Fool's Foyer

We had great services on Sunday, morning and evening, and in particular the Candlelight Service was really well attended by people who would never normally come to church.   Here’s what I’ve just written to the church family by way of feedback and encouragement:

I wanted to say how absolutely blown away I was by the number of guests who you had invited to the Candlelight service on Sunday evening. Of those in the two side sections and the balcony two thirds.…that’s like two out of three people…. were guests!   In the centre section it was less easy to be accurate but we reckoned just over half were guests.  That’s incredible.   And that doesn’t take into account all those who invited people who never came.   I just want to thank you for your faithfulness and courage. 

I remember the first time I heard Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, Chicago, talking about something called they the Fool’s Bench; it really impacted me then and it continues to move me as I think of your commitment to inviting people to guest services LBC like the ones we had this Sunday.  Allow me to quote at length from Bill’s book, Just Walk Across the Room:

“At my church we refer to the lobby benches just outside of the auditorium as the ‘Fool's Bench.’  Every weekend, at least a handful of Willow members sit out there waiting for people to show up. They can be anyone - a boss, a friend, a family member, you name it. But in every case, they've prayed for these people and taken walks across rooms for these people, hoping beyond hope to have a little spiritual impact in their lives.  So someone in our congregation finally musters the courage to invite his friends to church and is stunned when the person says yes. They're actually going to come! The Willow person thinks. Sunday finally comes and he stands out there in the lobby, anxiously awaiting his friend's arrival.  A few minutes pass, and the pacing begins.  Back and forth. Back and forth. The futile pacing leads to fervent praying. “Oh God, please prompt this person to show up. Come on, God!”  Fifteen minutes elapse, and he realizes that no one is coming.  But he can't bring himself to give up just yet. So he decides to have a seat - just wait five more minutes, maybe.  On a lobby bench. On the Fool's Bench, waiting for someone who agreed to come but who is clearly not going to show up. He looks over and sees another Willow person pacing. “So who are you waiting for?” He ventures.

“Well, my boss,” she sighs. 'I've worked on him for six years.  And finally, this weekend he said he'd come.”

“Ah, just another fool like me,” the Willow guy thinks.

After a weekend service one time I was shaking hands and was approached by a young man who was sobbing uncontrollably. He finally formed a few sentences and conveyed that he'd only asked for one thing for his birthday- that his dad would come to church with him. His dad had agreed to come, so the kid sat out there on the lobby benches for the entire service.  You can guess the rest of the story, and this kid's lament said it all, “Man this is hard.”   You know what? [writes Hybels] It is hard. Maybe this is why Paul encourages doing the “work of evangelism”.   It is work, and hard work at that.  You pour your heart out there.  You offer grace and acceptance and love to people. You sow seeds, you make the phone calls. You extend the hand of friendship. You pick up the phone in the middle of the night. And at the end of the day, you just feel like you've been ripped to shreds. But somehow you hang in there, determined to keep sowing seed. Sure you may be a fool, but you are a special kind of fool.” 

The Apostle Paul described himself as a fool for Christ (1 Cor.4:10), he did seemingly ridiculous things in the cause of making Jesus known.  If you feel foolish for having invited someone who never came, if you paced around in our Fool’s Foyer, then you’re in good company.  May you know the pleasure of your Father in heaven as you’ve sought to share his love with others.    And may we all keep praying that the Word God spoke over the Christmas season would take root and bear fruit.

Introducing The Doctor

If you've not come across one of the greatest preachers and Bible teachers of the 20th Century, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, then you might be interested in this interview.  It's a very young Joan Bakewell asking the questions.   Notice not only the clarity of the answers but the genuine interest of the interviewer, indeed the almost deferential engagement.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-vbydx95tVQ    

The Gospel According to You

I'm preparing a message about how the degree to which we live satisfied in Christ is the degree to which we point a spotlight on the reality of Christ. People who aren't interested in God probably aren't going to read the Bible - why would they? - but even though they don't read any of the 66 books of Scripture they are likely to read us; which means we're kind of like the 67th book of the Bible....feels a bit heretical but go with it for a bit....

People will notice the degree to which God is enough for us, the extent to which we rely on Him and not pseudo-functional saviours like money, people, work and "stuff".  If our real security and hope lies in places other than Christ then how precious does He look?    But when we live dependent upon Him, when we show by our lives that He is enough then we display, in admittedly somewhat flawed ways, His goodness, power, love and glory.

The Gospel According to You

If none but you in the world today

Had tried to live in the Christlike way

Could the rest of the world look close at you

And find the path that is straight and true?

If none but you in the world so wide,

Had found the Christ as his daily guide

Would the things you do and the things you say

Lead others to live in the blessed way?

Ah! Friends of the Christ, in the world to-day

Are many who watch you upon your way,

And look to the things you say and do

To measure the Christ in standard true.

Men read and admire the Gospel of Christ

With its love so unfailing and true

But what do they say and what do they think

Of the Gospel according to you?

You are writing each day a letter to men;

Take care that the writing is true,

It's the only Gospel that some men may read - 

That Gospel accrording to you.

How the Bible Disciples Us

A great little quote from Anthony Billington, Faculty Leader at LICC:

All of Scripture "disciples" us in how to think and feel and live: 

Laws disclose his will for how we should relate to him and to each other, and how our life together should be ordered
Narrative tells of his gracious plan being worked out through the ages and our part in it
Wisdom shows what it is to fear him in all areas of life
Prophecy challenges us to fulfil our responsibilities as his covenant people
Gospels proclaim the centrality of Christ in his plan of redemption, providing a kingdom-and-cross-shaped pattern for living in the process of doing so
Letters instruct those who are "in Christ" to grow up in him as we serve each other and live in the world
Apocalyptic trains us in how to hope as we look forward to the renewal of all things.

God @ Work

One of the most captivating, thrilling and moving quotes I have used in the current series on work at LBC is this one from Tim Keller.   I'll be honest and say it puts a lump in my throat every time I read it.  And it does that because it's true; profoundly true.   God wants to use us where we are, in whatever we are doing - everything can have dignity if we do it for Him.   

Farming takes the physical material of soil and seed and produces food.

Music takes the physics of sound and rearranges it into something beautiful and thrilling that brings meaning to life.

When we take fabric and make a piece of clothing,

when we push broom and clean room,

when we use technology to harness the forces of electricity,

when we take an uninformed, naive human mind and teach it a subject,

when we teach a couple how to resolve their relational disputes,

when we take simple materials and turn them into a poignant work of art –

we are continuing God’s work of forming filling and subduing.

Whenever we bring order out of chaos,

whenever we draw out creative potential,

whenever we collaborate and “unfold” creation beyond where it was when we found it

we are following God's pattern of creative cultural development.

Just as he subdued the earth in his work of creation so he calls us now to labour as his representatives in a continuation and extension of that work of subduing.

Keller, Every Good Endeavour

Grace Explained

I love this explanation of grace from Martyn Lloyd Jones.    

We are Christians entirely and solely as the result of the grace of God. 

Let us remind ourselves once more that ‘grace’ means unmerited, undeserved favour. It is an action which arises entirely from the gracious character of God. So the fundamental proposition is that salvation is something that comes to us entirely from God’s side. 

What is still more important is this, that it not only comes from God’s side, it comes to us in spite of ourselves—‘unmerited’ favour. In other words, it is not God’s response to anything in us. 

Now there are many people who seem to think that it is — that salvation is God’s response to something in us. But the word ‘grace’ excludes that. It is in spite of us. . . .

Salvation is not in any sense God’s response to anything in us. It is not something that we in any sense deserve or merit. The whole essence of the teaching at this point, and everywhere in all the New Testament, is that we have no sort or kind of right whatsoever to salvation, that the whole glory of salvation is, that though we deserved nothing but punishment and hell and banishment out of the sight of God to all eternity, yet God, of His own love and grace and wondrous mercy, has granted us this salvation. Now that is the entire meaning of this term ‘grace’. . . .

Creatures who were spiritually dead are now alive—how has it happened? Can a dead man raise himself? It is impossible. There is only one answer, ‘By grace ye are saved’. . . .

I must confess it passes my comprehension to understand how any Christian looking at himself or herself can say anything different. If when you get on your knees before God you do not realise that you are a ‘debtor to mercy alone’, I confess I do not understand you. There is something tragically defective, either in your sense of sin or in your realisation of the greatness of God’s love.

Lloyd-Jones, D. M, God’s Way of Reconciliation—An Exposition of Ephesians,1972, p. 130.

What it Means to be Baptized with the Spirit

Here's Piper with a helpful perspective from John 1 on what it means to be baptized with the Holy Spirit - it's something we all need......

As I have tried to let John define for us what he means by baptism with the Spirit, it seems to me that the term is a broad, overarching one that includes the whole great saving, sanctifying, and empowering work of the Spirit in this age. I don’t think it is a technical term that refers to one part of the Christian life—say conversion, or speaking in tongues, or a bold act of witness. It is the continual, and sometimes extraordinary, outpouring of the Holy Spirit on God’s people. It immerses them not just in one or two, but in hundreds of his powerful influences.
In other words, if you are not born again, one way to describe your need is that you need to be baptized with the Spirit. That is, you need to be plunged into God’s Spirit with the effect that you will be born again and come to faith in Christ. If you are born again, but you are languishing in a season of weakness and fear and defeat, one way to describe what you need is to be baptized in the Spirit. That is, you need a fresh outpouring of his Christ-revealing, heart-awakening, sin-defeating, boldness-producing power. Every spiritual need that we have before and after conversion is supplied by Christ immersing us in greater and lesser degrees in the Holy Spirit.

Graham Kendrick on Worship

A good piece from the "father" of contemporary worship on what it is that we're doing when we sing in church.  It's about Him not us.  It's about what He's done not we plan to do.  It's about His faithfulness to us not about all we're going to do for Him.   

What is worship music for?

Music is a gift from God that we give back to him with thanksgiving and praise. In worship we seek to lovingly and accurately, richly and comprehensively describe God's nature, character and deeds.

In the same way that we are jealous over the reputation of someone we know and love, we should care about what we sing and what we expect others to sing about our creator.

Orthodoxy sounds like a dusty old word, but actually it means "right glory", in other words representing God as he actually is. 

What and who we believe God to be has eternal consequences both for his glory, and for the eternal destiny of every human being. Worship is a response, and will grow or shrink in direct proportion to our view of its object.

A Congregational worship song has the particular function of facilitating the corporate expression of praise, worship and thanksgiving from the hearts of the people, declaring the kind of God we worship, and what he has done for us.

I particularly like what Kendrick says about the role of the congregational worship song, that it's about facilitating our corporate expression, declaring the kind of God we worship. May we represent him rightly!  

Lay Aside the Weight of “Not Feeling Like It”

This post by Jon Bloom is super helpful.  He brings a completely different perspective to something we all, to varying degrees perhaps, struggle with.   It's worth some serious pondering.......if we can be bothered.....(!)

What do you not feel like doing today?

You know what I mean. It’s that thing that’s weighing on you, which you know would honour God because it obeys his law of love (John 15:12), or is a work of faith (2 Thessalonians 1:11), or puts “to death the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13). You know it would be good for your soul or body or family or vocation or neighbour or church.

But you don’t feel like doing it. You know that God promises you more blessing if you do it than if you don’t. But you’re struggling to believe it because it feels difficult. It’s like you have weights on your ankles. You don’t want to muster the energy, and every distraction glows with attraction.

The Strange Pattern of Progress

While it’s true that this is our indwelling sin of which we must repent and fight to lay aside (Hebrews 12:1), the experience of “not feeling like it” also can become for us a reminder of a gospel truth and actually give us hope and encouragement in this battle.

Think about this strange pattern that occurs over and over in just about every area of life:

•       Healthy, nutritious food often requires discipline to prepare and eat while junk food is convenient, tasty, and addictive.
•           Keeping the body healthy and strong requires frequent deliberate discomfort while it only takes constant comfort to go to pot.
•    You have to make yourself pick up that nourishing but intellectually challenging book while popping in a DVD is as easy and inviting as coasting downhill.
•           You frequently have to force yourself to get to devotions and prayer while sleeping in or reading the sports or checking Facebook is almost effortless.
•            Learning to skillfully play beautiful music requires thousands of hours of tedious practice.
•     Excelling in sports requires monotonous drills ad nauseum.
•          Learning to write well requires writing, writing, writing and rewriting, rewriting, rewriting. And usually voluminous reading.
•         It takes years and years of schooling just to make certain vocational opportunities possible.

You get the idea. The pattern is this: the greater joys are obtained through struggle and difficulty and pain, while brief, unsatisfying, and often destructive joys are right at our fingertips. Why is this?

Why the Struggle and Difficulty and Pain?

Because God, in great mercy, is showing us everywhere, in things that are just shadows of heavenly realities, that there is a great reward for those who struggle through and persevere (Hebrews 10:32–35). He is reminding us almost everywhere to walk by faith in a promised future and not by the sight of immediate gratification (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Understood this way, each struggle becomes an invitation by God to follow in the faithful footsteps of his Son, “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” (Hebrews 12:2).

Those who are spiritually blind only see futility in these struggles. But for those who have eyes to see, God has woven hope (faith in his future grace) right into the futility of creation (Romans 8:20–21). Each struggle becomes a pointer saying, “Look ahead, past the struggle itself, past the temptation of the puny, vapor joys to the great, sustained, substantial Joy set before you!”

Endurance, Not Indulgence

So today, don’t let “not feeling like it” reign as lord (Romans 6:12). Rather, through it see your Father pointing you to the reward he has planned for all who endure to the end (Matthew 24:13). Let it remind you that his call is not to indulgence but endurance.

Then lay this weight aside and run with faith the race he has set before you.

This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17–18)

So whether it's having the awkward conversation, reading the improving book, taking the arduous bit of exercise, the being with God's people on a Sunday...whatever it is that we would perhaps want to be distracted from let's see it for what it is.  It's an opportunity to learn that perseverance leads to blessing and reward.  

Jesus and His Unbelieving Brothers

I found this article by Jon Bloom very encouraging.  Family members who don't share our faith is a source of great pain; it's not as if one person likes gardening and someone else likes golf - it's a whole different worldview the implications of which last for eternity.   What was Jesus' experience of this situation?   Before reading this it hadn't occurred to me that he'd had much involvement  with it but not so......

Do you, like me, have family members who do not believe in Jesus? If so, we are in good company. So did Jesus. And I think this is meant to give us hope.

According to the Apostle John, “not even his brothers believed in him” (John 7:5). That’s incredible. Those who had lived with Jesus for 30 years really did not know him. Not one of Jesus’ brothers is mentioned as a disciple during his pre-crucifixion ministry. But after his resurrection and ascension, there they are in the upper room worshiping him as God (Acts 1:14).

Why didn’t they believe? And what made them change?

The Bible doesn’t answer the first question. But I’ll bet it was difficult to have Jesus for a brother.
First, Jesus would have been without peer in intellect and wisdom. He was astounding temple rabbis by age 12 (Luke 2:42, 47). A sinful, fallen, gifted sibling can be a hard act to follow. Imagine a perfect, gifted sibling.

Second, Jesus’ consistent and extraordinary moral character must have made him odd and unnerving to be around. His siblings would have grown increasingly self-conscious around him, aware of their own sinful, self-obsessed motives and behavior, while noting that Jesus didn’t seem to exhibit any himself. For sinners, that could be hard to live with.

Third, Jesus was deeply and uniquely loved by Mary and Joseph. How could they not have treated him differently? They knew he was the Lord. Imagine their extraordinary trust in and deference to Jesus as he grew older. No doubt the siblings would have perceived a dimension to the relationship between the oldest child and their parents that was different from what they experienced.
And when swapping family stories it would have been hard to match a star appearing at your brother’s birth.
Jesus out-classed his siblings in every category. How could anyone with an active sin nature not resent being eclipsed by such a phenom-brother? Familiarity breeds contempt when pride rules the heart.
More pain than we know must have been behind Jesus’ words, “a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household” (Matthew 13:57).

So as we assess the role our weak, stumbling witness plays in our family members’ unbelief, let’s remember Jesus — not even a perfect witness guarantees that loved ones will see and embrace the gospel. We must humble ourselves and repent when we sin. But let’s remember that the god of this world and indwelling sin is what blinds the minds of unbelievers (2 Corinthians 4:4).

The story of Jesus’ brothers can actually give us hope for our loved ones. At the time his brothers claimed that Jesus was “out of his mind” (Mark 3:21), it must have appeared very unlikely that they would ever become his disciples. But eventually they did! And not only followers, but leaders and martyrs in the early church.

The God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” shone in their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of their brother, Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:6).

So take heart! Don’t give up praying for unbelieving family members. Don’t take their resistance as the final word. They may yet believe, and be used significantly in the kingdom!
And while they resist, or if they have died apparently unbelieving, we can trust them to the Judge of all the earth who will be perfectly just (Genesis 18:25). Jesus does not promise that every parent, sibling, or child of a Christian will believe, but does painfully promise that some families will divide over him (Matthew 10:34-39). We can trust him when it happens.

It is moving to hear James refer to his brother as “our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory” (James 2:1). Can you imagine what this phrase meant for James? The Lord of glory had once slept beside him, ate at his dinner table, played with his friends, spoke to him like a brother, endured his unbelief, paid the debt of his sin, and then brought him to faith.

It may have taken 20-30 years of faithful, prayerful witness by the Son of God, but the miracle occurred: his brothers believed. May the Lord of glory grant the same grace to our beloved unbelievers.

The Explicit Gospel

What follows are a few quotes from Matt Chandler's book, The Explicit Gospel, (Crossway, 2012)  Highly recommended!:

“More often than not, we want him to have fairy wings and spread fairy dust and shine like a precious little star, dispensing nothing but good times on everyone, like some kind of hybrid of Tinker Bell and Aladdin’s Genie. But the God of the Bible, this God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, is a pillar of fire and a column of smoke.” (29)

“We carry an insidious prosperity gospel around in our dark, little, entitled hearts.” (31)

“The universe shudders in horror that we have this infinitely valuable, infinitely deep, infinitely rich, infinitely wise, infinitely loving God, and instead of pursuing him with steadfast passion and enthralled fury — instead of loving him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; instead of attributing to him glory and honor and praise and power and wisdom and strength — we just try to take his toys and run. It is still idolatry to want God for his benefits but not for himself.” (39–40)

“This avoidance of the difficult things of Scripture — of sinfulness and hell and God’s notable severity — is idolatrous and cowardly. If a man or a woman who teaches the Scriptures is afraid to explain to you the severity of God, they have betrayed you, and they love their ego more than they love you.” (41)

“Heaven is not a place for those who are afraid of hell; it’s a place for those who love God. You can scare people into coming to your church, you can scare people into trying to be good, you can scare people into giving money, you can even scare them into walking down an aisle and praying a certain prayer, but you cannot scare people into loving God. You just can’t do it.” (49)

“If we confuse the gospel with response to the gospel, we will drift from what keeps the gospel on the ground, what makes it clear and personal, and the next thing you know, we will be doing a bunch of different things that actually obscure the gospel, not reveal it.” (83)

“It is easy to see that you and I have been created to worship. We’re flat-out desperate for it. From sports fanaticism to celebrity tabloids to all the other strange sorts of voyeurisms now normative in our culture, we evidence that we were created to look at something beyond ourselves and marvel at it, desire it, like it with zeal, and love it with affection. Our thoughts, our desires, and our behaviors are always oriented around something, which means we are always worshiping — ascribing worth to — something. If it’s not God, we are engaging in idolatry. But either way, there is no way to turn the worship switch in our hearts off.” (103)

“The cross of Christ is first and centrally God’s means of reconciling sinful people to his sinless self. But it is bigger than that too. From the ground we see the cross as our bridge to God. From the air, the cross is our bridge to the restoration of all things. The cross of the battered Son of God is the battering ram through the blockade into Eden. It is our key into a better Eden, into the wonders of the new-covenant kingdom, of which the old was just a shadow. The cross is the linchpin in God’s plan to restore all creation. Is it any wonder, then, that the empty tomb opened out into a garden?” (142–143)

“No matter what our job is, we view it not as our purpose in life but rather as where God has sovereignly placed us for the purpose of making Christ known and his name great. If you are a teacher, if you are a politician, if you are a businessman, if you are in agriculture, if you are in construction, if you are in technology, if you are in the arts, then you should not be saying, ‘I need to find my life’s purpose in this work,’ but rather, ‘I need to bring God’s purpose to this work.’” (149)

“The reconciling gospel is always at the forefront of the church’s social action, because a full belly is not better than a reconciled soul.” (150)

“The marker of those who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ is that, when they stumble and fall, when they screw up, they run to God and not from him, because they clearly understand that their acceptance before God is not predicated upon their behavior but on the righteous life of Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death.” (211)

“Church of Jesus, let us please be men and women who understand the difference between moralism and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let’s be careful to preach the dos and don’ts of Scripture in the shadow of the cross’s ‘Done!’” (221)

Christians @ Work: Changing the Nation

This article was written by friend Mark Greene and is well worth a read.  The "workplace" or "Frontline" as we call it - that place where we connect our faith with others who don't share it - is a place that God wants to work through us but also in us.  We tend to get the former but forget the latter; God wants to use us where we are during the week to shape us and fashion us.   As we consciously join in with what God is doing, allowing Him to change us, we can, together, change the nation.   That's not hype,that's the Kingdom.   Read on....!

‘My name is Mark Greene and I used to work in advertising, so you can trust every word I say.’

That’s how I often introduce myself when I speak on work, but my testimony is this:
‘I used to work in advertising and I saw God do wondrous things. I saw him answer prayer. I saw him miraculously heal my boss’ secretary. I saw him draw people to himself. I saw him impact the work itself. I saw him protect me and guide me. I saw him mould my character, teach me about service and humility, mature me through spectacular character failure, career disappointment and success, disciple me – right there in the headquarters of the fourth largest ad agency in the world. 
Madison Avenue wasn’t just a context for mission, it was a context for growing in maturity. So is every workplace. So is every place.’

The point is not that I used to work in advertising so you can trust every word I say. The point is that that God worked in advertising and you can trust every word he says – whatever your work, paid or unpaid, wherever you do it. But it’s bigger than work. God can and does work in and through people in all kinds of daily contexts. 
One woman suffers from a degenerative disease and was wondering how to minister to people who don’t know Jesus since she’s become increasingly housebound. She prayed, and she now ministers to the Tesco drivers who deliver her weekly groceries. God told one retired man to pick up litter in his local nature reserve which has led to all kinds of opportunities to witness. There are many other disciples of Jesus who have realised that mission is not just pursued in church-based activities or in formal community outreach, but in their ordinary daily contexts and encounters. God can and does work through his people, wherever they are.

The key challenge for churches is to create communities that support each other in our mission – both the things we do together in our church and community in our leisure time, and the things we do when we are out in the world. We are all daily participants in God’s mission, so let’s commit ourselves to discipling one another. Let’s get to find out about each other’s daily lives: 
• Where are you? 
• What do you do?
• Who is with you? 
• What is God doing, and wanting to do, in and through you? 
• How can we, the Body of Christ, support you?

Work: The Great Mission Field

The workplace is a key arena for mission and discipleship. It is the context where God has placed many of his people in daily, purposeful and prolonged contact with millions of workers (and those they serve) who don’t know Jesus. It is a huge opportunity.

Sadly, however, over the last century, the Church has put very little time, energy, theological reflection, leadership training, prayer, or money behind this. It’s not that some of the Church’s key thinkers haven’t seen the issue. As early as 1945, the Church of England’s seminal document Towards the Conversion of England concluded: ‘England will never be converted until the laity use the opportunities for evangelism daily afforded by their various professions, crafts and occupations.’
Lesslie Newbigin put it this way: ‘The primary action of the Church in the world is the action of its members in their daily work.’

Despite that, no denomination or major stream anywhere in the world has integrated these perspectives into the way their local churches disciple their people or envision and equip them for mission. Ultimately, of course, this is a theological issue. Either Jesus died to reconcile all things to himself, or just some things; either we are new creations in Christ 24/7, or we are new creations in Christ some of the time; either the people of God are sent into all the world to make disciples, or into just some bits of it… At root, the Church’s attitude to work reveals its beliefs about God.

It is also a spiritual battle. With very high stakes. Right now, 98% of God’s people (those not in church-paid work) are not being envisioned and equipped for mission in 95% of their waking lives. This battle will not be won by argument alone but, as Tozer emphasised, writing in 1948, by ‘a great deal of reverent prayer’.

There have been a few initiatives, yes, and a modest flow of books and resources. But what we need is not a few sermons on work or the founding of a monthly workers’ breakfast, but a radical church-wide decision to recognise that we all have a duty to consistently support our brothers and sisters at work and elsewhere. To do this will take some profound, if simple, changes in the way we relate to one another.
Such a change is vital for all God’s people. The gospel is good news for work; good news for the actual work we do, for our fellowworkers, for the institutions we serve and the nation we are called to disciple.

Yes, the contemporary UK workplace is tougher, faster, more pressured, more beset by anxiety, more unstable than it was ten years ago. Yes, many Christians don’t feel very confident about ‘sharing their faith’. There is fear in many hearts; a sense, as Professor Trevor Cooling’s Transforming Lives research among teachers showed, that in the workplace our faith is not ‘an asset to be celebrated but a problem to be managed’.

Nevertheless, every workplace is a mission field and every one is a foreign country. Some are warm and open to gospel values and some are cold and closed, but God is Lord of all of them.
Furthermore, Christians not only have a role to play through godly work and humble prayer, we have biblical wisdom to offer for every sphere of work, every workplace and every worker. Indeed, our national experience of work and our nation’s economy are poorer for the lack of it. Just as we can be confident that the gospel addresses the big economic and organisational issues, so we can be confident that it addresses our personal challenges.

1. Be Confident: Work is central to God’s missional purposes

The call to follow Christ is not just a call to personal salvation and membership of the people of God. It is a call to participate in his kingdom purposes in the world. Human work is the instrument God uses to get things done he wants done: the planet cared for, people educated, housed, the mind expanded through study, the heart lifted through the manufacture and playing of musical instruments…the poor fed, the sick healed…Our charitable giving helps the poor, but creating a decent job helps them more. Building good hospitals and schools is vital, but you can only afford them if you have first created the wealth to fund them.

2. Be Confident: You can serve God through your daily work

‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart’ begins Colossians 3:23. And the Lord God would hardly ask us to do something with ‘all your heart’ if it weren’t significant to him, even if it often doesn’t feel very significant to us. Why is the so-called ‘ordinary’ significant to God? Because everything we do has an impact on his world and on the people created in his image. Because God thought of you before the creation of the world, knit you together in your mother’s womb and has had his eye on you ever since and he is interested in what you do. Just as he was interested to see what Adam would name the animals, so he is interested how you use your talents, your power, your resources, your opportunities.

3. Be Confident: There are many ways to be fruitful at work

Sadly, many Church communities give Christians the impression that the only thing that really counts for God at work is evangelism. But saved souls are not the only fruit.
‘Take your faith to work’ is popularly understood to mean, ‘Look for an opportunity to verbally proclaim your own belief in Christ.’ But it ought to mean something more like: ‘Go to work knowing that God is your Father, that you have been chosen, saved, sent, empowered by the Holy Spirit for good works where you are, supported by the people of God, trusting that God can work in and through your colleagues, and in and through you, to bring about his good purposes in time.’ Take that to work.

4. Be Confident: You are Christ’s son or daughter

Whether you are a company cleaner or a company director you are first and foremost a child of the king of the universe. Rest in that assurance. God doesn’t send his children to work alone. Yes, we work in a fallen world – there is pressure, futility, injustice, exploitation – but God is with us. Look to him. He is interested in it all.

5. Be Confident: Salvation is by grace not by works or performance

Many workplaces are dominated by increasing pressure on performance targets and short-term measures. In this context, there is a huge pressure to start believing that our essential worth is bound up with what we do, that we gain significance from success – salvation by works. In sharp contrast, the gospel message is that we are already significant, valuable and loved because we are created in the image of God and offered life by the sacrifice of his son. And it is that love-drenched significance that liberates us to take risks, to fail, to succeed. Grace abounds, grace liberates.

6. Be Confident: Work is a context to grow as a disciple of Jesus

God is committed to our sanctification, to helping us grow more like Jesus. So it is more than likely that he will use our work to teach us selfless love, obedience and reliance on him, to teach us to pray and to hear his voice, to help us grow in the fruit of the Spirit, and to exercise the gifts of the Spirit.
God with us in our work. God working through our work. God among our co-workers, in our workplaces, working out his good purposes in time and eternity to his glory. We may not see a bumper harvest now but, as Peter puts it in 1 Peter 2:12, ‘Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.’ And he is coming to visit us, to complete his work. And ours.

God’s Mercy in Messed Up Families

I love this post from Jon Bloom.  It's so encouraging to be reminded of the reality of family life portrayed in the Bible and the insight that this is the workshop within which God changes us for our joy and His eternal glory. 

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find an example of what we would call a “healthy family” in the Bible? It’s a lot easier to find families with a lot of sin and a lot of pain than to find families with a lot of harmony. For example, here’s just a sampling from Genesis:

• ·         The first recorded husband and wife calamitously disobey God (Genesis 3).
• ·         Their firstborn commits fratricide (Genesis 4:8).
• ·         Sarah’s grief over infertility moves her to give her servant, Hagar, to Abraham as a concubine to bear a surrogate child (Genesis 16). When it happens, Sarah abuses Hagar in jealous anger. Abraham is passive in the whole affair.
• ·         Lot, reluctant to leave sexually perverse Sodom, his home, has to be dragged out by angels and then weeks later his daughters seduce him into drunken incest (Genesis 19).
• ·         Isaac and Rebecca play favorites with their twin boys, whose sibling rivalry becomes one of the worst in history (Genesis 25).
• ·         Esau has no discernment. He sells his birthright for soup (Genesis 25), grieves his parents by marrying Canaanite women (Genesis 26), and nurses a 20-year murderous grudge against his conniving younger brother.
• ·         Jacob (said conniver) manipulates and deceives his brother out of his birthright (Genesis 25) and blessing (Genesis 27).
• ·         Uncle Laban deceives nephew Jacob by somehow smuggling Leah in as Jacob’s bride instead of Rachel (Genesis 29). This results in Jacob marrying sisters — a horrible situation (see Leviticus 18:18). This births another nasty sibling rivalry where the sisters’ competition for children (including giving their servants to Jacob as concubines) produce the twelve patriarchs of Israel (Genesis 30).
• ·         Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, is raped by the pagan, Shechem, who then wants to marry her. Simeon and Levi respond by massacring all the men of Shechem’s town (Genesis 34).
• ·         Jacob’s oldest son, Reuben, can’t resist his incestuous desires and sleeps with one of his father’s concubines, the mother of some of his brothers (Genesis 35).
• ·         Ten of Jacob’s sons contemplate fratricide, but sell brother Joseph into slavery instead. Then they lie about it to their father for 22 years until Joseph exposes them (Genesis 37, 45).
• ·         Judah, as a widower, frequented prostitutes. This occurred frequently enough that his daughter-in-law, Tamar, whom he had dishonored, knew that if she disguised herself as one, he’d sleep with her. He did and got her pregnant (Genesis 38).

That’s just the beginning. Time would fail me to talk of:

• ·         Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10),
• ·         Gideon’s murderous son, Abimelech (Judges 9),
• ·         Samson’s un-Nazirite immorality (Judges 14–16),
• ·         Eli’s worthless sons (1 Samuel –2-4),
• ·         Samuel’s worthless sons (1 Samuel 8),
• ·         David’s sordid family (2 Samuel 11–18),
• ·         Wise Solomon who unwisely married 1,000 women, turned from God, and whose proverbial instruction went essentially unheeded by most of his heirs (1 Kings 11–12),
• ·         Etc., etc.

Why is the Bible loud on sinfully dysfunctional families and quiet on harmonious families?

Well, for one thing, most families aren’t harmonious. Humanity is not harmonious. We are alienated — alienated from God and each other. So put alienated, selfish sinners together in a home, sharing possessions and the most intimate aspects of life, having different personalities and interests, and a disparate distribution of power, abilities, and opportunities, and you have a recipe for a sin-mess.

But there’s a deeper purpose at work in this mess. 

The Bible’s main theme is God’s gracious plan to redeem needy sinners. It teaches us that what God wants most for us is that we 

1) become aware of our sinfulness and 

2) our powerlessness to save ourselves, as we 

3) believe and love his Son and the gospel he preached, and 

4) graciously love one another. 

And it turns out that the family is an ideal place for all of these to occur.

But what we often fail to remember is that the mess is usually required for these things to occur. Sin must be seen and powerlessness must be experienced before we really turn to Jesus and embrace his gospel. And offenses must be committed if gracious love is to be demonstrated. So if we’re praying for our family members to experience these things, we should expect trouble.

Family harmony is a good desire and something to work toward. But in God’s plan, it may not be what is most needed. What may be most needed is for our family to be a crucible of grace, a place where the heat of pressure forces sin to surface providing opportunities for the gospel to be understood and applied. And when this happens the messes become mercies.

My point is this:

If your family is not the epitome of harmony, take heart. 

God specializes in redeeming messes. 

See yours as an opportunity for God’s grace to become visible to your loved ones 

and pray hard that God will make it happen.

Is "Radical Christianity" the New Legalism?

I thought this article by Ed Stetzer was really interesting.

I hadn't thought through the issue of “radical Christianity” and the danger of legalism before so it was good food for thought. 

The  idea that the desire to “be radical” / change the world /make a difference can be idolatrous came up for me just last week through reading Keller’s “Every Good Endeavour” but nonetheless it's a new thought.   (Is it the product of an affluent 21^st century, narcissistic consumerism…..  100 years ago you just did what your dad did and got on with it – now if you're not “changing the world”, well, it's not worthwhile…..)

http://www.edstetzer.com/2013/05/radical-christianity-a-cause-to-live-or-a-call-to-legalism.html

Anyway – thought you'd be interested.

CrossTalk

Your friend just left his wife. Someone in your Life Group is depressed.  A relative has been diagnosed with an incurable disease.  How on earth can you offer real hope and help from God's Word?  How can you offer real, life giving water and not simply platitudes? 

I've just finished reading CrossTalk by Michael Emlet and I would highly recommend it.  The subtitle of the book is "Where Life and Scripture Meet" and it's all about how we can faithfully apply the bible to the lives of those people we're sometimes called to minister to.

You might meet a friend for coffee and they share stuff with you - a loss, anxiety, hurt, fear, grievance, sin..... What do you say?   How can you bring something from God's Word to bear with next to no time to look passages up?   Perhaps someone wants to meet with you and you've got advanced warning of the fact that they are going to ask for help with a problem but, again, how do you prepare for that in the scarce time you have?  And how do you avoid just resorting to only ever using a dozen "proof texts" whilst ignoring 98% of the rest of the bible?

CrossTalk shows in a practical and relevant way how you can use any passage, perhaps from your reading that morning or the message you heard in a sermon, to help bring gospel-oriented counsel to another person.  Emlet explains how to first "read the bible", looking for the original context and then the expanded context and then how to "read the person" as saint, sufferer and sinner.  He then shows, in carefully worked examples, how to apply the scripture legitimately to an individual whether you have a few minutes to prepare or longer.

Highly recommended for all those who want to speak God's Word in the power of the Spirit to others.