the path to this perfect union was not easy. He spent years disciplining his heart and mind to yield to God's presence. "I found no small pain in this exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily. I made this my business, as much all the day long as at the appointed times of prayer; for at all times, every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business, I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting my thought of GOD”.But we are promised that once this habit is established, it will be a source of divine pleasure. We are told by Brother Lawrence that it has marvellous effects on the soul when it is faithfully practised. It draws the graces of the Lord down in abundance and shows the soul how to see God’s presence everywhere with a pure and loving vision, which is the holiest, firmest, easiest, and the most effective attitude for prayer.” (70)  Now, this January, before the year really cranks into action, when work winds up to pace, and the kids are back at school with all those attendant pressures, and even church life kicks back into gear, this is the time to practice a habit – a good habit of being in the presence of God continually.  Then when the pressures of life surround us, that habit will be established and we will be better for it.

 Joy

Today we light the third of our Advent candles.  In addition to Hope and Peace, we now add Joy, in our preparation and expectation of Christmas to come. And it is awesome that today as we think of joy that we are baptizing Andrew because there is a link between baptism and the concept of joy.

Some time ago the Foundations Inspire group did a series on the Fruit of the Spirit and the one fruit we found hard to describe was that of Joy.  Dictionaries inadequately describe it as Intense and especially ecstatic or exultant happiness[i], but it is not the same as happiness, it is more than that.

In both OT and NT joy is consistently the mark both individually of the believer and corporately of the church. It is a quality, and not simply an emotion, grounded upon God himself and indeed derived from him, which characterizes the Christian’s life on earth, and also anticipates the joy of being with Christ for ever in the kingdom of heaven at the end of time. Isaiah associates joy with the fullness of God’s salvation, and therefore with the anticipation of a future state (Is. 49:13; 61:10f.).

Look at Isaiah 61:10 for example: I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

In later Judaism, joy is a characteristic of the last days. This seems at odds to nowadays when many face the end of time with trepidation and fear.

Joy is a fruit of the Spirit is something dynamic and not static. It derives from love—God’s and ours.[ii] Joy is not necessarily a feeling. It is the knowledge of the truth of God’s reign through Christ.[iii] Joy comes from focussing on the Lord instead of on ourselves.[iv]

As Jean Maalouf, writing on the life of Mother Teresa explains: The secret of real joy goes deeper than just superficial circumstances. The secret of real joy is rooted in the belief that our own existence is part of a larger existence and that a certain spiritual path and philosophy of life are necessary to give our life a purpose[v]

This thought brings us to the joyful occasion of baptism. Baptism is all about Jesus, and so is Joy. It is about us becoming united with Jesus, about us becoming part of the bigger existence of God.

John 1:9-13 says:

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

It is this new birth into Christ that I want to focus on today. 

Baptism is the symbol of that new birth.  We are born again when we surrender our hearts to Jesus and ask him to be lord of our lives. Baptism does not give us salvation but it symbolizes our changed state. As the writers Evelyn and James Whitehead observe: Baptism initiates us into a life of radical mutuality. In baptism we experience a oneness with Christ so profound that the traditional distinctions of social life no longer prevail. Once important boundaries (between Jew and Gentile between slave and free person, between man and woman) fall away.[vi] In baptism we are born from above because in baptism we are incorporated into the one who was born of the Spirit from above, whose birth was marked by miracle as the new beginning for mankind.[vii]     

Baptism is not an offer made by man to God, but an offer made by Christ to man. It is grounded solely on the will of Jesus Christ, as expressed in his gracious call. In baptism man becomes Christ’s own possession[viii]. 

Isn’t that awesome?  An oneness with Christ, being incorporated into Christ, being Christ’ own possession.  All of these things come through stepping into the waters of baptism.

Jesus tells us in Mark 16:16 to go “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved;

That is the step that today Andrew completes, as he steps into the waters of baptism. 

Peter told the crowds in Acts 2 38: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Andrew is answering the call to follow Jesus through the waters of baptism. It is through this act of obedience at he confirms his place as a child of God, as we read earlier from John 1.  Remember it said: But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. By Andrew’s complete surrender and obedience, God gives him his grace. In Jeremiah 7:23 - “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” Through his public affirmation of his faith through baptism, Andrew has assurance of his salvation. As it says in Romans 10:9: if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Because of this public declaration, Andrew has acceptance to enter the throne room of God. As it says in Matthew 10:32, “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

Baptism is not just about a dip in a mildly warm pool.  It is a public sign and symbol and a sealing of a commitment made in private, to follow Jesus.

We as Baptists believe that step of baptism can only be made by the person for themselves, once that have reached the maturity to make their own choice.  I cannot make it for them, parents and friends can not make it for them. It is their choice to follow Jesus.

Let us rejoice that today Andrew has made that step of obedience. See I told you joy and baptism were linked.  It’s all about Jesus and not about us.